Talk:Ken Kaneki/@comment-27276334-20151124171500

Hey… fellow TG fans! This is a theory (or analysis as you might call it) about our beloved main character and protagonist, Ken Kaneki. This is all my opinion. I’m not a genius or anything, so you can take all my words with a grain of salt. But this took me forever to type, so I would appreciate it if you took a look at it. It would make all my hard work worthwhile, and because I’ll be crying into my pillow to 4:00 P.M if I find out no one commented. So without further ado, here it is:

Kaneki, from a young age, was missing a parent figure in his life. His mother beat him, his father had died, his aunt was brutally cruel to him; relationships at a young age effect people when they’re adults. And in Kaneki’s relationships...he never received genuine love from his family. Their relationships with him were always tarnished by something else. For example, he never received genuine love from his mother because her love, to Kaneki, was overshadowed with his fear that she was going to beat him. He never received love from his aunt because she hated Kaneki’s mother and shoved all her anger onto Kaneki. Kaneki never felt what love was like, because he missed it all those years.

So, for the rest of his life, Kaneki yearns for love, for a parental figure to fill up the hole inside him that was left by his family. He aches for real love. Because he has never felt genuine love before, he constantly strives for a parental figure. So he is like a malnourished child who never received the proper nutrients, and could never get enough.

For example, Haise compensated for the fact that he was missing a parental figure in his life by thinking that Arima and Akira were one, but these weren’t real substitutes. This goes for Hide and Touka as well. Why? Because Kaneki can’t tell whether he’s receiving fake love or the real thing. He can’t compare this love to anything else. He has no baseline which to compare the seemingly genuine love he receives because he has no motherly-love experiences. Thus, he can’t distinguish between fake love and the real thing. They seem the same to him.

This confuses him, and makes him think on some level that all the love he receives from others is fake, pretend, which in turn convinces him that it’s his fault that he’s receiving “fake” love. So he seeks real love with more vigor. He can’t get enough of love; he’s always searching for some form of love.

This might be the reason why he wants to protect his friends, and everyone close to him, because he wants to receive love from them. He wants to be loved by them, by Touka, by Hide, by Hanami…He thinks that if he can protect them that he won’t be lonely, because if they’re alive he will continually receive love.

But, soon Kaneki comes to the conclusion (subconsciously or consciously) that he was never loved in the first place, that he was wrong…so he wishes to die(or go to sleep, as we see in :re). He sees himself as a creature so despicable that it isn’t capable of being loved. This is a result of him never recognizing love being given to him. Then, in chapter 53 (of :re), Kaneki says with renewed desire that he wants to do something(good or bad) that will make him be loved by all, because he believes that he wasn’t loved at all before. He strives to correct his “mistake” with renewed vigor… he’s willing to do anything to experience love or to be loved by others. This hints at the chapters soon to come.

Kaneki just wants to be happy, to feel what it’s like to be treasured by others, but it seems like he can’t, it seems like he never will…because he doesn’t understand what love truly means, because he thinks he’s never been exposed to it, and as a result of that, he denies all love that people give him. He strives for love, yet doesn’t understand the concept of it. To me, it’s like Kaneki’s stuck in a strange, inverted cycle, like a broken record, stuck on repeat, following the same steps over and over, just to fix something wrong with him. He yearns for love, receives love, doesn’t recognize the love, thinks he isn’t receiving any love, blames everything on himself, then strives for more love. I think that might be why this series will end tragically (as ‘hinted at in the beginning of TG) because Kaneki will never recover from the trauma in his childhood, or from his current state of being. I’ve also noticed a recurring theme in this story: Finding love and happiness in a world where there seems to be none. Note: If Kaneki, however, could find love in his own life, then he might find happiness for everyone else (AKA unite ghouls and humans, potentially save the world). Then the series might not end as tragic. And the series might stretch on much more than we’ve anticipated.

Touka might or might not be able to help Kaneki out of the pit he has sunken into. Unlike Kaneki, Touka has felt real love when she was younger (from her father), and can understand how it feels to be cared for. She probably wants Kaneki to feel real love as well. This could be the reason why she reacted so strongly to Kaneki, and why she beat Kaneki up when she saw him after an entire six months. She wanted him to be happy, but couldn’t understand why Kaneki couldn’t be happy, couldn’t be satisfied with the love he had, and didn’t understand why he had to change so drastically to achieve his goal. If Touka cannot comprehend Kaneki’s situation and understand why he’s doing all of these things, then she might not be able to help him.

I think the current Kaneki and all of what he’s done in this series is a consequence of his childhood. He’s simply trying to make up for the days of his past, trying to cling onto the things he’s given, in order for him to achieve happiness, to survive. His personalities, his ideologies, his views will all change just so he can grasp onto some light filtering in from the darkness. His life was a tragedy from the start, though. He’s been through a lot. It would be hard to discern that light amidst all that shadows. I think the only possibility that Kaneki can have his happy ending is if he still has hope.