Death Is a Mirror, or How Death Is Linked to the Sense of Self in Jujutsu Kaisen
Death is a fulcrum of Jujutsu Kaisen's message, a major point of reference for both the audience and the characters within the story. Death is a mirror that catches and reflects the last light of a life reaching its end, a moment of full disclosure that overcomes all distances and renders all defenses permeable. Death is a mirror as it asks one question: who are we when there's no more need to lie?
The thread that binds together all major characters' deaths in Jujutsu Kaisen is how, despite multiple characters trying in an unreliable-narrator-sort of fashion to convince us otherwise, no one's truly alone in death. The connections that people forge with others throughout their lives become their tethers to the world -- and then reach even further, transcending death itself. This is how humans, using Jogo's words, can still linger after they die: through the loving memory of those they held dear.
No human exists in a vacuum. We live in the context of our relationships with the world, of getting to know and getting to be known in return. Our lives, in a sense, are a dialogue -- that's why we give and are given names. We shape the images of ourselves through establishing connections with others; our self-recognition and sense of self come from recognizing those connections. Once again, we learn the outllines of our souls by bumping into others.
These two concepts, recollecting your 'tethers' before death and acquiring self-reflection in others, are consistently brought together in the story. Before everything else, it's reflected in Yuuji's (who the story's focal point as its protagonist) idea of a meaningful death, one gone surrounded by those you love. Nobara, who possesses arguably the strongest sense of self with her loud proclamation 'I'm Nobara Kugisaki!' and who's highly conscious about her relationships with other people. Megumi, whose overarching struggle for self-determination has him relying on others to define his own worth and leaves him passively suicidal. Toji, who in his last moments thinks about his family and understands that by leaving them behind he deviated from his true self. Nanami, whose fading mind conjures the image of his closest friend and who, guided by that, chooses to go south and stay true to himself. Kokichi is yet another example, and actually quite an interesting one. His character is explored primarily through the juxtaposition between the concept of 'the body within the world' and his forced isolation, but who still contextualizes the world through his connections with his friends. It's no coincidence that Kokichi's character arc is closely linked to Mahito, who is dubbed a mirror of death.
In short, there's a plethora of instances where death and one's sense of self are tied to one another like that. I'll ramble a bit about how this correlation is discovered in both Gojo and Geto's characters below the cut.
The lack of self
Gojo is somebody who's essentially lacking both connections to others and a sense of self-identity. His entire personality is shaped around the notion that he's The Strongest, the very thing which prevents him, even if in his own mind, from building meaningful relationships with the people around him.
Not having to challenge or change his self-image, Gojo has little to no recognition of himself as a person outside of his title. He has never faced a need to discover himself in relation to the world; he was given a foundation to construct his identity on upon birth. Did he really need to grow past that and redefine himself? Satoru lacks self-reflection -- most literally.
With Gojo's face obscured by the gaping void, we do not get to see his reflection. I'd say it's quite an apt visualization of Gojo's identity crisis. Who are you if not The Strongest? As Gojo's position is challenged with his Infinity suddenly overcome, this question is forced onto him.
But as he's spent over a decade trying to escape answering it, he never got a chance to acquire a definitive answer. So now, in Shibuya, he flees from it once more.
It's painfully ironic and at the same time fully logical that it is Geto who exposes this issue to Satoru as Gojo's sense of self is arguably connected to him more than anyone else. During their student years Suguru was the one who persistently rejected treating Gojo as a title and not a person, who looked through decorum and actively chose to see him not as Gojo Satoru, The Strongest but rather as Gojo Satoru, a teenage boy. For Gojo, it was through Geto recognizing him as a person that he was able to reach that recognition, too.
But after Toji Gojo is forced to seek self-affirmation and validate his ego by reclaiming his position, which was threatened by him losing to somebody for the first time. He tries to reinforce his self-image by separating himself from the world, which ultimately leads not only to his now automatic Infinity rendering him unreachable (= disconnected), but also to a loss of his sense of self as he loses his one and only connection.
As I've already said, with the Prison Realm breaching the defenses of Gojo's technique, this issue, his lack of a firm sense of identity beyond his title, is exposed to him once more. It's reflected in the way Satoru places his priorities post-unsealing. He fights Sukuna with seemingly a single purpose of cementing his position as the strongest sorcerer alive and thus regaining his uderstanding of who he is. The answer to this question has never lain in the plane of strength alone, though, and that is why Satoru fails utterly.
But in death, as the relevance of his Infinity is eliminated, Gojo is finally able to reconnect with his sense of self. He's reverted to his teenage self, to the time he could still relate to somebody on a personal level and get stronger for it. The entirety of the 236 chapter, in a sense, is written as an affirmative: he is The Strongest because he is Satoru Gojo, not the opposite, but it's his death which makes him finally recognize this.
The deviation from self
Now, this image could not be intended as a visual parallel to Gojo's reflection, or lack of thereof, in the Prison Realm's eye. Nonetheless seeing that scene in Shibuya animated immediately reminded me of it, and I think there potentially might be some thematic similarities between the two as well.
Talking about how our identities are defined by our connections to other people as much as our relationship with ourselves, it'd be only logical to assume that Geto should have a firm grasp on who he is. Not only is he a deeply self-reflective character, but also one who actively relates to others.
However, Geto's reflection in Gojo's eyes is unclear and uncertain, almost indistinguishable. It might be a neat way to convey how, finally taking a moment to look at his best friend for the first time since SPVI, Gojo doesn't really recognize him for how much he's changed. But it also could hint at how Geto, driven to the point where he bends and warps his beliefs to justify his actions, also bends and warps his sense of self.
At least how I see it, the image above calls to mind this panel:
The moment Geto tells Satoru he's decided on 'his true feelings' which would define him as a person. Isn't it ironic how in the exact same conversation he talks about how the goal he's settled upon is only possible for Gojo, meaning striving to achieve it would be akin to trying to become someone he's not? The light novel outright tells us as much:
This was the final confession of a man who could only choose to warp himself, who had erased himself in pursuit of his goals. The only person who could bear such a curse was Gojo Satoru.
In this light it's interesting how Gojo's struggle with his sense of self makes itself known through something which threatens his position as The Strongest, whereas Geto's is reflected in the eyes of someone to whom he refers while saying 'If I could become you...', deviating from himself.
A major factor of overcoming trauma is embracing the inadequacy of what happened. So, to a certain extent, by becoming an enemy to the system Suguru wants to prove the world of jujutsu sorcerers wrong and himself -- right. It once again reminds me of Toji's dying thoughts.
The flip side of 'deciding on your true feelings' is ultimately anchoring your entire identity to what is just a single aspect of it. People exist in motion, and our personalities are in actuality as dynamic and complex as our relationships. But Geto bound his self-definition to what was rather simply a reactive feeling, so in the end he inevitably failed to live up to it.
And once again, it's exposed at the moment of Suguru's death. In his case, though, this failure is also what leads to his defeat and consequent death in the first place. I also find it curious how Geto's face is the first thing Gojo sees in the afterlife, while Gojo's face is the last thing Geto sees and acknowledges in his life. And just like Gojo, in his last moments Suguru reminisces about their shared past.
The image almost mirrors what we saw in the chapter 236, suggesting how Geto's true self is in turn tied to Satoru. Despite how vague and uncertain their relationship's come to be, the two are rendered inseperable even in death -- or rather, in death especially.
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so one of the things that's so horrifying about birth control is that you have to, like, navigate this incredibly personal choice about your body and yet also face the epitome of misogyny. like, someone in the comments will say it wasn't that bad for me, and you'll be utterly silenced. like, everyone treats birth control like something that's super dirty. like, you have no fucking information or control over this thing because certain powerful people find it icky.
first it was the oral contraceptives. you went on those young, mostly for reasons unrelated to birth control - even your dermatologist suggested them to control your acne. the list of side effects was longer than your arm, and you just stared at it, horrified.
it made you so mentally ill, but you just heard that this was adulthood. that, yes, there are of course side effects, what did you expect. one day you looked up yasmin makes me depressed because surely this was far too intense, and you discovered that over 12,000 lawsuits had been successfully filed against the brand. it remains commonly prescribed on the open market. you switched brands a few times before oral contraceptives stopped being in any way effective. your doctor just, like, shrugged and said you could try a different brand again.
and the thing is that you're a feminist. you know from your own experience that birth control can be lifesaving, and that even when used for birth control - it is necessary healthcare. you have seen it save so many people from such bad situations, yourself included. it is critical that any person has access to birth control, and you would never suggest that we just get rid of all of it.
you were a little skeeved out by the implant (heard too many bad stories about it) and figured - okay, iud. it was some of the worst pain you've ever fucking experienced, and you did it with a small number of tylenol in your system (3), like you were getting your bikini line waxed instead of something practically sewn into your body.
and what's wild is that because sometimes it isn't a painful insertion process, it is vanishingly rare to find a doctor that will actually numb the area. while your doctor was talking to you about which brand to choose, you were thinking about the other ways you've been injured in your life. you thought about how you had a suspicious mole frozen off - something so small and easy - and how they'd numbed a huge area. you thought about when you broke your wrist and didn't actually notice, because you'd thought it was a sprain.
your understanding of pain is that how the human body responds to injury doesn't always relate to the actual pain tolerance of the person - it's more about how lucky that person is physically. maybe they broke it in a perfect way. maybe they happened to get hurt in a place without a lot of nerve endings. some people can handle a broken femur but crumble under a sore tooth. there's no true way to predict how "much" something actually hurts.
in no other situation would it be appropriate for doctors to ignore pain. just because someone can break their wrist and not feel it doesn't mean no one should receive pain meds for a broken wrist. it just means that particular person was lucky about it. it should not define treatment.
in the comments of videos about IUDs, literally thousands of people report agony. blinding, nauseating, soul-crushing agony. they say things like i had 2 kids and this was the worst thing i ever experienced or i literally have a tattoo on my ribs and it felt like a tickle. this thing almost killed me or would rather run into traffic than ever feel that again.
so it's either true that every single person who reports severe pain is exaggerating. or it's true that it's far more likely you will experience pain, rather than "just a pinch." and yet - there's nothing fucking been done about it. it kind of feels like a shrug is layered on top of everything - since technically it's elective, isn't it kind of your fault for agreeing to select it? stop being fearmongering. stop being defensive.
you fucking needed yours. you are almost weirdly protective of it. yours was so important for your physical and mental health. it helped you off hormonal birth control and even started helping some of your symptoms. it still fucking hurt for no fucking reason.
once while recovering from surgery, they offered you like 15 days of vicodin. you only took 2 of them. you've been offered oxy for tonsillitis. you turned down opioids while recovering from your wisdom tooth extraction. everything else has the option. you fucking drove yourself home after it, shocked and quietly weeping, feeling like something very bad had just happened. the nurse that held your hand during the experience looked down at you, tears in her eyes, and said - i know. this is cruelty in action.
and it's fucked up because the conversation is never just "hey, so the way we are doing this is fucking barbaric and doctors should be required to offer serious pain meds" - it's usually something around the lines of "well, it didn't kill you, did it?"
you just found out that removing that little bitch will hurt just as bad. a little pinch like how oral contraceptives have "some" serious symptoms. like your life and pain are expendable or not really important. like maybe we are all hysterical about it?
hysteria comes from the latin word for uterus, which is great!
you stand here at a crossroads. like - this thing is so important. did they really have to make it so fucking dangerous. and why is it that if you make a complaint, you're told - i didn't even want you to have this in the first place. we're told be careful what you wish for. we're told that it's our fault for wanting something so illict; we could simply choose not to need medication. that maybe if we don't like the scraps, we should get ready to starve.
we have been saying for so long - "i'm not asking you to remove the option, i'm asking you to reconsider the risk." this entire time we hear: well, this is what you wanted, isn't it?
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Part Two / Part Three
Ao3
It's 8:45 am.
The Red Barn, which is neither red nor a barn, has been open since 7, catering to the early morning crowd with rounds of coffee and pancakes.
It was no Benny's, but given the size of Hawkins and the lack of alternatives?
No one was complaining.
They were all too happy someone had opened up another watering hole for the working class man (or lass, as Foreman Shelly will dutifully remind you) which meant the place was packed with both day and night shift regulars, passing each other in staggered waves.
It also meant Wayne was sharing the packed breakfast counter with a warehouse worker by the name of John Cheese on one side and Police Chief Jim Hopper on the other.
He doesn't mind it.
Wayne's a man on a budget thinner than his shoelace, but he's also a man who understands that small indulgences need to be made in life or you didn't truly live it.
This is how he convinces himself to get a coffee at the Barn after work everyday, reading the morning newspaper and chatting with the other regulars before he heads home.
Bonus, it gets him out of the rapid-fire franticness that is his nephew in the mornings.
(All the love in the world wouldn't change the fact that all that Eddie came with a lot of noise.
The kind of noise that was a tried and true recipe for a headache right after a long shift.)
As a trade off, Wayne went to bed early so he could wake up in time for dinner with Eddie.
It was a nice little system that worked for them.
A routine Wayne was reminiscing fondly on, when the pager on Chief Hopper started to chirp. With a sad moan, the man fished out a few crumbled bills and threw them on the counter, abandoning his coffee to trudge out to his truck.
This was not unusual.
Particularly recently, given they were but a scant few weeks past that whole mall ordeal. A fact all too easy to remember when one caught sight of the Chief’s still healing face.
What was unusual, was when he came storming through the doors a minute later, face now a furious shade of red with his hat clenched in his hand.
The energy in the room shifted, taking on something a little watchful as Hopper swept his gaze from side to side, like a dog on the hunt.
Judging by the way he stilled when he caught sight of Wayne, the latter assumed he found what he was looking for and could only pray it was the person behind him.
(He liked John, but Wayne had enough trouble this year and he wasn't looking for any more.)
"Munson." Hopper called, striding over and dashing all his hopes. There was a choked fury emitting off him, and given the way John audibly scooted his chair away, Wayne knew everyone had clocked it.
"Chief." Wayne greeted, inclining his head towards him.
Idly he wondered what the hell his nephew had done this time.
'So help me if he stole all the town's lawn flamingos and put them in that damn teachers yard again….'
Wayne didn't even get to finish his threat, the Chief was already next to him.
"Mind if I have a word outside?"
Dammit Eddie.
"Ah hell, what's he done now?" Wayne asked with a sigh, eyeing the coffee he had left morosely.
There was still almost half of it left and the pot had tasted fresh for once.
"What?" Hopper said, and then Wayne got to watch as the man ran through an entire chain of thoughts, each one punctuated by things like; "Oh," and "No. "
"This is something else." He finished, flushed and fidgeting, anger making him antsy.
Wayne stared up at him.
"Something else?" He repeated, not sure he heard.
"Yes, something else." Hopper snapped impatiently, before leaning forward, voice dropping low. "This doesn't involve your nephew, but we both know you owe me for how many times I've let that kid off, Wayne. That's a damn big favor I've been doing you and I'm calling it in."
If it were any other cop, it'd sound like a threat.
It was Hopper though. The same Hopper who Wayne had gone to school with.
They'd never been friends exactly, but they had been friendly and remained so. Even now, after Wayne had taken Eddie in, who’d gone on to be an undeniable pain in the local PD’s ass.
Hopper really did let the kid off easy.
Wayne really did owe him.
So he put down his coffee with a sigh, passed his newspaper over to John and stood up, motioning for Hopper to lead the way. Got into the Chief’s truck when he waved him in, and didn’t make a big fuss when Hopper tore out of the parking lot like hell was about to open up under them.
"Not a lot of the kids involved in the mall fire could be identified, but a few of them were." Hopper started, which felt nonsensical given the utter lack of context.
Wayne hummed to show he’d heard.
“Some of them got banged up more than others, and a lot of people wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t make it.”
A pause, Hopper white knuckling the steering wheel as he swung the truck hard around a turn.
“For certain people, those kids dying is the preferred outcome.”
A mix of fear and warning swopped low in Wayne’s gut.
"Jim." Wayne said, dropping the use of a last name because if any situation called for it, it was this one. "What exactly are you saying here?"
The Chief chewed on his split lip.
"I know you're smart, Munson. I know you, and plenty of others are aware that something's happening, been happening in this town."
Which was a hell of an understatement if you asked Wayne. Plenty of the upper classes might be able to bury their heads when it came to the military parading about and the flow of “accidents” they brought in their wake, but then, they didn't see all the other signs of trouble.
The absolute oddity that was Starcourt’s construction.
How it had been built using primarily outside crews and anyone who'd taken a singular look at the site could tell you they were building it weird.
Weird as in it looked like it would have a multi-level basement, and not what a mall should have.
Then there were the constant electrical problems. The backups upon backups that failed. The late night delivery vans headed out to the Hawkins Lab.
The things in the woods that kept spooking all the deer and the weird markings they left behind that unnerved even the hardest of hunters.
This didn’t even touch the Russian military that more than one reputable person swore was hanging around.
The very same Wayne himself had seen, on more than one occasion.
(And you couldn’t deny it; those boys were military. Past or present, it didn’t matter. They moved like a threat, and Wayne treated them like one, staying well clear.)
"Yeah." Wayne admitted. "I also know better than to stick my nose in it."
"That makes you a smarter man than me.' Hop complained under his breath, but the anger was self directed.
"The point is, there are some government types crawling around, doing shit they shouldn't be doing, and more than a few of them are in the business of making people disappear.”
This was absolutely not where Wayne had thought this was going.
Hopper took a breath. Than another.
A third.
It was starting to make Wayne nervous, in a way he hadn’t felt since a social worker had brought Eddie to him for the last time and final time. It was the feeling that things were about to shift in a way that would change the course of his life.
"Steve Harrington is sitting in my office right now, beat to absolute shit.” Hopper admitted.
Wayne gave him the floor to talk, letting him go at his own pace without interruptions.
“He's there because some of those government types finally figured out his parents are never fucking home.”
Wayne sucked in a breath.
"We both know his parents, Wayne. Harassing them to come back and take care of their kid won't work, and frankly, I’m beginning to think all the phone lines are tapped anyway.” He winced here, like voicing such a thing pained him, and Wayne understood.
It sounded a little too out there, a little like he was buying into a conspiracy.
Except he wasn’t. Wayne knew he wasn’t.
Jim Hopper might have been an alcoholic, a man living in pain and unconcerned with his own life, but if there was one thing he was solid for, it was shit like this.
He didn’t jump to conclusions. Didn’t believe the first thing people told him. Even at his worst, he did the work to see what was really happening, and made his decisions from there.
(Even if that decision was to accept the occasional bribe, or drive an intoxicated 13 year old Eddie home instead of hauling his ass into the drunk tank.)
“Harrington won’t admit it, but he’s got a hell of a concussion if not a full blown brain injury and he’s not reacting as well as he should to Suites trying to run him off the road.” Hopper continued. Angrily, he added, “Damn kid didn’t even come to me until they tried to break into his house last night.”
His fingers squeezed the wheel so hard Wayne heard the leather creak in protest.
“I’d take him, but my cabin is being renovated from…” He trailed off, heaving a sigh.
“A storm, so me and my kid are bunked with the Byers right now and we’re full up.”
Hawkins hadn't had a storm like that in years, but Wayne wasn't going to call him out on the blatant lie.
“I need a place to stash him for the next few weeks, until I can work with some of the higher ups sniffing around, and get them to call off their attack dogs.”
“And you want to stuff him with me.” Wayne finished.
“I know you don’t have the room.” Hopper admitted easily, stopping his truck at a red light and locking eyes with the other man. “But I also know you’ll be the last place anyone would look for him.”
'Ain’t that the damn truth.'
“You’re really gonna go this far for a Harrington?” Wayne asked, instead of the million of other questions leaping to the forefront of his mind.
This one, he figured, was the most important.
“He’s not his dad.” Hopper said, as firm as Wayne had ever heard him. “He’s not either of his parents, and he saved my little girl.”
Wayne hadn’t even known Hopper had another little girl, but he also knew better than to ask where the guy had found one.
It wasn’t his business, just as nothing else Jim was involved in, was his business.
Except, apparently, Steve Harrington.
“I’m gonna need my own truck if I’m takin' Harrington home.” Wayne said easily, instead of bothering to ask anything else.
If Jim said the kid was different than his daddy, then he was--because when it came to things like that, Jim didn't lie.
No point in it.
“I know. Just needed to talk to you first, without anyone overhearing.” Jim said, before swinging the police truck around and heading back to the Barn.
“I’ll stay in contact with you, and I’ll make sure Harrington pays you for the pleasure of your hospitality. Just--” Here Jim cut himself off, looking like he was struggling an awful lot with the next thing he wanted to say.
Once again, Wayne waited him out.
“Don’t let Steve fool you. He’s good at fooling people, letting them think he’s okay. Too good at it, and between the two of us, I have a real good idea of the reason why.”
A memory came to Wayne unbidden, of Richard Harrington and Chet Hagan, beating some poor kid in the highschool bathroom bloody. The grins on their faces as the poor guy wailed for them to stop.
How they almost hadn’t.
“Alright.” Wayne agreed.
Hopper swung back into the Barn's parking lot, and Wayne moved right to his own beat to shit truck, ready to follow Jim back to the police station.
He wasn’t a praying man, not anymore, but Catholisim wasn’t a thing that let you go easy.
He found himself sending up a quick prayer, fingers flicking in a kind of miniature version of the sign of the cross.
Considering his own kid’s history with Harrington, and the sheer small space of the trailer?
Wayne had a feeling it was needed.
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