Louder than Bomb

I think that a lot of the confusion over Gojo calling Sukuna strong comes from Gojo's confidence in the fight and people's own emotions toward Sukuna. We've all seen the fraud memes and Gojo did an expectational job showing his own fighting prowess during the second half of the fight, but a lot of people seem to be forgetting that Sukuna almost killed Gojo as soon as the fight started. Up until the fight flipped in Gojo's favor (after Sukuna was hit by Unlimited Void) Gojo was struggling. If Sukuna hadn't been holding back his other techniques to a) keep them a secret from spectators and b) ensure that Mahoraga adapted to Unlimited Void out of sight, it's very possible Gojo would have died after their first Domain Clash ended in Sukuna's favor.

Quick Explanation: In chapter 226, after Gojo's Domain breaks and he loses his technique for a time, but before he uses Simple Domain to save himself from Malevolent Shrine, Sukuna could have used his fire arrow in the same way he did against Mahoraga in Shibuya. With the amount of damage Gojo was taking at the time, we don't know if he would have been able to survive it, especially when all of his CE was being focused on healing the slashes Sukuna was dealing and likely couldn't have been spared to reinforce his body. (But once again, Sukuna was holding himself back, so neither us nor Gojo will ever know if he could have eneded their fight there.)

This is why I personally don't see anything wrong with Gojo being unsure if he could have beat Sukuna even without Ten Shadows.

But moving on to the less combat focused section of what I want to talk about. What was up with Gojo's confidence up until the literal end, only for him to doubt himself after the fact? I have two points for this one:

Gojo has to be strong for his students.

I touched on it in my response to one of your previous posts, (read: here) but I can't stress enough how Gojo's strength and, by extension, his confidence in his strength is for his students' sake. He teaches through his actions, but more importantly, he never shows them his own doubt.

The first time he fights Sukuna, he points out that Megumi is watching and, in his own words, "shows off."

Then, going into their actual fight in chapter 222, he looks serious in a way that we never really see from him. At least, up until the point where Yuuji reminds him that he and all his other students are there, that they're confident in him, and we see his entire demeanor going into the fight change. He's smiling; he's not worried in the least. He says, "Yeah, I got this," with a grin on his face, and that, more than it'll ever be for himself, was for his students.

There's another shift after the opening stage of their fight in chapter 224. What always stuck out to me from that chapter was Gojo noticing that their fight was being broadcasted. I won't go so far as to say he was less confident before that point or even that he wasn't trying as hard because that simply isn't true. But after he realizes that his students can see the fight as it's happening, Gojo's approach to fighting Sukuna changes almost entirely. Before, he was visibly having fun. Before, he was treating Sukuna as an equal to cut his teeth against. Was he getting on Sukuna's nerves intentionally, yes, but there was an aspect to it that felt more similar to how he spoke to Geto in their teenage years. Still antagonistic, that's just how his personality is, but not degrading in the way that he is later. (I'll expand on this thought in another post. For now, let's get back to my original point.)

After he spots Mei Mei's crows, Gojo never, not once, for the remainder of the fight expresses doubt in himself in any outward way.

We see frustration, we see anger, we see surprise, but never doubt. Never worry. And what does he say as soon as he get's the upper hand in the fight?

But why? Why is making sure that his students remain confident in him so important? Well, what's the answer to almost any question when it comes to Gojo's motivations?

Hidden Inventory and losing the person that mattered to him the most: Suguru Geto.

The same confidence that Gojo shows as an adult is what we see here, with one important distinction. He shares the place of being the strongest with Geto. "We're the strongest" isn't about them individually holding the title; it's about them together. They as a unit are the strongest. But here, Gojo tries to shoulder the burden of his fight against Toji alone while he sends Geto off with Riko and Kuroi. He seperates them and that duality of strength becomes weaker. Gojo loses, Riko dies, Geto loses, and they fail.

In the aftermath, Geto takes the guilt from that loss onto himself, and it only widens that separation into a chasm that Gojo is never able to cross. But we spend so much time talking about Geto's guilt over Hidden Inventory that I think we overlook Gojo's.

Even in a state where he'd feel nothing over killing a roomful of people, where he can't feel anger toward Toji over Riko, he feels like he messed up. He places blame on himself for their failure. Not just because he had lost but because Geto --someone that shared the position of being the Strongest with him-- expressed doubt in him shouldering so much of their mission at multiple points, only for Gojo to give him confidence in return and have that confidence ultimately be misplaced.

But isn't he making the same mistake with his students? Yes, and no.

Yes, in that he's giving them reassurance that is tragically (for lack of better word) misplaced, but no, in that they never expressed doubt in him. Not just because they aren't on his level when it comes to strength like Suguru was, but because he never gives them the chance to doubt him.

From the very beginning, when Yuuji first becomes his student, he makes sure that Yuuji doesn't have any doubt in him winning against Sukuna. And even when he's asked again at a time where none of his students are present, he thinks of this exchange with Yuuji. And his response to Kenjaku now was the same that it was to Yuuji.: "Nah, I'd win."

This isn't to say that Gojo didn't have faith in himself going into the fight or even through the majority of it. It would be at least disingenuous and at most outrageous for me to say that Gojo's confidence in himself was an act only for his students sake. What I'm saying with all of this is actually my second point in this post:

Gojo only expresses his true feelings to himself and....

I'm quickly running into the photo limit for this post so I'll be using quotes, but in chapter 233, we get, "Even though the opponent was the King of Curses, said to be the strongest in history, a thought nobody considered possible began to spread; Satoru Gojo could lose. Gojo himself was aware of that prospect. Yet, along with the signs of defeat came an undeniable feeling of satisfaction."

I've read through the entire fight multiple times now, and this is the only time that we see Gojo express doubt in himself. But instead of it feeling like a loss, as we'd expect, it's written as a positive. Gojo isn't upset at the idea that he might lose. He embraces it. As was stated both in chapter 233 and again in chapter 236, he's satisfied. Not just because he gave this fight everything that he had, but because him losing means that he'll return to the person that understood him --and the burden of being the strongest-- the best.

Much like Suguru couldn't smile from the bottom of his heart until his last moment with Gojo, Gojo couldn't be truly happy in a world where no one understood him. If Geto had been there with him, if Geto had been alive and by his side to share the burden and isolation of strength in the jujutsu world, he could have been truly happy with his life.

But that wasn't the reality that he lived in, nor was it something he could ever hope to accomplish.

Gojo's dream was to raise stronge allies, but that was never so that they could share the burden of strength with him. It was so that they could share it with each other. So that they never experienced the isolation of being strong alone the way that he did for the majority of his life. He wanted them to have their own Geto in each other.

It's not that he changed up his attitude regarding the fight and Sukuna after he died, but rather that his death brought him back to the person that he could finally (finally, after so long of being a pillar of strength rather than a person) express his true feelings to.

Or, to continue the quote from 233: "Being the strongest came with a sense of isolation. So the source of his present sense of fulfillment was..."