Muzan's fight : thematic analysis

It will be a pretty long thread.

Muzan's philosophy of change is simple to understand, Muzan is a being who wishes of immortality. Being immortal means having a body that doesn't change. For him, everything that remains unchangeable despite the time passes is something perfect.

Being perfect or unchangeable is something that exceeds the laws of nature. In other words, Muzan wants to escape the laws of nature, therefore to stand up as a force of nature.

1. humanity

Muzan showed a lot of human traits. Fear of death is the most natural emotion for every human being. His backstory accentuates his wish of living at a higher degree, as he is born almost dead and lived his life sick, close to death many times

until he was about to die at 20 but struggled to stay alive. When it was given to him a stronger body, he was still deprived of living normally, at daylight, all this justifies his intense wish of living. Therefore of being immortal.

He also showed his humanity in the fight, considering his own life as a priority by running away. Seeing him aging was also a way to showing it. Demons naturally don't age and don't run out of stamina, humans do, but Tamayo managed to create drugs that go against the pith of

being a demon. Which acts like a perfect punishment to the one who defied the laws of nature by wishing obtaining an unchangeable, non-aging body. Obviously his baby form was also a sign of his humanity, used as a last ditch effort to survive a bit more at the sunlight.

It's also a direct symbolism to when he was born as a still born fetus struggling to stay alive. A baby form and an aging form, as metaphors of the human life.
On the other side Tanjiro lacked human traits. Tanjiro always showed signs of comprehension for humans and demons.

But when he was in front of Muzan he lost his lucidity. He barely talked with him to understand him. What makes Muzan's character and death even more miserable, because Tanjiro the one who valued and considered everyone's life didn't show any sign of comprehension towards him.

Cold, to the point he said to Muzan who did everything to keep staying alive : "you are a being that shouldn't be allowed to exist". At the end Muzan died showing human emotions by crying and Tanjiro became a demon.

2. force of nature

For all demons the feelings are expressed through the demons abilities and bodies constitutions. This is why for example Kokushibo has multiple eyes, expressing his wish to get as strong as Yoriichi, which allowed him to reach See Through World. Muzan's body constitution and

abilities act like the expressions of his feelings of wishing to stand up as a force of nature. He has a set of natural disasters techniques : winds, eruption, lighting, earthquakes, poisons. He also has seven hearts and five brains, recalling the seven continents and the five

oceans. As if Muzan's body could represent the Earth bigger than his follower the Moon Kokushibo and smaller than the Sun Yoriichi who is constantly burning him with his rays : the scars. Maybe that is the reason behind the name of the technique "See Through World". Through this

technique we observe the seven hearts and five brains moving like tectonics plates in the World represented by Muzan. Becoming unnaturally strong and killing a lot of people in the same way of a great calamity, Muzan elevated himself as a force of nature. The demon slayer corps

became an organisation engaged in continuous battle with Muzan. It's as if nature itself attempted to restart the disrupted cycle and hence the Gods essentially sent a prophet to restore the natural flow. That of course being none other than Yoriichi. A being so ridiculously

powerful from birth that he must've been sent by the Gods themselves. As a man endowed with great powers, Yoriichi felt guilt for not being able to save the people's lives Muzan endangered, as opposition of Muzan's egoism. At the end of the day Muzan tried to elevate himself

as a force of nature but never managed to reach the place he was heading to. He rejected his humanity which was strongly present inside him. While Nezuko who fully embraced her part of humanity managed to reach it by overcoming the demon instincts of hunger and the sunlight.

3. immortality

Muzan wants to have a permanent body which is to him the perfect body and the meaning of immortality, something tangible. Muzan as the first demon in existence embodies the idea of "immortality of flesh". The demon slayer corps embodies the idea of "immortality of thoughts".

Which is according to Ubuyashiki the true meaning of immortality, an intangible one : the fact that the feelings, the thoughts and the memories are inherited through the ages, despite centuries have passed. It's the resolve of the demon slayers, it's the techniques that have

remained through generations like the breath of the sun, the idea that lives are connected. Muzan got pissed when Ubuyashiki told him his perception of immortality, because it goes against his existence. If the immortality is indeed only immaterial then Muzan's life and what

he tried to accomplish for centuries are pointless. That's why he is pissed of it and closed his eyes to it at first. But he witnessed that in the final fight, the persistent will of the demon slayers to take down Muzan was abnormal to him. Like he said they could just live

peacefully instead of fighting something out of their reach, something like natural disasters. Seeing all the demon slayers throwing their bodies on him was the cog that made him witness what Ubuyashiki considered as the true meaning of immortality.

On the verge of death he accepted it and turned Tanjiro into a demon as a manifestation of his change. Muzan depised change, he has been loyal to his philosophy of change since the beginning, as for example of it is how pissed he was towards the Lower Moons which are constantly

replaced for being weak, while the Upper Moons remained unmodified for centuries. But at the end he abandoned this philosophy. Basically his acceptation of Ubuyashiki's beliefs in the fight also served a bigger development focused towards his philosophy of change.

Him who despised all kinds of change, has ended up changing on many aspects. He accepted Ubuyashiki's beliefs and he cried.

Bonus point : the epilogue of the story ties with the Ubuyashiki's concept of immortality. He explains the thoughts never die through the ages, which is what reincarnations are. As for example Mitsuri and Obanai confessed to each other during the final fight, and those feelings

showed again through their reincarnations. The descendant-ancestor relationship of Tanjiro and Sumiyoshi was also a way to portray the concept of Ubuyashiki through the techniques that are preserved. And the epilogue focuses on both descendants and reincarnations.

Thanks for reading.