Normnorm

Hi ! Welcome to another one of my brainrot analysis, and this one is entirely fueled by my hatred of people who mischaracterize Gon. I keep on seeing people say that Gon is crazy, unhinged, a psychopathic monster who only plays a role of the innocent kid. 

He’s not.

Gon is a 12 year old with severe trauma due to his dad’s abandonment and with a chaotic moral compass forged by his childhood spent on an isolated island.

He’s not a sociopath, not a psychopath, not a monster, not unhinged. He’s just a 12yo thrown in a ruthless world where he has to constantly prove his worth to feel like he can live up to his dad’s expectations. 

We’re so used to seeing shounen protagonists be happy, go-lucky characters who never suffer any real mental consequences from their past or adventures that some people have a hard time realizing that it’s just not realistic. 

Gon is a realistic portrayal of what happens to an abandoned child tossed in a merciless world. And of course, it’s not pretty. It’s terrifying to see Gon’s evolution, and it’s scary to see him slowly lose it. But it doesn’t make him a monster. It makes him feel human. 

Hi anon !! I can’t thank you enough for this ask because I’ve been wanting to make a post about this but couldn’t find a good reason to do so, so this ask is the perfect occasion !!

I know you’re not the only one to feel this way, a lot of people felt like Kite not truly dying was cheap and dismissed the purpose of the narrative. 

But I really, really disagree. Because not only is Kite being reborn meant to highlight how self-destructive Gon was, it’s also thematically accurate

First of all, Kite being resurrected feels.... ironic. You almost want to laugh, because holy shit, Togashi just made his protagonist go through absolute hell because he lost his mentor, and it turns out he was never dead in the first place ? It makes the entire situation feel.... off. You feel uncomfortable. It feels weird, like you said, almost cheap, like Gon going through hell was nothing. And the fact that we find out after everything, just like Gon, is meant to highlight the irony of the situation. That Gon lost everything to avenge someone who wasn’t even dead. It’s meant so that we feel bad for Gon, because we saw him throw his entire life away, and in the end, he had no true reason to do so. In a way, it’s meant to generalize the situation, so that we readers can see that no matter what happened, Gon would’ve always followed this self-destructive path. That no matter if someone close to him truly died or not, Gon’s character arc would’ve always led him to his demise. And Kite not truly dying really highlights that fact in my opinion.

But more importantly, I agree that Kite’s death would’ve been an asspull and a cheap trick if he was the only one to have been reborn. But he wasn’t.

The entire theme of this arc is rebirth. From the beginning, we’re told that the chimera ants take on attributes of the species they eat, and we get to see humans get reincarnated as ants. So literally, they’re reborn.

But when you look at it even further, EVERYONE was reborn during this arc. Every single character went through a rebirth at the end. Killua ripped the needle from his forehead, making him stronger. Gon lost his nen, entered a deep coma and was brought back to life by Nanika. Palm got literally reborn as an ant, and metaphorically reborn as she was liberated from her mental barrier by witnessing Killua’s love for Gon. Ikalgo got metaphorically reborn after meeting Killua. Meruem got both literally reborn (after the bomb explosion) and metaphorically too (after meeting Komugi).

And Kite also got reborn.

When you look at the theme of rebirth or the arc, you can see that Kite wasn’t the only one to go through a physical and metaphorical rebirth. I can’t name all the characters, but I encourage you to think about every character you’ve seen during CAA and their character arc, and you’ll see that they were all reborn in some way.

At the Phantom Troupe hideout in York New Arc, Killua and Gon get held hostage by Nobunaga. And with the stress of the current situation, Killua finds himself thinking about what his reaction would’ve been if the Phantom Troupe threatened to kill Gon.

We see Killua being deeply distressed about what could’ve happened. He’s being bombarded by toxic thoughts (that come from Illumi’s needle) that tell him that no matter what he does, he’ll never be enough. That he could never, ever face stronger opponents, even if it meant his friend would die. 

And it completely breaks Killua. You can see it on the panels, he’s never looked this bad before. Breaking in cold sweats, shaking, being gloomy. He feels terrible because he feels trapped. Trapped by his conditioning, trapped by his education, trapped by Illumi’s voice in his head reminding him that he’s not enough and never will be. 

And those voices that tell him that he’s not enough are what spark him to get up and take action.

Because he wants to prove them wrong. He wants to prove himself wrong. He’s trying to convince himself that he’s not what those voices are saying, that he CAN go against his programming and intervene in the face of stronger opponents.

Of course, Killua wants to protect Gon, because he cares about him. But his desire to stop Nobunaga’s blade at any cost, even if it means death does not spark out of pure intention of protection. It sparks out of guilt and self-loathing. 

Killua taking a stand at this instant is him fighting against what his family thinks of him and most importantly what he thinks about himself. 

It’s not Killua being like “I’ll protect Gon because I care about him”, it’s “I’ll protect Gon because I want to prove I can do it”, and there’s a HUGE difference between these two things.

Now, pretty much the exact same situation happens a few arcs later. Killua is once again faced with a strong opponent, and if he loses, Gon dies. It’s a life or death situation. 

Once again, Illumi’s needle rings in Killua’s head, telling him to run away because he can’t face opponents stronger than him. Telling him that he HAS to leave Gon behind, even if it means his death. 

But this time, Killua’s reaction is slightly different, and it’s a small nuance that is hard to pick up when you don’t compare the two scenes. (so if you want to compare them fully, I invite you to read chapters 92-93 and chapter 219)

Killua making the choice to stand up to Rammott doesn’t spark from his insecurity, like it did in the Phantom Troupe hideout. 

It sparks from the sole need of protecting Gon. That’s all he wants, he’s not looking to prove the voices wrong, he’s not looking to convince himself that he’s a good friend, he’s ONLY thinking about protecting Gon no matter what. 

Because he can’t lose Gon. Because he loves him too much. And it’s the only thing that matters in this moment. Who cares about the voices in his head? They’re insignificant. He’s only thinking of keeping Gon alive at this precise moment.

This time, instead of acting out of need to prove his worth, Killua is acting out of pure love.

This time, Killua is not thinking “I’ll protect Gon with my life because I want to prove to myself I can do it” but “I must protect Gon with my life because I love him”

hi !! im gonna make a post about it so i wont go into details rn (and i also have some more research i wanna do so i can gather up all the evidence i need) but i think gon has trouble with being seen as weak, issues with guilt and all of these add up to self worth issues.

the reason it’s more apparent with killua is because we’re always in his head, we know how killua feels about himself, but we are almost never in gon’s head. we have no idea how he feels about himself, and the only indicators we have that hint at his view on his own worth are :

-the fact that gon keeps hurting himself to prove his worth (he willingly puts himself in life threatening situations multiple times throughout the manga, not hesitating to hurt his body as proved by the insane amount of times he’s broken/blown off/got his arm cut) - he basically has absolutely no value for his own body 

-when he says to killua “i can say i’ll die but you can’t” - highlighting that killua’s life has more value than his 

-wanting to bear everything on his shoulders (when he pushes Killua away during the dodgeball match saying “i have to crush him (Razor) completely” + when he pushes him away during chimera ant arc because he doesn’t want him to get hurt but HE can get hurt)

-the multiple instances when Gon says that he’s weak (especially during election arc where the first thing he tells ging is that he was weak and he should’ve been the one that died)

Basically I think a lot of it adds up to show that Gon struggles with how he perceives himself. I’ll go into more details into my post, but Gon doesn’t value his own life, and he proves it repeatedly throughout the manga when he willingly puts himself into life-threatening situations just to prove that he’s worth something. Gon has always been willing to throw his life away if it means it can prove he’s not weak

Those indicators don’t paint the picture of a totally mentally stable boy with a good self esteem. The mere fact that Gon has no value for his own life is a good enough indicator that he has an unstable view on his worth.

Basically, I think Gon’s thought process in any situation where something bad happens is :

“All of this is my fault because I’m too weak” -> he thinks he’s weak as proved by the multiple times he’s said it throughout the manga

“So I have to be the one to bear the consequences alone” ->as proved by all the times he pushes people (and mainly killua) to deal with the situations alone

“I won’t back down under any circumstances because my life is not that important” -> his view on the value of his own life is mostly demonstrated by that “i can say i’ll die but you can’t” line

and you can apply that pattern to any situation : When Gon lets Kon scratch his arm until he bleeds to keep Kite from killing him, he’s doing it because it’s his fault Kon’s mom had to die. When Gon refuses to back down from Hanzo’s fight as he keeps breaking multiple parts of his body, he’s doing it because he believes that if he’s weak and backs down he won’t be worth seeing Ging. When Razor almost kills Killua, Gon flips out and emphasizes that he has to crush Razor because it’s his fault Killua is here and he won’t back down on kicking Razor’s ass. When Kite dies and Gon sees his mangled body, he tells Killua “I’m taking on that one (Pitou) alone” : because Kite got hurt because of his weakness, Gon has to make amends in any way possible - leading him to ultimately sacrifice his own life.

hey guys! Not sure if I ever posted the set together before but here they are! I’m so glad it’s on Netflix now I can properly watch it again!

These two just being children gives me so much joy.