Lack of interesting motivation doesn’t make him a bad villain.
Summary:
- Sukuna’s themes in Jujutsu Kaisen are selfishness and sadism.
- This makes perfect sense in the world powered by negative emotions.
- Yuji is the only one who should be able to defeat him.
Ryomen Sukuna is the primary antagonist of Jujutsu Kaisen. He’s regarded as the strongest jujutsu sorcerer in history, and is also referred to as “the King of Curses.” With him being a major antagonist, though, fans wonder what his thematic relevance to the series is.
What Does Sukuna Symbolize as the Main Villain?
Sukuna, essentially, symbolizes absolute selfishness and sadism. He doesn’t think about others at all, and he’s extremely self-centered and sadistic. His behavior even puts his host in danger occasionally, but he doesn’t seem to care at all: he only wants to see the suffering of others, and he shows zero empathy towards them.
Compared to this, Yuji is the complete opposite of Sukuna. Yuji is extremely selfless — he cares about his friends more than about himself — and that’s why he has to be the one to beat Sukuna. The thematic contrast between the two is one of the major points of conflict in the series.
This Doesn’t Make Sukuna an Uninteresting Villain
Some fans might feel Sukuna doesn’t really have an interesting motivation — he literally doesn’t care about anything other than watching others suffer. Usually, fans only like villains who have compelling motivations — unless they are extremely charismatic.
While Sukuna is arguably the latter, he still isn’t among fan favorites in the series. He’s generally liked (and is definitely considered threatening, at least), but fans are actively rooting for him to lose.
Still, Sukuna’s personality plays perfectly in the themes of the series itself. The JJK power system itself works on negative emotions, and there’s no villain who shows that better than Sukuna. After all, him being so obviously evil is the source of so many negative emotions in itself that it makes sense for him to be so strong.
Jujutsu Kaisen also deals with trauma — as we can see from, for example, in the latest adapted arc, the Shibuya Incident. In it, Sukuna can, once again, be seen taunting Yuji and making him feel terrible — and while that’s definitely terrible on his behalf, the trauma makes Yuji stronger.
Fans Wish for Sukuna to Finally Be Defeated
Right now in the manga, it feels that Sukuna is unbeatable. Fans have been complaining about how effortlessly he defeated and presumably killed multiple fan-favorite characters.
That said, for someone as strong — and as evil — as him, this makes perfect sense. Still, they wish that Yuji finally did something to defeat him.