Talk:Kishou Arima/@comment-26689808-20151107211245/@comment-26653902-20151108144517

While I can agree the flowers are hallucinated (either that or they're symbolism for the readers), I'm pretty sure it's a flashback.

And really, it's not the first time Kaneki had been threatened with death during training; Touka did the same thing early in TG. I'll quote the exact scene in a new thread, but basically she also said stuff that made Kaneki feel de-valued and like he's going to die. No one thinks Touka is evil for that because we had context for her character. Arima, we have very little insight into him as a person. What little we see is what he's shown expressing and how others perceive him. But nothing that proves one way or another.

Honestly, based on the flip side we've seen of him, I'm inclined to believe that the reason he was that nasty was for the same reason as Touka: to ensure Kaneki would survive in a life-or-death situation.