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killua’s journey to self worth, a thread/ramble because i love him:
killua’s always been a fascinating character to me, and in my opinion one of, if not the best written character in the show. and hes been my favorite since the very beginning. i loved seeing him grow. comparing a shot of him at the beginning of the show and the end, its like +
two different people. but its so gradual throughout the entire show that its almost impossible to see exactly where he changes. but in the certain story points where we see it, the impact is insanely huge.
killua was born into a family of assassins, and raised to carry the family business. he was taught simply to kill, and thats it. almost like a machine. he had certain beliefs and rules drilled into his head via illumi his entire childhood.
he was constantly forced to believe that he would be limited to being an assassin, that that lifestyle is all he needs, that he doesnt need friends, he doesnt need anything. he was mentally broken from a young age, thats pretty obvious.
and physically broken too, using punishment and basic torture as a tool of reinforcing those beliefs to the point where his body became immune to poison/electricity, and torture doesnt even hurt him.
you’d think that after all of that for his entire childhood, around eleven years, he would give in and accept that thats his life and he cant live any other way. but he doesnt. he yearns and wishes for more, even though he doesnt know what “”more”” is.
he leaves his family and estate for no other reason than to get out, to try and live. he doesnt know what a normal life is like, he has no idea. he yearns for the smallest inkling of possibility that this ISNT all there is to life.
killua’s small amount of hope shines through in his character here, basically breaking all the chains of his forced obligation. but it doesnt do much. he doesnt have a strong mind, ill get into that more later.
killua doesnt know what he WANTS in life. hes scared that the assassin’s life is all he can have, that there is nothing for him, that he is forever destined to be trapped in the cycle of abuse and murder that is his family.
and then killua meets gon. and hes surprised by it. gon is everything killua has ever lacked. someone his age, someone with a goal, someone who knows what they want. gon sort of ‘leads the way’ for killua throughout the show, helping him find what he wants in life.
even throughout the short time period of the hunter exam, killua has already decided on what he wants to do. he knows. as he said to illumi, “im just so sick of killing people. i want to be friends with gon.” thats his goal, short term at least.
and leorio says “ you and gon already are friends!” and killua’s shocked. he doesnt know how to understand the concept of a friend. he grew up without any real, loving, human connection, and thats why he feels so “unworthy” sometimes of being gon’s friend.
and gon is the opposite. he probably considered killua his friend within the first minute they met. and killua isnt used to it. gon doesnt fear him, because he sees him for what he is, he REALLY is, deep down, a scared kid with nowhere to go.
and gon accepts him, no matter what. we see that, when they barely know eachother and killu tells him about his family. gon doesnt doubt him, he believes him right off the bat. and that shocks killua.
that clears a huge hurdle for killua, and it makes it easier for him to open up and befriend kurapika and leorio as well. staying with gon changes a lot for killua. they arent huge or drastic for him to automatically have a goal, but it gives him an alternative to what he was +
+living before. he decides that he’ll simply stay with gon, and find his own goal through gon’s quest to find his father. and thats exactly what he does. hes already changing, just by the end of the first arc. even if it isnt totally his own, he has a purpose.
he even says that he’s jealous of gon, he wishes he had a set goal. its visible, his change already. to be honest, there isnt a ton of his development in yorknew, so im skipping ahead a little to greed island.
when theyre in greed island, its so visible how much killua has changed. gon gave killua a purpose, and basically saved him from hell. killua feels like he is indebted to gon eternally, and also feels like he may never be able to repay him.
its shown early on that killua hates being seen as weak, its a defense mechanism. he isnt secure and he wants to project and prove that he’s better than others. its a major lack of confidence. he gets frustrated when people underestimate him. why? +
because he wants to have some sort of validation of his skills. thats the same reason he doesnt believe himself to be gon’s friend. he doesnt think he’s valuable enough to be. its probably a side effect of the conditioning he endured, and the brainwashing illumi did.
illumi is obviously a major reason he feels this way, with the needle he implanted in killua’s brain, that automatically programs him to flee if he is put against a stronger opponent. so due to that, he sees himself as a coward.
he doesnt believe in himself, and he holds gon in an incredibly high regard, and all the insecurities he deals with are major points of his character. when he realises how important gon is, he starts to doubt himself even more. he pushes his own worth aside for gon’s.
he constantly asks himself, “am i worthy of this?” “how can i repay him?” “do i deserve to be by his side?” and its a constant struggle inside killua’s heart. gon changed his life so so much, and that ended up making killua feel like he was only worthy of gon if he was useful.
he doesnt understand what friendship means, and he sees his only worth to gon is as a tool. and thats incredibly devastating to his self esteem. he wants to help gon any way he can, to even sacrifice himself because he feels that is the only way he is worthy to be by gon’s side.
as an example, when he ruined his hands at the dodgeball game versus razor simply because gon put faith in him. he doesnt care what happens to himself in the long run. or when he just agrees with gon no matter what.
and hes incredibly protective of gon. like when he lost his nen temporarily. he feels like he’s obliged to help him, or he’s useless to gon. which obviously isnt the case, but yknow.
killua doesnt realise how much gon cares for him, completely aside from killua being “a tool”. gon is so good at making friends that he just thinks its obvious he befriended killua, and jumps at the chance to remind him and talk about it whenever he can.
killua is always fixated on how to pay gon back, but gon doesnt see the weight killua carries on his shoulders. its an awful blind spot for them. the truth is, killua puts WAY more into their friendship than gon does in the chimera ant arc, and gon doesnt notice.
bringing back up the needle, a lot of his self worth issues come from illumi. because he was conditioned to run away from stronger opponents, he considers himself a failure. he doesnt even know that the mentality is artificial.
he wasnt independent. sure, he had an idea of what he wanted, but the needle still held him back. he couldnt be truly free. he feels like a failure because HE thinks his own brain is telling him to run; for the longest time he blames himself, until he rips the needle out.
the needle is a physical manifestation of his psychologial ties to the zoldycks. when he removes it, he becomes more of an individual, and severs those ties. from the on out, he can support gon no matter what, and believe in himself a bit more.
his father believed that due to the needle, killua would come back to the zoldyck estate out of pure obligation. the plan was for him to undoubtedly destroy the light within himself, and return home as a perfect assassin.
killua doesnt care that he’s the heir, and he defies all expectations. in that sense, killua is nature over nurture. hes so incredibly special. no matter what he’s put through, his true character shines through.
he works through his issues to become the best he can be, and he slowly gains confidence. he becomes more modest and humble. but not everything is fixed, obviously. as the chimera ant arc picks up, killua starts to find light, as gon sinks into darkness.
(i know i keep bringing up gon, this isnt a killugon thread, but gon is involved more than anything else in killua’s character arc.)
and killua can do nothing about it or for him. when gon says “ youre perfectly calm, since this means nothing to you.” killua automatically believes it. he still doubts himself, despite the needle being gone.
gon saying that was probably the worst thing he could have said. all killua has done is try to be a good friend, try to help him, and clean up his messes. gon saying that was a shot through the heart. it brought back the notion that he isnt useful enough.
nobody can save gon from himself, and that means to killua that he isnt good enough. he is reminded once again that he only feels useful to gon if he can help him in a battle sense. at the end of the day, hes unable to save gon in the chimera ant arc.
his narrow perspective refuses to let him see that he is incredibly important to gon. not as a tool or a weapon, but as a friend. thats why hes so surprised when palm says that killua is the one gon needs most.
