Suguru Getou's ideology: A (hopefully helpful) guide to idiots, by an even bigger idiot
(contains JJK spoilers up to chapter 78)
As I was reading Jujutsu Kaisen, I had some difficulty understanding a few of the stuff Gege presents to us (still pretending to understand how tf Gojou's powers work). So, I decided to take notes while reading volume 9, since I was having trouble putting together Getou's ideology and plans. Here's what I gathered, and my own commentary about it.
Feel free to correct my English, I originally read JJK in portuguese, so I'm not very sure about the terms.
Jujutsu sorcerers were bred to protect humanity from the curses they create. Like we saw when Itadori was being trained, strong emotions can make cursed energy flare out. Uncontrolled cursed energy creates curses, and common humans end up creating them with their negative, strong feelings. Jujutsu sorcerers take the curses out and maintain cursed energy as a whole a secret, since it would disturb the peace among humanity.
Suguru seems not only to be fine with that, but agree to it. He even explains to Gojou how important it is for them to protect the "weak", making sure to not let them know about Jujutsu. But he always saw normal people as the weak link of society. (pages from chapter 64)
Suguru starts doubting Jujutsu society when he and Satoru scout the girl who's going to be Tengen-sama next receptacle. There's two groups after her: One made of common humans in a cult for Tengen-sama (the time vessel association), who believes him going mad without a new receptacle is going to restore his powers as a god (or something along those lines), and one made of curse masters who want to overthrow Jujutsu society by making Tengen-sama go mad (Group Q). Satoru and Suguru agree that the main threat is Group Q, since the Vessel Association is made of common humans who can't see curses. They defeat Q rather quickly, so now, they only have to keep the receptacle alive until Tengen-sama's ritual.
Suguru shows empathy to the receptacle, Riko. She'll spend the rest of eternity locked away when the ritual is completed, and he doesn't mind to receive orders to agree to her every wish. I think this is really important to his character. Makes him multifaceted and gives depth to his wish to change Jujutsu society.
Now this doesn't have much to do with these last statements, but I think Gege included it to foreshadow the way Suguru sees Jujutsu society: Strong people suffering with their gifts and having to protect the weak, the same ones who wronged them (page from chapter 68)
A lot happens, but long story short, Suguru takes Riko to Tengen-sama's temple and Gojou is stuck fighting with Touji (the Vessel Association hired him). He can't go forward with her, and tells her she can back out if she wants. He says Gojou and him will protect her future no matter what she chooses to do, but as she says she doesn't want the ritual to happen, Touji kills her. He also believed he killed Gojou, and Suguru is extremely disturbed as they fight.
Touji incapacitates Suguru, but doesn't kill him. As he's leaving, he plants a tiny seed of doubt in Suguru
The use of the word "monkey" in the context of "common human" is a very important part of Suguru's way of viewing the world, and I think is interesting how it was presented to him.
Gojou kills Touji, Suguru and him go to retrieve Riko's body from the cult's temple. It's full of people who follow the cult, common humans that most likely don't know about Jujutsu. Gojou suggests killing them, but Suguru disagrees, saying that it would be meaningless. This word makes Gojou ask if meaning is really necessary, and Suguru answers that, for a Jujutsu sorcerer, it is. He doesn't seem so sure, though.
Now comes the turning point. A year goes by, and loneliness makes Suguru really analyze what actually means to be a sorcerer. They give their lives to protect people who don't even know or care about them, and remembering the followers of the Vessel's cult, he can't help to feel bitter towards common humans. It's also the first time he calls them monkeys (pages from chapter 76)
Then, comes Yuki Tsukumo. She presents her way of viewing Jujutsu society: Sorcerers don't kill the evil by the root, they just deal with the consequences without tackling the source of the problem. Everyone has cursed energy, the thing that differentiates a sorcerer from a normal person is the amount. Sorcerers exude a lot less cursed energy than common people, because they're trained to control the amount (like Yuuji was trained with the movies). With that being said, there's a few ways curses could be erradicated:
Ending cursed energy all together: If no one can produce it, curses won't appear. Yuki even uses Touji as example, since he has even less cursed energy than a normal person.
Making sure all humanity can control cursed energy. Yuki gives a twist to that first premise of "Uncontrolled cursed energy creates curses": Sorcerers don't create curses. If all humanity consisted of sorcerers, there wouldn't be curses (sorcerers might become curses after their death, but that's the exception).
Suguru was already in a very fragile mental state. Brewing hate for common humans, he brought his own interpretation to these options: Killing all the monkeys would erradicate curses. Yuki plays along and says that if they actually did it, they would try to fight back and evolve to be able to use Jujutsu.
I'm not a hypocrite and I'm not going to blame Yuki for Getou's understanding of Jujutsu society and what he wants to make of it, but she had a big impact.
The last straw, though, was Mimiko and Nanako.
Curses were spawning in the village the girls lived, and the villagers assumed they were creating them. Not only that, they locked the girls, insulted them and their parents because they could see the curses (very similar to the old dude with the dog, right?). After seeing this, Suguru picked his path. He killed every single villager and his own parents, and decided to follow the side of him that hates monkeys.
Annnnnnd, we're done! I hope this was helpful. Even if I don't agree with his ideology, I think the reasons that made Suguru pick it as his meaning and how he fell into it are very interesting to analyze. His actions are justified, not excused.
