Deadman Wonderland - 54 & 55

"The Shut Up Reason" & "A Foolish Wish"

There is no selfishness more selfless, nor a selflessness more selfish, than a mother's love.

I have to say that after all of Ganta's memories of his mother, I'm only that much more shocked by the true nature of this woman. It's one thing to be changed due to the love for your child, but it's another to subject a completely unrelated child to torture after changing your mind about doing it to your own blood. All of Sorae's seemingly kind gestures toward Shiro now suddenly make sense; it was always apparent that it was a case of guilt that drove her actions, but never was that guilt quite as monstrous as it is now.

It's hardly surprising that Sorae was a cold and unhinged woman as dangerous as Hagire was (otherwise, why would she work with him in the first place?), but that she would choose to bear a child for the sake of using it as a test subject only reflects the true depth of her cruelty. Of course, like many mothers, holding her child for the first time changes everything, and she can no longer bear to use the little baby as just another thing to cut up. What twists everything, of course, is that in order to save Ganta, she purposely adopts/buys Shiro as a replacement for the experiments, and essentially raises her as nothing more than meat for the slaughter.

As it turns out, this truth is what causes Shiro to bear so much hate toward Ganta as the source of her suffering. Though he never actively did anything to hurt her, his very existence brought about her predicament, and to add insult to injury, that adopted mother who subjected her to so much pain made it nearly impossible for Shiro to kill herself or otherwise die. As a result, Shiro grew obsessed with the idea of Ganta, and came up with a plan to cultivate him into the one person who could potentially kill her.

After all, nothing's quite as romantic as dying at the hands of he who tormented you as far back as you can remember, while causing him the ultimate pain of losing his loved one in one fell stroke.