hitagi end is probably the funniest monogatari story, both because kaiki is far funnier as a pov character than anyone else and also because it has such a heavy layer of schandenfreud settled over it. the moment senjougahara says she doesnt know what set nadeko on her rampage it feels like everything is over and all we can do is laugh. the moment kaiki says tricking nadeko will be as easy as breathing you can't help but shudder at the stupidity of them all. everybody is in on the joke except for the main characters and everyone can see the sword of damocles hanging over kaiki's head.
obviously it all comes back to nadeko's dehumanisation, to how nadeko medusa ended with koyomi resigning to kill nadeko, to how kaiki refuses to see her as anything but a stupid child right to the end, to how hitagi vehemently refuses to even engage with her. nadeko taken from being an object of abstract cuteness, to a victim to be pitied, to a thing to be maligned. never once allowed to be human, never once given the space to have desires of her own. forced to play cat's cradle while drinking her worries away, all the while the only person who actually understands her broken heart is running around chasing a ghost. god it's so funny. it wracks the body and fills the eyes with tears, that's how funny it is.
i love how koyomi asks what kaiki did to nadeko, as thoughcnadeko can still only be a victim. ive agreed and disagreed with meme's thesis over the series, but i do understand why he does it like he does. you can lead a horse to water and so on. why put in the effort if the horse isn't thirsty, and why do it if the horse will just get lost the moment you leave. meme can see through most people, so he has the luxury of knowing that there are no victims. the fact that koyomi was left to deal with nadeko without him caused all this, meme took a shortcut and decided that there was a clear victim and a clear cause and so koyomi could handle it as trial run before he took off. but lying underneath that clairty was kaiki's scheme and a second snake and nadeko's nature. all of those things working in tandem to obfuscate the truth of why nadeko and why a snake.
in that way even meme ended up using nadeko as a convenient excuse, not looking deeper because it suited his needs. and i think that's why you have to save yourself, because only you know, only you are able to know your own worst impulses and the trauma you hold. and maybe sometimes you need help to sort through all that, to find the thing that's attacking you right now before you do the real work of accepting that you're in pain. and sometimes finding that thing only makes things worse. and sometimes maybe you need someone by your side to help you weather the storm, and sometimes that person can only make things worse. the only thing all of that means is that in the end you'll have to save yourself, because there's no guarantee other people aren't going to be really bad at it (think meme in neko black).
well that's me on hitagi end anyway. nadeko isn't quite done, she still has to admit to her selfish nature and then forgive herself for it, but we're getting there. yotsugi doll should be fun, can't wait to see if we're finally going to get ougi's deal, whether she's an imbalancer or whatever as i suspect, or she's just having a lark.
