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Hi, i just read your tags in the misinterpretation of "Gon, you are light" scene ("#killua directly references something illumi said to him during the hunter exam") I wanna ask if could explain this part. If you have time, of course.

oh man, this is on me for saying YEARS ago i would talk more about this and i don’t think i ever did. so sorry…

when illumi confronts killua during the hunter exam, he tells killua that gon is “眩しすぎて“ (mabushisugite, “too bright/”too dazzling”).

this is the same phrasing killua uses to describe gon in the “you are light” scene:

both crunchyroll and viz translated “mabushisugite” differently in both scenes, so it makes the parallel less apparent to non-japanese speakers:

what i wanted to write in depth before and never really got to is that in both of these scenes, killua is thinking of himself as darkness, aka the exact oppoosite of gon, although he never says it himself. this is reinforced by the chapter covers/titles for these respective scenes:

multiple other characters like illumi, netero, etc, refer to killua as someone of darkness/engaged in “underworld work” (闇 商売, yami shoubai, lit “dark business”), but killua doesn’t.

i see the “you are light” scene being much less about gon and much more telling about killua. at that point in the series it’s the closest killua comes to admitting his own worst fear to himself, that he really is nothing but darkness – just like his family always said he was. killua gives up too easily – he runs away and abandons people like kite when in danger. if killua is darkness, then gon – who stays and fights against all odds – must be light. and if that’s the case, then is it really okay for killua to stay by gon’s side? because what if he really does betray gon and leave him to die one day?