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The Peculiar Case of Kaiki Deishuu.
A Character Analysis on my favourite liar.
A Character Analysis on my favourite liar.
I will divide this into 3 parts: Kaiki's introduction, How Kaiki formed his philosophy, What is Kaiki's philosophy?
Kaiki is introduced to us as the opposite of Araragi. If Araragi is the person who saved Senyjogahara’s heart, then Kaiki is the one who broke her heart. Araragi saved Nadeko from the curse of the snake, whereas Kaiki is indirectly responsible for her being cursed due to selling
curse charms to middle schoolers. Araragi faces off against Kagenui to defend his sister, while Kaiki is the one who sold the information about Tsukihi’s location to her in the first place for money. They are literally separated by a river
If Araragi is a hero who saves everyone, Kaiki is a villain who cons people and doesn’t seem to care about the consequences of those he cons.
Araragi who is normally forgiving and talks casually to people who almost killed him, disdains Kaiki. Kaiki himself calls himself a villain.
But is he? He is a liar, who also lied about being a villain.
He is a character who exists to play upon other people’s expectations and cast everything into doubt. There’s even a meta narration to this. Koimonogatari(book) seemed to be Senjyogahara’s narration debut only for Kaiki to become the narrator instead.
"Ladies and gentleman, dear readers and all of you who picked up this book expecting Hitagi Senyjogahara to be the narrator have been duped. The lesson you should take home from this is every sentence ever written down by a book is bogus."
-Koimonogatari
-Koimonogatari
Yeah... That was the opening of the book. The book completely flips everything about Kaiki. It is a book where the villain saves the girl (Nadeko) whereas the hero's (Araragi’s) actions were the ones which created the problem for Nadeko, as his complete ignorance of her,partially
Pushed her to want to become a god.
Only after Hitagi end do we get to see another side of Araragi. Where the knight in the silver armor gets his armor torn off.
Like Kaiki said in the images, Araragi is someone who cares far more for the appearance of being good and helping others, then the actual work of helping.
Like Kaiki said in the images, Araragi is someone who cares far more for the appearance of being good and helping others, then the actual work of helping.
Kaiki brings up the discovery of tachyon particle that moves faster than light(in verse).Plenty of people will find this change in the truth alarming, even though most normal human beings aren’t physicists and won’t even bother to look at the math or data that proves that tachyon
particle and will just read the headlines and take other physicists at their word.
This isn't completely true, but the point stands. People often care more for the image of something, than the actual thing. That’s true for Araragi as well who isn’t as noble as he appears to be and is by all means a normal human.
Kaiki also, prefers to view himself as a villain rather than what he really is, a normal middle aged man with no relatives, no house to go to and makes money off con jobs.
For Kaiki, when he acts with good intentions, things always tend to not go as he planned them. Kaiki can control others by lying to them, manipulating them, duping them, but reality is something entirely out of his control. He can try to save someone only to have the opposite.
“You tore apart the Senjyogahara - and backed her parents into a corner from which divorce was the only way out - because nothing else was going to work, right? You judged that the only daughter would have no future if you didn’t cut her mother off from the family.”
“Uh huh, that’s right. I was actually a standup guy. A real sweetheart, just looking out for a kid. I was only putting on a show of being nefarious. You’ve got all the details, don’t you? You’re really well informed. But don’t tell anyone, okay? It’s embarrassing.”
Koimonogatari
Koimonogatari
Kaiki is ultimately someone afraid to be good. That’s his weakness. He knows his good intentions are not guaranteed to produce good results, and he can’t face himself when his failures spiral out of his control so it’s easier to present himself as a villain. It is clear when he
talks to himself in the mirror that he is trying to make himself believe that he is a selfish villain.
This is the reason he crafts narratives everywhere. Because he can create a falsity that he can control. This may be an exaggeration but this could also be his way of escapism. Maybe it's a way for a legally dead, family less vagabond to be able to have a stable life? He acts
like he has everything in control, because he is afraid of not being that.
“The second you say it out loud to someone, it deviates from your true feelings. All words are lies, it’s all a scam. No matter how true, the moment you utter it, it becomes embellished. Words are only representations, so impurities find their way in.” - Koimonogatari
This goes for a lot of us. Our words are biased, because they are our perception. We have the desire of the truth being what we want, so everything we say is perception.
Now, let me give an example.
Senjougahara's family was a normal loving one. But after being struck by misfortunes, a loving mother sells her daughter to a cult basically, even though she originally joined the cult because of her daughter’s sickness.
Senjougahara's family was a normal loving one. But after being struck by misfortunes, a loving mother sells her daughter to a cult basically, even though she originally joined the cult because of her daughter’s sickness.
Good people do bad things and good circumstances can easily turn bad for no good reason at all. That's the truth.
But in Kaiki's narrative, the villain showed up, conned them, caused the parents to get a divorce and therefore he’s the villain in the scenario. By being the villain he turning the scenario into a story, he gave it meaning. By making it black and white,
Kaiki made the reality less cruel. He's seen these types of scenario's before, so he finds it easier if he has the illusion of control.
So Kaiki says he thought Senjougahara's and her mother were fragile, but he probably thinks that about everybody. But like Hitagi who endured the pain and turned over a new leaf, people both are more and aren't as frail as Kaiki thinks
There are truth, and lies, and even Kaiki would rather not face reality directly because he prefers to stare into lies and shrowd himself in them then ever confront the truth. But unlike many, this doesn't stem from Kaiki's naivety.
It's rather due to be far to mature. Because nothing has inherent value, bad can be more valuable than good, and in their attempt to be truth, lies an be far more true than the actual truth.
Kaiki may believe everything is worthless and everything will be eventually lost so he thinks it’s pointless to cling to things. But he isn't a complete Nihilist.
Kaiki love replacable things like money, because their value was created by humans. He also hates irreplaceable things. Maybe it's because he is still unable to find something to replace the one he loved and lost 10 years ago? (Tooe)
While he believes nothing has inherent value,you can still create a false value which can be more true than the actual one. After all, If everything is a lie and there is no truth, then everything ends up being correct by default.
That is literally exactly what he tells Nadeko to do, he tells her to reject the thing which she thinks gives her life meaning, her love of Araragi and then find a new meaning in things that she truly loves. And that she can do this because everything is worthless therefore she
can create meaning in what she loves.
Humans are always changing their minds about what has value and that makes them human and Kaiki thinks that’s a wonderful thing, that’s his type of nihilism.
It’s not the result, not the happiness or sadness, but rather in the constant searching for meaning that defines you. Once again, Kaiki sees the freedom in that. There is nothing in life that will make you truly happy, there is no meaning to life, but there’s freedom because it
means you can try as many times as you want. There is no ending that will permanently end you, there’s no loss you cannot suffer.
With this, I end my analysis on Kaiki Deishuu, the subverted nihilistic lying lier who lies.
