Thread by @Onlyfact_s

[THREAD🧵]

Nezuko conquering the sun and the narrative set up behind what is the biggest plot twist in demon slayer #鬼滅の刃 #DemonSlayer

Nezuko conquering the sun is the biggest plot twist in the story. This one event completely changed the tone of the story and it called for an all-out battle against the slayers and the demons, nezuko being the focal point of it.

We’ve always known Nezuko to be a special demon: The only demon who had enough willpower to refrain from eating human flesh and even protecting humans!

In fact nezuko’s entire character has always revolved around rejecting the aspect of being a monster and everything about her character further showcase it, even her power that only burn demons

And this ultimately lead to the biggest reward: being able to whistand the sun but this didn’t just happen overnight, there’re a lot of narrative set ups and landmarks throughout the story that eventually culminated in this.

The first bit of narrative set up: Nezuko’s Amnesic state

We’ve always been aware of the fact that nezuko hasn’t yet regained her consciousness and acts like a child, an opposite state of being to literally every other demon in the story.

This is something we all assumed to be as just the backlash from resisting human flesh consumption but unbeknownst to us it was in fact an intrinsic decision of her own, even subconscious because she was always prioritizing something more important as tamayo mentioned.

Second bit of narrative set up: The connection to sun breathing.

First of all, while Nezuko is not directly related to Yoriichi the creator of sun breathing, she comes from a family of Sun Breathing users (her family knew it as the Hinokami Kagura dance), and that fact was confirmed eventually later in the story (which is a manga spoiler)

Third narrative set up: The Spider Lily Flower

We see this flower in tanjiro’s memories when remembering the hinokami dance in chapter 39
It is the same one muzan has been searching for his whole life. He is sure it could cure his weakness against the sun. The proximity of it to their home help weaken the transformation

Reason why he couldn’t sense she was alive and reason his initial connection with her was weak leading to the the next point being possible.

4th narrative set up: nezuko breaking free of muzan’s control

Nezuko broke free of muzans control by her own free will.
This is something the anime skipped unfortunately. It explains that muzan can read the thoughts of his demons, alter their memories and pinpoint their location

It also explains why when nezuko went to the demon slayer headquarters muzan couldn’t grasp her location because having broke free of muzan’s control it helped her achieve this evolution as there’s no external compulsion from muzan to cross a line of no return for her.

Fifth narrative landmarks: Nezuko resisting the human flesh consumption compulsion for good on her own.

Nezuko’s regression in RLD arc due to her berserk state and simultaneous breaking of
the spell/hypnosis put on her by urokodaki for the first time nezuko was able to conquer the urge to consume humans not by any external aid but with the assistance of her bond with Tanjiro.

This is also the first time nezuko is able to regain some memories from the past and then having one of the primal emotion: sadness as she cried.
Since that moment she didn’t need hypnosis anymore as she could transform into her demon form without going berserk.

She therefore gained a much more active psyche as she started to act more autonomous in battles and showing more strategy in fights which as seen in this arc.

Last bit of narrative set up: Lady Tamayo.
Since their first meeting with her she took a sample of nezuko’s blood to analyse in hope of finding a cure for demonification.
Her analysis proved nezuko’s blood to be special and it played a part in her resisting the primal demon urges

She goes on to theorize that one day nezuko can ultimately conquer the sun. A prediction she made way back in the first season during their first meeting.

Ultimately this brings us to the Second & final narrative landmark for this: Conquering the sun itself

Muzan’s goal has always been “conquering the sun and becoming the perfect being”. The reason he has been creating demons in huge numbers has been to eventually either find the flower or one who could conquer it in order to assimilate them and become resistant too.

As we all know, Nezuko Kamado was that eventual demon. An incident that set off the biggest turning point in the series as it brought about an all out battle from both factions.

This episode we see her actively morph into a sunlight resistant demon which is just her stringing the last bits of a process she’s been undergoing all throughout the series. I theorize she’s been able to since after RLD arc but nothing has pushed her into a corner to show that.

Nezuko didn’t just magically happen to come about this gift. This took a lot of effort from her part (mostly internally), assistances from well meaning folks like : tamayo, Urokodaki and of course her ever present brother Tanjiro that helps maintain their unbreakable bond

Thank you if you’ve reached this far into this long thread it means a lot to me.

I wrote this thread with the help of @YAIBASHINGEKI , mind giving him a follow🙏🏻

Here is his own thread, please read it too

https://twitter.com/yaibashingeki/status/1670520057464598528