Quote:
Originally Posted by orion
Well, the girls were prob sacrifices to appease whatever god that dragon was in the past. The girls are being burned to death. You don't just dribble water on burning people. It's prob not meant to be demeaning at this point in the city's timeline imo. Guys were hitting other guys with it also. Way back when prob sh*t was hitting the fan and it wasn't a good thing being a fire maiden. Blood and bodies being sacrificed. Not my idea of fun.
But people can read into it whatever they want. Lots of traditions have very dark pasts, like Guy Fawkes Day, St. Nicholas (Santa Claus) |
lol, I am totally dragging this conversation on pointlessly right now but there is a difference between showing fully aware, prepared (on some level) townspeople splashing water at each other and fixating on a confused, distressed person crawling around on the ground. While we can readily trust that the townspeople dumped that bucket of water on Konata in said distressed state only in amiable accordance with the festivities, it is the
camera, grotesquely focused on Konata's discomfort/suffering (lol, though to really call it suffering would be exaggerated) at that moment, that makes that scene demeaning (and kinda hot --> thus fanservice).
Quote:
Originally Posted by billborden
I don't know, I read it differently. The separateness is there, but I think what is being emphasized is Konata's separation from the people of the town. Before this, she is an observer; after, she seems to be taken in as one of them. This can be seen as more of a baptism/ritual cleansing that is needed to bring her into the community. You can read a darker connotation, but I think that is being read into the scene, rather than emerging from it.
Just my opinion, but then this scene syncs with her later immersion in the river: the first drenching being symbolic of the latter. In cultures both East and West, passing through/being drawn out of water is often seen as representative of the death/rebirth cycle. In this case her "death" as an outsider is necessary for her "rebirth" as a member of the fire-maidens.
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That is a pretty interesting interpretation. Kudos for making that connection with the symbology. Being splashed with the water indeed works very well if seen as a baptism for becoming a fire maiden. However, whatever deeper meaning the scene holds doesn't preclude it from being fanservice. That's sorta what I'm saying. That scene just sorta has a pervy feel to it (it's her expression really). And it's not really a 'sexy' perviness, it's of a humiliating/demeaning kind, where we're watching (kinda voyeuristically) a soaked girl crawl around on the floor while people dump water on her. Though there's nothing really wrong with that; I enjoyed it, and cognitive dissonance can often be a carrier of awesome. It just seemed strangely dark to have that kind of thing in an anime that's supposed to be 'heartwarming'. (Rewatching the scene again, her distressed expression is actually a lot cuter than I'd remembered it. So maybe it's not as dark as I thought it was. If deep down she is maybe actually enjoying it (to say it again, though, that is: crawling around on the floor while having water dumped on her) (lol, happy self-demeanment is my favourite kind of bondage/humiliation), then it wouldn't really be dark at all. This whole thing is still wholly divorced from a wholesome, 'heartwarming' image though).