Quote:
Originally Posted by Used Can
It may have been a lie, but rather than looking down at Beatrice for that, my point is I didn't like how R07 had to make Beatrice look so weak in order to make her even more sympathetic. Beatrice was already sympathetic if you understood her character back during the core arcs.
I understand the point is to show Beatrice's background and how she came to be, but I don't think R07 had to strip her of her grandioseness to do it. Why not explain her background like still portraying her like a strong, magnificent woman? Of course, I'm not saying Yasu is not strong, since she dealt with her issues in her own way, but her development is the "pity me" type of development.
I'm just purely stating my tastes here though. So, this is not actual criticism.
|
I have to agree with you, but I think this is cultural. Beatrice (and to an extent, Beatrice Castiglioni) have a certain western swagger because they're created to be characters with that exotic bearing. It's not really larger than life (though Beatrice utilizes it to push it there), at least not to a western audience; but I think to the Japanese audience it's "over the top" and the "real face" behind Beatrice has to be... well... for lack of a charitable description, "safer."
While I'd hesitate to characterize Yasu as submissive, her portrayal is more in line with what I suspect a Japanese audience would expect. The problem is that Beatrice as portrayed is not that far off from a perfectly acceptable strong female character to a western audience, where the native audience expects she needs to be toned down to be "humanized."
Personally, I find it pretty distasteful and think it sort of makes Battler look kind kind of a dick with unrealistic expectations (where if he actually saw hints of what he wanted at least he'd be romantic). But whatever, if I were looking to Japanese culture for particular preferred values I'd be barking up the wrong tree entirely. I can live with disappointment, but I stand by it not squaring up.
Quote:
Originally Posted by chronotrig
Look at it this way: if Lion died in that fall, would any of EP7 be different? Genji's apparent goal in bringing Yasu to the island was so that Kinzo could see his child one last time before he died. Presumably, he felt sorry for Kinzo when he saw how much Beatrice 2 and Lion's deaths destroyed him. Even if Lion actually died, Genji could still give Kinzo peace before death only by making him think that Lion was alive.
So, if Genji had a motive for faking Lion's age and making him a servant, he had just as strong a motive to find another kid entirely and make Kinzo think it was Lion. Yasu wouldn't know the difference, so her reaction would be exactly the same as we're shown in EP7. And, there are actually two kids in the story who might have been 'the child' Genji chose.
|
Yes, exactly. The baby does not even need to exist. What matters as concerns Yasu is that
Yasu believes him/herself to be that baby enough that
Kinzo believes it.
Lion himself can be someone else entirely or no one at all; that is, just a made up hypothetical person. We have contradictory testimony as to whether the baby story is even
true, and even if it is no evidence that (1) it would ever have actually been accepted by Natsuhi if it existed, and (2) there was even the remotest possibility it could have survived. Who says a baby existed?
- Natsuhi, when she's not saying the opposite.
- Kinzo, who is the most fictionalized "real person" character in the whole series.
- Genji/Kumasawa/Nanjo, who are fundamentally untrustworthy and growing only moreso by the episode as the web of things the three of them are in on without telling anyone expands. Nanjo in particular has allegedly known all three Beatrices and is in effectively every single group or faction. And spoken not a word of anything he knows. I still don't think he's a bad person, but he's got a hell of a lot of secrets at this point.
Having said that, I depart with you in that I don't think it's actually relevant who Yasu is. It's one of those whole "unknowable truth" things that's been thematically part of the series from the start. We can't
know any of this backstory is true, and not even Yasu can know it. After all, he/she has no idea what really happened when born, if the story sounds right why not believe it? And honestly I don't think that there's enough evidence to suggest any theory of Yasu's origin, including the one he/she appears to believe, is definitively correct. There's as little evidence for the Natsuhi Baby thing as any plausible alternative.
Unless ep8 comes down on it, or at least provides some definitive evidence, I'm not sure how we'd be sure of any of it. But under current parameters, I'm not sure it really makes a difference. It doesn't change what Yasu ends up thinking is true, and I don't see how anyone would have the ability to present to her evidence to the contrary short of Genji/Kumasawa/Nanjo admitting out of the blue that they lied about something.