𝓜𝓮𝓻𝓰𝓮 𝔀𝓲𝓽𝓱 𝓜𝓮

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With Kenny, it's mostly the novelty seeking and stimulation seeking through their curiosity that leads me to think this. They aren't driven by revenge, ideology, power, or cruelty for cruelty's sake like most typical anime villains. Nearly everything they do comes back to curiosity, so the concept of Boredom Susceptibility (https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12889986/ full of other great resources too) applies perfectly. They're willing to wait centuries, discard people who have outlived their usefulness, upend their own plans if something more interesting presents itself, etc and they even admit as much when they're asked if they'd change their plans if something more interesting came along in canon. Cloninger’s Psychobiological Model of Personality as a whole is what led me to start describing Kenjaku as novelty seeking to begin with. I know this kind of information isn't common knowledge, so here's the core terms I'm referring to:

High Novelty Seeking: A genetic tendency toward exhilaration in response to novel stimuli. It leads to exploratory activity and strong avoidance of monotony and boredom.

Low Harm Avoidance: A lack of behavioral inhibition. People low in HA are carefree, relaxed, daring, fearless, and often act recklessly. They do not anticipate negative outcomes.

Low Reward Dependence: A lack of need for social attachment/approval from others within society. Kenjaku looks for validation from no one.

With these in mind, Kenjaku is really the ultimate representation of Cloninger’s ASPD trait triad. This is also tied to Underarousal Hypothesis, which is seen in ASPD cases (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8853591/) as well. The basic idea here is how some people with ASPD have a lower baseline of autonomic arousal and need high stakes, chaotic input to feel content/sated in the way a nonASPD person may with much less intense stimuli. If Kenny were real, the Sensation Seeking Scale questionnaire could be administered to either support or weaken this, but alas.

They're also very egosyntonic. Kenjaku sees no wrong in their goals, nor the means to achieve them. These actions are justified because they serve the purpose of sating their need for novel stimulation. ASPD is also a highly egosyntonic disorder, as most cluster B's are, but this does depend on the individual. Often those who live with it feel their behavior is rational and even justified rather than abnormal or disordered, but this can also look like indifference to the symptoms/behaviors one presents.

The emotional side is another part of it. Obviously everyone living with ASPD experiences it a bit differently, and this is based on my own research and education on the subject. Kenjaku obviously experiences emotions and feelings. Amusement, satisfaction, irritation, excitement, but they very rarely seem to experience significant attachment to others, if at all. People are fascinating variables, tools, something in between, etc, but I don't really see evidence that empathy, guilt, or affection governs their behavior in the way it does for most characters. Regarding their past with Tengen, clearly something occurred there. I'm hesitant to label the exact flavor of attachment they had with Tengen, but there must have been something there. You don't end up sitting alone in the middle of the street hundreds of years later, playing video games and monologuing into the void about someone if they didn't matter to you.

The entirety of the "I am not like YOU, Tengen" speech embodies this, imo. To me, that reads as Kenjaku being disappointed in the choices Tengen made, perhaps not even solely around rejecting evolution, but also potentially from an ideological and lifestyle standpoint. Kenny is the opposite of Tengen in many ways, but that's it's own can of worms. My point is that Kenjaku also remembers and holds grudges when those that they are attached to act in a way that they disagree with/are disappointed in, and it feels very human compared to how we typically see Kenjaku remarking on others. You can argue some degree of cognitive dissonance here as well. People with ASPD can have very intense, possessive attachments, though usually out of selfishness rather than genuinity. The only other person who can even possibly relate to Kenjaku chose to live their immortality in a way that staunchly offends Kenjaku's ways, and thus Kenny ends up hung up on them in an unhealthy way.

The entire dialogue about "You're all like seasoning and water to me" comes to mind, the conversation with Hazenoki about how Kenjaku doesn't have many friends and the criteria they list, how Kenjaku views the Death Paintings as failures and abandoned them until some could be of use, how they remark that they had no specific plan for Yuji, etc etc. Their relationship with Yuji is a pretty hot topic that everyone has different opinions on for different reasons, but PURELY canonically speaking, I think Yuji was just another step in the experiment towards their goal. It's fun to wonder if there are any possible maternal feelings, and I like this interpretation, but it just isn't there in canon. The "thank you for getting along with my son" line could be loaded, but I can't read the OG Japanese text to glean any further insight. To me, this is Kenjaku thanking Sasaki and the Occult Club for dragging Yuji into the Jujutsu World and leading to him eating the first finger. Kenjaku is also incredibly highly intelligent, so I'd say they are fully capable of performing cognitive empathy extraordinarily well. This is likely how they're so adept at reading others and predicting others actions before they do them, which makes planning around others easier. They know exactly how to push Choso's buttons regarding his brothers, and knows exactly how to manipulate the Jujutsu higher ups and how to play the disaster curses like a fiddle. They even exhibit this when fighting Yuki, calling her lack of confidence in a clash of domains, and employs this tactic of manipulation to break down Takaba's confidence before their fight.

Before I wrap this yap up, I really want to touch on one more thing: loneliness. It’s a huge, often overlooked theme for Kenny, and it ties into the ASPD headcanon. There's a big misconception (in media especially) that because people with ASPD might struggle with emotional empathy or tend to instrumentalize others, they don't experience isolation. But navigating the world with those traits and way of thinking can be very alienating (be it as a result of their behavior or otherwise). Think about the Hazenoki convo again, if everyone around you is just a variable in an experiment, disposable, or as they put it, "seasoning and water", who do you actually connect with? When you combine a millennium of existence with an ASPD adjacent personality, you get a character who is fundamentally, terrifyingly alone and living in a different perception of the world than nearly anyone else.

This is exactly why the Takaba fight is so important. Takaba is the one person who genuinely excites Kenjaku on a personal level that we see in the story. Takaba is unpredictable, his CT is the epitome of unpredictable chaos, and he ends up treating Kenjaku as a playful equal, even if by accident. It’s the closest thing we see to friendship for them. Kenny doesn’t connect through normal means at all, and even here they were essentially forced into the situation via Takaba's CT messing with them. Again, they connect through shared stimulation and the thrill of novelty in their experience. Isolation might be the real motivator behind their grand plan. If you can't connect with humanity as it currently exists because it bores you to Hell n back, what else do you do? Though I will say this is where I like to lean more into the Buddhist inspirations and less on the psychological lens, because the ties to Fukūkenjaku Kannon add so much to analyze via the subversive nature of the character in that perspective.

I also must acknowledge possible counterarguments, in true psych major style. Again, this is a fictional character, and characters are exactly that, and tend to lack the nuance and three dimensionality of REAL personalities and disorders. I’m fully aware that someone could argue Kenjaku’s behavior isn't indicative of a disorder at all. There are so many factors here. A normal sorcerer already requires a higher threshold for stress, For Kenjaku to be underaroused relative to other sorcerers means their baseline autonomic arousal is extremely abnormally low. Their lifespan and experiences therein, the supernatural nature of the world of JJK, how the world of sorcery is inherently violent and 'abnormal' compared to the model of living that disordered behavior is compared to, what the reader projects onto the character, so on so forth. Maybe Kenny is just pragmatic, and high intelligence and age can mimic detachment and some antisocial traits. My friend has even compared some aspects of Kenny to autism.

I'd love to hear more perspectives. If you think there are parts that could be expanded upon, or parts that don't hit right, I'm all ears. I'd much rather refine my interpretation than cling to it if someone with lived experience has a different read.