[Sol Falling]

Originally Posted by zigantz22

lol, I'm not projecting an attraction onto Medaka towards Zenkichi. Following the kiss and immediately prior to the confession, she directly mentions how cool he looks to her. I'm just presenting to you what you asked for, which is an aspect of her romantic affections for him in that particular moment that wasn't derived from a dependency. Nothing is even mentioned about her dependency on him, which is solely derived from your subjective interpretation. Regardless, I didn't attest that the physical attraction itself was surprising, but that her obvious romantic feelings for him led to a display of affection that was, in fact, quite surprising. Really, you haven't yet proven how Medaka's sole thought at that moment was dependency with any arguments that substantively denote what Medaka herself inferred.

So you're saying that the display of affection was surprising from a third party perspective? How is that relevant to Medaka's motivations?

Anyway, let me spell it out to you: a coherent explanation for Medaka's emotions in that scene involves: 1) a positive example of something Zenkichi displayed, and 2) an explanation of why Medaka's character should've cared. Physical attraction, as irrelevant as it was to the scene or meaningful character development in general, cannot hope to be applied as a notable factor in the long-term establishment of Medaka's feelings for Zenkichi.

I'll also spell out the causal link for you explicitly. Medaka's principle character weakness, her driving motivation, is her desire not to be alone. When Zenkichi took away her purpose, he stripped away the mechanism Medaka had built up to deal with that. However, at the same time Zenkichi demonstrated his unfailing concern/dedication to Medaka's own well-being, i.e. his devotion to her. Out of gratitude/relief for that devotion, which would protect Medaka from her fundamental fear (loneliness) despite having just lost her all-important independent mechanism for fighting against it, all of Medaka's other emotions in that scene arose.

This is the complete causal link. This is the direct cohesive explanation. All necessary factors are considered, as relevant and portrayed in that scene to Medaka's characterization. Explain to me how any alternative aspect of Medaka's core character (i.e. her loneliness? her ability? her love of battle? her perfect understanding? The overflowing love or rigid discipline she inherited from her parents? etc. Any established characteristic of Medaka at all.) might lead to an alternative interpretation. Please, attempt any non-subjective ("IMO"), non-superficial ("she was physically attracted to him!") explanation at all.

I don't necessarily agree. I've always assumed that Medaka didn't act on her love due to her need to help everybody, which, in her mind, prevented her from focusing on Zenkichi alone. Of course, her need to constantly help everyone was lost when Zenkichi defeated her, which provided Medaka the opportunity to finally act on her romantic interest in him.

There was no genuine reason why a romantic love on the side had to interfere with Medaka's 'duty' of helping everybody. Fundamentally, Medaka's fear of loneliness was always a deeper part of her than her 'purpose' of helping others. Furthermore, one of the ideas Zenkichi passed to Medaka after the Flask Plan arc was that to make other people happy, Medaka also had to make herself happy. Saying "I must belong to everybody" was just a convenient excuse to reject others; the principle reason Medaka never acted on her romantic interest was because she thought Zenkichi himself wasn't interested.

How exactly is it impossible for their love to mature to the point where it no longer possesses even a fraction of a mutual dependency, which, in itself, isn't exactly detrimental. That would be satisfying character development as well, as it would, in turn, allow Medaka to finally grow up. Zenkichi as well, for that matter. All without some need for a complete destruction of their relationship.

Dude, I already told you that there is no "dependency" to speak of from Zen. In terms of character development from Zen, the only actual path forward for him is to get over Medaka entirely. Aside from that, he has nowhere else to grow. Do you not see how pointless it would be to grant Zen his much foreshadowed character development of getting over Medaka only to stick them back together? Meanwhile, as I've been telling you, Medaka's 'love' to this point has consisted of nothing but dependency. Maturing past her dependency means Medaka will no longer have any basis for being romantically interested in Zen. It is a given that if Medaka and Zenkichi follow the full paths of their character development they will no longer end up together. That's the way this story is: Character relationships and emotions which were set in stasis 14 years ago--change. A pair which used to always be together--learns to be apart. That's it.

Your absurd delusions about Kumagawa's supposed character development and how that would eventually lead to him acknowledging his "win" whenever he finally attained Medaka's heart were predictably disproved and altogether forgotten in the last chapter. He finally won (albeit in a poorly contrived and rushed manner, of course), thus dissolving the notion that her love was the only thing he desired that would lead him to a proper victory. Thankfully too, since that would have done an even bigger disservice to his character than his win based on the prediction of an inevitability already did. I mean, you've repeatedly mentioned that Zenkichi and Medaka's mutual love is deeply flawed, but isn't Kumagawa's for Medaka as well, since, based on your definition, he would be quite dependant on her if she were to miraculously be his ultimate victory. Medaka x Kumagawa is, quite simply, dead and buried.

Haha. You seem to be under the impression that Kumagawa's story is remotely over. Kumagawa's bet on the happy return of Medaka just before the end of the graduation ceremony can hardly be considered his final victory--he's not that nice a person. I'm not sure what you're thinking, but you should certainly be prepared to continue seeing Kumagawa make his presence felt in the story, especially considering the latest development.

For the record, victory is something which you take. Kumagawa's victory would be fundamentally different from Medaka x Zenkichi in terms of emotional dependency.