No-Face Buys Approval

Bathhouse workers lavish attention on No-Face when he conjures gold. He learns that gold buys approval and escalates into gluttony and violence until Chihiro refuses the reward.

A local approval signal trains the wrong behavior, while the institution’s greed amplifies the loop. Refusing the corrupted reward channel is what finally breaks it.

No-Face is a supernatural moral allegory rather than an artificial agent.