Quote:
Originally Posted by willx
@Sol Falling
That was a huge block of text. Here's my 2 cents as a former "bad boy" "playboy" and someone who never ever wanted to get married (nor do I want kids) -- but just recently got engaged.
At some point, having been with a person and having grown together and experienced a plethora of experiences together - you simply cannot imagine your life without them at your side. As a rationale human being, you simply take the things you dislike, but are important to your partner, into consideration when you make your choices and sometimes acquiesce.
tl;dr version: Why do I love you? Let me count the ways.. Er, I can't think of anything concrete but in Medaka's own words -- In Chapter 6 -- "Do you think I'd ever like it if you left me? I wouldn't like it! I'd cry!"
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Heh. Thanks for your thought and input; I admit that that block of text was pretty huge. I think the factors you've mentioned here are a very natural reason for why
Medaka might accept Zenkichi's proposal. However, they don't explain Zenkichi's proposal itself.
Moments like you quoted from Medaka are exactly the kind of thing which Medaka said she wanted to grow out of when she mentioned no longer wanting to be "a human who can't do anything without Zenkichi around". Medaka doesn't want to depend on Zenkichi, find him necessary, or be bound to him--she wants to be able to stand independently. In that sense, "friendship" is pretty much a perfect form of relationship that she could have with Zenkichi; because then she could always be together with him, but not depend on him. At the same time, though, marriage itself being only a formal contract, there's no reason Medaka
has to become dependent on Zenkichi again even if they got married to each other--so she might agree to go through with it simply because Zenkichi wants to.
Zenkichi, though, is the "pursuer" here--
he's the one trying to push himself and Medaka towards a closer relationship. He's the one who is explicitly in love with Medaka, to the extent of rejecting Emukae. From a selfish perspective, if Zenkichi wants to marry Medaka and Medaka's okay with it, everything is perfectly fine. However, from an empathetic or rational perspective, this course of events is certainly painful for others (i.e. Emukae in particular; Kumagawa as somewhat a distant secondary, because he is used to losing). It's precisely because Zenkichi does recognize the pain he is causing that he committed harakiri.
However, if Zenkichi does recognize the pain he is causing, and is not simply pursuing Medaka for selfish reasons (i.e. "I want to grope breasts" or whatever, lol), then he has to eventually present (to us, or himself) a rational justification for why he is actually following this current course of action. The explanation Zenkichi threw out to Emukae on the spur of the moment was "I will always be in love with Medaka; even in another life", but that is purely emotional. At some point, Zenkichi has to sit down and think about
why he has those emotions, and whether they actually make sense at all; because at the very least, those emotions were detrimental enough to Zenkichi that he was driven to cut his stomach open. Would it really be so bad to accept Emukae, and friendzone Medaka? Is the difference
really so huge for him that he would even stab himself to prove it?
What is Zenkichi really chasing after? Is it really worth so much that he should give up everything he has thus far to obtain it? As an impartial member of the audience observing Zenkichi's actions, these are the questions which have to be answered before I can consider him a complete character. Can anyone
actually understand why Zenkichi loves Medaka so much that he would reject Emukae while stabbing himself in the stomach? If we can't find a rational explanation for this, and a rational explanation never arrives in the form of the story, then this would become a real example of those often abused words, "bad writing".
edit:
Quote:
Originally Posted by Randrak42
Gonna get flamed for this but...
Love ain't rational or logical most of the time. Having a clear-cut explanation as to why you love someone isn't always needed or even possible.
Well that's what I think, at least :I
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You are correct in this on a personal level. Lots of people, most often, aren't really aware on a logical or conscious level why they are in love with someone. However, from a storytelling perspective, narrative events and characterization certainly do require some form of rational justification. That's the entire basis of other people, aside from the author, being able to appreciate the story.
Why does Zenkichi love Medaka might not be truly important for Zenkichi to know, but it is something important for us as the
audience to know. As far as I'm concerned, right now (or for most of the story actually) Zenkichi's love for Medaka has been presented as unsympathetic and irrational.