Talk:Re: Chapter 52/@comment-71.80.167.224-20151107224701/@comment-25047329-20151108004138

(general feelings on Arima post before last couple of comments were made)

Ehh...I think the issue with Arima it that there's an overwhelming stance to take what he says and does at face value then try to fit those actions neatly into black and white boxes when we know next to nothing about him. Which is kind of odd because the interpretations for most others characters and their moral grayness is often taken almost too liberally. Even the scene we got this chapter is completely out of context and I doubt Sasaki is reliable at the moment. Not unless Arima and Sasaki happened to be training on the Lunatic Eclipse building that has a field of flowers for whatever reason.

While very mysterious, like any other character he's shown to have multiple facets. He's terrifyingly unwavering, sadistic, distant, does his job without question, and calculating. At the same time he's also a dork, bookworm, socially awkward, cordial to his comrades, and while not overt, seems to have his own brand of weird humor.

What sets Arima apart from most other characters is that we haven't seen any real context to his personality. Using Chilopoda's example of Touka, she broke Kaneki's finger during training and then some. No one is mad at her about it because we have context to her personality. We know that she was a street kid who had it rough in a dog eat dog world, so her actions are understandable. Arima though? We got nada. We have no idea why he does the things he does. He just...does them.

We can infer a few things here and there, like he was probably raised at the Garden and speculate what they did to him there, or analyze his connection to Chirin no Suzu, but ultimately, he's just kind of.../shrugs/. Arima just is.