Quote:
Originally Posted by Triple_R
Honestly, I think that Haruhi would probably, over the long term, benefit from losing at a competition that she genuinely cared about.
Losing, every now and then, can build character. It can make a person more hardy, and more accepting of the idea that they can't always have their way.
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I disagree. I think that the more success Haruhi experiences, the more ambitious she'll become and more willing to take risks. A long series of successes means that she'll have more confidence in her ability to act and overcome obstacles. I think that if opportunities work her way (if the economy is on an upswing, if Haruhi enters into some revolutionary new field of industry that suits her abilities), then Haruhi would already have the kind of ambitious and hard-working personality that would push her advantage to the fullest.
On the other hand, if Japan's economy were stagnating and new opportunities to cause huge change in industry were closed to her, then she would end up becoming frustrated with her inability to achieve. If she didn't have her reality-warping powers (speaking of Haruhi as a real person, rather than imaginary), then she'd probably become more "accepting of the idea that [she] can't always have [her] way". She'd come out an ordinary person with little motivation to take big risks since her past failures in her frustrating environment stifled her ambition.
For this reason, I believe that Haruhi would gravitate towards areas that have opportunities for her to exercise her ruthless ambition and abilities. In the event that she did face inevitable failure of an important venture for her career, then she'd realize that she's stuck in small-town Nishinomiya where politicians and businessmen alike are too afraid to take risks that no other businesses/politicians have explored.
On the topic of business, I've met with several Japanese company executives and a few firms that coordinate US-Japan business relations. The potential for entrepreneurship in Japan is still lagging in comparison to outside countries such as the US. Positions of power in big Japanese companies are still manned by loyal employees who have reached a certain age in the company. To a large degree, promotions work like clockwork. Maverick-style management, the kind that I suspect Haruhi would excel at, is a rare find. If Haruhi were to find a niche in a system to refine her developing skill as a lawyer, detective, physicist, writer, or whatever, that niche would probably involve her leaving Japan.
In other words, Haruhi is unable to accept failure. She'd change her environment to suit her greed for glory. Any compromise on her part would dull what I believe most of us in this forum admire in her.