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Old 2012-03-15, 04:24   Link #179
Kanon
Kana Hanazawa ♥
 
 
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: France
Age: 37
Quote:
Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf View Post
That was a key part of my argument: There is plenty of evidence that only we the audience could see, but not the rest of the class. That makes us biased judges. There is also the problem that we, the audience, have been influenced by what the storyteller wants us to see, which makes us naturally sympathetic towards Mei's circumstances, but at the expense of learning about her classmates' perspectives.
I don't think we are biased so much as we are fair judges. Izumi is the biased one for only relying on what she saw and never once try to put herself in Mei's place nor even discuss her actions with her (at least not that I recall). Instead, she automatically assumed and went as far as claiming in front of the whole class that she had not done her job properly, and that if she had, her countermeasures would have worked. In doing so, she shifted all of the blame onto Mei. That was just plain wrong. This is the part of her speech that irked me the most and makes me unable to even consider she was acting the benefit of the whole class.

After she said this, her earlier apology appeared to be a simple formality to me, she got that out of the way so that Mei or someone else wouldn't be able to throw it at her face. I find a bit laughable that she chewed Mei out for not apologizing sooner even though she only did it a second earlier herself. That's a bit hypocritical, don't you think? If anyone is not blame (and I don't believe that is the case) for what happened, then she is. The primary reason her countermeasures failed is that she never informed Kouichi of the situation when she had the chance, not that Mei failed to avoid him (if anything, that's only secondary). She does not have any right to blame Mei for something that is the result of her own failure.

In the first pace, it was completely needless to bring that up now. People blame Mei and resent her? Let them, she can take it. In a way, that is how she takes responsibility: by letting others blame her in their heart and talk behind her back. She makes no excuse and does not ask for forgiveness. Please note that she never rebuked Izumi's accusations. She intended to keep bearing the blame. She simply said apologizing is pointless, and I believe she is correct. Apologizing won't change anything, at best it will only make her feel better about herself.

I agree with the rest of your post about Mei. It is true that her attitude must be very irritating and I fully understand why others including Izumi would hate her guts for not showing a shred of concern for her fellow classmates.

Quote:
Originally Posted by TinyRedLeaf View Post
This point actually counts very heavily against your argument because, in my opinion, it proves that Izumi is still thinking clearly. She doesn't blame Kouichi because she already accepts that she was at fault for not having explained the counter-measure to him beforehand. Had she joined those classmates in trying to lynch Kouichi, then and only then would I think she was being emotional and vindictive in the whole affair. As it were, I strongly believe that she wasn't.
I didn't mean that she should have blamed Kouichi, but rather that she should have explained to everybody that he is completely blameless. I'm sure a lot students resent him just as much as they do Mei, so if her true intent was to restore harmony, she should have address that as well.

No, I believe the only thing she truly wanted was to hear from Mei's mouth was that it was all her fault, in order to alleviate her own guilt.
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