Monogatari's Gaen Toea: A Thematic Breakdown

 

Araragi created Oshino Ougi as a way to reconcile with himself. An attempt to try and correct past mistakes. But Araragi Koyomi can only ever see what’s right in front of him. So much so that he never even asked himself if all those decisions he made, regardless of going against the natural boundaries of existence, really mistakes? Was becoming weaker because of it all a mistake? Sure, the darkness might have deemed it as such, the closest thing to an almighty god we’ve seen in Monogatari. Still, through perseverance, through attempting his romanticized outcome in novel ways with the help of others, he was able to conclude his adolescence by defeating that god, himself. 

Perhaps this is what Gaen Toea had to do to defeat her own quasi darkness. Perhaps it was through this experience that her catchphrase, “If you can’t be medicine, then become poison. Otherwise you’re just plain old water,” was abandoned. After all, in Koyomi Water, Araragi hears the story of how Gaen's husband relates her to water. It is also in the water of that same place where Araragi and Gaen are finally able to come face to face. 

Sure, water might not be as profound or impactful as medicine or poison in a general sense. Humanity typically relates water with mundane reality. Something we must have to live. Something essential to life. One that maintains a story, not beginning or ending it. Yet still, even in a practical sense, water is just as essential to a good story as medicine or poison. The beginning and ending might be the most important aspects of a new story, but only from a certain perspective. What lies in the middle, the water that maintains the continuity from medicine to poison, if abandoned, well, that wouldn’t be much of a story now, would it? The middle part of a story has the most potential to transform a tale into something novel. Water comes in many forms. Lakes, rivers, rapids, tsunamis. It can be the calmest of waters or the roughest of tides. Water may have no flavor, but it’s potential shapes are limitless. 

Just like how after the conclusion of his adolescence, Araragi abandoned the phrase “I don’t need friends, because if I make them, my strength as a human decreases.” Perhaps after Gaen faced her own imperfect adolescence, she realized all of this and abandoned her phrase of, “If you can’t be medicine, then become poison. Otherwise you’re just plain old water." As Gaen says, those words were probably directed at herself moreso than anyone else. It could be that when she faced herself, and cut off that darkness, she abandoned trying to be something she wasn’t. Gaen even goes as far as to relate the part of her that is the rainy devil as neither poison nor medicine, but a corpse. Maybe a roundabout way of saying that if the corpse were still alive, if it were still her, it would be just plain old water after all.