2009-10-15, 00:06 | Link #3002 |
Frandle & Nightbag
Join Date: Oct 2009
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So, this came out some time ago, but when I was a teenager there was a particular humorous shirt that was pretty popular, called the 'Religions of the World' shirt. It had two columns; one listing a religion on the wearer's right, and one listing its 'definition' on the wearer's left. Only, ever 'definition' included something about 'Shit Happening'. So, for example, "Taoism: Shit Happens", "Hinduism: This Shit Happened Before", "Unitarianism: What Is This Shit?" etc. I've figured one out that's appropriate here.
Haruhiism: Shit happens all Over the place because of Suzumiya Haruhi's Brigade.
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2009-10-15, 00:19 | Link #3003 | |
(Ex-)Seitenkan VN coder
Join Date: Jan 2009
Location: Slightly south-west of the exact center of this country's X and Y axes.
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2009-10-15, 02:12 | Link #3004 | |
Love Conquers All!
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: The Suzumiya Haruhi Section of AnimeSuki, (I placed my main Otaku HQ box there)
Age: 29
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And they go looking for her, and they are then like "There she is" 6 mins Later: Haruhi makes them carry heaters "Remind me why we went looking for her again?" |
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2009-10-23, 20:29 | Link #3007 |
Otaku Apprentice
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Maybe it's:
Melancholy = Who's Haruhi Sighs = Is Haruhi evil? Boredom = How to stop Haruhi from getting bored? Disapperance = Where's Haruhi? Rashness = What's going on with Haruhi? Disturbance = Is Haruhi a disturbance? Scheme = Is this s*** happening because of Haruhi? Anger = Is Haruhi getting bored to wish for a villain? Dissociation = Will Haruhi get more friends? Surprise = Will Haruhi know who John Smith is? something like that
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2010-09-13, 13:46 | Link #3011 | |
Logician and Romantic
Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Within my mind
Age: 43
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That's all. It was about Kyon deciding he will take the responsibility of being Haruhi's moral compass, the one who will stand up to her even while those with superpowers and immense technology tremble in fear. And this was important, because that's what made Haruhi tolerable from Live A Live onwards. And that was also when the other 3 members start to defer to Kyon when they needed him to hold Haruhi in check. This was in comparison to the original story, when Kyon really did nothing to oppose her.
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2010-09-16, 00:07 | Link #3012 | |
Senior Member
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Sigh is basically about Haruhi getting truly out of control in how she was treating everybody around her, especially Mikuru. Sigh certainly displays Haruhi at her worst, imo. Kyon had to stand up to her here, because nobody else would. It's from Sigh on that Haruhi more or less forces herself to be a better person, knowing that if she didn't do this, her relationship with Kyon (and the rest of the SOS Brigade) was in jeopardy.
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2010-09-16, 11:06 | Link #3013 | |
Anime Cynic
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: USA
Age: 35
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Think about it. The kind of person who says outright (and believes it), "Mikuru is my TOY," isn't going to change, especially not instantly, because one person happens to disapprove. The kind of person who would get someone drunk on tequila, throw them into polluted water, make them wear immodest outfits, and everything else that Mikuru CLEARLY doesn't want to do is not going to have a drastic behavioral overhaul because a second person doesn't want it to happen either. Remember what Haruhi said to Kyon? It was something like, "What is your problem? This is my movie and I'll do what I want!" She thinks his objections are nonsense, and the fact that he wanted to hit her only made her more indignant. Remember, Haruhi was just smacking Mikuru (hard) seconds earlier. If Kyon's attempted attack upset her at ALL, it proves that she doesn't have any self-awareness or empathy, at least not the kind that would force such a turnaround in her behavior. And how does Kyon resolve things? "uhh we're going to make this movie a success." So he's caving into Haruhi's desires. Someone with any intelligence at all (and it's understood that Haruhi has a significant amount) would immediately realize, "Hey! Even if he gets angry at me, he's still going to do exactly what I want!" You know why she's upset? Someone finally opposed her. You know what made her cheer up? That person stopped opposing her. Kyon's essentially apologizing for getting angry, and what's worse, he legitimately feels that way too. ("I don't know why I was so out of control, but I drank some milk and calmed down. It was probably just a calcium deficiency.") I think I remember yelling at my monitor, "No! You had every right to get mad! Don't be an idiot!" When I said, "Sigh was boring and nothing happened," I was being generous. Perhaps, "Nothing happened that made sense," would be a more valid appraisal of the situation. This just brings us back to point 7 in my review at the top of the page, that Tanigawa is overrated. When you force development onto characters rather than letting them develop realistically, they're exposed for the plot tools that they are. That's not good writing.
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2010-09-16, 13:03 | Link #3014 |
High Saint of Asakuraism
Author
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: The Great White North
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I have to disagree on a lot of those points, although hopefully the reasons why are at least somewhat legitimate.
As far as character development is concerned, we do have to remember that this is only the second novel in the series. In the first we saw a Haruhi who, while happy enough, was also in a state of Melancholy, thus the title. So I don't think that the situation is going into the boarders of being contrived. Haruhi was probably written to have a personality that would cause her to do this, and we just haven't had a chance to see her do so until this point. It's true that after this she does still have some of this behaviour (I'm specifically thinking of the baseball game) she does begin to tone it down and become less of a raging sociopath over time. You say that Haruhi isn't going to change instantly just because one person objects to what she's doing. I believe that she doesn't undergo an instant change, for example she's still more than willing to force Mikuru to play dressup, but after peeving Kyon off so badly, it became clear to her that there are limits to what can be tolerated. Also, Kyon isn't just any random person to her, even at this early stage in the narrative. At this point, it might not be horribly far off to say that he's the only person whose opinions might matter to her at all. As far as her reaction to getting hit goes, I think that the anime portrayed it a lot better than the novels did, honestly. In the novels she comes across as an indignant brat about it, while in the anime, with exactly the same lines, you can still see that her reaction is almost one of "Why would you, of all people, be the one to do this to me?" she almost looks like she's going to cry. Whether or not she recognizes the fact that her treating other people like garbage is what spurred him to attempt it is a little besides the point, all she needs to take away from it is the jarring sense of "How far did I push him for him to be willing to do that?" The resolution is the part I can actually mostly agree with you on. Kyon's reasoning that he needs to apologize to her because he's disagreed with what she's done is rather contrived when those disagreements were completely legitimate for the most part. Sure, he's been snarking about stuff in general, and perhaps feels a little guilty about that, but he shouldn't feel bad for taking a hard line on what is and is not acceptable. I think the apology scene, or rather the brief opening to it where Haruhi was making a ponytail just when he walked in, had more potential because it showed that Haruhi was trying, even if it was a physical attempt, to maybe work herself up to an apology. I think a mutual apology would have been so much better in the long run, with Haruhi being the one to initiate it. But sadly that's not the way it went. I hope that even if you don't find these points to be things that you can agree with that they at least made a modicum of sense. I'm not trying to change your interpretation of events, I'm rather just offering mine as a differing viewpoint.
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2010-09-16, 14:35 | Link #3015 |
Senior Member
Join Date: Nov 2009
Age: 34
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Two things; one, the baseball game chronologically happens before Sighs. Two, Kyon never actually apologised.
He just said, 'Let's make this movie a success.' Its not an apology, but it is sort of like saying - 'Lets get on with this.' Kind of a declaration of support. It takes nothing away from his putting his foot down though. It was then that Haruhi learned that there are limits. To me, that scene was a turning point. After that, Haruhi began to care more about people, and stopped simply using them. I think it shocked her into realising that, if she carried on like she was, Kyon would leave her. True, by this point she cares somewhat for the rest of the Brigade, but Kyon's opinion mattered more.
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2010-09-16, 22:38 | Link #3017 | |||
Anime Cynic
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: USA
Age: 35
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Incidentally, the only time Mikuru actually has a problem with the cosplaying is when she has to wear the skimpy outfits. Her only gripe with the maid costume was that Haruhi wouldn't let her take off her own clothes, she had no (on-screen) issues with the frog or the nurse outfits, and of course she dressed up for the soba cafe without a problem. Quote:
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Yes - a declaration of support shortly after withdrawing his support. In other words, he essentially retracted his objections. If a kid is told he has to stay in detention and then at the end of the day the teacher tells him he can go home right away, he'll have learned nothing. Here too, if someone gets furious at you and then returns a lot calmer saying, "Okay, go back to what you were doing," you're not going to learn anything either. At best, you'll think the person had a lapse of judgment that they've gotten over. If you had any uncertainty about your actions, that will be completely dispelled.
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2010-09-16, 23:43 | Link #3018 | ||
High Saint of Asakuraism
Author
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: The Great White North
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Also, forcing Mikuru to play dressup was a bad choice of words on my part. The root of the problem was Haruhi continually treating people like objects, means to an end without any regard of how they feel about it one way or another. Now, whether she continues to do this after the fact (and she does at least a bit) does open debate over whether she learned anything, but she never went to such extremes again. Quote:
I haven't really quoted the last part, because as I mentioned earlier, I agree with you that the apology came off as completely one sided and contrived, and I think that it wouldn't have been much of a stretch if, as you say, Haruhi basically learned nothing from that incident other than that Kyon will cave given enough time. Now, she obviously did take something away from it, because she did tone down her behaviour and become more empathetic over the course of the next novels, but it could have just as easily gone the other way.
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2010-09-17, 00:38 | Link #3019 | ||
Anime Cynic
Join Date: Jul 2010
Location: USA
Age: 35
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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.
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2010-09-21, 00:44 | Link #3020 |
High Saint of Asakuraism
Author
Join Date: Mar 2010
Location: The Great White North
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I'd really like to hear what those instances are, and I mean that in a completely sincere and non-antagonistic manner. I may be a fan of the show, but I'm always interested to hear points of intelligent descent.
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Tags |
comedy, kadokawa, school life, science fiction, shounen |
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