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Finding Peace – Analysis of Mukuro and Hiei, part 1
Recently there has been some discussion sparked by the “Brutally Honest” post and Mukuro/Hiei.
This meta is not meant to discourage or argue with others’ perspectives of these characters and their relationship, but to offer a different perspective.
This is my take on the two and how their relationship plays out. Full disclosure, this analysis is primarily based on the English dub of the anime, though some points about the manga will be made as well.
To sum up my thoughts before I even begin this analysis – Mukuro and Hiei’s relationship is about camaraderie and finding peace after suffering. Here is how I’ve come to that conclusion.
Warning: Discussion of Suicide and Sexual abuse. Below the cut!
I’m going to go through this in 4 points
Point 1, Hiei’s meaning in life and suicidal behavior.
Point 2, Mukuro’s past as foil for Hiei’s.
Point 3, Mukuro’s tactics in getting Hiei to move on.
Point 4, How Hiei did the same for her, allowing them both to find piece.
Let’s begin with Point 1. Hiei’s suicidal behavior.
There are a number of quotes from Hiei that show he had lost his will to live. Initially, his purpose is fueled by anger and hatred for what was done to him as a child.
“Even as a child I found tremendous pleasure in spilling my enemies’ blood. Their screams of agony were my music box. Once I realized my mother’s frozen teardrop was highly valuable, I would purposefully wear it in clear sight of everyone, hoping their greed would entice them to challenge me, thus giving me the opportunity to take another life. I suppose I wanted to prove that my mother’s people were right to abandon me.”
He lived for anger, hatred, and revenge.
But when he finally found those people and could take his revenge on them…
“My mother’s people were a gloomy, timid race. It seemed as if ice was pumping through their veins instead of blood, like their spirits had been frozen and they were incapable of love. My impulse to kill faded: they were already dead.”
Hiei’s reason for living, hated and anger and desire to get revenge, faded when he saw the Ice Maidens and saw how cold they were. There was nothing in them. No love. They were frozen. And they were already dead.
His next quest became finding Yukina. Which he did, but was unable to tell her who he was.
How does this apply to Hiei’s emotional arc, though? In episodes 99 and 100, we see this whole past laid bare, as well as Hiei at his most vulnerable. He made headway during the Chapter Black saga, nearly admitting to his friendship with Yusuke and the gang as he, a demon, fought to protect the human world.
Yet that only served to show him how alone he truly was. This realization, this new ability to finally see what friendship and love is like, made him think about his own life and his own self. He mentions the Ice Maidens know no love, because now, after Yusuke and the gang, he knows what love is.
But he realizes he doesn’t have as much of it as the rest of his friends. He doesn’t still know if he even deserves it. Yusuke has teary eyed goodbyes with Kuwabara, Keiko, and others…
Kurama has his family to miss him.
Hiei… Hiei has only Yukina, and he doesn’t truly have her, because he cannot tel her who he is.
And it hurts her.. and hurts him. The only person he loves, and he cannot be close to her, nor help her in her pain. He can only hurt her further by not letting her know her brother was here, and he loves her.
His purpose for living, now love, not revenge, had been fulfilled. He found her. She’s safe. But he cannot do more. He has no more goals he can purpose. No more purpose in life.
Hiei becomes empty, suicidal, and stops caring for his own health at this point. Just look at what he says.
“I am fighting without purpose, falling back into a life of meaningless killing, a life of dishonor and cowardice. There is no more dignity in this sort of existence, so I must find honor in death.”
Falling back into a life of meaninglessness. (”like their spirits had been frozen“) He lives a life of dishonor and cowardice, unable to tell his sister, unable to do more with his life. (”My mother’s people were a gloomy, timid race.”)
He was not living a life, but simply existing. For those suffering from depression and suicidal thoughts, “existing” is how life is often described. They are breathing, their heart is pumping blood, but they do not feel alive. They merely exist. (”My impulse to kill faded: they were already dead.”) Being “dead while alive” is another way people describe this feeling. Like a dead man walking. A living corpse. Death in spirit, not yet in body.
He decides he no longer needs his Hiruseki stone, the one thing tat he had been searching for long before he found his sister. The reason why is because he believes his end had come. He’s done with life. Things once important to him no longer mattered, for physical objects wouldn’t follow him where he thought he was heading.
Look at this expression – how vulnerable he looks, how he seems to be in thought. A look of a man who had realized something, something terrible; that he’s going to kill himself.
Part 2, Mukuro’s past as a foil for Hiei’s.
We all know Mukuro’s tragic past. I won’t go into too much detail, but here’s a rundown.
She was a sex slave, abused and tormented by a man who might have been her own father. At the very least, there is some connection to the idea, as in the manga, Chikou, the slaver, called her his “daughter.”
How does this pertain to Hiei? Well, whether Chikou was her father or not is irrelevant, but the father/daughter connection is important.
He, her “family” wanted her. He wanted her in a way she didn’t wish to be wanted. He wanted to keep her and possess her as a thing to be toyed with.
Hiei, on the other hand, was unwanted. His family threw him out.
One, desired too much. One, not desired at all. One seeking an escape. One seeking a way back after being cast away.
Mukuro disfigured her own body to escape, resulting in her appearance. Yet, she kept the shackles from her youth around her arm.
A memento of her past.
… Just like Hiei.
Discovering the stone was his, she returned it. Even though she herself liked it, for it gave her peace when she looked at it, too.
Mukuro’s scars are external. Hiei’s are internal. She was wanted for an evil purpose. He wasn’t wanted at all.
3, Mukuro’s Tactics
This, I think, is the biggest division between people who find Mukuro to be a bad person, or bad for Hiei, at least. She does essentially torture him, throwing waves of enemies at him. But I think we need to remember a few points, including the fact that what may look extreme to us might not be so much for demons in this world. Remember, they killed and tortured people all the time. So I think some leeway can be given here.
Still, what she did was very much meant to get at his emotional core. Without sleep, without a break, constantly fighting… What would that cause? Stress and a breakdown for once. But this is mirroring what Hiei’s life had been – a meaningless slew of murders and discomfort. Except here, it’s all compacted into one.
Whether Mukuro meant this or not, I also find it narratively fascinating that the person meant to be Hiei’s final challenger here, and the person who “kills” him is Shigure, the same person who taught him so much, who gave him a way to locate his Mother’s people, his stone, and then his sister.
It is like he is indeed facing his past, his life, all his goals. The three things he wanted to find, and the person who helped him find them, all come together here, in front of him, in dreams and in person.
He is facing his life. He is facing his choices. A figurative battle against his past. Which he ends in a draw.
Mukuro holds up a mirror to Hiei’s former life, telling him “this is what your life was. Do you want it to keep being like this? To keep fighting? To keep battling your past without ever taking a step toward something more?” When he decides, no, he doesn’t want his life to be characterized by his past, by his hurts and scars, it all ends. But not in the way Mukuro wanted it to, not yet.
Because Hiei’s “end” to his suffering is him choosing to kill himself. Mukuro, on the other hand, freed herself through self-harm, just as Hiei was about to… only to move past that and become a Demon King. She went from a weak child being abused to a powerful monarch. Her self-harm began it… but her confidence, pride, and drive to not be weak is what helped her take the first steps on her recovery.
If Hiei’s self harm killed him here, there’d be no further steps.
Some people characterize this as Hiei being robbed of agency. But let’s remember that he was suicidal. I sincerely hope any person in this state would be robbed of agency and stopped from hurting themselves. What’s what Mukuro does. When it’s clear Hiei is content to die in this one last fight, (”Simultaneous death – the highest honor one fighter can give another.”) she steps in.
She saves his life.
Beaten, stripped to the core, forced to look at his meaningless life – he is at his most vulnerable here.
… And this next part can be read in different ways, true. Some had characterized this part as abusive, but here is my perspective.
She strips. Not just her clothing. Everything. She strips herself down just as he is. She places herself at equal footing with him. She shows her face for the first time. She shows her scars. She shows him what was done to her, and what she did to herself.
She takes off all of the protection of her mask. People who hide behind masks do so for many reasons. For Mukuro, it might have been protection. She was abused for being a young, pretty woman. A mask, to a survivor of sexual abuse, that covers her face and clothing that mask her whole body is a safety protocol. No one can sexualize her and abuse her if they don’t even know what she looks like. Or so, the thought goes.
Yet here she willingly lets all that fall. She strips down to her own core and tells Hiei what happened to her. She shows him her own pain. Her own scars. And then, they communicate.
Whether it’s consensual for her to peek into his mind or not, I cannot fully tell, but my thoughts have always been that Hiei, in his weakened state, just lets it happen. We can argue whether it was right of her to do this. But I do believe Hiei had to be dragged back from the edge kicking and screaming, and that’s exactly what Mukuro did.
Mukuro showed Hiei there is more beyond this desolate, self loathing, dark place. There is more to life, even once you’ve decided you’re already dead. She showed him he can recover from wanting to die.
Because she did. She, this all powerful demon king, was in his spot. And she recovered and achieved greatness.
Here is Hiei after that. And Mukuro, as well. Hiei smiling, ready to take on more fighting, even though he had just spoken about his his life of senseless violence was meaningless. And Mukuro, in a large crowd, in front of TVs and cameras where her abuser could have easily been or seen her, comes out for the first time without her mask and without her bandages, not only showing her face, but also her body, (notice her chest) showcasing to the world that she is a scarred woman.
They’ve both taken another step forward in recovery. Together.
Then they fight. Unmasked, both of them. Hiei among his friends again, with his stone, knowing Mukuro knows his whole life. And Mukuro, unmasked, in the ring without her armies and bandages, knowing Hiei knows all of her life, as well. Two people laid bare to each other who will go toe to toe in the thing that had hurt them but also gave them the chance to free themselves from abuse – fighting.
I want to go through this face in a bit more detail.
Here, Hiei says this interesting bit. “If you’re so unhappy, then why aren’t you dead?” After all, he tried to kill himself to escape his own pain. And he sees she’s still suffering, and he doesn’t understand why she kept living when he himself wanted to end it.
She doesn’t reply. He continues on to say “Continuing to fight won’t change anything.” Again, echoing that earlier sentiment of his life being a string of senseless violence. She doesn’t answer him then, either. He has to come up with his own reasons for why she hasn’t done what he tried to do, because she won’t give him any.
Hiei’s internal monologue then goes on to describe how he had been hated his whole life. Yet here was a person who had taken the time to try to understand him. “And like you I’ve tried to purge my pain through blood,” he says, again connecting the two, establishing their similarities. He goes on to say that Mukuro understands him because of this connection, the way Yusuke, Kuwabara, even Kurama couldn’t.
And all throughout the fight… Mukuro pulls her punches. She doesn’t hit him when she has a chance to, nor does she use all of her power. Even when he goats her into it, she still doesn’t seem to be going as hard as she could. Because she doesn’t want to kill him or seriously injure him. She wants to help him because she sees herself in him.
Funny enough, here, her tactics on trying to connect with him change a little. She talks to him.
“Your hate? Don’t make me laugh. If it was hatred you would have destroyed the Glacier Village long ago.” She knows it’s not hatred itself. It’s pain. She knows because she felt it, too. Her cruelty, her anger, her hatred, all were born from pain.
This time, Hiei doesn’t respond, because he can’t without proving her right.
This part here, I want to emphasize –
Mukuro has the reputation of a cruel, senseless murderer and tyrant. Yet here, in a pleading voice, she cries to Hiei – “It’s not hatred. It’s longing. You just want to belong to something.”
This tyrant, this cruel, evil person we keep hearing about… she’s not here. What we see is someone changing right before our eyes, from someone we are told is evil, someone who does something shady, to… someone actually quite gentle. Because she feels that if Hiei can’t recover, then perhaps she can’t fully either. She needs him to take steps forward and go with her, or else, she can’t go forward herself. She’s been stuck in this tyrant king psyche for so long, unable to move ahead. She wants him to go with her.
“You know in your soul I’m right, Hiei. Admit it.”
She had seen his truest desire, to be part of a family, to have what he was denied from birth. He won’t admit it, he can’t. So he says nothing and keeps fighting. And she now goats him into it, telling him he’s fighting half-assed, because he is, because he’s emotional. She, again, has to drag him kicking and screaming. This time not away from the cliff, but towards the light. “Confront it now. Use your Jagan eye to find what you’ve been looking for.” This all downright a motivational speech.
“End your search, the real one. And find yourself.” The village, the stone, the sister – it was all not what he was truly looking for. He was looking for his place. He was looking for his identity.
Then he unleashes the dragon, saying there’s only one way for him to know. Know what? Know that Mukuro will stand by him. That he can belong among her. He felt out of place with his friends in human world. But here, among other demons, with Mukuro, he can be himself.
But the little shit still won’t admit to anything. That’s the kind of guy he is. The only thing he can do is show her he understands…
Part 4, Hiei returning the favor.
Hiei’s dragon doesn’t hurt Mukuro. He concedes the match. He gives up the fight. Why? Because he doesn’t care about this fight. Before, he might have kept going. But he’s no longer stuck in a senseless cycle of violence. He can give up without care.
And also… because he did exactly what he wanted.
Mukuro quips that she hopes his new purpose in life isn’t to one day beat her, (she wants him to have a real reason to live, not one born out of anger or spite).
And that’s when Hiei says, “No Mukuro, you’ve just missed the point.”
“Now you can leave your hatred in the past, where it belongs.”
The symbolism here is beautiful. Her memento of the past was a painful one. It was dragging her down, shackling her to her painful past. Hiei forfeits the fight. Mukuro thought she needed to drag Hiei out, to reach him, to help him.
But it was he who helped her here.
Her literal shackles, cracked by his most powerful attack.
Not what she expected at all. She thought she hadn’t reached him yet.
Look at how surprised she looks when she realizes, she had reached him. And he reached back to help her. She likely didn’t even realize she was still hurting so much. But he saw it. The same way she saw the pain and similarities in him, he saw them in her. So he freed her. And himself. He repaid her for her care towards him.
How do we know Hiei had indeed been saved?
“There are things in the future that are worth living for. Both for you and for me.”
Whether you read them as romantic or platonic, it is undeniable that they both helped each other, and that they both care for each other. They are so similar and have such strong sense of camaraderie. They both trust each other. Hiei, when about to pass out, walks towards her, though it is difficult for him, and she reaches out for him. This “tyrant” we’ve heard so much about, and our little emotionally constipated gremlin… they find peace in each other.
It is no wonder that at the end of the series, one of the lasts shots we have of him is him hanging out with Mukuro, looking causal and care-free. Looking like he’s at peace. Before we get this shot, of him hanging out in the trees near his human friends.
Notice the little smile.
Having friends who love him openly and with great affections, and having a friend he can connect to and feel like himself around… Finally, all of Hiei’s emotional needs are met.
YYH-Revival 