Razara wrote:

Tamago wrote:

It seems to me that peoples views on Shiori tend to be coloured by how they feel about Juri and her secret interest in her. 

If you could ignore what and how you feel about Juri long enough to properly analyse Shiori's character, you might get a clearer picture.

Juri is without a doubt the biggest cause of Shiori hatred, due to her immense popularity. Of course, what with Juri acting as though Shiori slaughtered her entire family, sparing only her so that she could live out the rest of her life in misery, who can blame them?

Yeah, if Juri = Popular, than Shiori who hurt Juri = unpopular. With Ruka, it seems to vary. I didn't care much for Juri at first, until I realized how similar she was to my best friend who was in a similar situation at the time, and it gave me a lot of sympathy for Juri. (Except the other party did something much much worse than Shiori) But one thing about Juri.. she angsts. And she angsts. Which is probably why I was so relieved to see Ruka do something about it, even if it was through manipulation. I'm glad both Juri and Shiori seem to move forward by the end.

I agree that looking at characters through their point of views is important. Through my first watch of the series, there were many characters that I dubbed as "teh evil" until I kept watching further and understood them more, and by the second watch I learned to appreciate them all a lot more.

Last edited by SleepDebtFairy (10-26-2006 08:04:51 PM)

Ha ha, the cover art! My friend and I had an amusing conversation about the poster of Ruka and Juri hanging on my closet door. It went something like this:

Friend: That picture looks strange. Look at how close he is to her breast.
Ivy: Uh, yeah. That's denoting sexual desire. I find it more interesting that neither of them is looking at each other at all.
Friend; Ah, Ruka, sucking on the teat of rejection.
Ivy: Hey, you could try the other one, Ruka. That could be the Teat of Acceptance.
Friend: It's turned away from him, so I doubt it.
Ivy: Poor thing. Not even her breasts want to look at you.

Yes, it definitely indicates that what Ruka feels for Juri is more than purely platonic. Most likely he *is* jealous of Shiori, and that's completely understandable and human. I don't think that's the main reason why he gives her such callous treatment, but I do think it helps to enable him to do so without feeling the guilt he would have if it were someone else he was hurting. As for his treatment of Juri, jealousy has nothing to do with it, in my opinion. He needs her to dislike him, he doesn't want her making him into an emotional crutch, or becoming dpendent on anyone else. He wants to break her free of anything holding her back and keeping her from reaching her potential, he wants her heart free to make informed decisions. (You know, like Movie Juri's actual dueling motivation. Ruka arises in spirit!)

Last edited by Ivy-chan (10-27-2006 12:18:30 PM)

Ivy-chan wrote:

Most likely he *is* jealous of Shiori, and that's completely understandable and human. I don't think that's the main reason why he gives her such callous treatment, but I do think it helps to enable him to do so without feeling the guilt he would have if it were someone else he was hurting. As for his treatment of Juri, jealousy has nothing to do with it, in my opinion. He needs her to dislike him, he doesn't want her making him into an emotional crutch, or becoming dpendent on anyone else. He wants to break her free of anything holding her back and keeping her from reaching her potential, he wants her heart free to make informed decisions. (You know, like Movie Juri's actual dueling motivation. Ruka arises in spirit!)

Oh, I have no doubt that Ruka was in love with Juri, and maybe always has been. Look at how close the two of them are. At its core, I think it's simply one of those "old childhood friend crushes", maybe like Tatsuya has on Wakaba, except in Ruka and Juri's case it went horribly wrong (with Akio's help of course.)

spirit!Ruka in the movie....I like that!

I don't think she'd try to compromise her morals, because she doesn't have the mindset of a manipulator. She prefers straightforward action. She'd talk to Himemiya, yell at her, cry in frustration, and try to prove herself in large, dramatic gestures.

Yasha wrote:

I'll admit it-- I dislike Shiori. My reasons are because I saw her in high school every other day and she was a goddamn whiny bitch. The character just reminds me of those stupid starry-eyed overserious insanely shallow 'relationship' hounds that used to gather in little clusters in the hallway whining about their love for someone else and how pathetic they felt because they lost them.

That's really the ironic part -- the most widely despised SKU character is the girl almost everyone was for at least some point in high school.

ShatteredMirror wrote:

It's easy to despise a character because they remind you of something or someone that you despise in your real life.

Bingo. And I'll go one step further: I think so many fans hate Shiori not only because she reminds them of people they know, but because she reminds them of themselves. Who hasn't at some point been jealous of a friend, felt lost in the crowd, assumed people only liked them because they felt sorry for them, lied to/backstabbed a friend, or any other of Shiori's 'sins'? Especially in high-school.

I did a post about that elsewhere, and used Shiori as an example.

Exactly. She's not an interesting or easily redeemable kind of cruel. She doesn't have intentions that could be seen as noble, she doesn't have style, grace, or anything resembling charisma. Of course you don't have to like her as a person, but who would like Touga or Saionji as people when you met them in a real life setting? Personally, Saionji's attitude and misogyny would make me want to set him aflame. Shiori is an example of a more realistic sort of high school girl, one caught up in the image of popularity. She's insecure, selfish, and overwhelmingly jealous. She's pathetic and indecisive, not a self-possessed egotist who revels in his cruelty. We can't admire her. She's not 'cool'.

Well, here I'm going to say that the desire to be noticed and appreciated isn't selfish or an unreasonable aspiration, but it is how she attempted to achieve that end that makes her a selfish, petty person. Instead of turning to better herself or improve her skills, she attempted to bring her best friend from childhood down. She tried to break Juri's heart and 'take something' from her. Those actions were inexcusable. Shiori isn't exactly normal or average in her mentality, she's as deeply troubled as the rest of the cast. I can't blame outward influences on her actions: they are reasons, but not excuses for her cruelty. Her self esteem may have been shot and further trampled by having Juri The Goddess as her best friend, but she had the chance to talk to her, like best friends often do. She had the chance to improve herself, and she chose to hurt Juri instead. It's that smallminded pettiness that makes her such an unlikable person, the same things that make her wonderful to me as a character.

Also, this is going so off topic from Ruka.

Ivy-chan wrote:

Also, this is going so off topic from Ruka.

Well to get back on topic of Ruka...I have another question that I was pondering this afternoon.

Did Ruka go into the duel with Juri knowing that Juri would lose?

We've pretty much established that he went in intending to "free" Juri. But how the heck did he think he was going to go about doing that? Did he KNOW that Utena would slash the locket from Juri's neck? Did he go in just hoping that a miracle would happen? How was he going to deal with it if Juri won and got Anthy as the bride? That wouldn't have helped his cause. Would he have kept going at it until the desired outcome?

Ger wrote:

Did Ruka go into the duel with Juri knowing that Juri would lose?

We've pretty much established that he went in intending to "free" Juri. But how the heck did he think he was going to go about doing that? Did he KNOW that Utena would slash the locket from Juri's neck? Did he go in just hoping that a miracle would happen? How was he going to deal with it if Juri won and got Anthy as the bride? That wouldn't have helped his cause. Would he have kept going at it until the desired outcome?

It seems to me that he was expecting a miracle to happen during the duel. Whether he knew it would set Juri on the path to move beyond her obession with Shiori (By destroying the locket, as happend.) or if he just expected the power of Dios to miss her rose, leaving Utena open to defeat. I'm leaning towards the former, but it's possible that if Juri did become the Engaged she'd (eventually) be granted the power to revolutionize her world, to 'fix' her relationship with Shiori into whatever she wanted. Either way, I doubt Ruka was expecting to see Juri down the new path she would take, he just wanted to help her take the first step.

Well, one thing that makes Ruka very different from the others is that he's dying, and I don't think there's much he can do to change that. So he might as well do something heroic and go out with style, right? I think that's how I would be seeing it if I was in his place, anyway.