Jjk 236 Spoilers - Tumblr Posts

For the song fic event!

Dancing with Your Ghost (Sasha Alex Sloan) with YOU KNOW WHO—Gojo Satoru, of course!—angst/mcd?

I don't really do x reader stuff, but I thought this was a cool idea so I figured why not? 😊✨️

WC: 1.1k

CW: jjk chapter 236 spoilers, mcd, angst, hurt/no comfort, grief, unhealthy coping

Note: aww, thank you so much for sending one in!! this hurt, but omg did i get in my feels writing it. so excited to be posting the first fic for this event!!

listen to this song while reading

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It was past midnight, well into the wee hours of the morning when you woke with a start. Reaching over, you patted the other side of the bed searching for something that would never be there. Instead of the warm body you expected, you made contact with smooth, cool sheets, the surprise jolting you back into reality. 

Remembering that no one was there, you rolled out of bed suddenly unable to bear being in it alone. Sliding your feet into slippers and wrapping a robe around your body you head to the kitchen, the soft sound of your slippers against the hardwood the only sound in the otherwise silent apartment.

Part of you wondered if it would always be like this. If you would spend the rest of your life always searching for something that wasn’t with you. Another part of you knew that you would.

Baby, why'd you go away? I'm still your girl

Knowing you weren’t going to go back to sleep you sighed and put the kettle on for some tea. As you waited for the water to boil you wrapped your arms around yourself and leaned back against the counter. The silence filling your apartment was deafening and the stillness made you uneasy. 

Taking a deep breath you sat down at the counter, staring into space as you allowed yourself to get lost in your thoughts. You don’t know how long you sat there before the shill whistle of the kettle knocked you out of your stupor. You jumped a little, the sound startling you. Moving to stand, it was only then you noticed you were crying. Your fingers reached up and brushed your cheek, and you examined the drops of water on them a little mystified. Deciding that only sleeping four hours in the last week was finally getting to you, you dried your face and turned the stove off. 

Opening the pantry to grab a tea bag, an expired box of kikufuku mochi caught your eye. Inevitably, your thoughts were drawn to him, and a fresh wave of grief hit you. Frantically, you fumbled with the box, hurriedly extracting a tea bag and slamming the pantry door shut a little too violently. The handle of the ceramic mug was cool in your hand as you dunked your tea bag and moved to sit on your couch.

You sank into the soft cushions, unable to stop yourself from grabbing your phone and opening your text chain with him. Despite knowing it was unhealthy, you often found yourself rereading the messages you sent to him that fateful night he hadn’t returned home. The messages get increasingly more panicked with each one, ending with a final “I hope it was painless. I hope you know how much I love you. I didn’t even get to say goodbye…”

Never got the chance to say a last goodbye. 

I gotta move on, but it hurts to try.

Swallowing a sob you shut your phone off and hurl it across the room. You need to move on. You know that. Never leaving your house, pushing your friends away, not sleeping, obsessing over the past, you knew it wasn’t good for you.

Day after day, voicemails and texts poured in from concerned friends and family telling you that you were self-destructing. That this wasn’t what he would have wanted for you. That he would have wanted you to move on. To live.

You know that. You know. But knowing and being able to were two very different things. How were you supposed to move on when everything reminds you of him? When you can’t sleep without his warmth.

Aside from that, your faith in others has been permanently shattered. He had promised you that he would always come back, that he would win. And you had believed him because he was the strongest. And if you couldn’t believe him then who could you? But then he had gone and left you far behind. No. You could never open your heart again. You can’t trust anyone to not leave you like he did.

How do I love? How do I love again?

How do I trust? How do I trust again?

But you were okay with being alone for the rest of your life. Even if the loneliness made it impossible to sleep. Even if his absence wrapped around your throat cutting off your air. You were okay. You didn’t need anyone else. You had your home filled with his belongings and you had yourself. That’s all that mattered.

I stay up all night, tell myself I’m alright

At least that’s what you told yourself. In reality every reminder of him was like a stab to the heart. And maybe you were a masochist because you refused to remove the traces of him from your apartment. Sitting on the sofa you could still see him dancing around the coffee table, hear his laughter fill the air. And sometimes when you closed his eyes and inhaled his scent that still lingered in the air it was like he was still next to you, his voice ringing in your ears.

Baby you’re just harder to see than most

Suddenly the silence in the living room was suffocating. Without the joy and love that used to reside in it, the room felt oppressive. Retrieving your phone from where you had flung it you hastily, you connected to your apartment’s bluetooth and clicked play on the first playlist that popped up in your feed. Some of the stress left your body when a soft dreamy song began to seep from the walls, only to return when you realized what playlist you had accidentally put on. 

Of course you accidentally played the playlist he made for you for your two year anniversary. The playlist of all the songs that reminded him of you. Going to change the playlist you froze when you accidentally hit skip and heard the song that began playing.

It was your song. The song you used to listen to together on quiet evenings. The song that the two of you slow danced to in this very living room. The song you knew all the lyrics to. Slowly, you put your phone down, leaning back and closing your eyes as the music swept over you.

I put the record on, wait ‘til I hear our song

And with the song on repeat, you sat there until the first light of day struck your face, the ghost of Gojo Satoru slow dancing around you. 

Every night I’m dancing with your ghost

Every night I’m dancing with your ghost

Are You Satisfied?

As you might have heard chapter 236 of Jujutsu Kaisen ends with the death of Gojo Satoru. The fandom is making a pretty big deal about it. As someone who predicted from the beginning that Gojo was going to lose against Sukuna, the reaction is fascinating to me. This is perhaps the most controversial chapter of Jujutsu Kaisen I've ever seen. So I've decided to throw my hat into the ring.

The central theme of Jujutsu Kaisen is death, so the death of one of the main characters isn't too surprising, but what does Gojo's death mean for the story? What does it say about his character?

As I said above I am a little bit shocked by the extreme controversy over Gojo's death. Gojo was never going to win the fight in the first place, because Jujutsu Kaisen is a story and the story would be over if he defeated Sukuna. He'd easily be able to take care of Kenjaku afterwards and the main conflcit would be resolved. Would it really be an interesting story if Gojo one shotted the villains while the kids just wathced on Television?

The story is also not about Gojo, it's about the students. Gojo may think he's the protagonist of reality but he's not the protagonist of the story.

Once again, Jujutsu Kaisen is a story and stories have themes. We may grow personally attached to characters, but characters are just narrative tools to convey the themes of a story, no different from prose, dialogue, and art. Characters are a tool to be used well or used poorly, and sometimes yes that means killing them. Whether Gojo's death was naratively satisfying though isn't the purpose of this post though we're only asking what does it mean?

Finally, Jujutsu Kaisen is not only a fictional story, it's specifically a tragedy. Full disclosure, it's a manga about death.

The Protagonist of a Tragedy

So, number one shout out to me for making this post 4 months ago where I called the way Gojo would end the fight.

Excuse me while I fist pump for calling it!

The question on everyone's minds is why does one of the most powerful characters in the manga die offscreen in a pretty humiliating way, cut in half and helpless on the ground just like Kaneki. The reason Gojo didn't get a more heroic (or cooler) death is because we're not reading My Hero Academia, this is not a story about heroes or even a typical Shonen manga it is a tragedy.

In poetics Aristotle defines tragedy as:

"an imitation of an action that is serious, complete, and of a certain magnitude; in language embellished with each kind of artistic ornament, the several kinds being found in separate parts of the play; in the form of action, not of narrative; through pity and fear effecting the proper purgation of these emotions" (51).

To paraphrase a tragedy is about human action, actions characters make in a tragedy often have dire consequences. One of the most common consequences if the reversal of a hero's fortune, a hero of a tragedy usually starts out on top and ends up on the bottom because of the bad choices they make. If in normal shonen manga characters overcome their flaws through effort and persistence, in Jujutsu Kaisen we see characters more often than not lose to their flaws.

The reason I posted that Kaneki panel specifically is because it was a brilliant moment of narrative punishment for Kaneki's central character flaw. Kaneki the hero's main flaw is that he always fights alone, and he constantly makes that same choice over and over again to fight alone. One of the characters helpfully explains it as well.

Stories are primarily about change. If a character doesn't change they're not serving the plot, unless that specifically is the point. People have pointed out how abrupt it is for Gojo to get sealed in Shibuya, get let out, and then immediately die afterwards but that's kind of the point. Gojo made more or less the exact same choice (he asked for Utahime's help for a buff but otherwise fought the entire battle himself). The definition of insanity and what not, why would doing the same thing over and over again net him a different result?

Not only did Gojo choose to fight alone, but as I've been hammering on and on about in previous meta the entire fight Gojo cared more about fighting a strong opponent then he did saving Megumi, the child he was responsible for.

Jujutsu Kaisen is not a typical shonen manga where everything is resolved by beating a strong villain in a fight. That's specifically why I used the Tokyo Ghoul reference, because the reason Kaneki is defeated offscreen like that is because he thought the world worked like a shonen manga. He has a fantasy sequence where he's fighting Juzo in a shonen battle tournament like this is Yu Yu Hakusho right before it snaps back to reality and he's limbless on the ground.

Gojo is a major character in the manga Jujutsu Kaisen, literally "Sorcery Fight" and he is the best sorcerer in the whole world. His entire identity revolves around being a sorcerer. Since he is so good and beloved at what he does, he thinks that everything is resolved by exorcising a curse or defeating a strong opponent. He has basically no identity outside of that. Which is why when he's fighting the possessed body of his student, a person he's been mentoring since childhood his priority is not to save Megumi but to beat a strong opponent. Gojo is a sorcerer, before a human being. That's who he is, that's who he always has been since day one.

I think part of the negative fan reaction comes from fans being really attached to this scene in the manga and deciding Gojo's entire character revolves around being a good mentor figure to children.

Which is just incorrect, Gojo's entire character revolves around being the strongest. On top of that though, Gojo can care about children and also care about being the strongest he can care about multiple things at once and have those things contradict each other because humans are complicated. I'd point out even in this panel where he's stating motivation he's not trying to raise these kids up into being healthy adults, he wants them to be strong Jujutsu Sorcerers. Even when he's raising kids, his intention is to turn them into Jujutsu Sorcerers because everything in Gojo's mind revolves around Jujutsu Sorcery. Gojo does not exist outside of the world of sorcerers. Gojo may be the chosen one but he'd never be able to hold down a job at Mcdonalds.

I think in general readers put more investment in the things characters say out loud, rather than their actions. You can say one thing and do another. I can say "I should never eat sweets again I'm going to improve my diet", and then go and eat ice cream five hours later. Gojo can state out loud his intention to foster children and protect their youths, but then fail to properly do that in the story. Characters are not always what they say they are, that's why they're interesting to interpret. This isn't me calling the readers stupid, just pointing out that Gojo is made up of contradictions. He wants to get rid of the old guard and replace them with something new, but Gojo IS THE OLD GUARD.

If the culling games arc has shown us one thing, it's that ancient sorcerers brought to the modern age do not care that much about human life on an individual level, they are all of them egoists. There's a reason Gojo resembles someone like Sukuna more than he does any other character in the manga. I'm not saying Gojo is exactly like Sukuna, he's far more altruistic and uses his genuinely noble ideals but at the same time Sukuna is a shadow archetype to Gojo he represents Gojo's flaws. The flaws that Gojo succumbs to in tragic fashion.

Which if you believe that Gojo genuinely does love his students, and the ideal he's fighting for is to raise up a better generation and allow them to live out their youths, then Gojo throughout the entire Sukuna fight is acting against those ideals. He cares far more about fighting Sukuna then he does saving Megumi, it's shown over and over again in the battle, Megumi is an afterthought to him. If Gojo care moredefeating the big bad and saving the world is more important than helping a child that Gojo is responsible for then Gojo is acting against his stated principles. Why should Gojo win the fight when he's fighting for all the wrong reasons?

Tragedies are like visual novels, if you make the wrong choice the novel will give you a red flag. If you ignore the red flag then you get locked into the route with the bad ending. Gojo always fights alone. Gojo only ever fights for himself, even if he's using that selfishness in support of a more noble ideal like creating a better generation of sorcerers. If Gojo consecutively makes the same changes then in a tragedy he's not going to be rewarded for it.

Gojo wants the old generation out and the new generation in, but Gojo resembles the old generation too much. Old sorcerers like Hajime and Sukuna respect him, Hajime argues that Gojo being able to fight for his pride is far more important than him living to the end of the battle when Yuta wanted to interfere and help him.

Gojo's death isn't a surprise curve ball that Gege is throwing us for shock value, it's a result of his choices throughout the manga. A manga about change, and the change between generations is not going to punish a character for remaining roughly the same. Of course you might find it disappointing that Gege didn't give Gojo the chance to grow and change and experience a character arc like Megumi or Yuji, but Jujutsu Kaisen is a tragedy, and the way Gojo's arc ended is consistent with what Gege wrote.

Jujutsu Kaisen is not just a tragedy though, it's a manga about death. The manga begins with Yuji's grandfather warning him not to die alone the way that he did. His grandfather's dying words are what motivate Yuji throughout the beginning of the manga as he's searching for a "proper" death.

One of the major themes of Yuji's character is a contemplation of death. He accepts that death is inevitable, so he wants to save them from the gruesome deaths they'd experience if they became victims to curses and allow them to have a more satisfying death. Yuji's grandpa died an unsatisfying death because he died alone in a hospital room. Yuji even tries to make his own death a satisfying one because he believes by dying to seal away Sukuna he'll reduce the total number of casualties to curses.

Jujutsu Kaisen keeps investigating the theme of death and what exactly would make for a satisfying death. At one point it's all but stated that death is the mirror that makes humans analyze their lives.

When Yuji fails to save Junpei from the "unnatural death" it calls into question whether or not his goal of saving people from unsatisfying deaths and the gruesome deaths caused by curses is even feasible. Nanami even says that Yuji might not be able to accomplish his goal and warns him away from the path.

We see repeated unsatifying deaths in the manga, each time someone reflecting on their deaths that they weren't able to get what they wanted out of life. This list comes via @kaibutsushidousha by the way I'm quoting them.

Nanami's a character who chose to work as a sorcerer because he didn't want to evade the responsibility of doing all you can to help people, he wanted to believe he's somewhere where he's needed. He never runs away from responsibility like Mei Mei does so he quite literally works himself to death, living and dying as a sorcerer. Nanami or Gojo's dying hallucination of Nanami even says as much, his death is the result of him choosing to go south and returning to be a sorcerer.

Maki chose revenge against the Zen'in over her sister, and as a result Mai is dead. Maki has all the power in the world now, her revenge complete but she's left with a sense of "now what?" She's as strong as Toji now but she failed to protect her sister, and it's the result of the choices she made. Maki's reflection isn't triumph, it's "I should have chosen to die with her."

Even Yuji himself is robbed of his narrative purpose. The manga began with Yuji saying he wants to choose how he's going to die and he'll die taking out Sukuna with him so he can reduce the number of people killed by curses in the world. Both of those things are thrown in Sukuna's face. Number one the amount of people Yuji can save by permanently killing Sukuna is now a moot point because he let Sukuna rampage in Shibuya.

Number two, Sukuna isn't even in Yuji anymore. To build on what Comun said though, this repeated tragedy has a purpose to it and understanding requires understanding that Jujutsu Kaisen is an existentialist manga. Existentialism is basically a school of philosophy centered around the question of "Why do I exist?"

There's nothing about the invetability of death to make you question why you're alive in the first place. In the myth of Sispyhus, Albert Camus boils down all of philosophy to one question.

"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. "

All of philosophy is should I shoot myself in the head or should I keep living? Everything comes after that question, which is why in Jujutsu Kaisen a lot of the characters motivations revolve around them contemplating death. Sorcerers exist in a world where they can die any moment, and as Gojo says most of them die alone. It might be the nature of sorcery itself that causes so many people to die, not only are they dying because they are trapped in an uncaring system, but the characters themselves aren't really attempting to live outside of it. They live and die as sorcerers, replaceable cogs in the machine.

All of these unsatisfying deaths may just be the result of all these characters making one choice, to live as sorcerers rather than people. Because to exist means to live in the world.

Even in Mechamaru's case, his goal is deeply existentialist by what I defined, all he wants to do is live in the world with everyone else rather than be stuck in his hospital room but his actions contradict that goal. Instead of letting his friends come and visit he's obsessed with the idea of getting a normal body because he feels that's the only way he can exist with everyone else, he makes a deal with the devil, he lies and goes behind their backs. He wasn't living with everyone else in the world and he could have chosen to, he chose wrong and his death is the result of that choice.

Jujutsu Sorcerers aren't living in the world. They're living in a little snowglobe far removed from the world with its own rules, most of them regressive and disconnected from the rest of society. If you define existentialism as just "living in the world' then a lot of these characters aren't, because they only exist in the world of sorcery.

INVISIBLE BUFFY: What are you talking ab- SPIKE: The only reason you're here, is that you're not here. (drinking) INVISIBLE BUFFY: Right. Of course, as usual there's something wrong with Buffy. She came back all wrong. (moving around on the bed) You know, I didn't ask for this to happen to me. SPIKE: Not too put off by it though, are you? (drinking) INVISIBLE BUFFY: No! Maybe because for the first time since ... I'm free. She tosses the sheet aside. Spike looks around, trying to figure out where she's going. INVISIBLE BUFFY: Free of rules and reports ... free of this life. SPIKE: Free of life? Got another name for that. Dead.

Not living in the world with everyone else is the same as being dead.

A lot of these characters either make the choice to act alone, or be a jujutsu sorcerer rather than a person and because of that they die as sorcerers, b/c sorcerers die that's what they do. Mai didn't want to keep living as a hindrance to Maki so she kills herself. Maki didn't want to be anything other than a sorcerer, so her little sister dies and she's not a big sister anymore. Nanami chose to leave his job behind and become a sorcerer again, he dies as one.

Of course I don't think the manga is punishing characters for being too egotistical, but rather too unbalanced. If anything Mai is too selfless and that is why she died, she didn't want to live for herself and chooses self sacrifice for her sister. An unbalance between selfishness or selflessness results in an underdeveloped ego. Jujutsu Kaisen doesn't punish individualism per se, moreso if you're not a fully developed individual you won't last long. Because it's also a manga about growing up in the world, and a person who doesn't have a healthy, mature, well-balanced sense of self is not a grown up.

This twitter user det_critics points out that Gojo (and also Yuki + Yuji's) failures in the manga can be attributed to the fact they don't have real senses of self.

Gojo has an identity crisis as outlined by Geto, "are you Satoru Gojo because you're the strongest, or are you the strongest because you're Satoru Gojo?"

It's a challenge for him to find some reason to live outside of being the strongest, and in tragic fashion Gojo just doesn't find it in time. Gojo lived for fighting others, and proving to himself that he's the strongest, and that's how he dies.

There's something I like to say about narrative punishment in stories. There are two ways to punish a character, you either don't give them what they want, or you give them exactly what they want. This is the latter, Gojo wanted to find someone stronger than him because deep down he believed that nobody could understand him unless they were on his level. He wanted to be surpassed, and that's why he focused on creating stronger young sorcerers, but he never shook himself of the belief that only someone as strong or even stronger than he was could ever be emotionally attached to him so he made a deliberate choice to draw a line between himself and others.

Gojo's essentially gotten what he wanted from that choice in the worst way possible. The student he picked to succeed him Megumi, has his body stolen and kills him. Gojo is surpassed, but it's not by one of his own students it's by an enemy that's not only trying to kill Gojo but is going to massacre his students afterwards.

Gojo's spent his entire life believing that because he's more powerful that makes him inherently different and above others, and being lonely because he himself believed he couldn't relate to ordinary people and he dies like an ordinary person, an unsatisfying death where he wasn't able to bring out Sukuna's best, where he gets unceremoniously cut in half offscreen but yay he's no longer the strongest. He's gotten exactly what he wanted. Megumi is still not saved, Sukuna's probably going to kill more people because Gojo failed to stop him here, but hey at least he stopped to compliment Gojo.

It's empty, but it's empty because of the choices Gojo made in life to just not bother connecting to people or develop any kind of identity besides being a sorcerer. Gojo lives and dies as a sorcerer, and his dying dream is returning to a teenager being surrounded by everyone he was with during his school days, because that's the happiest time in his life. Ironically he was happier before he became the strongest, because that was the only time in his life that he allowed himself to connect to people.

However in the eyes of others, he is someone who has it all. That's why he is always alone. There was no one who could hold the same sentiments and mutually understand him. Geto was the only one who could understand what he was trying to say, and the only one who could communicate well with him.

It's no coincidence Gojo and Geto die exactly a year apart on the same day, if anything I'd say the reasons they die are similiar to at least thematically. They both die because they don't want to live in the world. Geto thinks the world is too corrupt and GOjo doesn't want to be anything other than a sorcerer, both of them fail to adapt.

「 'It's just. . .' It's just that it was what Geto had to do. [...] To someone like him, the reality that the world of sorcerers presented to him was just too cruel. '. . .that in a world like this, I couldn't truly be happy from the bottom of my heart.'」

They can't be happy in a world like this from the bottom of their hearts, so narratively they both die. The things they chose to live for at the end of their life they fail to accomplish, Gojo is no longer the stronget, Geto fails to wipe out mankind or make major changes to the world and they die as normal people unsatisfied because they weren't trying to live in the world and make connections to others. They die almost karmically a year apart because their main connection for both of them, the thing which made them feel connected to the world and other people was each other.

Which is why this panel breaks my heart and is so narratively satisfying because of how unsatisfying it is...

"If you were among those patting my back... then I might've been satisfied."

Gojo reflects that he's not satisfied dying against Sukuna, not because he failed to give him a good enough challenge but because Geto wasn't there to pat him on the back. The one thing that would have satisfied him he couldn't have, because he didn't live to connect to people he lived to be the strongest and he died alone as the strongest. There's just something deeply upsetting about Gojo's dying dream fantasy just him being there talking with all of his dead friends who he never appreciated or connected to properly when he was alive. Knowing that if something had just gone a little differently, that even if he had to die no matter what he could have died happier if Geto was among the people saying goodbye to him because that connection with Geto is what gave his life meaning.

Dazai Osamu: "A life with someone you can say good-bye to is a good life, especially when it hurts so much to say it to them. Am I wrong?" -Bungou Stray Dogs Beast

The Incongruence of his Life and Death - How the 6-Eyes will Die and Gojo Satoru will Live

Chapter 236 seems perfectly crafted for a farewell to an important character. But while reading it for the first, second and third time, I couldn't help but feel that something was not only missing but purposefully left out: Gojo's care for his students and the goals he had set for himself as an adult.

In the departure for the afterlife, where the souls of his dead friends have gathered at an airport, Gojo is back to being a teenager with everyone else also being their younger self, or in the case of Haibara and Toji, their selves when they died.

Gojo talks about his fight with Sukuna, how unbelievably strong he was and how much he had trained to best him but still he lost and he had no true regrets on that. The fight had been fun even if it was a shame that he couldn't bring Sukuna to go all out on him.

Later he tells Yaga, calling him principal, that he thought that all sorcerers died with regret, implying that he doesn't feel any regret right now after having lost to Sukuna. When Sukuna tells Gojo that he won't forget him as long as he lives because of how well he fought, we see Gojo smiling at that while lying bisected on the ground.

This entire scene, especially at the airport and the reverence about the fight is completely at odds with Gojo's character growth and the life he lived as an adult.

It's no coincidence that everyone is more than 10 years younger here because only teenage Gojo would go out without any regrets after a good fight he lost. This Gojo we see at the airport could've very well been the Gojo that lost his first fight against Toji.

But it isn't teenage Gojo, someone who only had a perverse self-satisfaction about Jujutsu and did it for the kick of it instead of protecting others with it, who died.

It's adult Gojo, who dedicated his life to protect others and his students and who fostered them to become as strong as him and did everything so they could grow unhindered and enjoy life especially their youth, who is lying cut in two on the ground.

This love for fighting alone only entered Gojo's mind past the middle of the Shinjuku Showdown when he realized that he might lose this fight and after he was reminded of fucking Toji again. Gojo was brought back to the time of his teenage self when he lost against an opponent who was stronger than him.

But what about the actual Gojo? Teacher Gojo? Would he die without any regrets? Absolutely not. His regrets would actually be too much to count.

He left his students and the world with a murderer stronger than him, ensuring widespread destruction and immense death, first and foremost of everyone he left behind that meant something to him.

Gojo let it happen that Megumi, the person he went into this fight to save, who was the child that started his evolution into a teacher, the son of the man who made him to what he is today; Gojo let it happen that Megumi became his executioner.

(And is Geto without regrets? Is Gojo without any regrets that Kenjaku is desecrating his friend's body to destroy Japan? Isn't there any fear that Kenjaku might take Gojo's dead body as his next vessel? Where is the regret in that?)

When we strip the airport scene from its serenity and the good feelings of a happy ending it evokes, we're left with nothing but pure arrogance the dead have over the suffering of the living. So they get to enjoy peace while everyone else is devastated and about to get slaughtered?

Is that justifiable because everyone will be dead anyway and then they can all enjoy the afterlife together? Except Megumi of course, who'll be Sukuna's vessel for centuries if not millennia and who'll suffer in hell for that long after having killed not only his sister but his teacher and his friends in the future, too.

Those who are already dead like Nanami, they can't do anything about this conundrum anymore but Gojo was still smiling on the ground. So, after the thematic argument for why Gojo has to survive, here comes the practical part: How?

I've already covered parts of this in my chapter 236 Thoughts. Step by step:

Gojo is bisected along his abdomen, not his head

Gojo was still conscious enough to smile at Sukuna, like how Yuki was still able to make her last attack

Gojo can activate his RCT and he can make a Binding Vow as long as he isn't completely dead

We've not seen Shoko's reaction to his defeat, so we have neither a confirmation of his death nor her determination to save him

Utahime and Gramps can strengthen any healing

Angel might have abilities to aid them and Takaba has reality bending powers as long as he's funny

Why the 6-Eyes will still die.

Because it's already over for him. The 6-Eyes is not the strongest sorcerer on earth. His ultimate defense has found its match in Sukuna evolving his own technique; an evolution that Gojo is not going to catch up to.

"Are you Gojo Satoru because you're the Strongest or are you the Strongest because you're Gojo Satoru?"

Irrelevant. Sukuna is the Strongest. That title and that burden has been lifted off Gojo's shoulders. Gojo makes peace with it at the airport.

A Binding Vow with yourself always comes with a balance the universe imposes on you. What would the trade-off be for Gojo's upper and lower body to be connected again? His Eyes seems like a good bargain here.

So there you have it, my theory. The 6-Eyes lost this fight but Gojo sensei can still lead and foster his students to new heights he won't ever personally reach again. He can't just forget about them because he had a good fight, Gojo isn't a self-centred teenager anymore.

You know who was missing at the airport? Outside of Nobara, Yuki and Mai? Tsumiki. What is Gojo going to say to her? That he tried but well? Gojo isn't at the airport for his departure to the afterlife, he isn't going North, he's going South.

All of this is of course my personal feelings and interpretation. Gege might go in another direction like permanent death and flashbacks. But I'm so sure that Gege has written the airport intentionally like this. That Shoko will go to Gojo and pull him out of his death bed because he can't go out like this.

Chapter 236 is written with a sense of finality and farewell, but Gege is also really fond of misdirections and false sense of security (dread?) as we've seen just last chapter.

So, hope dies last.

idk… something is telling me that y’all are gonna be lusting over gojo’s dad if he gets revealed