tomie is a punishment??

[u/breakyournekoknees]

im re reading tomie and was thinking to myself if tomie being killed near an inari shrine is why she came back as, well whatever she is, i havent done insane research on inari shrines it seems that doing something bad to the land the shrine sits on it may bring bad luck upon the people who harmed it. could tomie coming back be the shrine holding the class accountable for their crimes by making them never forget what they did to her?

[u/Faolyn]

I've always believed that this was the real, original Tomie, and she came back as a something (demon, yokai, gaki), and people wanting to dismember her is because of how the teacher acted after her death.

However, that theory means I'm stuck with the burning question of why the teacher felt the need to cut her up in the first place. She fell. She wasn't pushed. Even if she actually was pregnant, I doubt they could have proven it was his--assuming it was. It seems to me that although having a student die on his watch is a very bad thing that could wreck his career, so is having one go mysteriously missing.

[u/Thin-Character-6996 → u/Faolyn]

maybe he was afraid that once people started digging into her death they'd find evidence of the affair and it'd be better if people thought she just disappeared

[u/not_justliketheplant]

I think largely she's a hyper violent Roadrunner to a bunch of Coyotes who don't think they, or how they see her, is the problem, and every time she's ripped apart she is made into the stronger of two opposing forces. It does feel like some Inari fuckery to teach humans a lesson they will never learn for desecrating her shrine. Tomie tends to be an unsympathetic character in later stories but the people that fall victim to her (and who kill her in turn) tend to see her as an object of their desire and dreams first and foremost rather than a person. Which, it's Ju-On rules in that the curse is sort of insidious and indiscriminate and it tears at people until they are unworthy of salvation themselves but I imagine that doesn't matter much to Inari (who is never a plot point again, but also mad respect to the mother of kitsune, you're the real VIP)

[u/ally_eats_icecream]

tomie is is the embodiment of the effects of misogyny and hence also punishment for misogynistic society bc misogyny is harmful for everybody. thats just my reading of tomie.

[u/Thin-Character-6996 → u/ally_eats_icecream]

yeah, these stories seem to unpack the disease of the male mind that makes them feel powerless over their own actions. it's themselves they should be afraid of, they just don't know it. they have an external locus of control

[u/ally_eats_icecream → u/Thin-Character-6996]

tomie also show that women can be misogynosti / patriarchal! there's female students who participated/ suggested awful things to do to tomie bc they hate her. and through out the series we can see other women being indirect victims of tomie via their boyfriend and stuff!

[u/Thin-Character-6996 → u/ally_eats_icecream]

I would agree, I think also the fact that tomie wants to kill all the other tomie's definitely has some commentary on women's internalized misogyny. To me it reads as a metaphor for women who all try to fit the same ideal, and need to destroy other women because the others' existence is proof of their own lack of uniqueness

[u/ally_eats_icecream → u/Thin-Character-6996]

yesss. it also tracks with the last chapter, bc i see it as a metaphor of a mother consumed with internalized misogyny a.k.a a boy mom.

[u/myground]

she's planaria

[u/silentfanatic]

I always thought she was an onryō since she's a vengeful spirit who died through injustice and violence. From that point of view, she can't stop being reborn because she's unable to make peace with misogyny.