#mg meta

"They planted the Whomping Willow the same year that I arrived at Hogwarts. People used to play a game, trying to get near enough to touch the trunk. In the end, a boy called Davey Gudgeon nearly lost an eye, and we were forbidden to go near it." "I told you, months ago, that the Whomping Willow was planted the year I came to Hogwarts. The truth is that it was planted because I came to Hogwarts. This house" — Lupin looked miserably around the room — "the tunnel that leads to it — they were built for my use." — Remus Lupin, PoA

We know the Whomping Willow was planted at Hogwarts when Remus enrolled to cover up the opening of the secret passage to the Shrieking Shack — but the students didn't know that. The older students, sure, may have noticed that they didn't remember the tree being there when they were younger, but they'd be totally uninvolved in the drama of 5th years. And for 5th years and below, for all they knew, the tree had always been there — as much a part of Hogwarts as the groundskeeper's hut or the Forbidden Forest.

Now, we also know that students knew about the tunnel in a lore sort of way:

"And you're being really ungrateful. I heard what happened the other night. You went sneaking down that tunnel by the Whomping Willow, and James Potter saved you from whatever's down there—" — Lily Evans, DH

And we know Dumbledore encouraged lore about the Shrieking Shack:

"The villagers heard the noise and the screaming and thought they were hearing particularly violent spirits. Dumbledore encouraged the rumor…Even now, when the house has been silent for years, the villagers don't dare approach it." — Remus Lupin, PoA

From this, I don't think it's far-fetched to conclude that not only were the students/villagers completely ignorant of any sort of connection between the Whomping Willow and the Shrieking Shack, but that the students would have been gaslit (intentionally) into thinking that the Whomping Willow had always been there and was a source of hidden danger not unlike the Forbidden Forest.

And when viewed from that angle, it means that not only was Snape clever enough to have uncovered not just Lupin's secret but Dumbledore's — but that because of the encouraged, gaslighting lore built up around the tree itself, to the rest of the students (to Lily), it looked like Snape was just another kid taking his shot at getting past a violent tree and into some secret, legendary tunnel with some secret, legendary scary thing at the bottom of it — and he failed. He failed so bad, in fact, that another student had to save him. And not just any other student, but his archenemy who normally bullied him. Snape's situation was so dire that the popular, spoiled Gryffindor kid who usually trades hexes with him on the regular took pity on him and went into the tunnel of lore after him to save him!

Can you imagine how that conversation would have gone in the Headmaster's office? "Yes, Severus, you figured it all out. No, you may not tell anyone under any circumstances — or else." And then can you imagine how angry James would be at Snape for knowing more than he should? And then how angry Snape would be that James gets to walk away from this situation looking like the hero while Snape looks like the loser who had to be rescued from the tree, all while knowing that Dumbledore (and James, and Sirius, and Peter, and Remus, and maybe even other teachers), are all gaslighting the student body for Remus's benefit?

And what did the students at large think was down at the bottom of the tunnel? If James had to rescue Snape from "whatever's down there" does that mean there were rumors as to what that was? Was James not talking (being ~mysterious~), or was he spinning tales, encouraging rumors, just like Dumbledore had done? Did Snape try and change the narrative (without tiptoeing too close to anything that would get him in trouble for outing Remus), or did he just endure it?

Regardless of those finer details, I think this was a seismic shift in the power game between James and Snape. Because it wasn't about cat and mouse anymore, it wasn't about dueling — it was about knowledge. It was about having cards. They'd both participated in spinning a PR narrative (even though on Snape's part it was begrudgingly), they both came away from it feeling like there was still hell to pay, and they both had leverage over the other person.

By the time we skip forward to O.W.L.s not long after, tension between them is at an all-time high. We all know James's side of that in terms of wanting to protect Remus, Snape being a long-standing enemy, and being angry about Snape knowing about Remus. But what I think is often missing — what really balances out the power play going on between them — is Snape's angle of being blisteringly angry at James. It's not only that Snape knows about Remus and can't out him (though that's obviously a huge part of it) — it's that Snape has had to watch (and even perpetuate) a false narrative about himself that shows James — his bully, his enemy — in a positive light.

And on James's side (and I want to be really clear this isn't an attempt to excuse his actions, just an attempt to dissect James's emotions as a character), I think he was positively furious that the person whose sole mission in life seemed to be to get one of his best friends kicked out of school — the person who was openly infatuated with the Dark Arts, which James despised — the person who was friends with the girl James was utterly smitten with but who didn't fancy him back, let alone even like him — knew the whole truth and had the power to expose them.

And simultaneously, because of the fact that James had Dumbledore "on his side" and was the one person personally benefiting from the aftermath of the situation ("I heard what happened…James Potter saved you"), I think he was gloating harder than he'd ever gloated before. He was positively drunk on the attention. He'd protected his friend, and he'd gotten the glory for it, and everyone (including the girl he liked) thought he'd faced off with the mysterious scary thing at the bottom of the mysterious tunnel no one's ever gotten into in order to RESCUE somebody (chivalry! honor! bravery!), and Snape couldn't say ANYTHING!! (Well, he theoretically could (grr) but he wouldn't, not with the all-mighty Dumbledore telling him not to.) It was like having a foot on Snape's neck, and the victory of it tasted so sweet he didn't want Snape to forget it for a second.

A defining trait of James is that he's reckless (especially when he's younger). James doesn't have the fear he should have, and what he lacks in fear he makes up for in arrogance. He doesn't back off from bullying Snape out of fear or worry that Snape will retaliate by outing Remus because it's not James's threat keeping Snape quiet — it's Dumbledore's. James merely has the na-na-naNAna leverage of being the one who can flaunt his cards in Snape's face knowing that Snape can't/won't use his. And so he does.

1. Character Concept: The Jungian Shadow

There’s a lot that can be discerned about Ougi just from the type of character they are. Their relationship with Araragi defines them entirely, without Araragi there is no Ougi. 

Ougi’s design is intentionally meant to parallel Araragi’s. Araragi has a very bland light novel protagonist kind of look to him (hence why he never gets any cover art) his only distinguishing feature is that his hair is styled to cover one eye at almost all times. This is because Araragi’s primary character trait is obfuscation looking at things through only one eye you are never going to get the entire picture. 

If Araragi’s character design is plain and normal, because that is what the primary protagonist type of these kind of series are an ordinary high school boy, then Ougi’s is the opposite, their design is attention grabbing and unique. If Araragi is normal, Ougi is visibly abnormal, you can already tell there is something subtly off by looking at them. What Araragi hides underneath the surface, Ougi is. 

The primary feature of Ougi’s face and the one you notice immediately is their eyes, large, dull eyes, which are the focus of their entire face. Ougi is always shown staring forward with those eyes, unblinking, directly at you. It’s symbolic, eyes are symbols of insight, if Araragi obfuscates then Ougi sees everything. Ougi also wears the Naoetsu high girls uniform. They take the appearance of what Araragi cares about the most, a girl that he can save. Their skin is pale, and their hair dark, which could mean two things, either black and white, light and shadow kind of thinking that Ougi represents or, it’s just supposed to make them look like the kind of ghost that is common in Japanese horror. 

Finally, Ougi’s sleeves are so long that their hands are almost never shown. This indicates two things, one human hands are signs of intimacy. What are your hands for? is a pretty famous quote from Evangelion, by never showing their hands Ougi cuts off intimacy because they exist as a symbol of isolation. The next is that Araragi is characterized as someone who always reaches out a helping hand, whereas Ougi is the opposite they stress individual agency and often leave others like Nadeko to their own fate. They may orchestrate things from the shadows, but ultimately Ougi never directly acts, and let’s the characters decide to step off the cliff all by themselves. 

The fact that Araragi a boy, makes Ougi appear as a girl is also a play on binary gender. Ougi is technically genderless, but they appear as a girl initially because themes of binary opposition, and black and white thinking are at play in their character. Araragi is someone who tends to see the world in a binary way. Light and dark, black and white, male and female, they assume there is some kind of proper order to the world that needs to be followed. When Araragi begins to let go of these ideas Ougi is freer to express their gender any way they like. 

A binary opposition (also binary system) is a pair of related terms or concepts that are opposite in meaning. Binary opposition is the system of language and/or thought by which two theoretical opposites are strictly defined and set off against one another.

Ougi is based primarily on two ideas. One of them is a pretty obvious reference to the King of Distortion from Boogiepop, which is the series which started what we now call ‘Light Novels’ in Japan by popularizing urban stories with heavy sci-fi or fantasy elements. Araragi even directly references the king of Distortion. 

“Tell me, what are you thinking about now...?” “Don’t suddenly become the king of Distortion.” Out with the cool quotes, scolded my sister. I deeply reflected on it. (Nekomonogatari White).’

The king of Distortion is a character who’s physical appearance and personality changes with every character they interact with, and who is able to enter the dreams of other people and see the desires in their heart after which point he makes an attempt to correct them. 

While the King's personality changes with whatever person's form he is taking, in general, he seems to share a soft-spoken, calm and collected attitude each time, always seeming confident, most likely because of his knowledge of distortions in the hearts of each person's subconcious he enters. He claims his goal to be to 'turn the people's suffering into gold', which involves having people deal with their inner turmoils and coming to terms with them, which is why Boogiepop does not consider the King an enemy of the world, as he doesn't truly do anything particularly villainous.

King of Distortion like Ougi is also born from a single character’s regrets.  The King of Distortion was born the moment Shirou Tanaka arrived at the Moon Temple. The main cause for the King's creation was the pent-up regret Shirou felt after entering a relationship with Naoko Kamishiro even though he didn't love her, figuring that he would just develop feelings for her later. After the girl's death, Shirou's self-hatred grew as he realized he wasn't particularly affected by her death in any real way. These feelings were also amplified by the fact that he knew about Akio Kimura, someone who truly loved Naoko, and deserved her way more than himself. These complex feelings of his manifested as the King of Distortion, a being born from Shirou's MPLS evolution.

King of Distortion is an entity born from repressed regrets and self hatred, what a character refuses to acknowledge about themselves or confront. Therefore, both King and Ougi are Jungian shadow archetypes. 

Both as one, one as both.

One is both, both are one.

The Niounomiya siblings with their slaughtering magic.

He and she pass their time in the same body.

Passing their shuttered time.

Passing their shuttered space.

She is Jekyll, and he is Hyde.

One as both, both as one.

Both are one, one is both. Hitokui Magical - [x].

Robert Louis Stevenson wrote the now famous tale, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a story famous for its astute psychological insight that “Man is not truly one, but truly two.” 

In Stevenson’s novel, Dr. Jekyll is a well respected doctor who cares deeply about the admiration of others and strives to be a good human being. In his laboratory he concocts a potion that when ingested transforms him into Mr. Hyde a primitive, unruly and destructive man. Reflecting on the nature of his transformation, he discovers a truth about the nature of a human being. 

“I learned to recognize the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I could be rightly said to be the either, it was only because I was radically both.” [Source.]

The shadow exists in a dual relationship with the persona, developing in turn with it. In Jung’s terms the self, is the sum total of the psyche. Both is one, and one is both. 

The persona comes from the latin word for “mask”, it’s the elements of personality which arises “for reasons of adaptation or personal convenience.” [Source.] It’s a simple idea, the way you talk around your friends is different from the way you talk in front of your grandmother. People are constantly choosing consciously which parts of their personality to show in front of others, especially in relation to how they would like to be perceived. It is a performance, but that does not mean it is not real. Every part of the identity matters. 

It leans heavily on embodying only one’s best qualities, leaivng all those negative traits which contradict the Persona to form the “Shadow.” Jung called the shadow the part of the psyche the unconscoius aspect of the personality. Because one tends to reject or remain ignorant of the least desirable aspeccts of one’s personality, the shadow is largely negative. It consists of everything which exists outside of the light of consciousness, but it can be both positive and negative. “Everyone carries a shadow”, Jung wrote, “And the less it is embodied in a person’s life, the blacker and denser it is.” The shadow is unscious, things which our mind experiences but we cannot control, dreams, desires, instincts. 

Without a well developed shadow, a person can easily become shallow and extremely preoccupied with the opinions of others, much like how we see Araragi act in Monogatari. Jung believed that, not wanting to look at their shadows directly, many people project those flaws onto other people. 

In terms of literary theory then, the Jungian Shadow archetype is a character who is made up of all the flaws that the protagonist refuses to confront. They challenge the protagonist merely by existing, because the protagonist wants to look away and leave those qualities unacknowledged. Often, they are an antagonist merely because the protagonist projects all of the flaws they cannot see into themselves, onto that other person. 

2. Araragi Koyomi - He Obfuscates 

It is impossible to see the shadow without the light. It is impossible to describe Ougi without first talking about Araragi Koyomi. Just like Ougi, let’s start with the origins of his character. While this is just my own personal speculation I’m not NisioIsin, Araragi has always read as written in response to two things to me: First Ii-chan, the protagonist of his first series Zaregoto, and second harem protagonists in general. 

II-chan and Araragi are both very flawed and non-confrontational human beings, but whereas Zaregoto is a story about how II-chan really does not want to change himself and instead just kind of wants to stay treading water, wants to never cause any more ripples, wants to hold onto the fragile sense of self he has Araragi’s is a story of a bad and hypocritical, shallow kind of person striving to grow up and become a good person, acquire depth. 

The stereotypical harem protagonist is this, a plain guy with no personality who somehow gets girls to fall all over him, often for showing them the bare minimum of kindness. Monogatari is partially a deconstruction of harem series because it shows the kind of circumstances that would cause all these girls to fall all over one guy, literally they are all so deprive of affection that the smallest show of kindness does actually make them fixate on Araragi. 

The thing is Araragi does have a clear personality. He is very cynical, he’s judgemental of other people, he really likes to snark. Part of the reason he likes talking to Senjyogahara so much is he can be meaner, and sharper tongued than he normally presents himself as around people. He has traditional black and white views of justice. He tends to meddle. He is observant, but his style of thinking is flawed because he tends to jump to conclusions quickly rather than thinking out the details slowly and methodically. He’s almost constantly anxious, but usually responds to the anxiety with avoidance. However, a lot of his more distinct personality traits sound more negative rather than positive, so Araragi has a version of himself he presents to others who he is less close to. This ‘self’ is much more vague, and wishy-washy, very go with the flow. Despite the fact that Senjyo and Hanekawa both comment that Araragi is well known among the students as a delinquent, Araragi himself says that he’s a typical high school student with a completely normal personality. He defines himself as vague on purpose, that sole purpose being to appear as more acceptable to others, because like an ego that refuses to acknowledge his shadow Araragi is very shallow and defines himself entirely on the opinions of the other people around him. 

He is lacking a sense of self, or rather that sense of self eventually escapes from him when his shadow runs away Peter Pan style and becomes Ougi.

Araragi has three primary character flaws that manifest in the form of Ougi, Araragi is a hypocritical altruist who only cares about weak girls that need to be saved, Araragi obfuscates, and Araragi only thinks in black and white. 

Araragi is not someone who helps people because it is the right thing to do. He does not do good deeds because they are good. He only helps others because there is something he gains out of it. One thing that’s important about Araragi is that he has a cripplingly low self esteem, to the point of self harm, self flagellation, and even suicide attempts. 

He literally says so when he finds Kiss-Shot’s body, his first response is not to call for help but rather to try to let Kiss-Shot kill him, apologizing for living such a worthless life until this point. It’s not just that Kiss-Shot was in trouble, Araragi also made it about his own self loathing. 

Araragi seems selfless to a fault, but he’s actually very self obsessed. While it’s true that Araragi desires to be a good person, and improve as a person, his methods for self improvement are faulty. He’s obsessed with appearances, and it’s more like he wants the appearance of a good person rather than actually having to put in the work at first. He wants to feel like he’s saved others. He wants to feel like he is someone worth something. He saves others because it increases his self worth, and also once again he gets something out of it. Araragi saving women that are weaker than him makes him feel special, like somebodyy needs him. 

He wears the persona of a hero, rather than actually trying to be one. It happens again and again in the series. Despite the fact that Araragi actively does heroic things literally all the time, he also denies any role of being a hero because he does not want the responsibility of being one. Araragi wants the world to be burger king, he wants to have it his way. He wants the best of both worlds, Hannah Montana style. He wants to save girls, but he doesn’t want to be their hero and be entirely responsible for them.

“Araragi-kun, even if you can become a star, you can’t become a hero.” “I can’t become a star.” I shook my head. “I can only become a vampire.”  And I even failed at that. “I see.” So you’re not going to be - my hero.

Nekomonogatari: White (Hanekawa and Araragi)

Take his actions in Nekomonogatari. Araragi claims it’s impossible to be a hero, he says that Hanekawa cannot be saved and calls for her to take personal responsibility and face everything that is wrong with her life. However, rather than trying to just support her with that difficult task Araragi immediately jumps to self harm. 

It’s impossible for Araragi to become a hero, but he can swallow a katana and then trick Hanekawa into killing him because that is somehow easier than facing his feelings for Hanekawa head on. Araragi prefers bloody, painful self harm to the terrifying ordeal of being known. Araragi knows that Hanekawa is in need of help, but the fact that she is such a messy person different from the person he originally saw her as, makes him afraid of her. 

The thing is human beings are really sloppy. They are a messy gray, and Araragi wants to save them, but he really is just a kid out of his depth with a lot of things. He sees the abuse of Hanekawa’s household, and because he’s literally never even encountered an abusive life he gets so terrified that he runs away screaming. He does care about Hanekawa, but she’s far too complicated for him. He does not even want to touch that mess. It’s much easier for him to see Hanekawa as a hero, all black, or all white, then try to attempt something he does not know how to do and could screw up Hanekawa even worse. 

Once again while it is not Araragi’s responsibility to fix an abused girl, and it makes sense a normal high school kid does not understand coping with abuse at all, Araragi at the same time wants to help her. Instead of just admitting that he can’t do anything for Hanekawa, he play-acts at being a hero. 

Here’s the thing about Araragi, have you ever once seen him try to save a boy? He only cares about helpless girls because those are the kind of people that heroes save. He does not care about people that are stronger than him, because then he is depending on them rather than the other way around. Araragi only interacts with about three male characters in the story significantly.

Oshino, who is an adult figure that Araragi aspires to be like, and then Kaiki and Seishirou who he both views as rivals for the two most important girls to him Senjyogahara, and Seishirou. Do you notice there is a far different tone in Araragi’s interactions with Seishirou and Kaiki? Araragi absolutely refuses to see Kaiki as anything other than a villain, and while Seishirou is clearly a victim, Araragi cares very little about actually saving him and instead prioritizes competing with him over Kiss-Shot. 

Once again this is dude psychology that is present in Harem series. Did you notice if male characters do show up in harem series they are oftentimes, either comic relief, they are terrible people for the main character to look good in comparison, or they are old men mentor types. That is because any other man who would exist in a harem series is automatically competition for the girls. Araragi does not want to compete, he does not want to feel inferior to anyone else, because he always feels inferior all the time therefore he never has any male friends. 

Therefore it’s hypocritical altruism, while Araragi is willing to help and that’s a good thing, he also never once helps unless there is something he gains from it. Even if it’s a chance to exercise his self loathing. Once again Araragi’s self loathing is incredibly harmful, he literally gets bones broken, limbs severed, and organs torn out almost every time he helps someone. Not only that but it’s always the first solution he jumps to. This is not the behavior of a healthy person, this is the behavior of someone attempting to punish themselves. Helping these girls by martyring himself is an act of attrition for Araragi, because he believes he deserves pain for all of his hypocrisies, but once again it’s still self obsession. Just hating yourself, just beating yourself up, is different from having to do the actual work of facing yourself and picking yourself up. Araragi will always choose dishonesty over honesty, obfuscation over seeing things clearly. 

Araragi’s primary strategy of dealing with these many hypocrisies and contradictions in himself, and keeping his ‘ego’ in balance has always been obfuscation. Araragi is observant, but he presents himself as ignorant. He always goes on claiming how stupid he is, and how he’s nothing more than a worthless washout. 

This is because Araragi was raised with an overpowering sense of responsibility. While his parents are not necessarily bad parents, they are police officers. He was raised made to feel responsible for things like justice, saving others, and especially made to feel responsible for his own flaws. Police officers are also symbols of justice, who as human beings often fall far short of the law and authority they are supposed to represent, because symbols are symbols and humans are humans. 

Therefore, what Araragi wants to avoid at all costs is feeling responsible. He wants to be important, but he never wants to take the responsibility of actually being important. This is his immaturity, the part of him that refuses to grow. For Araragi, if situations are too complicated for him to handle, or he fears his meddling will only make things worse and therefore he will be indicated as responsible his response is to just avoid it entirely rather than struggle or try. 

This is shown in the case of Sodachi Oikura, once again someone that Araragi knew about and sympathized with but at the same time could not comprehend. Sodachi lived in horribly abusive circumstances, and both times Araragi encountered her he was a child. Araragi at the same time takes far too much responsibility, and far too little. It’s completely understandable that Araragi a middle schooler had no idea what to do to deal with what was obviously an abusive household, most adults are pretty useless when it comes to handling abused children. Yet, at the same time Araragi avoids any responsiblity whatsoever, he just forgets about Oikura claiming he has a bad memory depsite encountering her at three different significant parts of his life. Rather than struggle and fail, it’s better for Araragi to just not know anything at all therefore it can’t be his fault. 

When Ougi drags Araragi through Sodachi’s case, Ougi ‘deduces’ everything, but Ougi’s catchphrase is I only know what you know. Ougi cannot have come to a conclusion that Araragi did not already know or was not capable of figuring out on his own, Araragi just did not think of those things because it was too painful to think. 

 This is also present in his dealing with other characters. There are several characters who have heavy romantic crushes on Araragi while Araragi is already in a relationship, Nadeko, Hanekawa, etc... Rather than ever just going through the awkward interaction of rejecting them it’s much easier to just pretend he never even notices their affections. Therefore we see him hypocritically, have a girlfriend, at yet at the same time constantly hang out with other girls who have a clear attraction to him and romantic feelings for him and never do anything about it. 

Nadeko turns into a god because of obfuscation, both on Araragi’s part and on Nadeko’s. Nadeko is called out for what a hypocritical person she is never wanting to face anything directly, but that behavior is only a reflection, a foil to Araragi’s own, hence why Araragi was never able to save her. 

Once again, Nadeko clearly has several problems with her personality, and she also blatantly hits on Araragi several times despite one being a middle schooler, and two Araragi having a girlfriend. Rather than just reject her outright, or acknowledge these parts of her personality, Araragi chooses to ignore everything and reduce her to being a cute girl. Nadeko puts on the act, and Araragi perceives. He then ignores all of her feelings, until they repress more and more and then bubble out into a jungian shadow expression that is Snake God Nadeko who just indulges on all of her instincts and desires and gives up conscious thought and her persona completely. 

Ougi always mocks Araragi has a helpless fool, because that is what Araragi wants to be, helpless, foolish, and therefore not at fault when there are unintended consequences of his actions. 

Finally, Araragi only thinks in black and white. This is also part of his obfuscation, he never wants to acknowledge how complicated people are. When he’s forced to confront the ugly side of people he almost always looks away.

Black cats, white cats, hmmm, I wonder what that means. Araragi was only disappointed with the idea of justice, because he wanted to believe in it in the first place. He wants to believe that things like heroes can exist, and that his black and white perceptions of the wolrd are real. Araragi craves that order more than anyone else, perhaps even more than his younger sisters who just play at being heroes of justice. The reason he becomes so disillusioned is because he expects there to be an order of things, for their to be roles just like in a story, for their to be a sequence of events with meaning. 

Araragi expects narrative rules to apply to real life. For life to have meaning. That is why he is a story teller. There are monsters and oddities, and humans with a clear line between them, despite the fact that Araragi himself is someone who blurs these lines by existing as a quasi vampire. Araragi’s life is a story that he tells himself, and that’s why it’s so important that his perceptions are so off. In Tsuki he even gets called on this twice, he calls his increasing vampirism punishment instead of just consequences for his actions and he’s told not to think he’s so special that god would go out of his way to punish him. Tadatsuru asks why they are facing off like this, why Araragi is protagonist and he is antagonist. 

Araragi does not like acknowledging how sloppy the world is, because that makes him feel insignificant and weak. It would make anybody feel that way, because it means acknowledging that we are not as in control of things as we would like to be. 

3. Oshino Ougi - They Reveal 

Ougi Oshino is Ougo Oshino.

They are a vague existence, Araragi refuses to define them because defining Ougi means defining themselves and that kind of confrontation is the last thing Araragi wants. 

Ougi Oshino is born out of a desire for Araragi to punish himself, the same way he always seeks external punishment by allowing people to beat him up and rip out his intenstines. Rather than confront what is inside of him, Araragi externalizes it and confronts it as an external force which he projects upon. 

Ougi is a shadow born from the light of Araragi’s ego. It was not the darkness that created them, but rather Araragi himself and the shadow he cast. Therefore while Ougi can be seen as a corrective force, they actually embody all of those flaws that Araragi has, and their own character traits are always in response to those flaws. 

Wheraes Araragi is a hypocritical altruist, Ougi is someone who exists to fix people’s mistakes, or punish them for their mistakes rather. Despite manipulating them, Ougi also ultimately leaves them up to their own fate. He leads them up to the cliff but does not push. 

Ougi is a hypocritical fixer, because while he seems to be punishing others for their mistakes he really only exists to punish himself in the form of Araragi. All of the ‘mistakes’ he corrects are just Araragi’s own mistakes foiled in other people. 

Nadeko is a foil to Araragi, she represents his own feigning of innocent and being unknowing. Kaiki is a foil to Araragi, he represents how much of a fake Araragi is by pretending to cling to ideals of justice and saving others but also denying them as well. Sodachi is also like Araragi, they both prefer to wallow in misery than try to work towards their own happiness. Araragi even says his famous line with his relationship with Shinobu, an ending where everyone is miserable, where nobody gets what they want. There are serious problems with his current relationship with Shinobu, a power imbalance, and both know they cannot last this way forever but rather than attempting to fix their relationship they both cling to the way thing’s are. 

Repression and obfuscation is always favored over directly addressing the issues, especially the things which Araragi probably cannot control, or fix, like the complicated nature of abuse. Ougi claims they operate out of some imaginary set of rules that totally exist, but once again Ougi is the hypocrisies of Araragi laid bare. They are every bit the hypocrite that Araragi is. 

They are just punishing other people who reflect Araragi’s negative traits. Those who do not acknowledge their shadow, will project their flaws onto other people and see themselves in other people in order to cope. 

Ougi is made up of Araragi’s repressed desires. They are a girl he wants to save, which is the only type of person Araragi interacts with. At the same time, they are also connected to Oshino, who is Araragi’s model in the series for adulthood and maturity. Oshino who is always able to figure things out, and very self-collected often making fun of Araragi for his youthful excitement and his naivete for not knowing much about the world. 

While Araragi presents himself as an idiot, Ougi is intelligent an capable of figuring things out from scraps of information. Araragi jumps to conclusions, Ougi is deductive and a good thinker. Ougi Oshino already knows Araragi better than himself, therefore Araragi does not have to carry any of the burden of self reflecting, or making himself known to other people around him.

During Ougi and Arraagi’s first meeting in the anime, he hallucinates that the classroom that he is locked inside of floods with water. The depths of the water, the shadow, dreams, these are all the realm of Jung. If the conscious mind is the water’s surface, then the subconscious is its depths.

Araragi obfuscates, whereas Ougi reveals the uncomfortable truth. Ougi always positions themselves as a detective. In the realm of stories, it is the detective who makes the big reveal at the end. After all Ougi even says when they are locked in the room together, because there is no famous detective that Ougi themselves will play the role and announce the culprit. 

However, Ougi’s reveals are just as hypocritical as Araragi’s obfuscations. Ougi takes the shadow to be representative of the whole self, because they themselves are a living breathing Jungian shadow, but just like Jekyll and Hyde man is both. He is not one or the other, he is both at the same time. Ougi always act with the assumption that there is some kind of truth to be revealed, that this is just like a detective novel where there is a reveal waiting at the end. 

Ougi takes the repressed desires to count as the “truth” of the whole mind, and ignores the conscious mind entirely. Therefore, in their view Nadeko is only capable of being a selfish cute girl who sees herself as a victim, Hanekawa is only something scary which Araragi must avoid. They at the same time as Araragi both read the same black and white narrative of the world. They do not care at all for the persona, or how people choose to present themselves. Desipte what Kaiki said to Nadeko that people can choose to be whoever they want to be, and they can try as many times as they like.

Ougi also views themselves as inhuman, and therefore incapable of doing anything, or defining themselves as anything outside of their role. Ougi is in a way, just as repressing of themself as Araragi is. They even lament this in front of Tsukihi, that once the detective reveals the mystery the novel is over. That if anybody would know the truth of them, they would come to hate them because they are abhorrent. 

Ougi by repressing concious thought, silences other people and what they have to say about themselves. The only thing that matters is the repressed, what Ougi dictates as the truth must then become the truth. It’s just as much a limited way of saying the world as Araragi’s is. Hence Ougi’s famous catchphrase, I don’t know anything, you’re the one who knows. Ougi sees themselves as a person fundamentally incapable of knowing anything other than outside the bounds of what Araragi already knows. 

Which is finally where the black and white thinking comes in. While the two of them seem like polar opposites, their views of the world are actually the same. Ougi wants what Araragi wants, for the world to exist like this is a story. For there to be roles, and order and most importantly meaning. The same way that Araragi just ignores things that fall out of step with their roles, when people contradict the way Araragi sees them he just pretends to be oblivious rather than see them as complex human beings. Ougi actively goes out of their way to punish people, for not playing the role in the story they were supposed to play. He acts like a corrective force, pushing people back into their roles. His wrongful assumption is not that people improve by “correcting mistakes” but rather there was a proper path in the first place. That there was a hero’s journey they were supposed to be going on. There is no path, there is no meaning, it’s all senseless but Ougi exists out of a desire for things to be sensible. 

Ougi exists as Araragi’s opposite, because Araragi assumes that things like binary opposites exist in the first place. Heroes and villains, crime and punishment. They both believes these things exist in a fundamental order in the world, and they are not just made up values that humans invented and give meaning to. 

“Let’s not joke. Virtue is the antonym of vice, not of crime.” “Are vice and crime different?” “They are, I think. Virtue and vice are concepts invented by human beings, words for a morality which human beings arbitrarily devised.” (No Longer Human, Osamu Dazai)

For both of them clinging to these hypocritical beliefs are better than the alternative, admitting to their own helplessness in the face of a world that is mostly indifferent to them. 

That’s why, when they are separate both of them choose to stick to their ultimately restricting and punishing roles, as protagonist and atagonist, persona and shadow, hero and villain, rather than just trying to acknowledge themselves and live as people. 

Both is one, and one is both.  Araragi Koyomi and Oshino Ougi have a relationship that ultimately results in not antagonism, but rather union and acceptance. Just like the King of Distortion is not an enemy of mankind in the enemy, Ougi was never an enemy to Araragi in the first place. Araragi never needed to hate himself or punish himself. The true path forward lies in union and acceptance.

You can never be anything more than yourself, nothing more and nothing left. 

I'm going to start with birth control. If you've read any of my wizarding world fics you'll likely have seen that I write contraception as being a potion taken once a month. (I think in one fic it was called Pregnancy Prevention Potion, and I've toyed with calling it Period Potion.) The way it works is that not only does it prevent pregnancy but it helps alleviate/prevent unpleasant period symptoms, and its effects last around a month (i.e., a cycle). Getting the next period can often be the prompt to take it again, because it makes your headaches / cramps / back pain go away. But if you're taking it haphazardly, or timing it differently (like taking it at the start of each month regardless of when your cycle is), you can wind up in a situation where it's worn off without your realizing on the days when you can get pregnant.

(And because of this, I don't think it's too much of a spoiler to say this is how I think Lily and James became pregnant. Whereas in school they were probably hyper vigilant about taking it, especially because I see Lily as being educated about her cycle, once they're married and fighting in a war and on the run, accessing it/taking it and keeping track of her cycle is something that easily slips through the cracks.)

The reason this is both compelling and realistic to me is that I think the general area of sex, reproduction, and women's health was an area where the wizarding world was somewhat inverted to the Muggle world. And there are a couple main reasons for that:

Gender equality is not an issue in the wizarding world like it is in the Muggle world.

Granted, we're dealing with children's books, so of course concepts like these won't be thoroughly expanded on/investigated in the text. But what we are shown is that instead of there being a gender divide, what permeates their society is a species divide. Giants were forced into hiding. Goblins and House-elves are not allowed to carry or wield wands. Wizards have ascended to the highest ruling power despite these other species having magical powers wizards don't possess. And Squibs, Muggles, and Muggle-borns are othered by virtue of a lack of magic (or for Muggle-borns, an association to a lack of magic). It's an allegorical representation of discrimination to be sure (because, again, children's books), using magic and fictional species to show discriminatory conflict instead of the real world's dividing lines of gender, race, religion, ethnicity, etc.

Additionally, women are presented relatively equally to men in terms of wizarding history. Two of the four Hogwarts founders were women. The first female Minister for Magic took office in 1798, and many women held the title since. Several women have been Head of Hogwarts, going back to 1408. Many women are referenced throughout HP lore as being famous authors, historians, innovators, etc. — without ever having hidden the fact that they're a woman in order for their work to be recognized. Women play Quidditch as much as men, and at Hogwarts we see girls regularly captaining teams over their male counterparts. All of this reinforces to me that in the wizarding world, it doesn't matter what gender you are — what "matters" is how "magic" you are, and then how good at magic you are. It's an entirely different playing field.

2. The wizarding world places a high value on bodily comfort.

The magical population is not used to suffering physical discomfort. We know they live longer and they don't get the same sicknesses or diseases as Muggles, so presumably they therefore have stronger immune systems. And we also know they have a plethora of spells and potions to do things like instantly heal broken bones, regrow bones in a matter of hours, stop bleeding, replenish blood, cure the common cold, remove bruises, heal cuts, etc. In short, they are used to having a sense of superiority over their health and agency over their bodies, born from the confidence of having magic and knowing that no matter how sick or injured they get, there's almost always magic to (sometimes instantly) fix it.

But what they can't get around? Childbirth. (Well, and dying.)

There is simply no substitution. No workaround. In order to procreate, they must endure the physical strain and wild biology of growing and then pushing a baby out of your body. For nine months!! It's arduous. It's burdensome. And I think, for the magical population, it's an uncomfortable reminder of how human they still are. I think, in their view, pregnancy and childbirth is a nuisance. It's undignified. It's Muggle. Imagine a witch or wizard being told they have to wear a cast or use crutches instead of taking Skele-gro overnight. Or walk around suffering with a runny nose and sore throat and low-grade fever for two weeks instead of taking Pepper-up Potion at the slightest tickle and being back to normal in an hour. For a population that can mitigate or even erase most physical discomfort, pregnancy is the ultimate Achilles heel — and they hate it.

But, as a species, they also have no choice. Hence, I think they do their utmost to control it. They don't have the problem of women's health not being funded or supported or researched, because they don't have those kind of gender issues. So at some point they invented a potion to alleviate their menstrual symptoms and prevent pregnancy from occurring, allowing them to live in the comfort of being able to get as much bodily pleasure as they want without getting pregnant.

Until, that is, they reach the age/point in their life where they want/are expected to do their part in continuing their lineage, and they stop taking the potion with all the angst and melodrama of a toddler not getting to eat ice cream for dinner. Because in order to get what they want, they have to suffer for it.

This is part of why I think there's so many only children in magical families. It's such an uncomfortable process that a lot of women only want to do "the bare minimum." (And please remember, I'm talking about magical women and their indoctrinated stigmas here — they've been coddled to the point of almost never having to feel physical pain if they don't want to, so while pregnancy and childbirth is the same for muggle and magical women alike, the magical world's perception of it is so much worse because they have no other pain to compare it to AND because they associate it with othered non-magic people. So instead of it being viewed with a lot of warmth like we do today, they're looking at pregnancy as if they're a royal who's just been told to go empty to their own chamberpot.) Like, if that's the world of thinking in which Narcissa was raised, can you imagine her volunteering to go through another 9 months? Maybe she thought about it (an "heir and a spare" mentality), but she does what she has to do — suffers the indignities she has to suffer — to get her baby, and that's that.

I think this kind of stigma especially permeated pureblood families. Like I picture them having this tension around seeing people pregnant, where if it's someone like Narcissa or Walburga, people express sympathy because they recognize it's a "necessary evil" kind of rite of passage, but if it's someone like Molly, it's looked down on with disgust/disdain — partly because it can reflect low financial status (she may not have enough money to regularly purchase stock of the potion), and partly because it's such a Muggle thing to do. And then on the other end of things, having someone like Euphemia take so long to get pregnant despite trying elevates her toward sainthood, because in eschewing the potion for so long in order to try for a baby, it's like she endured the ultimate suffering for the cause.

Circling back to sex, then.