Hey! A few days ago, I read your post about Izaya's possible unrequited love for Shizuo. I'd never even considered it before, but it really made me think. This is likely a stupid question, but why exactly do you think Shizuo actually hates Izaya so much, even though he admitted that he, too, wanted to make at least shallow relationships, much like Izaya. Vorona and Izaya are kind of similar in someways, so I'm wondering why he accepts her despite knowing her intentions, but still shuns Izaya.
Heiwajima Shizuo is a man of black and white.
I’m not talking about his bartender suit. I’m talking abouthis mindset.
Bad guys are bad, good guys are good.
Gambling is bad, so all people who gamble should be beatenup.
Tom-san is my senpai who gave me a job, so I’m indebted tohim.
Varona is my kouhai, so she cannot be a bad person.
Izaya is a shitty flea who ruins my peace, so I hate him.
Shizuo sees the world in black and white – in terms ofabsolutes.
These staunch beliefs serve to compose Shizuo’s world.
Going from sweeping statements tomaking perceptions –
The girl who attacked me is just a kid, she’s innocent, theremust have been someone else behind this.
Violence is bad, people don’t want to hang around me becauseI’m violent, kids didn’t want to play with me because I’m violent, violencehurts people, violence is bad – I use violence, I’m bad. I’m a monster.
I want peace. I can’t have peace because of my violence. Ihate violence.
I hate violence, but I’m the one who’s always violent – Ihate myself.
- And so on. Shizuo’s beliefs grow to become hisperceptions.
Shizuo’s skill is his deduction.
Not his strength. His strength isn’t a skill. It’s somethinghe was born with.
Shizuo’s skill is his deduction –
Because he forms his perceptions through his variousbeliefs.
He deduces, through his beliefs, what is the most likelypossibility and from that his perception is formed.
- Did he kill those three men? …Not likely.- There’s no way that Izaya would have had strong enough arms to kill thosethree men bare-handed like that. First of all, why on earth would he want tomake such total enemies of the Awakusu-kai folks in the first place?- If he didn’t do it himself, then he must have gotten the informationbeforehand that someone else was going to do it and tricked me into going thereon purpose…
Izaya doesn’t havestrong enough arms to kill three men bare-handed, Izaya wouldn’t want to makeenemies of the Awakusu-kai –
Most likely Izayadidn’t kill the three men.
If he didn’t killthe three men, he should have known someone else was going to do it.
If he knew someoneelse was going to do it, he must have gotten the information beforehand.
And so on. It’s allvery logical thinking through pure deduction. And since it was Mikiya who hiredSlon to kill the three men and Izaya knew about it, Shizuo came to the correctconclusion.
Because Shizuo said in SH that he wrote in his elementaryschool graduation anthology that he wanted to be a detective, it could be thathe was aware of his skill of deduction from young.
“Look, all it means that when I lose it, it’s ‘cause things make no sense. If there was any logic to it, then I wouldn’t get pissed even if I got shot or stabbed.”
He says it to himself to Varona. He loses it when thingsmake no sense – which means things mustmake sense to him. Which means he relies on logic and reason.
What does this have to do with Shizuo’s black and whitemindset?
It has to do with the forming of his perceptions beingconstructed through logic and reason.
I hate violence, but I’m the one who’s always violent – Ihate myself.
And it’s true. He’s the one who is most violent of all eventhough he hates violence, and thus it’s only reasonable for him to hatehimself.
And it because it’s reasonable,because his perception of himself as someone to be hated is formed through logic and reason which makes sense to him,he cannot reject it.
Becauserejecting it would mean rejecting his own deduction.
And this is exactly why Shizuo hates, and has continued tohate Izaya for years and will not entertain any thought of Izaya having one bitof good in him even if Shinra says it – because it goes against his black andwhite perception and his deduction.
More importantly – Izaya has done nothing to change Shizuo’sperception. He acts exactly like the shitty flea Shizuo thinks he is,manipulating humans and doing other shitty things, taunting Shizuo, gettingpeople Shizuo cares about involved. He basically just proves Shizuo’s deduction.
If he had done something – tried to get along with Shizuo,or show weakness in front of him, Shizuo could have changed his mind about him.
Because Shizuo cannot reject his own deduction of Izaya as ashitty flea.
So if the shitty flea shows weakness, Shizuo knows it’sreal, but logic tells him it can’t be, his perception of Izaya will become alljumbled up and he might even blame himself.
Because if shitty fleas don’t show weaknesses, but theshitty flea is showing weakness, and that weakness is real, but Izaya is ashitty flea but he’s showing such weakness in front of him –
It is for once not the shitty flea’s fault but his.
He must have done something so bad that even Izaya theshitty flea cannot hold back a display of weakness.
When his black and white perception is invaded by a hint ofgrey, Shizuo begins to doubt and reconsider.
But Izaya has yet to show any sort of weakness in front ofShizuo, and so Shizuo continues to hate him.
The issue is – Shizuo is a creature of deduction.
If manipulation is Izaya’s game, deduction is Shizuo’s.
Because Shizuo is just as independent – if not more, thanIzaya.
Izaya is all alone, no one wants to have hotpot with him, he’sso lonely he talks to himself, etc. Even back then he was a distant kid.
Izaya is envious of Shizuo for having friends when he doesn’t.
But Shizuo has been alone too.
He didn’t choose to go on his own path and live a lifedifferent from a normal human’s.
He was forced out of the path of a normal human’s because ofhis monstrous strength.
Out of nowhere – when he was just a normal kid albeit with atemper, he suddenly gains this monstrous strength and becomes violent andscares everyone away and gets shunned by society.
It’s like you were normal, accepted by the other kids in theearly years of your life, then suddenly when you reach elementary school peoplestart bullying and shunning you for something you didn’t even know how ithappened. And you gain such a bad reputation people shun you even in middleschool and high school and no one wants to be friends with you because they seeyou as a monster.
That kind of psychological impact is big.
Izaya wasn’t excluded from society. Girls worshipped him inhigh school. His classmates in middle school thought he was nice. His sistersprobably loved him since their parents were overseas. He was just a loner bynature. And once he embarked on his own path and was willing to do horriblethings for his own personal desires – only then did people reject him.
But Shizuo was excluded from society from the start. Peoplesaw him as a monster, they were scared of him, he grew to believe he was a monster– and he isolated himself from society.
Considering this, what would Shizuo do?
Shizuo observes differently from Izaya.
If Izaya observes from the outside looking in, Shizuoobserves from the inside because no one wants to be with him even though he’sin the same place as them.
So Shizuo observes, because there’s no one to teach him(Shinra doesn’t count, since the first thing he said is that he wanted todissect Shizuo), because he’s already troubling his family with the hospitalbills, because the last time he loved, he hurt the person with his violence.
So he observes, and deduces on his own through logic andreason, forminghis own rules and perceptions – and that’s probably been his way of life as he’s lived independentlyfor many years.
This may have led to his black and white thinking since heneeds a basis, a firm foundation for himself as he had no one to lean onto orseek help from.
Though it turns out to be bad, like Shizuo beats up anyonewho pisses him off, like ‘people who pissme off deserve to be beaten up’ –
It’s something that has been with him throughout his life,which makes it hard for people to convince him otherwise.
However, Shizuo is open to consideration.
His character has developed.
He has learnt to not only care for himself as he had to,having been alone and independent, but to consider others’ feelings as well.
Because despite Shizuo’s black and white thinking –
It’s important to note the distinction.
In simple terms, judging is forming a conclusion, whileperception is just understanding or interpreting in a certain way.
They’re similar, but I see perceiving as an attempt tounderstand, while judging is more of a solid definition.
Of course Shizuo judges from his perception such as howgamblers deserve to be beaten up because all gamblers are bad, but for exampleif he met a gambler who is not bad, or if someone he knew like Tom turned toout be a gambler in the past, his perception would change and he would revokehis judgment.
And that’s what happened with Kujiragi and Varona.
For Kujiragi, Shizuo matured enough to hold back hisjudgment. He asked her and Seitarou what they wanted with Celty – when in thepast he would have beaten the bad guys up without caring about reasons of anysort.
“I get your drift. You guys have your reasons, I guess.”
Of course in the end he threw the piece of wall at her, but he stilltold Kujiragi that he’s made trouble for Celty and she heard him out and now it’shis turn to listen to her –
Shizuo tried to communicatewith Kujiragi, even though she was the ‘bad guy’.
Because she had her reasons, even though they were justcommercial, and she was honest with him.
And so he was honest back to her, treating her like a personrather than just a ‘bad guy’.
He allowed his perception to change, because he held backhis judgment on her.
Izaya doesn’t have reasons of any sort.
Shizuo doesn’t understand that.
Because Shizuo doesn’t understand love.
Especially not for the humans who shunned them both.
Izaya makes no sense to Shizuo.
Shizuo can’t understand Izaya.
Which is why Shizuo hates him.
Shizuo hates things that make no sense, that he can’tunderstand.
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