[Cherry_Lover]

Originally Posted by Moczo

This. I really like Rin (Of the three heroines, she's the one who most consistently made me smile), but her actions in HF really pissed me off too... until I thought back on the other routes, and all the fairly obvious signs that her 'coldhearted magus' side is a front she puts on to cope with adversity. It didn't click until the very end, when she had a shot at a killing blow and couldn't take it, that she'd been such a bitch the whole route because she was desperately trying to cope with the knowledge that she would probably have to kill her own sister, and going deep into her magus shell was the only way she could even contemplate this course of action without breaking down. And even that wasn't enough to make her actually go through with it.

Well, this was pretty much the same conclusion I came to. Except that she didn't have to kill her sister, she just thought she did, and her actions made it more likely that she would have to do it in the end. There are several occasions in the route where Sakura could perhaps have stopped, only for Rin's bitchiness to push her over the edge.

From what I understand, the archery team, Shinji, and even Zouken are actively afraid of her in HA.

To be fair, Zouken has abused her for eleven years, she's way more powerful than he is and he no longer has any control over her. He damn well should be scared, because any remotely normal person (i.e. not insanely kind and forgiving) would have got the bug spray out the minute they were freed of his control (and I somehow doubt Zouken understands concepts like "compassion" and "forgiveness", so he probably thinks she's keeping him alive until she can think of a suitable punishment for him...). Ditto Shinji, to a lesser extent.

She's really mastered the tried-and-true female art of being scary with a cheerful smile on her face.

Yeah, which is exactly like Rin....

I'm hoping it gets translated soon. Some more funny, cheerful memories to offset the depressing ones is just what the doctor ordered as far as Sakura is concerned.

Yeah, and I want to see what Sakura is like when she's able to live a normal life, without Zouken's abuse. She's such a strong person, but in HF she's so low on confidence and has no sense of self-worth, so she appears (on the surface) to be weak. I'd love to be able to see how she blossoms once she's free to live her own life without Zouken controlling her and torturing her on a regular basis.