Balance is the enemy of creativity

[flemmings]

There's a couple of chilling lines in vol 15 of 100 Demons, that, well, chilled me a bit when I read them. But I thought no more of the matter until I was rereading the first Kai story yet again and got to that bit about 'I just wanted to protect them- protect them all' including the guy who I *think* (unreliable source for this, you know) is *possibly* trying to get him killed. And then when I was looking at the broken mirror arc, my eye fell on a throwaway piece of dialogue between Ritsu and Kai, about '*Please* stop tempting Akira into using spells; you don't know what'll happen if all that latent ability of hers goes active.' 'If you knew you were going to lose your lover, wouldn't you want to try to do something about it? The least we can do is help Akira reach the point where she understands that there's nothing she *can* do.'

And suddenly Ritsu's passive 'no I don't want to take risks- I saw what happened when you and Grandfather did' approach looks a lot less sensible and a lot more ketchi/ small-souled; and Kai's 'hell let's do it, power is there to be used' approach goes from adolescent thrill-seeking to genuine generosity of spirit; and the very real resemblance between young Kagyuu (whom Ima tortures regularly with his inability to protect anyone) and Kai stands out quite clearly.

Which is all very fine, if it didn't invalidate the whole thrust of my current story. The one I was so pleased about before, yes.

Comments

[incandescens]

It's always so annoying for me when I know something in the story invalidates something in my story. Because however well I write it, however much I tell myself it's an AU or a reinterpretation or a different version, there is always that part of me that says you got it wrong.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

It's not just getting it wrong, in this case. It's the crawling sense of being Unworthy Of One's Mangaka. 100 Demons has an unreliable narrator (*I* think) so even Ritsu's firmest convictions might still admit of another construction. (Within limits: one cannot make Aoarashi a Byronic intellectual even if the costume looks good on him.) But I was accepting Ritsu's jaundiced view of Kai as an objectively correct one, and now I feel, to be true to Ima's multi-faceted approach, that it needs to be undercut in some way. And alas, I can't do that by undercutting Ritsu himself, because he's not even in the story. I must show a sympathetic side to Kai somehow, when this is actually one of the times that he's being very un-. It's doable, I think, but it won't be easy.

[incandescens]

I realise this isn't the most helpful of comments, but I do look forward to reading this.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Thank you, that *is* helpful. Sometmes authorial self-sufficiency isn't enough, and one needs an incentive to justify the suffering.

[paleaswater.livejournal.com]

One suspect that Ima Ichiko's affections still lie with Ritsu -- he may not be blond, but he's certainly from the same tree that her blond ukes come from. On the other hand note that these blonds are never, but never reliable narrators, if narrators at all. :P

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I'm sure her affections are with Ritsu, and yes, her blonds are never the voices of authority- though neither are their (often) dark-haired rambunctious semes. Multi-faceted, is Ima. Half of me is delighted that she's willing to undercut even what looks like an objective narrator, and half wants to scream 'Unfair!' Mind you, one knows Ritsu is deluded about certain things, but often enough he *is* the commonsense person- as with Saburou and Akira, for instance.

I'd assumed his take on Kai was to be trusted: which it probably is, vis a vis Kai's basic trustworthiness (in a word, don't.) It's just odd to find suggestions- more and more as I go back and reread with that perspective- that possibly Kai is fundamentally just more likable than Ritsu. Like that two boxes story- there's Kai, patiently taking time out from his late-night overtime, to listen to the story this confused living ghost is telling him about her feelings and all; and there's Ritsu perennially dragging his feet about helping other people and their supernatural afflictions.

[paleaswater.livejournal.com]

It's possible that the Chinese translation itself skews the reader's view, as well as the Chinese view of the supernatural world, since Ima Ichiko is very subtle about these sort of things. But somehow Kai just always seem to have an ulterior motive, and his eagerness to rush in and help is always suspect, while Kai in his reluctance at least seems honest. Though maybe I should try to read him with less suspicion? But that's the key, no? I just find it so hard to read him without suspicion. If it seems like Ritsu is no longer a reliable narrator, then Kai is an even less reliable narrator.

Possible spoilers for the translation readers

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Ritsu's reluctance may have something to do with resisting the unrelenting offering of his services by his mother and grandmother for a talent he doesn't feel in control of. Off his own bat he does in fact call that house with the cherry tree, every year for ten years, to make sure no one's living there at the dangerous season- but that's in the future when I think he must have changed. Equally his disdain for any friends aside from his cousins may come from an unconscious realization that friendship with him can be dangerous to the unpsychic- but he does phrase it in terms of 'I don't need them, the dorks.' (And I shall watch with interest to see what happens with Ando, blond glasses-wearing Ando, Tsukasa's quondem boyfriend who seems to be turning into Ritsu's friend.)

Kai's motivation isn't always calculated self-gain. It may be 'satiable curiosity, or doing stuff because he can, but the upshot is to make him help people that cautious chilly Ritsu will leave alone. So in that closet story Kai not only rescues the old man being bullied by the schoolgirls (I'll call that curiosity, because he knows what the old man is) but he casually removes the thing from Kaoru's leg. He has nothing to gain from that, and in a vol 15 story Ritsu intervenes to stop him from doing it for another unfortunate, on the grounds that you can't just go around touching strange women. Which is true too but... Kai has nothing to gain from removing bad luck and hexes from victims, he just does it, and it leaves the victims better off. Ritsu is all sorts of cautious and 'look where it got you last time/ look where it might get me' and lets people go on suffering. 'I'm not involved.' Kai doesn't learn from his experiences, but in this case it says something good about Kai that in fact he chooses not to be more careful. As I say, there's a certain largeness of spirit there.

Of course, when he's dealing with Ritsu I wouldn't trust him as far as I can throw a fit: but I think that reaction is Ritsu-specific. Ritsu reminds him of his father? or he doesn't buy Ritsu's poor put-upon act and thinks him (at least potentially?) quite as powerful an onmyouji as himself? It's almost a youkai-youkai relationship with them, eat or be eaten; but Kai doesn't do it with the rest of his family.