Mutsuki, Urie, and Saiko as Love’s Dark Mirrors
So, after reading this meta which reminded me of this ask an anon sent me awhile ago, let’s talk love:
Mutsuki’s love for Kaneki
Tsukiyama’s love for Kaneki
What do these types of love have in common? They’re a mixture of romantic, platonic, unclear, requited, unrequited, etc. But they all… have flaws that need to be worked on. Love is one of TG’s main themes. Therefore, it makes sense that Ishida’s exploring the flaws and limits of love.
Mutsuki isn’t the dark version of these loves. It’s not Kaneki’s love=good, Mutsuki’s=bad. Rather, Mutsuki is the mirror exposing what the flaws of these loves. They aren’t healthy. Which does not mean any of these loves are doomed (well Mutsuki’s for Kaneki’s is, because it is the one the narrative is most unquestionably identifying as unhealthy, and I would say it’s the most unhealthy), or that there aren’t beautiful, healthy aspects of these loves too because there hella are, but rather that they need work to be all that they could be (aka, to save Kaneki). The Quinxes all are mirrors for these loves, actually, with their Ace counterparts–Saiko also functions as a mirror for Hide, and Urie for Touka.
I already wrote a meta on Mutsuki and Hinami awhile ago, but whether or not Hina’s love for Kaneki has any romantic element, the same principle still applies. She’s looking to Kaneki to meet her needs, and he can’t do that (and through no fault of his own). Her identity is partially rooted in him, rather than in the value of her own life. Mutsuki’s identity is also rooted in Kaneki, in looking to him for approval rather than to someone better suited and willing to meet his needs (Urie, and Ayato for Hinami).
Mutsuki is willing to go to great lengths to get Kaneki back. He is willing to arrest Yoriko and risk her execution, and kill Touka just to get Kaneki back. Kaneki, too, is willing to go to extreme lengths: despite being terribly afraid of hurting children like his mother throughout the entire series, he kills 100 children just to see Touka again (even when he’s making his choice in 144 he thinks of humans as better than ghouls, so he wasn’t doing it to save ghouls).
But let’s move on to the Aces. Mutsuki is willing to forgive Kaneki all wrongdoings if he just comes back.
That’s exactly what Tsukiyama did. Tsukiyama, remember, was also someone who has been violently obsessed with Kaneki, and who functions with high degrees of self-deception. Tsukiyama’s love for Kaneki almost killed him and he moved past it with the love of his family when he fought Kaneki on the Tower, but when they’re dead, he focuses on Kaneki again. He needs to remember Karren, and the others. Which is not the same as me saying he should abandon Kaneki because that isn’t what I’m saying.
Hide, too, is willing to forgive Kaneki anything. Even Kaneki eating half his face. He won’t even tell Touka what happened. Hide’s love enables Kaneki to fall prey to his worst instincts, and it always has. But in the end when his inaction leads to disaster he rallies everyone to help.
Saiko, like Hide, is willing to forgive anybody anything. She is the mirror showing the flaws in Hide’s love. She doesn’t want to lose anyone. Which is good. But she knew something was wrong with Mutsuki and only decided to act when her friend Yoriko was threatened–and then rallied Urie to act in her stead, foiling Hide in that respect.
Her lack of action regarding Mutsuki is very, very apparent in the story. Additionally, Mutsuki’s “it would all be okay if you came back sensei” can be compared to Saiko with Urie, whom, like Mutsuki with Kaneki, she tries to push her own agency onto rather than taking agency for her own decisions. If Kaneki is Mutsuki’s security blanket, Urie is Saiko’s (though it used to be Shirazu).
Touka, herself, also says that as long as Kaneki comes back, it will all be okay.
While Touka’s love for Kaneki is far healthier than Mutsuki’s and I’m not saying it isn’t, the sentiment is still as long as he comes back I’ll be okay (though to be fair, Touka did express the opposite during the Rose Arc: she stated that she just wanted Kaneki to be happy. She let him go, which again is where the contrast with Mutsuki comes in, and why Touken is not doomed or even close).
Urie is more like Touka, too, I think: they know something is wrong with the people they love, but choose not to say anything when the evidence confronts them. These two scenes are almost certainly meant to be compared:
Touka knows Kaneki’s floundering as king, but would rather discuss their future (her choice in this scene was a good one for her child, but she can still choose Kaneki and the baby and confront him). Urie, too, would rather discuss the future and his romantic prospects with Mutsuki than confront Mutsuki. And so, Kaneki and Mutsuki both spiral. Kaneki becomes a monster who killed children. Mutsuki’s attacking a pregnant woman.
Anyways, where does this lead? To the same place. Either they can’t save Mutsuki, and his demise opens the door for them to understand just where they’re all going wrong, and his death shows them what their lack of holding Kaneki accountable leads to. But I think that would be hard to pull off narratively, because Touka, Shuu, and Hide don’t know Mutsuki enough to care about him, or the Qs well enough to understand just what his death would mean or do to them. Plus, the foreshadowing Mutsuki helps stop Dragon.
Or, they have to save Mutsuki. And seeing how the Quinx save Mutsuki and realize their own flaws might help the Aces do just that too, and help them realize that saving Kaneki is not just dragging him out of Dragon, but rather it’s a process that will continue after he’s taken out.
There’s also an even darker mirror to Mutsuki’s love that the narrative paints as even more unhealthy: Furuta’s love for Rize. He went from setting Rize free to capturing her and mining her body when she didn’t give him the gratitude he wanted/chose to live her life in a different way. He objectifies her like Mutsuki objectifies Kaneki, but to an even more extreme extent. And he’s completely given up on receiving love. As messed up as all these characters and their loves are, they have not given up on love. And I think that’s very, very important.
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