quirky fourth wall breaking character but theyre just fucking. wrong about the medium theyre in. they keep making references to cinematic techniques and directorial styles and the other fourth wall breaking character is like "dumbass we're in a fucking comic book" and they are in a video game.
Something to keep in mind for non comic book readers looking for insight into canon from comic readers is that people are biased as hell and that 2 people can read the same panel and have 2 completely different takes on what happened. Do you know how many times I’ve seen someone ask “hey can you tell me more about xyz event” and the supposed comic reader replies with a completely warped bad faith reading of what happened? People take things out of context and also straight up lie. Except for me of course I would never lead you astray <33
While reading through JJK, I couldn’t help but notice that Geto and Kenjaku both fit pretty well into the monstrous-feminine trope— think the Queen Xenomorph in Aliens, the ghost mother in Dark Water, or the wife in The Brood. This post will be an attempt to argue that they are, in fact, examples of the monstrous-feminine, and to talk a tiny bit about what that means for the story overall.
Before going into the actual meta, I want to point out that (Source: interview in 2024 JJK exhibition) Gege didn’t decide on Kenjaku’s true identity until the Shibuya arc, even though it was always going to be fake Geto. I take this to mean that Kenjaku and Geto as characters are more intertwined than we previously or usually thought, with Kenjaku for at least the first arcs existing as “Geto that is a bit strange”— someone that resembles Geto in appearance and mannerism but is not quite him, whose true identity is blank (for now). This is why I’ve decided it’s best to analyze them together, especially in terms of monstrous-feminine symbolism (as to me in this regard they are even more so extensions of one another).
This analysis will be based on Barbara Creed’s “The Monstrous-Feminine: Film, Feminism, Psychoanalysis”. In this book, Creed defined the concept of the monstrous-feminine and discussed how its representations speak to deep patriarchal fears about (what has historically been regarded as) female bodies and reproductive processes. The book draws heavily from Julia Kristeva’s theory on the abject, which is defined as what does not “respect borders, positions, rules”, what “disturbs identity, system, order” and thus elicit within us the feeling of disgust and horror. The abject is what used to belong to or were us, that we must continually throw away and draw borders against in order to form and keep stable our identity. Excrements, bodily fluids, and corpses are all examples of inherently abject things.
The archaic mother:
According to Kristeva, a huge example of the abject is the maternal figure as all individuals experience abjection when they attempt to break away from their mothers in order to form their own identities. As such, many horror films feature mothers as the female monster (Psycho, Carrie). Kenjaku through possessing Itadori Kaori and giving birth to Itadori Yuuji is quite literally a mother.
Geto can also be viewed as a maternal figure within JJK. His curse technique - Cursed Spirit Manipulation - functions like a womb. It takes in cursed spirits who remain separate entities from Geto with their own curse energy, and because CTs all cost CE it’s as if through CSM Geto is feeding these spirits CE and nurturing them in exchange for their obedience, making Geto into somewhat of a mother figure to his curses. Geto is also written with an emphasis on his protective, nurturing side— he is often seen caring for other people (checking up on Gojo, telling him to go easy on Riko, taking MimiNana to the crepe shop), his entire ideology is based on protecting the weak (even after he becomes a villain he still holds this idea, it’s just that who he considers weak and in need of protection changes), he’s family-oriented and in his cult family he is the heart, the emotional center that binds everyone together so that after he died they all splintered off.
This is not to say that these traits are inherently feminine, but rather in culture they are usually given to female, maternal characters, yet we are seeing them in Geto. There may be a reason why Toji’s worm called him “Mommy” (lol).
The maternal figure within horror can be represented in a number of ways, one of which is through the archaic mother, who is “the parthenogenetic mother, the mother as primordial abyss, the point of origin and of end”. She can be seen within mythologies of several cultures around the world as the Mother-Goddess who alone created Heaven and Earth (Nu Kwa in China, Gaia in Greece, Nammu in Sumer). As the monstrous-feminine, however, she is reconstructed in a negative light as “the abyss, the all-incorporating black hole that threatens to reabsorb what is once birthed”, “the blackness of extinction - death”. She is a force that threatens to reincorporate what is once distinct into the original oneness, to the mother’s womb. She represents the fear of (and desire for) dissolution, non-differentiation, and death.
Cursed Spirit Manipulation absorbs once-autonomous beings and submits them to the user’s authority. Its Maximum Technique is the dissolution of these beings into a single, non-identifying black mass (Uzumaki). Kenjaku's master plan is to merge the Japanese population into one entity. Both Kenjaku and Geto can be seen as maternal figures within JJK whose powers are destructive in their ability to absorb and dissolute.
The monstrous womb:
From fear of the mother’s generative power comes fear of the womb. In horror films, the connection between the womb and the monstrous is often invoked through womb-like spaces and objects or female characters capable of giving birth to monsters. Creed gave an example with the film “The Brood”, in which the central figure is a woman who through her rage manifests strange and dangerous creatures that resemble disfigured infants— the climax of the film is her revealing under her dress bulbous sacs hanging from her side from which she took out a fetus. Here, the womb is taken outside of the body, the birthing process made apparent. It is horrifying because we are confronted with the nature of reproduction and the maternal body— the alterations and even disfigurements caused by housing a life form.
Geto and Kenjaku have the ability to store and “give birth” to monsters (given that CSM functions like pregnancy). Geto’s domain expansion is called “All-enveloping Garbhadhatu”, officially translated into English as “Womb Profusion” (because Yuuta in Gojo’s body has Unlimited Void as his domain, we can conclude that Womb Profusion is Geto’s even if we’ve only seen Kenjaku use it). In Esoteric Buddhism, Garbhadhatu (Womb Realm) is where compassion leading to salvation is born and sustained like a fetus being nurtured by the womb. The domain itself features headless pregnant women.
In the Vol. 0 movie we can see images of pregnant bodies and babies in Geto’s Uzumaki while he’s summoning it.
The manner in which Curses are summoned by CSM is also reminiscent of birth, through either a portal or an incision into space, accompanied by dark liquid pouring out (at least in the manga).
When Kenjaku died and the cursed spirits were about to burst out of Geto’s body, we can see that his belly became swollen or convulsed. Afterwards, it was seemingly transformed into a womb-like structure carrying the Tengen fetus, which Kenjaku had absorbed and incubated prior to their death. In a way, Geto’s entire body after death has become a monstrous womb.
Fear of the womb is also tied to fear of a loss of boundaries, between the clean, proper body and the natural world, the abject. “…the act of birth is grotesque because the body’s surface is no longer closed,…rather the body looks as if it may tear apart, open out, reveal its innermost depth.” In the birthing process, new life forms travel from inside the womb to the outside, carrying with it blood, afterbirth, feces,…what is meant to be banished from the human domain in order to establish and preserve its identity, system, order.
Within JJK, Geto or Cursed Spirit Manipulation exists with a similar ambivalence. In order for Geto to add a cursed spirit into his ranks, he must first ingest them. Cursed spirits are hyper-condensed negative emotions/curse energy that spilled out of humans— they’re basically human waste (and so naturally they taste like “rags used to wipe up vomit and excrement”). Yet, they reside within Geto, their curse energy adding to his own. With Geto, the border between the clean, proper body and the abject - cursed spirits in this case - was blurred. This makes Geto’s body uniquely abject within the narrative. He knows “the taste that no one knows”.
So what does this all mean?
The monstrous-feminine threatens the integrity of patriarchal order. In JJK, both Geto and Kenjaku aim to disrupt the patriarchal Jujutsu world: Geto, scorned by how the system treats him and people like him, tried to violently dismantle it (however flawed his plan and ideology was) while Kenjaku’s plan plunged the Jujutsu world into complete chaos. In a way, Kenjaku is an escalation of Geto’s monstrous-feminine, from Geto’s vengeful, misguided acts of violence in an attempt to disrupt the system, to Kenjaku’s meaningless, blanket chaos. In Kenjaku and their possession of Geto’s body, Geto’s righteous motives (his will, his autonomy) are gone - there remains only the monstrosity, destruction for its own sake.
Still, Geto’s actions, misguided as they were, did eventually create real change. Gojo’s goal of raising strong allies and creating a better Jujutsu world was inspired by Geto. Although at first he opposed violent actions as he believed they wouldn’t be able to change anything, eventually, he came to the conclusion that violence was necessary, and in the moment where he massacred the higher-ups, he thought of Geto.
i would’ve liked if geto actually killed characters with names and did it on-screen, instead of nameless fillers we find out through reports and expositional dialogue. it would add a lot to his character as the main antagonist of volume 0 (it would shape him as the real deal), and it would also make him polarizing for the right reasons.
for example, toji is a very polarizing character because we watched him murder riko in cold blood right in front of our eyes. riko, a character we became attached to throughout the entirety of the hidden inventory arc. people hate him for it, yes, but people also love him because of his tragically complicated sentiments about fatherhood and family. people understand that he is a victim of circumstance and a perpetrator.
despite the nature of jujutsu and its modern purpose, non-sorcerers don’t play a very big role in the story (unless they were born from sorcerer families), hence why geto’s victims don’t seem all that important to readers: because they are nameless, faceless, filler. in regards to geto’s ideals and actions, which are even condemned by the narrative (by gojo, by yaga, by virtually every sorcerer we saw discussing it in volume 0), making these non-sorcerer victims nameless and faceless (dehumanizing them) makes it easier for readers to see them as the monkeys geto deems they are. i would even go on to say that it helps his case.
i’m not sure if this was done on purpose, maybe to challenge the readers to see the enormity and gravity of his actions without personalizing it (like having one of his victims be a beloved character), pushing them to see it for what it is and not for the “what if it happened to you?” rhetoric. if anything though, by making his “monkeys” fillers, geto becomes a very, very easy antagonist to have sympathy for. this, i think, can blur nuance at times.
It’s one thing to steal pills. It’s terrible, but at least the patient knows those meds aren’t there and can try to do something about it.
He also stole from liquid vials that he filled back up with saline and returned to the hospital pharmacy, which fucks up the dosage and risks contamination. Not to mention that he is then teaching students and younger doctors to give the wrong dosages. And that’s the thing that Santos knows about, I don’t think she even knew about the Librium. He didn’t just steal, he stole in an incredibly dangerous way. And he’s not even taking responsibility for that, just for being an asshole.
No wonder Santos feels crazy about him being back.
#YEP#i swear people only remember louie's pills#when i rewatched season 1 the vial felt even worse the second time
I do think it's an easy thing to forget. The huge drama happened around the pills, and the vial hasn't been brought up yet in season two. And if you're not familiar with that kind of vial, it can be hard to string together why it was suspicious (they're supposed to be very easy to open, so the fact that it wasn't is suspicious! and then there was the glue on the lid and the dosage issues, but all that was stretched across multiple episodes), so the smoking gun of the pills is way more memorable.
Which makes me hope that the vial comes back up in a big way that really rocks the ER.
I don't think it's all that easy to forget. That it's spread across multiple episodes means the audience is reminded about it several times over the course of the season. Every time it comes up the story deliberately calls attention to it. The vial is why Santos starts investigating her suspicions. She asks Dana about it, without explaining why she wants to know, and Dana demonstrates how the medication vials are dispensed for both her and the audience. When Robby convinces her to tell him about her concerns (she's very reluctant) she shows him the vial. The scene cuts away after that; we don't actually see anything else. That vial is the entirety of Santos telling Robby about Langdon. I think a lot of people have forgotten about it, but only because there were 8 months between seasons. I don't think more people remember the pills because they're a more memorable smoking gun, I think it's mostly because the pills have directly come up in season 2 because Langdon told Louie he stole them when he apologized.
I'm also hoping the vial comes back up in a big way. I'm just not overly sympathetic to viewers who don't remember major parts of the story and still go online and take strong positions and argue with other fans about them.
Oh yeah, I didn't mean that the vial wasn't a big deal. It's the biggest deal.
But also arguing over it without revisiting season one does really really suck. And being so wrong. Not just about what happened in the season, but also the morality and ethics of the situation.
I wanted to add these screenshots from reddit, which go into how that diluted Ativan could have affected patients. It's more serious than people are acting like it is.
"Dilute[d] Ativan means patients are getting improperly sedated for procedures, possibly even intubated while aware. It's also critical for interrupting seizures - which is how Santos figured out Langdon was the one who messed with the vial. He knew to give more Ativan to [break] the seizure because he had been [diluting] it."
Santos being this 🤏 close to cutting herself and deciding “fuck it I need a friend right now” and choosing Mel to be that friend because Whitaker may have chosen to stay but he has other things going on was such a good moment for her character because unlike with her season one final moment inviting Whitaker to live with her, which was her helping someone in need and she happened to get a friend out of it, hanging out with Mel is for her. She is seeking those connections now and that’s so good for her and especially because she’s chosen someone she’s tried so hard to connect with but keeps missing the mark but tries anyway and I love that for her.
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