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Originally Posted by Grahf616
Admittedly, that might not have even been empathy so much as it was her making a spur of the moment decision to get involved in a situation. It is a little convoluted, but I think that's more of a timeline order fault than anything else.
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I will admit that Haruhi has a very interesting personality in that she has very concrete notions of "how things should be." Why did she pull Mikuru into the club? Because they "needed" a moe member. Why are transfer students mysterious? They just are. Why did Yuki need a cat? Because all witches have familiars. And finally, why sing for ENOZ? Because in your senior year, you should get to play your music at the cultural festival. The strange thing in the last situation is not so much that she had such a notion, but rather that it was directed at something not immediately involving herself.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Grahf616
I think here you might be giving Haruhi too little credit. She is quite empathetic, it's just that for the most part, she chooses not to be. And if I was arguing with someone and they went to hit me directly after something I just said, I'd probably attribute their anger to that statement, or at least the general focus of that current situation. Haruhi would have to be pretty wilfully ignorant not to see that Kyon had a huge problem with her treatment of Mikuru and her statement of ownership.
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I'm going to type out this personal musing here so I remember it, but feel free to think of it as a concession to your point.
As a kid, Haruhi thinks she and everything she does is special. Then she sees other people doing the same thing and realizes that that's really no fun at all. She gets the notion that the only way to enjoy herself is to do things her way. To that end, she creates a club of yes-men so she can do everything she wants. When one of them acts up, it's a shock to her (also note her reaction to Kyon's suggestion at the end of E8), but it's the biggest step in realizing that there's more to having fun than doing everything her way all the time. Eventually, she develops in the sort of person who has fun WITH the people around her, rather than in spite of them.
Sure, that works, and it's palatable enough for me. That means I'll have to fall back on my whine that Sigh is far too drawn out for its sole purpose, but I'll save that for another night.