#moose meta

At the end of the season, he finds out that he has demon blood in his system, which strengthens the feeling of being different in an evil and unclean way. The label of freak is strengthened. He is the only one who knows about the demon blood, but his psychic visions are enough to alienate him from others. Gordon and Kubrik want to hunt him in season 3, and Kubrik even says: “You’re some kind of weirdo freak”

Although Sam feels different and identifies more with the word, he doesn’t call himself a freak. It is a sore point for him, but in season 4 when Dean comes back from hell and finds out Sam has been drinking demon blood, his brother’s view of him makes him falter. He has been feeling like a freak, but he has been trying his best to make the best out of it. Dean coming back and reprimanding him with a distasteful look hits Sam hard and he starts to see how drinking demon blood has caused him to further become a freak. Dean has been on his side since everybody else started calling him a freak, but now it’s very clear from the way Dean looks at him – “like I’m some kind of freak” [4x04]. Although he’s pointing out that his brother is alienating him, that is exactly how Sam feels about himself now. He talks about the demon blood in his veins like it’s a disease in him.

And that because of this, he’s “a whole new level of freak”. He now explicitly self-identifies with the word.

As season 4 continues, Sam fears that Dean will call him a monster (so much so that he hallucinates that Dean does). His fears are confirmed when Dean says that if he didn’t know him, he would hunt him. The lines of hunter and hunted have now disintegrated. What Dean has been implying for so long is now out: Sam is a freak; he is a monster. And his following words are clear enough, “it means you’re a monster, Sammy” [4x21]. This solidifies Sam’s belief that he is one, and that being a freak = being a monster. Yet, he holds on to hope, just as he has from season 1 – that maybe he can be saved. Maybe the more people he saves, the more ‘good’ he can be. And saving everyone from the apocalypse must be the best thing he can do, right? He is a freak – but there is hope that maybe he isn’t a freak, or that maybe he is a freak for a reason, and that he can therefore do good. Maybe he can prove that a freak can be good and that this word does not define him.  

And so he rushes to kill Lilith, but he is still unsure, the guilt of fighting with his brother heavy on his shoulder. But when he listens to the tweaked voicemail, in which ‘Dean’ calls him a monster and a “bloodsucking freak”, he is heart-broken, and all hope is lost. He trudges on to kill Lilith because although he believes himself to be a freak and a monster now, he still carries the thought that maybe he can prove himself different. Dean arrives and Sam becomes ambivalent again, but Lilith knows what will get him back on the path:

Sure enough, this pushes Sam to complete the task.

Once Sam realizes that his actions bear the consequences of releasing Lucifer from Hell, it becomes clear to him that he indeed was not on a path of redemption or to save himself from the ‘monster’, but rather he has fully become a freak - which leads to his self-identification and acceptance of the word. The word “freak” is now fully incorporated into his self-concept

Acceptance of the word “freak”

Sam wants out in the start of season 5, believing himself to be unfit for the hunter life after what he’s done and who he is. If it wasn’t clear enough that he has accepted himself as a freak, he says “Last time I wanted to be normal. This time I know I’m a freak” when he faces Lucifer in [5x03]. He continues season 5 believing himself to be a freak, and that the only way he can atone for what he’s done is to sacrifice himself to stop the Apocalypse. The act is not a heroic one in Sam’s mind, like killing Lilith was supposed to be. But rather it is atonement, repentance and making things right – he was the one who started the Apocalypse, and it is his responsibility to end it.

When he comes back from Hell, he is soulless – and this Sam does not believe he is a freak. Even though things are wrong with him, his self-view is different. His self-concept includes cognitive descriptions – being a good hunter, being smart but there are no affective descriptions that he applies to himself. He doesn’t feel like a freak (because he is not able to feel anything), and so he doesn’t carry that baggage with him.

When his soul is restored, he struggles mentally with images of Lucifer. The amount of torture he has been through cannot be imagined, nor what kind of negative self-conceptions about himself he has heard from Lucifer in the Cage. Nevertheless, we see a change in Sam’s relationship with the word “freak” in season 7. His mental health is so far off, he believes he is not even close to being considered ‘normal’ – and so along with his hell experience and being back with hallucinations tormenting him – being a freak still applies, and rather he believes will always apply to him. Although this time with a little redefinition.

Although the word “freak” has always carried a negative connotation, there was one person in Sam’s past who validated him being a freak – Amy Pond, the kitsune. It is so interesting how he and Amy connect over being freaks [7x03]. Amy believes herself to have a darkness in her that she is controlling in order to live a normal life and not hurt others. Even at a young age, Sam connects with that. Meeting Amy again in this episode, Sam is reminded of her definition of freak. She faced the word head-on and told Sam: “Sam, you are a freak” But she continued to associate the word with famous and talented people. Amy’s definition of freaks goes something like this: “All the coolest people are freaks”

But being reminded of Amy’s definition of freak, and having suffered from hallucinations for so long, these two experiences come together towards his acceptance of this part of him and creating a new definition for himself. He tells Dean that although he is a freak, it is not the same as being dangerous. Sam has now made his own associations of the word freak and has tweaked the word to fit him and his conception of himself. Him being a freak no longer means he is something to hunt down, it means he’s “different” and “other”, and it does not mean he poses a threat to the people around him. Not anymore. He might look like a monster, but he does not act like one.

He has been running from the word for so long, but it always comes back to chase him down. He’s not running away from it anymore, nor does he have hope that one day he won’t be a freak. He doesn’t get defensive like before, but instead tells Dean he can say it to him. “I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to be normal. Come on, I’m not normal. All the crap I’ve done. I’m a grade-A freak” [7x03].

Although he is able to view the word differently, that is not the case for Dean. Sam reacts immediately when Dean calls Amy a freak, but he invites his brother to say the word to him. Sam knows the word lives implicitly between him and Dean. Dean views the world in monsters and not-monsters, freaks and not-freaks. Sam is aware of this, but he invites Dean to speak his mind, to utter the word out loud so it surfaces in the literal reality instead of floating in the invisible between them. Being viewed as a freak by his brother is something Sam has accepted.

Dean’s view of him has always had immense power over Sam. We perceive the people around us to be mirrors of how we are, and thus their assumptions of us are incorporated into our self-concept and thought to be truths. Dean’s view of Sam as different and a freak has carried throughout the seasons, but it isn’t until Dean tells Sam in season 8 that there’s nothing “past or present, that I would put in front of you” that he reassures Sam he has worth and value, that his brother does not despise him despite (what Sam perceives to be) his shortcomings.

Reconstruction of the word “freak”

Although he starts redefining the word freak in season 7, I believe his true reconstruction of  the word happens after the trials. He has tried to purify himself through the trials, and the demon blood in him has always been such an important aspect of why he feels like and is viewed as a freak.

This reconstruction takes time over the later seasons. When Sam is captured by the British Men of Letters, they make him hallucinate and I would argue that it exacerbates his deepest fears (letting people down, for example). Here, Sam hears Dean’s voice repeatedly telling him: “You’re the freak, you’re the freak, you’re the freak” [12x01]

Sam is more assured in Dean’s view of him by now, as Dean has expressed belief in him since season 8. Yet, this is still a nightmare to hear.  Although this is one of Sam’s greatest fears, he is able to see through the illusion and he does not let any fear of the word affect his decision-making. Later in the season, he tells Magda (a psychic) that his powers (and the demon blood) were a part of him, and it didn’t make him evil. It just made him who he was. He has now constructed the word freak even more differently, viewing it as a part of him, but not necessarily a negative part like he has before. He used to believe it was an evil monstrous part of him, then he understood it as a monstrous but not dangerous part. Now, it’s just a part of him. It does not exclude the good in him, as he says that it just made him who he already was [12x04]

In the same season, he seems tentative with Mary, worried she might not love him. He is after all the child with the demon blood. Her love and regret at her choices in the end of the season confirms to him that he is loved by his mother, providing further healing. Dean shows belief in him, as a hunter, as a leader, and in his ability to make decisions. This is important to Sam, who lost Dean’s trust and has been reliant on making decisions based on his brother.

In season 13, Sam relates to Jack now being called the “freak”. Jack is scared that he might be evil, that his powers dictate his path – and Sam can relate to that. He says, “I know what it feels like to feel like you don’t belong, to feel there’s this darkness inside of you, to be scared of who you are, what you can do” [13x03]

But Dean calls Jack a freak and threatens to kill him, which makes Sam furious partly because he knows firsthand how Dean’s words can hurt. Dean says that he knows it’s going to end bad with this freak. Sam immediately reacts with “I didn’t end bad when I was the ‘freak’” [13x03]. No one believed in him or understood what he was going through, how being alienated took a toll on his self-view. He gives Jack the understanding he never received.

Sam also shows Jack the compassion he wasn’t given. When Sam was considered the freak, he was viewed as evil and he tried to turn this evil into good. He tried to save as many people as he could, trying to make his powers useful. When Jack finds out that Sam wants to try using his powers in order to save Mary, Sam assures him that even if that isn’t possible, Jack has inherent value. Sam tells Jack the words that would have helped him when he was struggling. “If that doesn’t work, it’s okay, because I do care about you” [13x04]. Jack’s value is not dependent on his powers, nor does he need to prove himself to make up for the acclaimed darkness in him. Sam doesn’t want Jack to internalise what he himself did – that he has to compensate for evil in him. But rather that the goodness lies already within him, and he just needs to choose to act on it.

Gojo Satoru and Sukuna are mirrors of each other. Not just because they are at the top of the world, but because the only thing that separates Gojo Satoru from the same fate of Sukuna is compassion; shown toward others and toward Gojo Satoru himself. In this essay, we are going to examine what makes Ryomen Sukuna so different than Gojo Satoru and discuss the idea that both of them belong to a category that Cohen describes as a cultural monster.

What Is The Cultural Monster?

In his work “Monster Culture (Seven Theses)” Jeffery Jerome Cohen argues that for a monster to appear it has to be born at a specific cultural moment; a moment when change is assured, when difference is coming. A monsters body, Cohen continues to argue “is pure culture” (Cohen). A monster cannot exist without the culture it was grown from, cultural fears, it can then be inferred, are what give rise to a monster.

Gojo Satoru and Ryomen Sukuna

The monster always escapes (Cohen). That is the theme of the second thesis that composes Cohen’s seven theses of monster culture. The monster escape precisely because it is a cultural body, because it was born in a time of upheaval it carries with it the anxieties of that time, and it carries those anxieties into the future (Cohen).

In this way, both Gojo Satoru and Ryomen Sukuna, two sorcerers whose birth brought great change to the world of Jujutsu Kaisen can be classified as a monster not just because of their immense power and strength, nor because they inspire fear in people, rather Gojo Satoru and Ryomen Sukuna are monsters because the world around them made them that way. If the birth of a monster is caused by cultural shift, by change or the threat of it, then the monster itself is a harbinger of that change. Both Ryomen Sukuna and Gojo Satoru threatened the established world order, Gojo Satoru wanted to change it in ways that the higher ups did not agree with and in Ryomen Sukuna’s case ways they feared. In this way, the fact that both characters were outliers, exceptions to the order that everyone had become so comfortable with, both characters were threats.

And what is a threat but a step toward a monster?

As such, although both Gojo Satoru and Ryomen Sukuna are killed in the course of Jujutsu Kaisen’s story it can be argued that their impact, the impact of their birth, their lives, and their deaths, have lingered and that their actions will continue to affect the world of Jujutsu Kaisen even without them there. In this way they have taken another step toward the monstrous. If a monster is a cultural phenomenon, then it doesn’t just die. It lasts. It lingers. It always finds a way to escape. Their legends in verse will be constructed and reconstructed from fragments. Like the worlds worst game of telephone, these two characters have stepped into the pages of their in world mythology and must now contend with the fact that no one will ever know them as they were again.

They themselves carry with them the anxieties and upheaval of their time, in turn, they walk hand in hand with the shadow of monsters.

Good Vs Evil

It is tempting to assume that Gojo Satoru is the good one. It is tempting to assume that Ryomen Sukuna is the evil one. It is tempting to sort these two characters into neat boxes and ignore the nuance of their behaviour toward other characters and each other.

Gojo Satoru is not perfectly good, he takes joy in the act of fighting, in conquering those weaker than him. We can see this clearly in the Hanami, but even in his first fight with Jogo, Gojo Satoru views it as a game. He doesn’t see either Jogo or Hanami as a threat, and why should he? He’s declared himself the Strongest. He’s, quite literally, untouchable.

When we look into this particular flavour of tropes. When we examine characters who fit the chaotic good or so lawful good archetypes, we rarely see a character that thoroughly enjoys the act of killing, of conquering something or someone else. Even neutral good characters still angst over the kill. Gojo Satoru notably does not do this. Therefore, can we truly call him good? He may be on the side of the protagonist, but do his actions fit within the realm of good? Remember, we are dealing in tropes and archetypes here. There is room for a grey area.

Gojo Satoru exists in that grey area. He is neither perfectly good or evil. He is a product of the culture he was brought up in. You cannot sort him neatly into a box of good, evil, or other, because he will not fit.

Ryomen Sukuna on the other hand, is a different matter. He is no longer living, he is a Curse, a being made of negative energy. Therefore it can be argued that he is evil, that he has no choice but to be evil. Indeed, his actions within Jujutsu Kaisen support this. Ryomen Sukuna is evil.

But like Satoru, he will not fit into the box. Why?

Because he isn’t human. At this point in the story, he is literally made up of negative energy. He isn’t human anymore, so the boxes we use to fit human characters into go out the window. Would you categorize a hurricane as evil, no matter the damage it did? An earthquake? A tornado?

Ryomen Sukuna is evil to us because we are human and we see him as a human when he isn’t. He is a force of nature, by the time we meet him, he’s already transformed into something that one could argue doesn’t need to understand our morals because it makes no sense for him to learn or care about them. He is a natural phenomenon. Why should he care for the harm his actions do?

Is nature evil for the harm it does us? Or does it simply exist?

In the same way that Ryomen Sukuna defies definition as something that exists solely as evil, he also defies the categorization of being a natural consequence. He is a Curse, but he is their king, he has made himself and been made into something more than just a Curse, and due to the fact that he seems so human, one has to ask:

Is he a human, or is he a consequence? 

In these ways both Gojo Satoru and Ryomen Sukuna stand at borders of categorization and scoff. They cannot be categorized, not fully, because they force readers to ask themselves questions. To take pause and wonder if what we are used to is really good, and if a consequence is indeed evil.

Gates of Difference

These two characters are set apart from everyone from birth. Gojo Satoru because of his eyes, Ryomen Sukuna because of his appearance. Both can, in this context, be called monsters. Ryomen Sukuna for his extra arms and eyes, Gojo Satoru because of the way his Clan, and the jujutsu world in general, revere his eyes.

To be different is to be outside the cultural norm. It is to be a warning and a threat. For Gojo Satoru and Ryomen Sukuna, two characters who never had the chance to exist inside the gates of normality. The difference between them, and the cultural norms that surround them is immense not only because of the difference of power between them and the those surrounding them, but because society itself has pushed them out of the gates of supposed normality and barred them from entering.

We could argue that Gojo Satoru gets the closest to entering the norms that engulf his culture; and we would be right to do so. But at what cost does that almost-entrance come with? What does Gojo Satoru have to give up in order to almost enter the society that made him? He would have to play to their rules, be their weapon, their puppet. He would have to view them as masters of his leash. His ego might allow some of that, but at the end of the day, Gojo Satoru becomes monstrous again because the leash holding him snaps.

Borders of the Possible

If one is both monster and human, both monster and natural consequence, then at what point do they lose who they are and become symbols. A monster is a symbol.

Are Gojo Satoru and Ryomen Sukuna symbols? What do they, in universe, signify? Gojo Satoru is easy, he's a monster on the leash, he's the monster that wants to get in and broaden the borders of the possible. It is Sukuna who wants those borders completely destroyed. It is Sukuna who represents devastation, complete upheaval of the old ways and the destruction of the future because of that.

Gojo Satoru I would argue represents the slow but steady change that happens over time. He is progress. He is slow and steady and changing. But he is also complicit in his own monstrous identity. He cannot broaden the borders of the possible enough to include him because he signifies the consequences of pushing too hard. Gojo Satoru has no choice but to toe a thin line between upholding the system that sees him as a weapon, and changing it.

Desire

Power. Both Gojo Satoru and Ryomen Sukuna are monsters of power. They are monstrous because of their power, because of the lack of power other people feel in their presence. They are monsters of power because people covet the power they have. Their power is both warning and desire. Consequence and lust. Gojo Satoru and Ryomen Sukuna are beings that people want. As symbols. As weapons. As corpses.

In Conclusion

They are monstrous because they exist outside the boundaries the jujutsu world has so painstakingly crafted. They are monsters because they represent a shift in thinking, a changing of the guard, the evolution of cultural norms and nothing is more threatening to those in power than a change. They are monsters because they are symbols, because people desire the power they have, because they are a warning about what happens if you cross the line. Ryomen Sukuna is a consequence, Gojo Satoru is a saviour.

Both are warnings.