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Originally Posted by Triple_R
Well... stubborn vs. strong-willed tends to be very subjective.
By "competent", I mean more in the sense of...
1. Does great at school
2. Does great at sports
3. Is full of energy and vigor
4. Clearly has a lot of raw intelligence (emphasis on raw, I'll admit)
5. Clearly has a lot of musical talent, and high aptitudes in many different areas.
Perhaps "talented and driven", or "effective", fits better than "competent".
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Hmmm....see when she very well could have just gifted all of those traits to herself on account of her special ability it kind of takes away from them a little I think. Plus she doesn't exactly put them to any great or virtuous use so I kind of fail to be inspired by any of that a lot of the time. Her case is like a bizzare perversion of the biblical
"Parable of The Talents" in which god both gives herself talents and then fails to use them for anything virtuous or beneficial to anybody.
Can't say I'm inspired yet but lets move on.
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But her assertiveness, courage, drive, determination, and loyalty to her friends, are all things that I think good inspirations can be taken from.
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Hmmm, assertiveness I agree on and maybe a little bit with courage, drive and determination (though for nothing beneficial to anybody as I said above), but loyalty to friends? She treats Mikuru like a doll which was one of the main failings of her personality that I felt Sighs helped to demonstrate quite well. She also treats Kyon like a servant or at the very best like a Queen would her least favourite advisor. Yuki is more or less a borderline nonexistant entity to her and she ultimately only seems to place any value in her relationship with Koizumi, presumedly as Kyon points out because he agrees with and flatters her. For these reasons I'd say that the group to Haruhi are treated like loyal friends only in the same way that a King or Queen relates to their court.
She's had like all of one shining moment of virtue in the series so far in the Live A Live episode, but that gets quickly glossed over and it seems she learns little to nothing from it in the end.
Still not inspired.
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Some of what she does is questionable, yes, but the way she puts her whole heart into what she does is admirable nonetheless.
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I can give quite a number of examples in which that might not be the case, but I don't want to unintentionally invoke an extension of Godwin's Law.
Awaiting inspiration.
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Anyway... my main point is just that school-based female anime characters rarely get to "wear the pants" (figuratively, of course  ) as much as Haruhi does.
I can see where that would seem empowering to a female fan, and hence appealing to them.
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Yes well again the real world doesn't exactly work the way the Haruhi Universe does so I still can't help but feel that she's a wish fulfillment character long before she's a symbol of female empowerment. For that idea I would think of Princess Sapphire of Tezuka's excellent Ribon no Kishi, Oscar François de Jarjayes of Rose of Versailles or Utena Tenjou of Revolutionary Girl Utena long before I would think of Haruhi. These characters actually have to struggle in similar but ultimately different ways in order to overcome the barriers that are set up against them simply because of their gender. This I would imagine is far more inspiring compared to watching Haruhi who is basically Franklin Richards and can just magic herself into a dominant position.
Plus for Haruhi gender doesn't even seem to be a consideration. "I want" always struck me as her prime directive.
Then again who knows since I'm mostly speaking for myself here and what I find inspiring. To me though she teaches people how to be selfish, domineering, and perhaps also how to still blessed for having done absolutely nothing to earn it. That's just a terrible example of a human being and frankly a terrible message that the whole story sends in general if we take Haruhi to be the bearer of virtue, progressiveness and inspiration in the stories. It's a good thing then that we have Kyon to reflect on the fact that it's all one big irony and perhaps that life just isn't fair.