[Cherry_Lover]

Originally Posted by Ricky Controversy

Really? Because he views Sakura as part of his family and as a fragile girl in need of protection prior to the events of the visual novel--and yes, as much is explicitly stated--yet he develops a sexual attraction to her in Heaven's Feel because he has noticed her growing more attractive.

Except that this is not entirely true. He was attracted to her prior to the VN, he was just in denial.

Ilya is obviously not womanly, but she is quite pretty, and she has the same sort of pristine beauty that draws him to Saber.

Ilya is obviously cute, in the same sense as my little sister or my pet dog/cat is cute. She's not 'pretty'. She's too young for that.

So we're conflating romance and sexuality, then? I suppose that's an easy reflex given that we're dealing with an eroge and Shirou is a healthy young man, but the Shirou we are presented throughout F/SN is drawn to a sense of purity, something worth protecting, far more than any other factor. Saber is a living monument to that quality, Rin has a side of it buried beneath the Tsuntsun, Sakura has kept it deep inside her, unbreakable in the face of all the horror she has been subjected to. Ilya has it, too, in her childish naivete.

The thing is, whilst all this is true, he can protect Ilya as a brother far more easily than he can as a lover. It's a far more natural development, and neither of them have any reason to make it go a different way.

Again, you're conflating sexuality and romance here, which is folly. The former stems from the latter, or it certainly seems to in Shirou's case.

You can't have a romantic relationship without sexual attraction, especially not with someone who can very naturally be considered to be 'family'. Take Sakura, for instance. Shirou clearly cares deeply about her from the very start, but it is only the fact that the circumstances of HF force him to realise how attractive he really finds her that allows an actual romantic relationship to develop.

Nobody needs a relationship with Shirou. It's always a case of want, and the single change Moczo introduced could, if done well, create a real distinct niche for that want, and it wouldn't be particularly hard.

Yes, and Ilya doesn't want one either....

And she would be forced to grow up rapidly how, exactly?

Well, getting into a romantic relationship with Shirou would force her to be a lot more mature than just being his little sister would.

It's a bit crass to throw labels around like that on the assumption that everyone is thinking in sexual terms. There is romance that is not sexual, you know.

I don't buy that. The whole point of romance is that it is sexual in nature (that doesn't mean that you have find your partner stunning, but you still have to be willing to actually have sex with them, ultimately). Otherwise it's called a friendship. True, it is possible for a couple to remain together after their sex life disappears, but in that case they're more like close friends with a strong commitment to each other than they are a romantic pairing.

But more to the point, you've failed to make a good case as to why the pairing is nonsensical. Ilya possesses the primary qualifications to warrant Shirou's attraction to her personality, and Shirou is an entirely different type of person from what she has ever encountered before, so the possible reactions she could have are endless.

The fact that Ilya looks like she is ten and acts somewhat like a little girl isn't enough for you?

So, she doesn't know what she's thinking, except that she doesn't want Shirou romantically? That's rather contrived. But of course she wouldn't know what she's thinking: she has never encountered someone like Shirou. She has experience with affection, certainly, but both of her/their parents are entirely different sorts of people from Shirou himself. She begins the process wanting to take revenge on Kiritsugu through him. How they develop from there is an entirely open question.

She never shows any signs of wanting him romantically. To me, they make far better siblings than they do lovers.

Presumably because you don't want to? Because you haven't produced sufficient logic to support your assertions.

Like I said, Shirou is not a lolicon. Ilya looks too young, acts too young and there is too high a barrier in Shirou's mind in terms of romantic feelings towards her. I mean, it took him over a year to realise how he felt about Sakura, and she is a) more sexually attractive that Ilya (not being a child) and b) less obviously "family" (even though Shirou and Ilya are not blood-related, she is still the daughter of his father, and so he will see her as a sister).