#nightebooks

susanoo is associated with ne-no-kuni as its ruler after being banished there by izanagi. sometimes ne-no-kuni is equivalent to yomi, but there does also exist a distinction between them where yomi is associated with death and ne-no-kuni with rebirth specifically. there is some overlap given both are stated to be where izanami resides, so it's kinda unclear. that being said, there is also an association between 'death' and 'transformation' and sometimes 'transcension' as well, especially accompanied by 'rebirth'.

susanoo, being a rather contradictory god with both good and evil qualities, seems to commonly undergo some sort of 'transformation' and 'purification' or 'atonement'/'redemption' within his myths. his destructive acts are considered heavenly sins causing ritual impurity that must then be purified, and susanoo himself 'transformed' and 'redeemed' through some process of purification/atonement. there is some talk about a process of exorcism being performed on susanoo, through a process of "cutting off his beard, fingernails, and toenails". this is also sometimes seen more as a process of corporal punishment, through the likely painful and torturous process of *removing* his fingernails and toenails. this was a fun bit of trivia for me because it also features in higu :) ripping off your own nails as punishment.

either way, punishment can be related to atonement. through enduring a punishment through pain and torment, you are 'purified' and absolved of your sins. and with the impurities removed from susanoo in this process, he 'transforms' into a more benevolent and 'heroic' deity. so there are i guess also themes of sin and punishment and redemption within susanoo's myths.

there is also the concept of a cyclical process of life, death and rebirth such as samsara, the goal of which is to reach a state of enlightenment and liberation from the cycle through nirvana. orphism is also a similar concept where our dual nature as material (body) and spiritual (soul) means that the soul must escape material existence in order to achieve salvation. this is done through a process of 'ritual purification' and suffering, connected to dionysus and emulating his suffering, dismemberment, death and rebirth to be freed from the cycle of reincarnation. there are those shared themes again of purification, death, transformation, rebirth, and eventually, salvation, liberation and enlightenment.

each cycle of death and rebirth is another process of transformation and purification that leads you closer to salvation, or something like that. i'll also note the element with dionysus of being 'torn apart', which gives the imagery of being broken down to your fundamental pieces and then being put together again and reborn. also a process that resembles the creation of the aogamis through the sundering of susanoo. he was, in a sense, torn apart and put together again, and then reborn.

so i got this idea that perhaps susanoo underwent multiple cycles of this process, being broken down and unmade, then put together again and reborn, each time an attempt to 'cleanse' him of his sins and impurities. i suppose he could have also only needed to undergo it once with the creation of the aogamis. but my headcanon or whatever is that he was taken apart and reborn over and over again throughout history as attempts by his siblings to mold him into who they needed him to be, each time failing to fully remove his willfulness, but each time closer to that goal.

and the end result is aogami, the final step before attaining 'enlightenment' and 'transcension' as the nahobino. in this sense, maybe you can say that aogami was the 'perfect ideal version' of the protofiend susanoo who came to be after millennia of purification. the final perfected version of susanoo. a being that has become fully pure and empty (as in the sense of the concept of sunyata, an intrinsic state of emptiness that allows for the creation and rise of the 'true' or 'higher' self, a state of enlightenment), with the nahobino being representative of the end state of that enlightenment and transcension. so maybe it isn't even nahobinos themselves that represent 'enlightenment', because the components that make up the nahobino fusions have to also attain a perfect state of 'purity' and 'emptiness' in order to reach enlightenment and liberation. otherwise they'd still be fettered to various earthly things like desire and resentment and the past and all. so maybe that's also why the nahobino was based off a deity of purification, as a being that has become fully pure itself.

additionally, the irony of aogami actually being the 'perfected' version of susanoo is obviously that hayao, and by extension aogami himself, viewed him as the exact opposite of that lol. a broken, imperfect abomination that was just a mockery of the REAL susanoo.

but if susanoo was also reborn over and over again through a long, cyclical process of death and rebirth and purification, the idea is that the goal would have been to mold him into a pure and empty being, devoid of intrinsic self and will, so that he could be fully obedient. the ones to remake him would have been his siblings, perhaps tsukuyomi specifically. and this goal would have been what they wanted. so then it's extra ironic when tsukuyomi realizes Too Late that this ISN'T what he wanted after all, as he comes to resent the aogamis instead.

i don't know i just really like irony lol. tsukuyomi might come to gradually realize then the horrors of just what he had done to his brother all this time, and that he was maybe wrong all along. but that's too scary too confront now!!! so it's time to sunk cost fallacy to the end and project his own guilt onto aogami as resentment and disgust :). in general i don't think tsukuyomi was someone who understood responsibility at all and only begins to do so in his current incarnation as hayao, because things have Changed now and he has no choice but to confront his own responsibility, though he continues to struggle with it.

so i always got the impression that he was someone who only followed his orders and fulfilled his duties among the amatsu because he could never truly stand up against his siblings as he was always desperate for their acceptance and affection. the only way he could receive those things were conditional, he had to obey and submit like a dog, the way aogami was later treated too.

and i always thought there was maybe an intentional parallel between susanoo and masakado, especially given they used the masakado design that featured the long, flowy electric blue hair too lol. they do share a lot in common i think, the rebellion against family and heaven itself, the betrayal by family and allies, their bold and willful personalities, their fearsome prowess and how it intimidated others. their noble blood tracing back to divinity and their subsequent fall from grace. i wondered if susanoo saw himself reflected within masakado at the time, and if so, then he likely felt deeply conflicted by the whole matter. it probably hit very close to home in general lol.

i can potentially see a sense of self-betrayal at his own complicity in masakado's downfall, if he saw himself in masakado. it probably also further reinforced his fear of what would happen if he were to rebel against his family. masakado met a pitiful and humiliating end, and was denied any sort of redemption or salvation. i think susanoo might've witnessed this and only became more afraid that that would be the same fate that awaited him if he tried to do the same. and so he never could stand up to his siblings, but in turn had to deal with a lifelong sense of self-betrayal and the humiliation that comes with THAT instead. perhaps his whole existence was even more pitiful and humiliating than the end masakado had met, but it was familiar, so he chose it over confronting the unknown.

he could get by on scraps of conditional affection from his siblings, however miserable it was, but it was too terrifying to confront being rejected by them entirely. anyways, so i thought maybe the conclusion of the masakado quest was a sort of absolution as well for susanoo's like, millennia long internal conflict.

he's able to 'make peace' with a former 'enemy' whom he probably saw himself in and 'redeem' himself for his past betrayal. and he sees the way masakado has finally been granted the proper respect and dignity he deserved despite his past humiliation. maybe that's a sort of 'redemption' and 'salvation' that he was able to achieve even after both physical death and the complete rejection of who he was, a sort of spiritual death. and maybe this would give susanoo a sort of courage to confront the same risk despite his deepest fears, enabling him to maybe do what he never could.

granted, by this point susanoo is also dead, so i think he's only able to achieve this absolution through aogami who still seems to retain firsthand memory of this whole historical event lmao. even if aogami himself may not be able to truly connect with it and understand this resolution the way susanoo would've.

the imagery of 'the setting sun', curtains drawing on a dying world, the absence of creation from the current world as the creator deities all transcend to a higher realm or something in preparation of a new world? we have moon deities like tsukuyomi, khonsu, even artemis. but their sun counterparts are mostly missing. ra is kind of a weird case in general, horus is present but through isis's sidequest he's said to be basically nothing but a shell of his true self at this point. apollo also isn't in the game.

side note i wondered if khonsu acquiring ra's power was almost akin to acquiring a kind of power of creation? even though he was completely uninterested in the throne itself. perhaps he couldn't truly use that power both because it was just a miniscule version of the throne's power, and/or because his own immaturity and youthfulness meant that he currently had no use for it. in general khonsu and miyazu i think symbolized youthfulness, still too immature to form and understand any ideal of their own (even false ones?)

anyways, even God AKA the Creator is absent. also very notable that among hinduism's trimurti, shiva the destroyer and vishnu the preserver are both present within the game, but brahma the creator is NOT. brahma is also known as the god of knowledge (!!)

shiva is also largely absent from the story even though he plays a role within it. i don't know how concerned he was with the throne given his role in this case was destruction, fitting for a world at its end. vishnu appears only as a summonable ally, and he does also have demon haunt dialogue talking about avatars on this plane of existence as the manifestation of higher beings or something, iirc. either way, we know there exists higher planes of reality where several of these divine/higher beings are implied to reside.

i wondered if maybe the throne was powered by the combined powers of all these creation deities, and that's why they all withdrew at the end of the world, in order to fulfill their role of guiding everyone towards the recreation of a new world. we only meet goko as 'the light of creation', as an avatar of sorts of the amitabha buddha, also a kind of creation deity. but maybe it's not only by his power that the throne is powered but by the combined powers of most of the creation deities. the goddess of creation is perhaps another of deities as well, manifested on this plane of existence in order to guide the people towards the new world. i'll probably talk some more about the goddess, amaterasu, tao and yoko another time but the goddess of smtv was perhaps modeled after the concept of the Tao from taoism. like wow turns out it was…right there in tao's name lmao.

anyways, i think in general smtv's themes are about reaching enlightenment through self-realization and transcendence. the dying world is an illusion, literally the tokyo they live in is illusory and fading. trying to cling onto it and refusing to move on to a new future keeps you trapped and lost within the earthly illusion. the only way to be free from it is to attain enlightenment and transcend. metaphorically speaking though i think it is just representative of attaining a true awareness of the self, and the interconnectedness of all things within the universe, and then through that learning how to move forward with living your life. gaining the courage to live and the understanding to be true to yourself, so you can move forwards to the future.

the thing with the sense of powerlessness is that it is in part rooted in the fact that they can't understand or accept their own agency. being able to do that would mean understanding the power you DO have and that everyone is kind of the same, nobody is all powerful. but that would mean accepting responsibility for your own life and decisions, and the consequences that come with. it's simply easier to resent and blame others so that the responsibility is shifted to them instead. but that in turn emphasizes the idea that everyone else is all powerful and hold absolute control over you, creating a feedback loop.

anyways, i suddenly wondered what it is aogami was envisioning would happen anyway once you returned to tokyo for the first time. did he think MC would just be able to return to normal life and be safe and sound? that everything would go back to 'normal'? aogami would go back to the life he knew before as a mere tool to bethel, and that would be that? the comfort of the familiar illusion and not having to challenge anything or come to accept their newfound agency and responsibility? it's like once they returned, he was lulled into complacency by the familiarity of being back in bethel again. he no longer had responsibility because it was all under abdiel and hayao's command again. the comforting part of this is only in that it's familiar. even though it's otherwise miserable, perhaps it's less terrifying than having to confront your own freedom and responsibility for the first time. ironic given freedom was probably what susanoo always wanted, and yet it seems to terrify aogami at the same time.

his thought process might've been something like: "i don't want to fight back because i'm afraid." "i'm afraid because i know i can't fight back."

"therefore, it's ok to not even try, and continue to hide behind my own helplessness. -> this absolves me of any responsibility, and shifts it onto everyone else instead, which allows me to resent them. -> and this feels good because it fills me with a sense of righteousness."

my interpretation is these are probably the same feelings susanoo had as well. and he had the physical power to fight back, given he was probably physically stronger than his siblings, but that in itself wasn't enough because it wasn't the point. more on this later.

either way, both susanoo and aogami probably wanted freedom most of all, but couldn't accept their own agency and so was terrified by it as well. so they remained bound in the comfort of their own helplessness despite their desire for freedom being within reach.

note that hayao also kinda goes through this process lmao, if not other characters as well. and that sense of righteousness reinforces your sense of self, in part because it convinces you of a false ideal. it takes a certain courage to live because it means having to accept your own agency and power. this means only you can make things happen for yourself, it's no longer on anyone else. it also means it's required that you take the gamble of choosing to live, with all of the risks and consequences that come with it. this is perhaps far more terrifying than enduring a misery that you're already familiar with, it could mean a completely new kind of misery you're unfamiliar with, or losing everything. it's actually far easier to be complacent in the familiarity of your own helplessness, which is i think what aogami (and others) may have struggled with. this is kind of a theme that comes up in higu and is…also kinda coming up in muramasa.

i think this is what the lahmu arc in CoC showed. for the first time aogami takes some control to make a decision, but it ends in disaster and the sheer weight and devastation of the consequences of maybe his first ever decision is something he couldn't endure. it scares him out of taking further control over his own life and he struggles again with accepting his own agency in the world. he becomes kinda caught between complacency and fear of his own agency. he learns in those early scenes upon returning to bethel that his complacency will only extend the same abuse he endured to MC, which he can't accept. but accepting the responsibility for his own decisions is also far too scary, because it carries with it risks that could result in him losing Everything. the lahmu arc in CoC DID end with everyone nearly dying, including MC. but i think it's precisely the acceptance of this huge risk, of being able to gamble with your life/everything on the line, that grants you the power and control over your own life and the courage to live and move forward. it's far easier to continue to hide behind his own helplessness, but aogami has something to protect now, so he can't do that anymore.

in higu this is kinda behind the concept of 'miracles'. the 'gods' will only be inclined to 'bless' you if you show them your resolve in this way, by accepting this all or nothing gamble. this also just means actually that you can only 'create miracles' if you're able to accept your own power and give it your all, regardless of outcome.

in muramasa it is: "when there is no choice but to fight, is the likelihood of victory important?" "it is my responsibility to fight, therefore i will. that's all there is to it." "i must fight, therefore i shall."

that's resolve. without this resolve you reject the power to do anything, and thus you reject your own autonomy in creating the life and future you want for yourself. (disclaimer that i am not far enough into muramasa to comment further lmao this is just what i've seen so far.)

the physical prowess of eliminating all threats around you and overpowering everyone else, to achieve things through force, is not the same as the power over your own life and the courage to accept all consequences that come with living. everyone was focused on the former but missed the latter. i think aogami in CoC focused as well on gaining the power to 'eliminate all threats and obstacles standing in their way', because he could not overcome his own fear of the world around them and his own agency.

i'll need another playthrough or 2 to better examine things through this angle though lmao. 'i can't face my fear of my own agency, so the only other way is to gain the power to eliminate all threats that serve to keep me helpless, since i can no longer remain complacent either.'

hayao's intro scene he walks past everyone without looking at or acknowledging anyone at first.

it isn't until he turns around that he finally addresses the group. and the first person he looks at is MC, and very intently lmao. for a good long moment too. i don't know exactly what his Look meant but it gave me the sense that he was sizing MC up lmao.

i think he was trying to figure out just who or what he was, knowing almost certainly MC was his brother's knowledge but having never actually met him. and the circumstances were too unusual of a coincidence overall. i guess there was kind of an oppressive/threatening sense to it maybe similar to the scene a bit later after aogami's maint where hayao basically gives aogami a thinly veiled threat not to rebel or something lmao. was he threatening us from the get go? trying to judge how obedient we would be? i don't really know but it stood out lol.

i did also get the sense that everything he presented in that intro scene was intended to give us the impression that bethel jp were the 'good guys' just 'trying to protect tokyo'. but oh…they're so short on manpower…((won't you help us for the greater good??))

dazai then asks if he can help too, since hayao JUST said 'yeah we employ students too basically!' and he follows up by clarifying if dazai means 'protecting tokyo?' which ALWAYS struck me as odd because why would you need to clarify that when you just said that like 5 times 😭

i just thought he kept saying 'we're protecting tokyo okay! that's our mission and goal!!' to really emphasize that lol. to some degree i mean hayao is also genuinely convinced that's what he's doing so i guess there's some copium trying to fool himself in that too.

anyway, yuzuru also first describes bethel jp as something like a group trying to save the world from demonic threat. basically, in a very heroic manner lol. is this basically what's being sold to the students in general? even though from the very get go hayao is like emanating an extremely dark and menacing aura that's not at all in line with the image of a heroic org lmao? also funny to think about how he might've been aware of how atrocious his vibes are and he's like i REALLY need to sell this better. i guess he is a politican in the end ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ anyways

2. other thing i noticed is everyone in these two scenes immediately following our return to tokyo treats aogami kind of especially like an object. he himself also kinda reverts to a very…inanimate and lifeless state. this is a bit odd because after his reawakening in daat, he behaves a lot more like a real Person in all the interactions before we make it back to tokyo. he expresses thoughts and feelings.

everyone in these scenes who don't just straight up ignore him as if he weren't even there talk as if he were just an object and not a person present in the room. i guess hayao does directly address him towards the end but it's only to give an order for maint. even abdiel threatens MC specifically and not aogami. it's probably not intentional on tao's part, but she does also talk in a manner where he sounds more like some asset they lost all those years ago than a person or something. idk how much that's just translation though.

it's hard to tell what aogami might be thinking or feeling during these scenes, if any of that is happening at all. he doesn't say much of anything nor express or react to anything. it just seems odd for him to actually revert to a 'lifeless' state after his reawakening upon meeting MC, so i wondered if it's more likely he did have thoughts and feelings during this time but for some reason he just reverted to pretending like he was just an object instead the moment they got back to bethel.

interestingly, he doesn't even make any move to protect MC when abdiel threatens him. he doesn't really react at all, not even just to stand between them or something. he acknowledges abdiel but rather emotionlessly and then does nothing else really.

we do know that by the time his maint is done he's starting to express some hostility/suspicion towards hayao lmao, so what were those initial scenes upon getting back to bethel for the first time? i don't really know, but i wonder if he was also just confused and afraid.

i wonder if that was also a source of guilt for him later on, that he was just kinda paralyzed that entire time while BOTH abdiel and hayao threatened MC and he just…kinda let it happen. was it because he himself was too afraid to have fought back against his former authority figures in the moment? i always wondered just how 'human' the aogamis originally were before meeting MC. were they truly emotionless robots devoid of any personhood or did they just have their thoughts and emotions mostly suppressed both through programming and through their own denial as…an attempt to cope or something? i suppose it might make the mistreatment easier to bear if you just pretend you really don't have any emotions, right? it's pretty sad to think about but i think about it sometimes lol.

maybe aogami never understood emotions both because he never had a chance to understand them, and because he didn't want to understand them since it was easier not to. i guess now he has an incentive to want to understand them though and he CAN be rather perceptive.

he's unable to provide the reflection/clarity and guidance the moon Should provide for others because he himself is caught up in illusions, like a moon shrouded by clouds that has thus lost its guiding light. i thought his boss theme also gave the sense of cloudiness.

so where to start…i rewatched because i remembered the bible quote from GitS. 1 Corinthians 13:12. “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” or whichever translation you want to use. very aoshu i thought, and probably applies to the other nahobino pairs too. mirrors and glass were imperfect (at least back then), so you could never see a true, perfect reflection of yourself. so, you could never truly See or know yourself. realistically we can't see ourselves without something external to reflect. this idea of being 'split' and thus having a perfect reflection of yourself means that you're finally able to 'know' yourself through the other in this way. this is mostly not referring to a physical reflection, though that can be included.

and…we are made in God's image, so it goes then that maybe, if we become able to clearly see our own reflection, we will also come to understand God. reminds me of these quotes from aogami. one interpretation is 'God' in this case does not actually refer to YHVH/the Creator.

obviously not necessarily the case in the real world, but within smtvv's context, i get the idea that 'God's will' does not necessarily refer to any one god at all. i think it means something more akin to 'enlightenment' and 'God's will' in this case is your OWN 'true will'.

also relevant quotes (i literally keep going back to these 😭) i think this is akin to something like the hero's journey to attain self-discovery and self-actualization or whatever. anyways i'm not very familiar on Kabbalah nor the hero's journey so maybe that's for another time

but just at a glance, Kabbalah seems to essentially posit that there is some essence of 'the divine' within everything, and a fusion of God and man allows for the revelation of that which is maybe something like 'enlightenment' and 'knowing the truth of God's/your own will'.

so anyway, basically, something like both the nahobino split and fusion allows us to better understand our own true will, not just our earthly desires that can be misleading, but something like the 'true essence of our being or soul'.

back to GitS now, GitS introduces two points of consideration:

the 'self' is both something that defines you and something that binds you as a set of restrictions. what makes us 'us' is a collection of things like thoughts and memories, personality. but these also become parameters you must abide by in order to remain 'you'. these things have to remain consistent to some degree to maintain a stable sense of self.

but the 'self' is also only an earthly thing that prevents your integration with 'the divine', and thus contributes to misleading you from true 'knowledge' you will not understand if you choose to remain forever unchanging in this way. and there is a necessity for continuous change and renewal within nature to prevent obsolescence or 'extinction'. 'ego death', which is also not a concept i can say much about right now, is a sort of freedom then from the prison of the 'self', and a path to transcendence and enlightenment. we'll come back to this and the keyword here is freedom.

on a side note, my speculation is that the protofiend system was developed as being distinct from traditional demons in order to mimic mortality. this thus mimics the process of death and rebirth and renewal in order to prevent that 'obsolescence' and keep up with the ages. a sort of 'immortality' ironically based in mortality. humans are mortal, and that's why we are capable of change and evolution. you could also interpret the 'mortality' of the protofiend system as being their attempt to achieve humanity. typically, gods will fade into obscurity once their time passes, if they are unable to change with the people and the times. the protofiend system may be intending to overcome this.

back to GitS, the second point of consideration:

the maintenance of a physical body binds us to the institutions that maintain them. for cyborgs, this means they rely on the institutions that perform their routine maint, and as this is necessary for their survival, they are essentially at their mercy. for humans, we are bound to the needs of our body, and thus we can't part from what is necessary for our physical survival. that generally means things like having a job. these all serve to bind us.

so with these two points, we are essentially bound both physically and spiritually, on the earthly realm at least. so to be free, you need to achieve enlightenment and 'transcend'. OOOK i think that's the basic foundations i have to lay down to get into things in smtvv…

anyways, some similarities are coming up. motoko and aogami have a lot in common. they're cyborgs who consider themselves to be 'empty shells' who may or may not have ever existed as a 'person'. they're detached and unable to connect to any former identity they may have once had. they consider themselves to be property of the state with no real autonomy at all. motoko questions if she has a soul or any humanity at all, and how to even define those things, all while sorta yearning for that higher understanding and humanity. she finally achieves that to some degree after seeing herself reflected within the puppet master (hereby 'the PM', don't confuse with prime minister lmao) and fusing with him. all very reminiscent of nahobinos.

so if aogami is like motoko, then perhaps MC is like the PM, at least in role. both empty shells without any understanding or 'personhood', with their only potential to achieve such enlightenment lying within their meeting and union. and i think they differed from the other nahobino pairs because of their emptiness. they were arguably the most in balance because they were Both empty shells largely unfettered to any past or accumulated experience to mislead them, unlike the other pairs where at least one half clung onto some past.

as mentioned in point 1 previously, the 'self' is a prison with all of its accumulated experiences, thoughts, memories, personality. the fact that neither aoshu had much of a 'self' meant that they were already unbound in this sense, and that may have been their advantage. though the people and the world around them still tried to tether them down to these things.

so again, there seem to be differences setting aoshu apart from the other nahobino pairs. i also got the idea that in a sense, everything that played out was like a cosmic chess game for lucifer. i'm thinking of the 'game board' and 'pieces' concept from the WTC series, where higher beings observe and (with limited ability) interact with the world as if it were a 'game board', and the key players on it their 'pieces'. so the main cast could maybe be considered lucifer's 'pieces' that he lined up in order to set things into motion on this cosmic game board. this means he likely had some control and manipulated certain things, but i don't think he had full control to dictate every detail that existed and every event that occurred. i also just like lucifer's classic whimsical and capricious nature so i personally don't think he would've chosen to meticulously control Everything. that being said, smtvv's lucifer may not be the same lord of chaos he usually is after his transcendence. anyways, i think he just set up this game board and its pieces and just watched it play out however it played out. so maybe he was just watching the nahobino pairs to see who triumphs in the end lmao.

during aogami's memory upon reaching tokyo tower, lucifer then says this accompanied with the scene of him…seemingly dissolving into magatsuhi? and being scattered all over the place. i wondered what exactly the implications were here for a long time, but i think this was him lining up his 'pieces' by manipulating the events/aspects of the main casts' lives/development/etc to gradually lead them towards the competition for the throne and the meeting of the nahobino pairs. maybe that's why the 3 boys were whisked away to daat in the tunnel at the start in order to facilitate their meetings with their other halves and spur on the nahobino fusions. also notably, i think most if not all of the main cast came into being/power sometime 18years ago, around the time lucifer transcended. maybe that was also part of his set up.

so, it took a long while for anyone to actually go nahobino and all lmao. arguably perhaps nuwa and yakumo were the first pair to have met, but they never fused probably for reasons i talked about in that old thread. as well as the risk of the condemnation, since there wasn't any confirmation then that it had been lifted. so aoshu IMMEDIATELY fusing on first meeting stands out as being very odd. i've talked a little about aogami's lack of reluctance to fuse unlike the other demons, but i'll go over the points again with the additional context now.

aoshu essentially being equally empty and on equal footing, completely in balance, i think made it so they didn't have the reluctance issue the other pairs had where one party was always 'dominant' in some misled will, yet hesitant and seeking guidance that could never come.

i think aoshu actually equally sought guidance and wanted to learn from each other. there IS some fluctuation here especially since MC was the one mostly 'in control' of the nahobino, but…i think that has to do with something else actually. i can't go into it right now because i'd have to think some more on it. i think it has something more to do with aogami's development arc and his struggle with agency and control rather than a kind of imbalance as seen in the other pairs. maybe i'll figure this out and go into it another time 🙃

2. aogami would have also had to be unconcerned about the condemnation unlike everyone else. this is relatively simple to explain and very funny because the reason is most likely just because he straight up Forgot it was even a thing that existed, so it wasn't a concern for him. conveniently aogami's lack of any sense of self as well as his generally dogshit memory (????) and memory loss actually really works in their favor LMFAO…love him. guy who genuinely knows nothing and that's his advantage over everyone else.

so i think with the other pairs, one half's strong desire to cling onto their identity and to consistently define themselves in rigid manners misled them to chasing desires that weren't truly in line with their 'true will'. and their Knowledge, being mostly adolescents who are also still developing and learning and discovering things about themselves and the world around them, they ended up unable to act as the guidance they should've been due to this imbalance. i think aogami's line when you first get to ueno in CoC where he asks what kind of world you want to create, and if you say you don't know he'll respond by saying something like 'then how about we search for that together?' that was probably the 'correct' process to self discovery. the pairs should've all gone through that discovery process together, instead of with one dominant party leading the way. because i don't think any one party can know what their 'true will' is and it's something that has to be discovered by both in union. that's why it's a union and a fusion, i guess. you have to look at your reflection in the other to see yourself, afterall. you cannot see yourself without a reflection. we'll probably get back to this later in my speculations and some analyses of themes.

also fair warning i'm going to segue into shilling lucifer/susanoo as a ship at some point in this because i realized something and There's Potential lmfao.

anyways, i also thought about it and found it rather ironic that in likely murdering and butchering susanoo in his rebirth as aogami, hayao actually inadvertently granted him the true freedom he's probably always wanted. in being 'reborn' as someone new, unbound now to his old sense of self with all of its restrictions, his role as an amatsukami, the expectations and duties placed on him as 'susanoo' he's able to be truly free, which was probably his true desire and 'true will'. he needed to achieve that 'ego death' in order to attain that enlightenment and complete freedom. it may not have been something he was fully aware of nor some grand plan, but it ended up working out. and ironically, while murdering and butchering susanoo was likely hayao's greatest sin, it was also his redemption in this sense, because he ultimately granted susanoo's greatest wish in the end? disclaimer that obviously we don't Really know what happened to susanoo exactly and how much hayao was responsible for it, but this is just my speculation because it makes a lot of sense and is thematically juicy lmao.

ok so on the topic of reflections in general. there's some 'reflections' even outside of the nahobino pairs that could also play a part in this theme overall. also brings to mind tsukuyomi's association with mirrors.

i'll probably end up talking a bit about the hero's journey eventually too as it'll probably lead into it, MAYBE touching upon comparative mythology as i think that features heavily in smtvv's themes overall. idk this is just becoming stream of consciousness of related concepts🧍

ANYWAYS, on reflections. so there's a lot of concepts of 'being created in someone's image' and that someone is usually God, or a similar authority/'father' figure. humans are created in God's image. i don't know enough about the bible or christianity to say but maybe lucifer was also created 'in God's image'.

we do know susanoo/aogami were modeled after tsukuyomi, so you could say they are reflections of each other. susanoo was created in tsukuyomi's image. you could also say the division of izanagi into the 3 amatsu essentially created 3 reflections. theoretically they should have been united in some higher will, but they grew apart as they developed their own 'selves'. i don't know whether to interpret this as an inevitable result of possessing free will, or if it has to do with being misled by the development of an earthly 'self'. whether the connotations are 'positive' or 'negative' is i think up to interpretation. i think 'God's will' as previously defined is intended to be representative of true enlightenment and fulfillment, but not as something that disregards and negates one's free will either. so i don't think the 'end goal' is to return to the 'original' being such as re-forming into izanagi. perhaps it's something more akin to each division and each fusion leading to the creation of new 'offspring', each as unique manifestations of the same ultimate will but in like…a kind of evolved form. the earthly realm is confusing and misleading though, distorted and illusory or whatever, so i think that might contribute to 'reflective pairs' no longer being able to 'reflect' one another, such as in the case of tsukuyomi & susanoo and perhaps lucifer & God.

also, for a deity associated with mirrors and reflections, hayao is real fucking bad at doing that because of his own desperation to cling onto a consistent sense of self. you could say perhaps 'vanity' is the issue here, if the 'self' is an earthly illusion and prison. this is all very abstract but i think the key here is to not consider this anti-individuality or something, but rather being misled from your 'true self' by being stuck in an 'inflexible system' (as said by the PM in GitS) where you become resistant to/incapable of change. if you think of there being some 'higher will' guiding us all towards true self-discovery and actualization, then it may make some sense to submit to natural change and 'go with the flow' to let yourself be led in the 'right' direction. this is all spirituality so it doesn't matter what you personally believe, i just raise it within this context for the purpose of thematic analysis.

anyways, vanity leads to pride and arrogance, rebellion against the greater will that may ultimately be your own. i think Perhaps the incorporation of concepts like these may be why smtvv lucifer is also somewhat different from the usual lucifer lmao. we don't know anything about the Creator, so perhaps their true wills were actually aligned, and pre-transcendence lord of chaos lucifer is unable to realize this until his transcendence. after consuming the Creator's Knowledge, perhaps he was able to see again their reflections of each other and come to understand all. a reunification of two reflective parts, but not a reformation back into a previous being and moreso the creation of a new one. the transcended lucifer is no longer the Creator nor the lord of chaos. just as is the case with the nahobino.

in CoV i think tsukuyomi & aogami achieve this to some degree as well with a sort of 'reconciliation' in their atonement. there is a stage in the hero's journey called 'Atonement with the Father' that i may get into later, just to note for now. anyways, i think combined with the yoibino fusion, perhaps we could say tsukuyomi & 'susanoo' were once again able to see their reflections in the other, that reunification of two reflective parts and all leading to 'true' understanding. idk i also just find the common theme in mythologies of 'twinning' and division to be very fascinating here.

anyways, i think in the past i've noted the similarities between lucifer and susanoo. they both have that 'fallen from grace' element, paradise lost, banishment. the desire for complete freedom, willfulness, their condemnation. so i wondered then if they could Also be considered 'reflections' of each other. i wondered if they'd met and saw their likeness in each other, which granted them a certain higher awareness towards the end. you could say they both ultimately 'died' and 'transcended' after this. it's very likely they did meet in canon given they were both key players during the war 18years ago. realistically, there was probably no 'love' involved even if they did see each other as reflections and gained higher awareness together, but like i'm a fujo so i like the lucisusa angle ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

the final bit in GitS where motoko asks the PM why he chose her to fuse, he says:

"Because in you l see myself. As a body sees its reflection within a mirror."

or in a different translation,

"Because we are more alike than you realize. We resemble each others essence. Mirror images of one another’s psyche."

did something similar happen between lucifer and susanoo? and did they gain a greater awareness of what they should do afterwards? we don't know the exact reasons susanoo had for choosing to sacrifice himself, but i wondered if he might've known to some degree that was his path to true freedom, what he's wanted all along. lucifer's endgame also similarly requires the nahobino to ultimately kill him, perhaps also granting him the same freedom through 'ego death', and the nahobino gains true transcendence and 'knowledge'. perhaps lucifer and susanoo had a simillar end goal afterall? so perhaps they were aligned, perhaps they were reflections of each other too. i do have some more scattered things i haven't gotten to, but for now i'll end the long threads here.

actually i also want to say i think the idea of lucisusa is just really funny esp because imagine tsukuyomi just being like this watching the lord of chaos himself whisk away his brotherwife. he keeps getting cucked fr. funniest guy in history.

if he felt guilty that they'd met at all and thought that it would be better had MC NOT met him, then it shouldn't have happened a second time. the fact that it did was i think one of the major reasons it finally got through to aogami that their meeting wasn't a mistake.

after tiamat's summoning fiasco, aogami essentially 'atones' for what he felt was his 'sin' of implicating MC in all of this and derailing his whole life. he successfully saves MC, and by 'dying' he allows MC a chance to return to the comfortable normal life he'd derailed. MC is given a chance to return to 'Eden' if we wanna put it like, poetically 🧍 but evidently he doesn't take it. he's even spared by abdiel and told to return to his quiet, normal life, but he doesn't do it. so i think the very fact that MC showed up at the end and saved aogami in the process was probably finally proof enough to aogami that their meeting wasn't a mistake. MC repeatedly made the choice NOT to return to normal life even after being given a chance to do so.

had MC not arrived at the end to slay tiamat, i don't think aogami would have reawakened either, similar to their first meeting. mutual salvation. so it seems like the second time around, aogami truly no longer has any qualms about offering his hand again.

realistically these were situations where it was either take his hand or die, and while i don't think aogami would've let MC just Die regardless, i think the point was moreso to emphasize that MC didn't choose to take the easy way out. so their meeting wasn't a mistake. because the easy way out would have been to continue an illusory and empty existence just drifting along until everything came to an end, the way it likely was for both of them before they'd met each other. but i don't think either of them wanted that anymore. it just took A While to get that through to aogami's head lmao. that shit needed to happen in CoV to convince him.