#kny theory
What happens when you let me think to much pt.3:
So keep in mind im not a psychologist i am just going off of personal experience and why similar characters in other media do similar things.
My theory about why Douma is the way he is:
So right off the bat Douma was raised by cult leaders to be a cult leader and from what i have researched
(because im a horror nerd and im curious about such things)that on its own can really fuck someone up mentally. But that much is obvious; What may not be obvious is that im pretty sure that while he was growing up he was emotionally neglected far beyond the whole “our cult has to have everyone happy all the time” thing he grew up with and this can be sort of seen because of how his parents died: his mother murdered his father and then killed herself without first bothering to make sure there was anyone to care for him or even make sure he was out of the house, leaving him orphaned. Pretty sure any parent that does that while their child is still around and not going to have anyone else to care for him is emotionally abusive(and to be honest probably major narcissists because seriously who actually wants to force people into being happy all the time but a narcissist unless they really dont know any better). Speaking of that Im pretty sure the trauma from that happening right there in front of him(whether he actually knows it or not)is what really broke him, when it comes to his thoughts at the time its actually pretty common to think something along those lines when in shock from a traumatic event(like how people who are being held at gunpoint might think “really this had to happen while i was wearing my new guccis” or something). And then there was the pressure to be the new leader of his parents cult and likely having to lead by example during the general age group where emotional development is pretty important since he was a small child when he had to take over like probably not even in double digits yet; the age where most people are learning what emotions are, why they have them when they have them and how to properly react to them and there Douma is having to be happy all the time for these adults that he’s essentially been drop-kicked into leadership of and not getting the chance to learn most of the other emotions. And thats not even including how he was raised to act as a sort of prophet because his eyes were a literal rainbow. Im also worried his parents were either physically abusive towards him or eachother while around him considering his reaction to akaza literally punching his head off and him thinking that he was just being friendly and saying hello(that or its the fact that he most likely has a pain kink), however what he says to shinobu while shes dying suggests that his parents were most likely verbally abusive to each other and then probably lied to him when/if he asked about it. I think the fact that he goes after women most of the time also has something to do with what happened in his childhood(probably his mother murdering his father and then killing herself as she was technically the one who left him orphaned)along with him thinking women are more rich in nutrients for demons due to the fact that they can nurture babies, similar as to why akaza strictly goes after men wether he knows it or not. Maybe this is why he wanted to keep kotoha/mama hashibira because despite her situation she chose to not abandon her son unlike his own mother(and probably the countless others who were in his cult). I also think this may be why he(occasionally)has to literally mess around with his brain to remember things from farther back in the past, since one type of trauma response is blocking out memories of certain situations, similar situations and the times before and/or after the traumatic situation for a certain amount of time. Another trauma response is denial, insisting that nothing is wrong with him emotionally or psychologically until being completely being proven otherwise and breaking the dam.Long and short of it is: he was raised to at the very least appear happy all the time by emotionally neglectful parents, became orphaned through a traumatizing series of events, got drop-kicked into the most likely very stressful position of cult leader probably way before he was anywhere near ready to actually take that position and had to lead by example the only way he knew how during crucial developmental years leaving no time to learn other emotions let alone anyone to teach him other emotions. Trauma responses are kinda fucking him over along with all that ^ and probably making him a ticking bomb. Basically it’s not so much that he literally can’t feel human/demon emotion but more so he never learned how to and has worn his “happy mask” for so long he forgot it was ever a mask to begin with and eventually forgot it was even there.
So demon slayer headcannon:
I headcannon and i am convinced that this could easily be cannon that if Rui actually cared about the rankings he could have easily taken Enmu’s place as lower moon one as he was before his death.
Here’s why:
So for one, I’m pretty sure just about everyone knows that Rui was Muzan’s favorite lower moon (and probably his main favorite out of all of them) and the things he said about Rui during the last episode of season one were said because he was upset that he was gone, But Muzan tends to give his blood to those in his favor who do what he wants them to and it wouldn’t surprise me if that went double for his favorites. And then there’s several things that happen during the mount natagumo arc and during the movie that makes me think that Rui is atleast as strong as Enmu. Firstly theres the thing where it took Tanjiro using a sun breathing move and the force of several explosions provided by nezuko’s blood demon art to even get close to taking off Rui’s head (and no rui taking his own head off to mess with him doesn’t count) and giyuu completely taking over the fight to kill him while with Enmu it only took one of his water breathing moves and a few good assist hits from inosuke while zenitsu, nezuko and rengoku were keeping him distracted by protecting the passengers to actually take Enmu’s head off. Now this COULD be explained by Tanjiro training and figuring out the total concentration constant thing, and while yes that probably helped but probably not enough to go up a full four kizuki ranks. And lastly there is their own respective fighting/hunting styles or since im a huge dnd nerd; their classes: so Rui has very high dexterity stat with athletics and acrobatic’s bonuses and due to his high dexterity stat pretty high speed, he has decent strength stat, okay intelligence and wisdom stats, a decent charisma stat and an almost op constitution stat so the best class i could compare him to is a monk-rouge duel class with homebrew cantrips (spells that can be cast without taking up to much energy) and most likely usually had to deal with his prey fighting back and giving him a workout. While Enmu has high wisdom and intelligence stats, an op constitution stat, a decent strength stat, a decent charisma stat and an okay dexterity stat so the best class i could compare him to is a duel class wizard-bard that only uses spells that involve sleep and usually knocks his prey unconscious not getting the work out he could get if he didn’t and instead knocks out multiple victims and gut-loads himself. And usually in that kind of fight the monk-rouge comes out on top unless they get caught by a sleep spell; Basically that means that in an actual fight the only logical way that Enmu could get Rui is with a sleep spell and knock him out but because Rui is the group favorite he probably has at the very least some knowledge on the rest of the lower ranks powers and probably knows the trick to Enmu’s sleep spell ability.
Thinking about this again and IF this were cannon this would explain why Muzan killed off all the other lower moons besides Enmu aside from him just having a temper tantrum because his favorite demon was dead; Rui was stronger than the rest of the lower moons with Enmu being his only real competition (although to be fair Kamanue didn’t get much of a chance to prove himself) so Enmu would have been the only one he considered “useful” (aside from being a simp).
