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linkspooky · 2 years

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Jujutsu Kaisen, Chapter 201 Thoughts.

It’s highly ironic the last two chapters are Kenjaku in Geto’s body, making some of Geto’s worst fears come to life. Geto always warned that normal people could use sheer numbers to exploite and harm sorcerers. . While Geto’s methodology was entirely in the wrong (murder is bad) people perhaps his fear of the masses who can’t use jujutsu turning against the few who can use jujutsu are not as unfounded as they once seemed.

When Geto says that the weak oppress the strong with their superior numbers, what does he mean?

1. Exorcise. Consume. For whom?

It’s sort of hard to go “Hmm, maybe Geto had a point” because his way of making that point was mass murder, but I think a lot of people understand what the points that Geto was trying to make are. His methodology is godawful, but both his criticisms for the jujutsu world and his fears aren’t completely unfounded.

Geto’s believes are founded in a fear of the “weak” repressing the “strong”, where the “weak” are those outside the Jujutsu World, common, ordinary every day citizens, while the “strong” are individual Jujutsu Sorcerers.

The first and visceral response to this idea is obviously, sorcerers are not oppressed. There’s an idea in literature criticism called the X-Men Fallacy. The X-Men Fallacy comes from the X-Men comics, and it’s a caution against using people with superpowers oppressed by their society as a metaphor for oppressed minorities in real life, because it is essentially legitimizing that oppression by giving a reason for it. If people really could shoot laser beams out of their eyeballs, it would make sense people would be cautious of that because it represents a legitimate danger. There’s no legitimate danger of say, a gay person, any violence or oppression against them is senseless.

Sorcerers don’t work as a 1:1 metaphor for real world oppression of minority groups, but I don’t think that is exactly what Gege is going for. As a group of people Sorcerers are not opppressed by any government structure, there’s no laws against them, etc. etc. (True the americans are targetting them now but I’ll get to that). However, Sorcerers en masse are exploited.

What do I mean by exploited as opposed to oppressed? In order to prevent the deaths by curses, Jujutsu Sorcerers are expected to fight Curses basically around the clock. Not only do they risk their lives on exorcism missions on a daily basis, they are raised to do this since children. The Jujutsu world is also incredibly insular, Sorcerers rarely have much of a life outside of their duty of exercising curses. There are some people like say certain members of the Zenin clan, (Mai and Maki) who are not even allowed to have a glimpse of a normal life because they are raised with the expectation to be sorcerers so there is no alternative path out of it.

This works much better as a real world comparison, after all there are plenty of people who work dangerous jobs and are exploited for their labor, and society requires people to do that job for the whole of society to function. This is also imagery we are shown multiple times in the manga itself, sorcerers are referred to as cogs in a wheel, people doing a job eliminating curses so the majority of society can function. Megumi calls Jujutsu sorcerers a cog, Nanami calls Sorcery a “Shit Job” like his nine to five finance job albeit one that helps more people, Yuji calls himself only a cog in the machine that exercises curses.

This is also something about sorcerer society that is something generally accepted and taken as unchangeable, sorcerers will continue to die fighting curses for the “greater good of all of society. Needs of the many, etc.

Geto’s main criticism of Sorcerer Society is questioning that exploitation. Why should sorcerers have to continually die, especially in service of an ignorant majority that does not know that sorcerers are fighting these battles for them in the first place?

Its a legitimate criticism, one that is distorted later on by Geto’s own feelings of sorcerer supremacy. However, Geto’s ideals are pretty clear in the Hidden Inventory arc. He starts out believing similar to both Megumi, Nanami, Yuji, that this is the way things are, sorcerers have to use their abilities to protect the weaker common people from curses. They are obligated to use their great powers in service of others.

There’s nothing wrong with that ideal or sense of resposnibility per se, it just doesn’t measure up to the reality that Geto faces. First, that idea is rooted in the idea of sacrifice for the greater good. Utilitarianism etc. The strong should keep the weak in check, Jujutsu Sorcerers should be used to help the greatest amount of people possible. The problem with utilitarianism is how alluring it sounds. It makes sense to sacrifice the few for the many, because that’s numbers right, until you are one of the few who is sacrificed.

One of the greatest critiques of utilitarianism ideology is as follows, “What do you quantify as an acceptable sacrifice for the greater good?” It’s a question with no real answer because people will argue how much is worth sacrificing over a perceived gain, and who should be doing the sacrificing.

To name another example, have you heard of the Prisoner’s Dilemna?

The prisoner’s dilemma presents a situation where two parties, separated and unable to communicate, must each choose between cooperating with the other or not. The highest reward for each party occurs when both parties choose to co-operate. [SOURCE]

However, the rub is both robgbers can minimize the total jail time that the two of them will do if only they co-operate and stay silent, but they are offered incentives to betray each other that they are faced seperately, which will drive them to defect and end up doing maximum total jail time between the two of hem six years total.

Another example of the Prisoner’s dilemma is known as the Tragedy of the Commons:

It may be to everyone’s collective advantage to conserve and reinvest in the propagation of a common pool of natural resources in order to be able to continue consuming it, but each individual always has an incentive to instead consume as much as possible as quickly as possible, which then depletes the resource. Finding some way to co-operate would clearly make everyone better off here.

In other words both of these principles show that even in situations where it makes sense logically for people to cooperate for a common good and it would lead to the best result, people will instead act for individual good instead, because humans don’t behave rationally.

Geto’s ideals that make sense, are then confronted with the senselessness of human behavior. He’s challenged in two ways in the Hidden Inventory arc. First, when He and Gojo are asked to sacrifice a girl for the common good, Jujutsu Society whose ideal is to protect the weak are essentially asking Geto and Gojo to kill a teenage girl as a sacrifice for the sake of the many.

This is the first time Geto’s ideals don’t hold up to the reality of his job, because he cannot protect the weak individual (Riko) and protect the weak collective (jujutsu world and outside) at the same time. A strict utilitarian would say Geto should accept his mission, and sacrifice Riko for the common good. However, Geto’s ideals don’t lie in utitilarianism, they lie in the fact that Sorcerers are obligated to use their powers to protect the weak.

So, Geto is asked to do reconcile these two very different ideas. His own ideals on how the ewak should be protected by strong people like him and Gojo. And Sorcerer Society which asks Sorcerers to fight curses and make sacrifices en masse in order to protect the weak. Sacrificing Riko is in allignment with Sorcerer Society’s ideals, but against Geto’s personal ideals. HOWEVER. Geto doesn’t realize this yet, and he attempts to reconcile them. He attempts to have both at once, continue with his duty as a sorcerer, and also protect Riko. His logic being that him and Gojo should simply be strong enough to do both.

And of course they’re both wrong, because no individual on their own is stronger than society. In the context of the fight, despite caliming they are the strongest, both Gojo and Geto working together were not enough to protect Riko in time even if Gojo did kill Toji by the end of the fight.

This is the first time that Geto’s high ideals come crashing down in reality. There are two things he believes in, because the strong protect the weak he will be able to protect people like Riko in front of him when he chooses too. Geto can’t live up to that paradigm he puts on himself when he fails to protect her, he has failed in his perceived duty.

The second is Geto’s belief that the sacrifices sorcerers make for the greater society have a purpose, that they fight to protect the greater majority of people and therefore for that goal any sacrifice is worth it. Which once again, returning to utilitarianism, sacrificing for the greater good is something that seems to make logical sense until you’re the one asked to make the sacrifice.

Geto never abandons his idea of the strong protecting the weak. That people who have power should fight for those who don’t have power. Rather, his idea of who weak people are changes because of what he witnesses.

Geto sees a little girl murdered, because a cult of rich and powerful people paid for Toji to do it. He’s met with the seneslessnes of the violence. A little girl isn’t even sacrificed for the greater good of stopping the danger of Master Tengen’s evolution, she’s sacrificed because a bunch of sick people with the money to do so killed a little girl for their demented religious beliefs and then applauded their deaths. Jujutsu Sorcerers have strength in the sense that they can shoot laser beams, but they don’t have traditional societal power, they don’t have money or influence, they are in all aspects a fringe group on the edge of society most people don’t even know about.

At the beginning of the arc Geto says, that the Star religious group are the ones that they don’t need to worry about because they’re not curse users. Only to have it turn out to be them as the ones directly repsonsible for her death, yes Toji killed her, but only because the Star Group paid her too. They used money and societal power, the power of the majority, something Jujutsu Sorcerers don’t have.

This prompts Geto to ask himself the question, who is really the weak one in this situation? Who is it that he should truly be protecting?

Geto talks about “reason” because he assumes the world to be rational. Jujutsu Sorcerers assume society runs like a machine that works, when it truly doesn’t. In Geto’s mind, his actions of exorcising curses, should achieve the greater perceivable benefit of a better, safer society. However, instead what Geto witnesses is the opposite. Sorcerers work themselves to the bone exercising curses, only for the situation not to improve at all. “Exorcisms and consumption” especially relates to ideas of laborers as an exploited people in the greater scope of capitalism. Say you’re a factory worker making a product that essentially nobody needs, but is sold anyway, because captialism is desired around a model of endless consumption, people make things, because people buy things. People need to constantly buy things to keep money flowing. However, if you are factory worker A, even if you get paid for your labor, it’s difficult to see your work as amounting to anything if all you do is make a cheap product no one needs. Of course in this case Geto is presented with what seems like a sacred duty, slaying monsters to protect the innocent people.

Yet in reality, sorcerer’s live extremely short lives, young sorcerers die in hideous and gruesome deaths all the time, and while less people die on a grand scale it’s also true that sorcerers are dying left and right and yet the number of curses made in the world doesn’t decrease. Yuki Tsukumo’s point is that the current system of exercising curses one by one is unsustainable. Geto’s point is that sorcerers will continue to die, and they’re even expected to always make this sacrifice, over, over, over, over, over, over, over, over, over.

Geto’s snapping point is also, him witnessing again a year later the same thing he witnessed with Riko’s death. Not only is the extreme labor that sorcerers are expected to perform for an unknowing population a violence already performed against sorceers. There are also other ways sorcerers are exposed to violence. Even if sorcerers are individually strong, they are one outnumbered by normal people who can band up together to do violence against them, the way the town of people forms a mob to cage these two little girls based on superstition, and two sorcerers have no real money or political power.

Mass Murder was Geto’s method. It was the way Geto saw to achieve his ideals. Geto’s ideal is a world where Sorcerers don’t die over and over again exercising curses. A world where this status quo of senseless death and exploitation changes. And yes, sorcerers are exploited at least for their labors.

They are a fringe group, they have very little say in their lives, they’re expected tow ork and devote their entire lives to that work, and it’s incredibly dangerous and deadly work, even young sorcerers are expected to risk their lives. Geto’s not wrong in the fact that it’s unjust to build an entire society on the sacrifice on these countless nameless sorcerers. And even as Geto’s methods become more murdererous, this idea at the center of his actions is that it’s unfair that sorcerers be expected to make this sacrifice over and over again. Sorcerers are in fact mistreated by society at large, despite the fact that they are indivdually strong (they can shoot laser beams) they are also expected to labor hard all of their lives which usually lead to short lives. It’s like, everyone agrees child labor is bad right, and yet for society to currently function as it does people Yuta’s age are asked to continually go on missions where they may die.

Geto’s disillusionment just causes him to mistake belive the only response to a society where sorcerers are relatively powerless and stuck with their lot in life is “sorcerer supermacy” that is, to retool society where sorcerers rule. THis is also where Geto falls victim to the same trappings of sorcerer society he pretends to be above. Sorcerer society runs on might makes right. Sorcerers believe that stronger sorcerers are better, stronger sorcery techniques are better, everything is run on individual strength. Geto’s replacing one world where individualism reigns for another, because despite being a radical and seeing clearly there is a problem here he can’t escape the box society has trapped him in. He even uses a might make right methodology. Well, clearly, if the problem is that regular humans who can’t use sorcerer have us outnumbered ten to one, then we should just kill them all, the stronger, better people will rule.

Ignoring the obvious flaw in Geto’s plan that sorcerers are constantly infighting, and sorcerer politics is incredibly conservative and cutthroat Besides the obvious “murder is bad”, Geto seems to ignore the fact that if sorcerers were left as the only ones running the show, all the problems of sorcerer society would still be there and they would still be constantly killing each other over infighting.

Anyway, my long dive into explaining Geto’s ideals and his critiques of how sorcerer society is ran is eventually leading to this, Geto’s fears that sorcerers may be exploited by the majority are literally coming true as of Kenjaku’s actions.

Once again this works better as a labor exploitation metaphor, then a minority one. Kenjaku is propopsing that sorcerers can be used, not just as labor to exercise curses, but also as a literal resource.

The trappings of utilitarianism, what seems to make sense as a sacrifice for the greater good of society, in this case a small sacrifice to create a clean and renewable energy that will solve the energy crisis, seems reasonable until you are the one expected to make the sacrifice.

Kenjaku even references the tragedy of the commons here. The president is against abduction and human experimentation UNTIL his advisors mention that other countries might want to abduct and experiment on the sorcerers instead. THe common sense solution is that no one experiments on sorcerers. However, when it’s possible that someone else might do it instead, and they might get this resource that we do not have, and therefore put them at advantage over us THEN WE HAVE TO HAVE IT INSTEAD. Tragedy of the commons play out in real time. The logical solution is for no one to conduct experiments and everyone reaps the benefits, the most appealing solution is ONLY WE GET THE BENEFITS.

This is also Geto’s fear playing out in action, that people outside of the Jujutsu World can use numbers, and resources such as money and political pull that Jujutsu Sorcerers do not have in order to move against Jujutsu Sorcerers. I think Gege uses the word “Minority” with tact here, they’re not an oppressed minority because there is societal oppresion against them, but rather beause they make up a minority of society, beucase they are in small numbers and have no political pull it would be incredibly easy for the president of america to just, send a number of soldiers against them. The small size of the Sorcerer Community makes them vulnerable and unable to protect themselves if and when others on the outside decide to gang up on them in larger numbers.

Once again, the American's actions aren’t to like, oppress the sorcerers but rather to use them as an exploitable resource. They are already being exploited to exorcise curses, but now the political powers all around the world may do something as inhumane as kidnap them and experiment on them, for some perceived benefit of cleaner energy, or whatever, and they can get away with this because they have the power to do so.

Geto’s fear revolved around the ideas that this might happen, especially after witnessing it happen twice, an entire small town beating on two little girls and locking them in cages, an incredibly rich cult paying for the deaths of a fifteen year old girl. The majority can find reasons to justify violence against sorcerers, and sorcerers because of their small numbers cannot really defend themselves against that violence. That was always a risk, and now we are seeing it play out in real time. So, let the sorcerer hunt begin.

#geto suguru #jjk 201 #jjk meta #jujutsu kaisen 201 #jujutsu kaisen spoilers #jujutsu kaisen 201 spoilers #jjk spoilers #suguru geto #satoru gojo #kenjaku #noritoshi kamo

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psychewritesbs · 2 years

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Chapter 201: Direct Negotiations, part 2—THIS IS AMERICA!

Happy JJK-Sunday.

Actually... not really... Our boys are about to walk into insanity... Get your Kleenex box ready. Gege is up to no good...

He also made fun of and called out “America” and I love him all the more for it. Makes me wonder whether he’s keeping up with the USAmerican fandom and wonders how we’re reacting to the chapter.

We love it!

If anyone cares to read... I got super political and opinionated and personal. That’s what happens when you are a First Generation USAmerican born in the US but raised outside of the US--you see things differently.

THIS IS AMERICA

Also, if you haven’t, go listen to the song by Donald Glover, This is America, a fantastic satire of a song and music video loaded with symbolism. The song and video were released in May of 2018 and depicted the deeply rooted societal problems plaguing American society.

TW! The video is very graphic.

Not featured in the song and video, however, are...

The American Healthcare System: The fact that I can't afford to go to the Doctor or have a medical emergency without getting into ridiculous amounts of debt...

Student loan debt: Not to mention the mountain of Student Loan debt I have because... #this is America and in the American Dream you get into debt to go to college to get better jobs. It’s a literal scam and millions of us bought into it.

Far Right Christian Fundamentalism: Also, a group of judges took away federal protection for abortion laws. It’s feeling really Handmaid’s Tail up in here.

Guns guns guns, USAmericans LOVE their guns: Did I mention my neighbors aren’t scared to publicly say that they’ll shoot you with their assault riffle if you trespass into their property and they assume you are suspicions? #Texas.

Talk about being a progressive society.

But hey...

I think the biggest irony about the internal societal problems tearing down American society is intimately related to what Gege is addressing in this chapter... instead of focusing on fixing our internal problems, American leaders are hell-bent on colonization, conquest and dominating the political landscape outside of its borders.

Cue Killing in the Name of by quintessentially American Rock Band, Rage Against the Machine.

Yes, Gege. Say it.

And the whole implication about how the US uses its army to pursue this world domination agenda?

I don’t care how cliché these American Villains are they’re painfully cliché... this whole thing is so on point.

As a First Generation USAmerican, I honestly had second-hand embarrassment reading this chapter.

Side note: I drive a 13-year old Honda Civic. I highly recommend Japanese cars. USAmerican cars are not that great.

I am totally not surprised to see Gege addressing how the US government and media will manipulate public perception of certain political issues.

“We’re not experimenting on Japanese citizens, we’re protecting them” reminds of the war in Iraq in the search for weapons of mass destruction that were never found.

Similarly, if you Google Project A119, the formal definition about it was presented to the public as having benign reasons. But who is to say it wasn’t about establishing dominance?

Curious to learn more? You can read more about Project A119 and Operation Fishbowl by doing Google searches on these terms.

But I think most poignant is the implication that American leadership would think that it’s morally correct to experiment on humans.

And Kenny totally has the USAmerican leaders eating right out of his hand by saying everything he knows they need to hear.

We know Kenny is going around stirring the pot and getting countries pitted against one another.

But we haven’t seen what he has told the Japanese government. We also don’t know if Gege will write about the kinds of atrocities the Japanese government might have committed against its own citizens.

Like other authors, Gege certainly doesn’t hold back his punches.

And, again, what’s most poignant about this whole ordeal is that we’re talking about governments and how they justify their actions while manipulating public perception of these issues.

That’s why I really appreciated the symbolism used to depict the ideal of what it means for USAmerica to be the world power that it is today (or at least was once upon a time).

This is America.

And I love that, again, Kenny was just like...

“Calm down USAmerica, you might have guns and muscle, but Japan has psychic warriors. Duh!”

That smug look on his face too... Let’s not forget that Kenny has been planning this ordeal and waiting for the right set of circumstances like an idiotic USAmerican President in office for at least a millennia

Anyways...

Yes, world. The clichés about USAmerica are mostly painfully true.

Ura-ume

Talking to @justafrenchlondoner we were both wondering whether Ura-ume is going to turn on Kenny since Ura-ume appears to have a deep allegiance with Sukuna and Sukuna had a change of plans.

Similarly, if I remember correctly, Kenny was ok with doing away with Sukuna... something like that. Gotta go back to re-read parts of the Shibuya arc.

Either way, gotta wonder about them...

And then the chapter ends...

The perfect recipe for disaster.

800 soldiers with USAmerican guns and muscle against a comedian, an Angel, and two high school-aged Psychic Warriors.

I fear that here comes the culmination of this cozy feeling of safety that Gege created during the first half of the arc... and it is legit giving me anxiety.

I’m literally going crazy because I can see it coming. There’s a Gege-twist coming. I can feel it. And idk if I’m being paranoid but that’s how Gege rolls.

This man kills and hurts beloved characters without remorse just after you thought everything was groovy.

The Culling Game so far...

During the Culling Game, a literal Battle Royale twist on the Battle Tournament trope, with some exceptions, most of what we’ve gotten so far has been very lighthearted moments and battles and no significant deaths.

The Culling Game is about death but we haven’t experienced any deaths that we care about. Think long and hard about that.

Instead, Gege has bombarded us with Gege-style irony and humor.

Who could forget Yuta kissing a cockroach?

Not to mention Yuta and Ryu’s bromance to wrap up the arc.

Have we forgotten how incredibly annoying Charlie Bernard was?

And how Kashimo vs. Hakari literally ends with them teaming up, stroking each other’s ego, and acting like they weren’t just trying to kill each other moments ago?

What about Takaba’s awful jokes?

Then there was Kappa-guy and Katana-guy...

And now that Naoya has died again... we’re back to where it all began: Yuji and Megumi willingly going on a suicide mission to save each other and their loved ones.

Now, during Shibuya, Yuji walked away scarred, not just physically, but emotionally and psychologically. Megumi, on the other hand, was protected by Sukuna.

This also just reminded me that, from my perspective, Megumi has shown us on more than one occasion that he doesn't seem to have much regard for the life of others.

So I kind of have to wonder whether we’re about to find out just how much Megumi doesn’t value human life in general given the whole thing about how the most powerful sorcerers have an overwhelming sense of self and have no regard for others.

Who knows! Can’t wait to see how the rest of the Culling Game arc unfolds because when JJK is good, JJK IS GOOD.

Anyways. Happy JJK-Sunday! If you’ve made it this far, thank you again for reading my rant about USAmerica.

This is America

You know... the political rant about USAmerica aside, I must admit that living in USAmerica is quite the privilege that I am grateful to have.

I think that inasmuch as we, USAmericans have a bad reputation, we really are just like everybody else--doing our best with what circumstances we have been handed.

For some self-disclosure: I lived in Houston, TX for a decade. Houston is a criminally underrated yet quintessentially USAmerican city...

Houston is no Manhattan, but it is the cultural capital of the Southern US and is one of the most culturally diverse cities in the country. And amongst the things that are quintessentially American are the immigrant communities that have made this country what it is today.

I understand that when Anthony Bourdain recorded the episode for Parts Unknown in Houston, despite Houston’s incredible gourmet foodie scene, he specifically asked to visit the hole-in-the-wall-type cultural nooks in the city because he wanted the episode to focus on the USAmerican experience of being an immigrant in this country.

I can tell you that while I lived in Houston, I had friends from Mexico to Nepal, and worked with people from Spain all the way to Korea.

The private school I worked at had children enrolled from at least 50 different nationalities from the world over. What I loved most about working there was knowing that these children were being taught that it didn’t matter where you’re from because in the end we’re all just human.

Similarly, when Hurricane Harvey dumped a year’s worth of water on Houston in 2017, Houston was practically under water. The outpouring of support from the community in the midst of the chaos, however, was beautiful to behold. Your nationality or skin color did not matter, what mattered was helping other Houstonians get back on their feet.

This is USAmerica.

... and we’ve got deeply rooted societal problems, but we really are just doing our best with what we’ve got.

One final jab at “America”

I didn’t want to couldn’t help myself...

#jjk ch 201 #jjk spoilers #god I love jujutsu kaisen

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