Contemporary Fiction generally makes use of antagonists whose actions are fuelled by trauma, injustice, grief or loss- A backstory that negates or excuses a villain’s actions. This is a common villain archetype, making a character more understandable and easy to sympathise with. There is a certain fondness for such villains, for an antagonist with no tragic backstory makes them hard to relate to, making them unsettling or uncomfortable. This is why a villain with no ‘sob story’ is an anomaly in the literary world, an unconventional type drifting apart from the usual cliché. When I think about such a character, Kenjaku from Jujutsu Kaisen immediately comes to mind.
The Distinction: In the literary world, evil started needing a reason to be evil, a villain needed a reason to be a villain, something that justified their ill goals and motives. However, Kenjaku from Jujutsu Kaisen provides no such comfort. A complex character heavily inspired from Buddhism, his seed for evil blooming simply from curiosity. Despite being influenced by something so pure, his personality proves to be the complete opposite. Antagonists become one usually due to cause and effect- Revenge for the injustice they faced, reclaiming the loss they endured, a betrayal that left an unfixable wound, a childhood spent being neglected, or simply getting even with those who wronged them. Jujutsu Kaisen does not provide that conventional emotional justification. His past remains majorly unexplored, and the story never asks the readers to pity him before judging his actions.
An opted villainy: Kenjaku’s villainy was a voluntary pursuit, not a consequence of victimhood. Kenjaku’s internal desire was shaped by his overwhelming curiosity. His aim was to force the entirety of Japan into evolution to explore what can happen when humanity and cursed energy can be forced beyond their limits. He is not driven by personal suffering, nor does he hate humanity. This was him choosing the evil path not because the opposite party hurt him, but just because, as he states, for the fun of it. It makes him free from the binds of moral ethics, making him even more dangerous than the villains who still have a connection with human feelings and emotions that motivate their actions. What makes his character disturbing is how he uses optimistic human traits like exploration, experimentation, discovery and the chase for knowledge by removing their moral boundaries, morphing them into monstrous tools for his progress. His experiments to form the Death Paintings (Hybrids who are part human and part curse), show the extent to which his curiosity overrides human dignity- he makes use of reproduction itself, reducing a woman’s body and the lives produced as sheer methods for gaining knowledge. Humans are merely a small piece in his big puzzle.
An Irony that makes him unique: Kenjaku’s name literally translates to ‘snare’ or ‘entangling rope,’ a type of Lasso used in esoteric Buddhism, based on ‘Fuku Kenjaku Kannon,’ a form of a Bodhisattva of compassion who carries a rope which never misses. It is thrown in the ‘samsara,’ the cycle of life and death, and catches every being in need of saving, taking them towards enlightenment. Kenjaku’s version of ‘saving,’ however, is completely different. His primary vessel, Geto, was a morally grey character, someone who decided to twist his morals for a cause that he genuinely believed would save humanity. Geto wanted to save humanity from a world free of curses by eradicating that portion of humanity who could not control their emotions seeping out to form manifestations known as curses, eradicating non-sorcerers. He believed that only sorcerers were capable of not reeking emotions that would manifest curses. Kenjaku’s wants would release a similar output, an evolved humanity. He wanted to ‘catch’ every being in Japan and force them into a transcended state, leaving no non-sorcerers behind.
One of the main principles of Buddhism is to break free from the cycle of life and death. Kenjaku does that not by attaining salvation but by essentially becoming immortal, by switching bodies and cheating death itself. Buddhism also states that every person has a Buddha inside of them and the womb is what grows it. By taking over Kaori’s body, Kenjaku carried a child in the womb, Yuji Itadoti, a selfless and benevolent human, a person who ended up being a better Bodhisattva than Kenjaku ever could. His domain is named ‘Womb Profusion,’ with his handsign not calling out to any god and simply being one of the eight basic seals, one for uniting the body, speech, mind and Buddha into one.
Can there be evil without suffering?
Kenjaku breaks this stereotype of a villain being born through suffering and unlocks a whole new perspective. It makes us question if evil can exist without suffering. It makes us question whether it is possible for someone who can understand morality yet still choose to disregard it. This is why Kenjaku is an anomaly, he deliberately chooses to abandon ethics and leaves people with an uncomfortable idea- the root of evil is not always suffering, it can be what a person can do when nothing matters to them more than their curiosity. The most dangerous people are not those who have faced the worst of human emotions, but who don't need a tragic story at all to traverse the path of evil.
-Zen
Source: r/Jujutsufolk · by /u/sukunakuna