Not sure if this is a meta or a headcanon, but I’m classifying it as both so buckle up buttercup.
I’ve added little * for things linked with my sources.
Trigger warnings: cannibalism, murder, cult followings / religious groups ( very minor mention )
I have many thoughts about Sukuna as a person, but the current headcanon base I have for him until further information is said in canon ( correct me if more was already revealed as I’m not done with the culling games arch ! ) is that Sukuna originally was a pair of twins.
To elaborate in the original telling of Ryomen Sukuna the actual omen in Japanese mythology the reasoning behind him having two faces, two sets of arms, two sets of legs, is because he was once a pair of twins* !
“ One theory states that Ryomen-sukuna is a symbol of twins and brothers, therefore it refers to Oousu no Mikoto and Ousu no Mikoto (i.e. Yamato Takeru no Mikoto and his brother), twins in ancient Japanese history. “ **
So my current idea for Sukuna is that in his past when growing up he had a twin brother, but the difference between the circumstance that Maki and Mai had compared to Sukuna’s was that both Sukuna and his brother were sorcerers of equal standing. Very STRONG sorcerers too, but Sukuna was greedy. Greedy and much more forward than his brother and he wanted more power than what he already possessed. And he couldn’t keep going because he always had his brother clinging to him like an unwanted skintag. He abhorred his twin brother.
So due to his era being the golden age for jujutsu there was a lot of temples and availability for him to gain more knowledge and find a way of handling his brother. And he came across tomes that describes what could happen with ones cursed energy between twins. Which is where he got the idea of literally CONSUMING his brother. Upon doing so it distorted him and created an influx in his cursed energy that his natural body couldn’t handle which created the four limbs, two sets of eyes, he grew immensely tall ! And his power doubled.
He became much more like the imaginary demon people would foretell about him in his life as a human. From this point forward in his life he was truly able to propel his authority and be the CURSE that everyone feared him to be. It’s also where he got his taste of human flesh which became one of his favorite things to eat that he would make Uraume cook for him.
There was a lot of benefactors to what Sukuna was in the actual myth, but it’s stated by Gege that none of the “good” things about the actual Sukuna equates to the Sukuna of JJK so I’m going to stick by that. However in my headcanon I do believe he did have a cult following of sorts. People who feared him but worshipped him like a Demon God of sorts similar to the cult following Tengen has with the Star Religious Group. So there are definitely artifacts from his era that could be dug up that have those implications of Sukuna.
