Talk:Aogiri Tree/@comment-26306690-20150818101843/@comment-68.32.116.146-20150821164726

Harostar, I always appreciate your well thought out comments. I agree that Eto is the most powerful ghoul in Aogiri Tree and also their leader since the beginning of Tokyo Ghoul. However, I wanted to talk about why I think Arima might be the OEK. Yup, I like twists lots and lots of plot twists. ;)

Note AaronC141 I don't actually think Arima is a mastermind. To me, the Tokyo Ghoul series is all about how everyone has complex reasons for what they do and how lack of communication and a unwillingness to compromise leads to tragedy. I don't think the series's themes lend themselves to characters who pull all the strings. Except maybe the clowns.

There is something that we the readers don't know about Arima. Perhaps it's because I've only read translations or I've missed an important detail, but my impression is that Arima appears out of nowhere as a teen, already a master at fighting ghouls. It appears to me that he is not a product of the CCG orphanages, and that he did not go through training at their academies, which is one of the reasons other investigators resent him. Ishida gives us back story on almost all of the other recurring CCG agents. We know why they fight ghouls, yet Arima's motivations are unknown even after having his own mini manga.

Ishida has now twice drawn Arima with one eye not clearly visible, something that for Seidou and probably Amon foreshadowed their transformation into one-eyed ghouls. I tend to feel that if Arima is a one-eyed ghoul that to keep the story tight he needs to have been mentioned already. To my mind that makes him the original OEK.

Kaneki is shown to have a strange connection to Arima. Their birthdays are the same. Akira expects Sasaki to surpass Arima. Sasaki feels that Arima is his father. I think that their are a lot of hints that Kaneki is the heir to Arima.

In Tokyo Ghoul, Aogiri kidnaps Kaneki to impersonate the OEK. Why do they need to do this if Eto is the OEK. I do realize she likes to keep a low profile, but still. In the play with Hide, Kaneki wears a cloak with the same symbol as the one on the imagined depiction of the OEK. Note this is not the Aogiri symbol. Kaneki is a prince in the play. So there are hints that he is also the heir to the OEK.

It could be that Kaneki is the heir to the OEK and also the heir to Arima and he needs to bridge the two to "make the world right", but I'm thinking that he is the heir to Arima who is the OEK.

My rather elaborate totally made up theory is that Arima founded Aogiri Tree, but shortly after decided that his goals were better achieved through infiltrating the CCG. So he abandoned Aogiri Tree. Eto then took Aogiri Tree and used the organization for her own purposes.

I think that Arima's goal has something to do with V. I do think that V will be the big obstacle of the Tokyo Ghoul series. I bet that we will find out that they have rational reasons for what they do, though probably not good enough reasons for the harm they do.

I feel that Arima's past and motivations are very important to the story. However, I expect Kaneki and Amon to be the ones to " make the world right" and that in that process Kaneki will " save" Eto, although perhaps tragically.

Of course this all depends on my personal story ascetic and the elaborate things I read between the lines of a translation, which makes it really iffy, so I won't be upset if I'm completely wrong. ;)