super duper hella long character analysis of douma WARNING SPOILERS AND POSSIBLE TWS

possible tws as follow ( gr0ming, d3th, manipulation, religion, )

okay, so I really like douma as a character and here's why.

I think he is a well thought out character and I truly enjoy his design, although he kinda sucks since shinobu was one of my favorites.

Anyways- first, lets go over his back story in a summary

Douma was born with beautiful and rare rainbow colored eyes. Because of this unusual trait, his parents thought that he was able to hear the voices of God and was groomed to be the religious leader of the Eternal Paradise Cult, a position that he held until his death. Douma was born to be a sociopath who showed or felt no emotions, and he only saw his followers as foolish and pitiful worms begging him for mercy. He allows this grooming to happen and only pretends to weep for he believes that there is no afterlife, no god, no deities or any higher power of beings. He thinks it's a made up thing. He quotes, “Gods don't exist, and Buddhas don't either. Yet these people lived for decades without realizing it. Once they die, it's all just gonna return to nothing. They won't feel anything. And then they rot into the ground. As long as you live on this Earth, that's your eternal fate. They just can't accept that simple fact. It must be so hard being stupid. I want to make these sorrowful people happy. I want to help them. That's the reason I was born, after all.”  

When Douma was a boy, his mother killed his father after finding out he had been cheating on her, before she took her own life. However, Douma remained unfazed by the deaths of his own parents. When he was twenty years old, Douma met Muzan Kibutsuji, who granted him power and turned him into a demon. Soon, Douma began eating people, especially females, under the name of absolution. He single-mindedly believed that those he devoured will live forever with him. He continued to serve as the leader of the Eternal Paradise cult as its leader, of which he kept no more than 250 members to avoid being discovered.

Douma has no emotions and therefore also can not view what is right and wrong. He believes himself to be righteous and helps others by consuming them. He believes that if he consumes these people, that they will be a part of him forever.

Let's move on to how he was introduced to Inosuke’s mother.

Fifteen years before the story started (manga appearance), Douma met a woman named Kotoha Hashibira, and left her family with her baby son Inosuke after being fed up with the abuse of her husband and mother-in-law. Douma invited Kotoha into the Eternal Paradise cult for sanctuary. He decided to spare her because of being impressed by her beautiful face and her sweet singing voice.

However, one night, Kotoha accidentally encountered Douma who was devouring his victims. Douma tried to explain himself to her but she ran and he knew he had to eat Kotoha (so Muzan wouldn’t punish him for his secret being revealed) and chased her to the cliff. Kotoha threw her son into the river to protect him, before Douma devoured her. Inosuke survived after being raised by a female boar. He keeps her in his memory due to the disappointment of having to consume her.

Lets reveal his relationship to Shinobu Kocho, in an undated period of time, Douma was promoted to Upper Moon Two and killed Kanae Kocho, the elder sister of Shinobu Kocho, and thus became her bitter arch-enemy. Shinobu vows to redeem her sister by slaying Douma.

Let's reveal another little trick of douma, he has turned humans to demons only once. These demons of which we know as Gyuutaro and Daki. A century before the main story started, Douma was promoted into the rank of Upper Moon Six, before his later promotion into the Upper Moon Two. One day, when he walked into the street of Red Light District while he was committing serial murders against girls, he accidentally encountered Gyutaro and a dying Daki, as the former spitefully vowed to seek vengeance for his dear sister and the mistreatment the siblings suffered. Sensing their despair, Douma offered a chance and turned both Gyutaro and Daki into demons. In which we know, they accepted. 

Now- we finally reach the present of Douma. After the war in the Dimensional Infinite Fortress broke out, Douma resided near a lotus pool waiting for the arrival of a vengeful Shinobu Kocho. She attacks him multiple times and he compliments her on her speed. He takes this entire battle as a joke. She pierces him multiple times, however, Ignoring her poison, Douma killed her and devoured her as a whole, unknowing it was already a set up of Shinobu ever since the beginning, as for years she had absorbed a 37 kilogram of Wisteria Flower Poison into her body, about seventy times the lethal and deadly enough to finish Douma off.

After killing Shinobu, Douma confronted Kanao Tsuyuri, who pointed out Douma was unable to feel emotions. Shocked and infuriated, Douma proceeded into attacking Kanao and was about to kill her, but Inosuke interrupted him and saved Kanao. After discovering Shinobu's death at Douma's hands, Inosuke furiously attacked him. Douma then recognized Inosuke as the son of Kotoha because of their shared similarity in physical appearance, and revealed that he murdered Kotoha, whom he believed to have lived in a hollowed life. In this scene he mentions no regret as to killing her, rather only that he had to.

Douma's revelation caused Inosuke to become horrified and enraged. Angrily saying how fortunate he was to find his sworn enemy, Inosuke vowed to kill Douma in order to avenge his mother and friends, as he and Kanao attacked Douma. However, Douma managed to overpower the two Demon Slayers until suddenly, the Wisteria Flower Poison in Shinobu's corpse took effect and started to melt Douma's body.

Unable to fight back, Douma realized he was tricked but it was too late. He was soon decapitated by the combined force of Kanao and Inosuke, avenging Shinobu and her family. Trying to struggle for survival like Akaza, but lacking indomitable willpower as Akaza had, Douma's head slowly disintegrated and he met Shinobu's soul in the limbo, holding his severed head. Shinobu had refused to pass onto heaven until she personally saw Douma's death.

Ironically, Douma discovered that he was in the afterlife he once tried hard to deny, and he finally began to exhibit some emotion. He claimed that he fell in love with Shinobu and invited her to be his company in Hell. However, Shinobu, with her face still smiling (albeit dumbfounded), gleefully rejected and cursed Douma one last time as the latter was condemned into Hell off-screen. As an extra, in the bonus chapter, he asked the Demons who were hit by the breath of insects to forgive her because Shinobu is beautiful. However, Douma should not forgive Shinobu, but should be forgiven by Shinobu. It means he doesn't even regret his faults. He instead still claims as though he can never be the problem.

A few key points- 1. Douma has no emotion except what he claims in the afterlife. 

2. He didn’t take the fight seriously at all

And for 3, let's look into his powers and skills a bit- POWER: Cryokinesis: Douma's main ability is extremely powerful cryokinesis. Essentially, he can generate ice and frost from his flesh and blood and can spawn it anywhere in his vicinity, as well as manipulating it at will, allowing him to unleash incredibly potent ice techniques. On top of that, he can create a special type of demonic powdered ice lethal to those that inhale it (except for Douma) , inducing necrosis and rendering them unable to fight very quickly. 

SKILLS; Biological Absorption ( can consume victims through prolonged contact with his body)

Extrasensory Perception: He has displayed multiple times that he is able to detect and perceive attacks even from places he is not looking at. Douma was later stated to be able to sense the exact locations and statuses of his fellow Demon brethren during the Infinity Castle Arc, later he was even able to detect Akaza's transformation into a being immune to decapitation.

Immense Strength, Immense Mobility ( he is seen appearing and disappearing in flashes and showing up with his fan towards the neck of his victims, this is all while not taking the battle seriously.)

Immense Regeneration: Douma displayed incredibly powerful regenerative abilities, as seen when Akaza punched off both his lower jaw and his upper head and he swiftly regrew himself with little to no effort, even considering the fatal attack to be a friendly gesture. Even when Douma himself absorbed Shinobu's body and ingested over thirty-seven kilograms worth of poison, approximately seventy times more than the lethal amount needed to kill an average Demon, it still took a considerable amount of time before it began to have any adverse effect on him.

Keen Intellect: Douma is exceptionally intelligent. While fighting at super speeds with Kanao Tsuyuri, he was able to process and deduce her abilities, surmising that it was her superhuman eyesight that allowed her to parry and dodge his ice attacks. After leaving Kanao and Inosuke Hashibira to fight his ice clones, he construed that Inosuke not inhaling his ice powder was because of his extremely acute sense of touch. It is hinted that Douma was able to trick and deceive all of his followers, allowing him to kill and eat them. He was able to keep this up for over a century with almost complete infallibility. Douma also possesses incredible memory, being able to remember even the most insignificant details from back when he was human, which was over a century ago.

Reactive Adaptation- during the fight with shinobu, he continuously would adapt to the different poisons he was spiked with.

Now that we have finished that, we are coming to the conclusion (at last) of what this means. Douma is shown to have a traumatic childhood. However due to his inability to feel emotions, this couldn't have been the cause of his evilness. Overall, looking at his character, he did this simply because it was entertaining. He has no emotions, no values and only pity for those below him. His entire character is conflicting. He is very charismatic and ambitious, he views himself as helping those of his cult. He remembers those who brought him a job, albeit of most of which he brought death. He is shown to not take anything serious and yet when Kanao tells him that she knows he’s faking. He gets angry. This is simply because of her knowing this. He knows that he has failed his tricks. He is irritated and astounded. He continues battling them with layaway claims as to how he thinks he’s helping all these people and how people just don't understand. He doesn’t want to be found out. I feel as though he tells himself these things as his truth and his goal. For these claims to be sent away, what does he have remaining? He is a very complex character, and I truly enjoy his design as well as personality and ideas. He is a realistic example of a cold calculating monster, but he is designed to look angelic and he weeps with his followers out of pity for them. He then comes to conclude that only he can fix these things. He wants power and makes up a reason for it. He is truly a depressing character.  He can never see himself as the problem, he thinks that the problems are everything around him and that him, a holy being untainted by human wants or desires, is the only cure.