(CW: Lot's of talk of SA, violence, familial abuse, gore and other hard subjects. Another disclaimer is it's been years at this point since I reread Tokyo Ghoul, so I'm going off of memory. Apologies if I get any details wrong!)
I randomly heard Unravel again, and it brought me back to being a teenager obsessed with Tokyo Ghoul, so forgive me for yapping for a minute:
Tokyo ghoul is kind of hit or miss on how it delivers on its themes, especially later on. With Kaneki's torture though, the real tragedy of it for his character is how he gives in and tries his best to eliminate his inherent sensitivity. Memories of his mom working herself to death to help others haunts him. He finally realizes he actually deep down hates his mom's motto, “It’s better to be hurt then hurt others.”, the same one he's been quoting himself up until now.
All of this is brought forward because of the ritual of an older, emotionally closed off, and violent man turning a younger, sensitive, kinder man into being like him succeeded and Kaneki has internalized that you need to be cruel to survive. OR at least until later on when Touka and his friends help heal him.
He endures immense pain, gets humiliated, forced to watch other people killed for his sake, and is heavily implied to have been sexually abused. (I know this part is a fan theory, I'll try to find the link but I'm vaguely remembering this from like 8 or 9 years ago. That being said, is it really a stretch?).
(here's a panel later on in the manga showing an x ray of Kaneki. This is a big part of what fueled the theorizing back in the day about him being sexually assaulted, due to how much RC cell trauma is clustered around his pelvis. And here's the source for this image )
It's a little triumphant when he turns the tables and gives Yamori a taste of his own medicine, but it's ultimately just sad. It's a not a coincidence the fight ends with Kaneki sitting on his tormentor's rear/upper thighs. (More evidence for the SA theory.) It would be one thing if Kaneki just killed him in self defense, but he takes the time to taunt, humiliate, and slowly eat him alive. Obviously considering what he went through, it's human to want revenge, but it's still really tragic because Kaneki has been irrerepably changed by this experience.
Speaking of irreparably changed, I'll include probably the most famous quote from Tokyo Ghoul, and one that I think is the closest to Kaneki's actual mindset early on in the story:
“Human relationships are chemical reactions. If you have a reaction then you can never return back to your previous state of being.”
(I know he's paraphrasing Jung here, and I also understand that this isn't really an accurate understanding of chemistry. Kaneki's a literature student though, so he's clearly viewing it more from that lens.)
He goes from stating his mom's motto as quoted earlier, to Yamori's ""Every time someone is disadvantaged in the world, it is because of their 'lack of ability.' The weak are trampled. They are overrun. They are violated. They are afflicted."
The fact that when he fights Ayato right after, and is similarly cruel, says it all. The sadism isn't just reserved for his tormentor. He may loathe his own tormentor but he's still come to agree with his tormentor's worldview.
We later learn Yamori had a similar experience, he was brutally tortured by a sadistic prison warden until he also got a chance to turn the tables. Torturing his own tormentor before escaping, emphasizing the cyclical nature of this specific kind of violence that men inflict on each other. Of course that's not to say men don't inflict violence, cruelty, humiliation, and sexual assault on women, that would be an incredibly stupid thing to say. The difference though, is that many men think there's value in forcing other men they perceive as "weak" to become more emotional dead and cruel like themselves. These same men don't see any value in dialoguing with a woman.
Speaking of that, we see the other side of the coin later on, that being how AFAB people experience a similar ritual at the hands of tormentors. Though very different in how it's carried out and what the goal is. Torso just sees Mutsuki as a sex object and someone he can fantasize about, not as a fully realized human being. He has no lesson to impart to them. I honestly don't really want to talk about Mutsuki anymore in this post, because that's a whole other can of worms and I don't think Ishida did a great job with their character towards the end, still there's one last parallel I want to draw between Kaneki and Mutsuki.
Here's how Juuzou finds Yamori after Kaneki left him to die alone and in agony. (And the source for this image )
And this is how Urie finds Torso after Mutsuki had their revenge. (This image was just from the Tokyo Ghoul wiki.)
I usually think it's annoying when people say you really have to read the source material to understand something, but in this case it's true. The Tokyo ghoul manga is just superior in basically every way, you wouldn't get a lot of this subtext from just the anime adaptions. Even the first season, which is the only one that is at least an adequate adaption. Hearing the incredible Unravel during a well animated fight is awesome, but it also distracts a bit from the tragedy of what we're witnessing.
I need to read more Choujin X, because for all his flaws as a storyteller, Ishida is very skilled at depicting horrific abuse and the consequences it has on people's psyche.
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