Now that we're in the last few chapters of Jujutsu Kaisen it's time to do a deep dive into Yuji and Sukuna's relationship. Is what Yuji showing Sukuna here truly empathy? Does Sukuna's death and Yuji's attempt to reach out mean Sukuna was human all along? We'll discuss that, the parallels between this and Mahito, and what Sukuna's exit means for both himself and Yuji as characters underneath the cut.
I saw a lot of people saying Higurama should've been there in the double page spread instead of Junpei where Yuuji is recalling people who had a lot of impact on him. The argument being, Yuuji knew Junpei for one day whereas he knew Higurama for a month. As a Junpei girlie in the year of our lord 2024, that makes me biased but I want to tackle this properly and explain why Junpei was there instead of anyone else.
Yuuji's ideas on the value of life and death
Yuuji was not randomly reminiscing about people who died. It was these characters for very specific reasons and this is attached to the dialogue bubbles. These bubbles express his previous assumptions, and what he learned from them.
It starts with Yuuji's grandpa, Wasuke- his memory is attached to Yuuji thinking people have assigned roles. Wasuke was the first to give Yuuji a role. He enrolls as a Jujutsu Sorcerer because Wasuke told him to save people and Yuuji thought if he fulfilled this role, he'd have a good death.
The 'good death' is then linked to Junpei. Prior to meeting Junpei, Yuuji placed an emphasis on people dying "good deaths". This meant respectable and moral deaths where peoples lives were not tampered with. With Junpei, Yuuji failed at saving him (what Wasuke asked of him), and at giving him a proper death (the thing Yuuji wanted to give as a bare minimum). This was a double whammy where Yuuji properly understood the kind of world he has entered.
Then we transition to Yuuji realizing there is no such thing as "good death". Todo in Shibuya had pointed out to Yuuji that he keeps thinking about the meaning and logic to death so much he's disrespecting those who did die. This post here by @linkspooky (hello, sorry for tagging you, you don't need to read this mess, I just wanted to cite and link to your theories because they were fun to read) has a big section about how Yuuji sees things in terms of 'story' and 'roles'. Therefore for him, 'death' must have some significance too and he tries to assign meaning to Junpei's death as a coping mechanism.
But this ENTIRELY falls apart because one death? Yeah he can assign meaning to one guy, but everyone he knew and treasured were falling like flies. What significance could he give to Nanami and Nobara's death, who were also killed by Mahito? What of Shibuya? Yuuji heard Todo saying "don't dwell on the death of others, that would be trivializing their life and what they were, and don't drag yourself down" to further enforce his ideology of himself playing a "role".
Yes, Nanami and Nobara died meaninglessly, but Yuuji blamed his inability to perform his 'role' right in this 'system'. He dug deeper into the mentality of being one small part of this big thing and diminished his own significance to nothing.
BUT.
In 265, Yuuji has realized that is not the case and he says that over Nanami and Nobara. These two characters arguably had the most mundane dreams and reasons for being sorcerers. Nanami dreamed of a peaceful life and got back to sorcery to do something useful he didn't think a corporate job could provide- he felt himself to be contributing more to making lives better by being a sorcerer but ultimately he wanted to just, be happy.
I was originally going to make this post the week the big twist with Yuta in Gojo's body happened, because of the massive subversion that it was. It was the kind of twist that made you question if everything you ever knew about the character was wrong. Namely, Yuta one of the most empathic sorcerers we see in the series - the character who seems to lack the selfishness of the other sorcerers that make up jujutsu society. The kid who fights with the literal power of love.
Was Yuta a monster to begin with and we just didn't see?
Here are my Dungeon meshi stickers! I basically thought "hey. lots of people will have cute food themed stickers. And that good and well, but I want that serious stuff too!" So I decided to make a series for the main gang based on sense of self instead!
linkspooky
Now that we’re in the last few chapters of Jujutsu Kaisen it’s time to do a deep dive into Yuji and Sukuna’s relationship. Is what Yuji showing Sukuna here truly empathy? Does Sukuna’s death and Yuji’s attempt to reach out mean Sukuna was human all along? We’ll discuss that, the parallels between this and Mahito, and what Sukuna’s exit means for both himself and Yuji as characters underneath the cut.
