sick, yet still thinking about holic & TRC
Ugh, I feel 'orrible--I am totally stuffed up. I went LARPing August 10 to 17 and I think I either caught a cold there or sleeping outside for seven days weakened my immune system enough for me to catch a cold right after I came back. I just wish I felt better.
Well, to my manga then.
Been having some great discussions with people about who Watanuki really is and why everything is so wonky in chapter 142 - (the thread is here). Of course, wonky is just par for the course in xxxHOLiC, but it has just seemed off recently. Also, Watanuki pulling a Yukito since Sakura's soul has been separated from her body does pose problems in narrating coherent stories--the narrator falling asleep at random intervals makes the snippets we do seem as strange and snippy. Maybe that is all CLAMP is trying to prove--they can't tell anything meaningful because Watanuki would just fall asleep halfway through it.
TRC is doing really great--seems that Tomoyo-hime's curse on Kurogane is more than what she said if the spoilers are to be believed. But we do have to wonder about the second curse Fei Wang cast on Fai--that one he said would only come true by Fai returning to Celes. I was thinking that it was something along the lines that it if anyone besides Fai kills Ashura-Ou, Fai would have to then kill them. Sounds like Wang's reasoning--if someone besides Fai kills Ashura, then they will likely be a threat to the quest and should be eliminated. Or maybe it is a curse that only happens if Fai kills Ashura--surely Fei Wang would know something about Ashura's reason for taking Fai in since Ashura wants to exploit that curse Wang placed on Fai--so something is triggered in Fai only if he kills Ashura. Maybe it isn't a bad curse--a curse can also be a spell placed on someone that is triggered by something, it doesn't have to be bad. Maybe if Fai kills Ashura, he will absorb Ashura's power? It would make Fai more powerful and better able to help on the quest.
Or maybe Ashura's death will trigger some sort of exchange where Ashura's soul is exchanged for the original Fai's soul, because I'm pretty sure that the [Fai] Kurogane destroyed was only a part of the illusion that Ashura was creating to show everyone Fai's past--it shattered in the same matter the memories did. And what is it that Sakura wants Fai to remember when he sees her body that she told Watanuki about? Maybe the fact that he didn't ask for himself to be saved--he asked for his twin to be saved and him be allowed to die.
The memory that Fai recalls before the whole Celes arc is the one from the real [Fai]'s point-of-view, from the window above, asking to die repeatedly and that someone saves Yuui before he dies. Shoot--now I have to try and find that chapter, I think it might be in Tokyo. The curse could be that, after Ashura dies by whatever hand, Fai would remember that he actually is [Fai] and that Fei Wang granted the exact opposite of his wish--killing Yuui and letting him out alive--and then twisted his memory into thinking that he, as Yuui, asked for his own life to be saved, for his twin to die, and used that falsely created guilt into getting Fai to do what he wanted.
That would definitely give Fai more drive to finish the quest to seek revenge for his brother's murder. Or maybe seeing Sakura's body is supposed to evoke some hidden memory that his brother's soul isn't really dead as he was led to believe but is actually in a self-induced dream, to protect himself from the harsh reality of everything Yuui saw at the bottom of that grotto. And what Fai needs to do now is not to bring his brother back to life, but instead free his brother's soul from its torment so that it can move on. But Sakura said it was 'Fai's past that he had forgotten' like it was something very important that he remember.
Oh, wait! Sakura's body was in the pool where the king was and where [Fai] is still supposed to be--so why did Ashura bring up Sakura's body instead of [Fai]'s body to threaten Fai with? Wouldn't threatening to destroy his precious twin be a better way to get Fai to kill him in a rage? I would think so, so why didn't Ashura do it? Unless there is no twin in that pool, that it is a false body that Fei Wang created to get Fai to do what he wanted.
In that same memory Fai remembered earlier, he didn't see his twin at all--which you would think he would if the twin was so instrumental in his past--just himself gripping the bars of his tower cell wanting to die. So is there really a twin? Or was Fai imprisoned for some other reason and he was just given a false memory?
Ah well, I'm posting this and then going to look for that memory and the context it was brought up in. Found it--trc Chapter 133.
Ja ne.
Well, to my manga then.
Been having some great discussions with people about who Watanuki really is and why everything is so wonky in chapter 142 - (the thread is here). Of course, wonky is just par for the course in xxxHOLiC, but it has just seemed off recently. Also, Watanuki pulling a Yukito since Sakura's soul has been separated from her body does pose problems in narrating coherent stories--the narrator falling asleep at random intervals makes the snippets we do seem as strange and snippy. Maybe that is all CLAMP is trying to prove--they can't tell anything meaningful because Watanuki would just fall asleep halfway through it.
TRC is doing really great--seems that Tomoyo-hime's curse on Kurogane is more than what she said if the spoilers are to be believed. But we do have to wonder about the second curse Fei Wang cast on Fai--that one he said would only come true by Fai returning to Celes. I was thinking that it was something along the lines that it if anyone besides Fai kills Ashura-Ou, Fai would have to then kill them. Sounds like Wang's reasoning--if someone besides Fai kills Ashura, then they will likely be a threat to the quest and should be eliminated. Or maybe it is a curse that only happens if Fai kills Ashura--surely Fei Wang would know something about Ashura's reason for taking Fai in since Ashura wants to exploit that curse Wang placed on Fai--so something is triggered in Fai only if he kills Ashura. Maybe it isn't a bad curse--a curse can also be a spell placed on someone that is triggered by something, it doesn't have to be bad. Maybe if Fai kills Ashura, he will absorb Ashura's power? It would make Fai more powerful and better able to help on the quest.
Or maybe Ashura's death will trigger some sort of exchange where Ashura's soul is exchanged for the original Fai's soul, because I'm pretty sure that the [Fai] Kurogane destroyed was only a part of the illusion that Ashura was creating to show everyone Fai's past--it shattered in the same matter the memories did. And what is it that Sakura wants Fai to remember when he sees her body that she told Watanuki about? Maybe the fact that he didn't ask for himself to be saved--he asked for his twin to be saved and him be allowed to die.
The memory that Fai recalls before the whole Celes arc is the one from the real [Fai]'s point-of-view, from the window above, asking to die repeatedly and that someone saves Yuui before he dies. Shoot--now I have to try and find that chapter, I think it might be in Tokyo. The curse could be that, after Ashura dies by whatever hand, Fai would remember that he actually is [Fai] and that Fei Wang granted the exact opposite of his wish--killing Yuui and letting him out alive--and then twisted his memory into thinking that he, as Yuui, asked for his own life to be saved, for his twin to die, and used that falsely created guilt into getting Fai to do what he wanted.
That would definitely give Fai more drive to finish the quest to seek revenge for his brother's murder. Or maybe seeing Sakura's body is supposed to evoke some hidden memory that his brother's soul isn't really dead as he was led to believe but is actually in a self-induced dream, to protect himself from the harsh reality of everything Yuui saw at the bottom of that grotto. And what Fai needs to do now is not to bring his brother back to life, but instead free his brother's soul from its torment so that it can move on. But Sakura said it was 'Fai's past that he had forgotten' like it was something very important that he remember.
Oh, wait! Sakura's body was in the pool where the king was and where [Fai] is still supposed to be--so why did Ashura bring up Sakura's body instead of [Fai]'s body to threaten Fai with? Wouldn't threatening to destroy his precious twin be a better way to get Fai to kill him in a rage? I would think so, so why didn't Ashura do it? Unless there is no twin in that pool, that it is a false body that Fei Wang created to get Fai to do what he wanted.
In that same memory Fai remembered earlier, he didn't see his twin at all--which you would think he would if the twin was so instrumental in his past--just himself gripping the bars of his tower cell wanting to die. So is there really a twin? Or was Fai imprisoned for some other reason and he was just given a false memory?
Ah well, I'm posting this and then going to look for that memory and the context it was brought up in. Found it--trc Chapter 133.
Ja ne.