Basara: Ageha and Senju
BTW, since the Basara posts are going to become more and more angst central, I'm thinking about doing this with a lighter manga series but I'm not quite sure what. I think pretty much anyone on my list who would read Wallflower or Hana Kimi is(or at least saw the dorama of that one) and Fruits Basket is equal parts cute fluff and deep angst(and
dangermousie is pretty much doing this with it off and on at her LJ) so I'm leaning towards W Juliet(esp. since it's completely out, here) though if anyone else has a preference(that they think or know I read and that has scanslations readily available because I'm not ruining my books for these posts) I'm open to suggestions(uhm, posts like this and the last one, not the volume-by-volume ones)
*Spoilery post, though not as much for the main plotline. But if you want to completely avoid spoilers, skip on down to the next entry on your flist right now.*
(approaching it as if no one reading it has read my other Basara posts, which, for all I know, no one is)
In Basara, Ageha is a nomad and occasional dancer who is also a former slave. To say that he has issues is an understatement-he was the pleasure slave of an abusive noble and the only person who was ever kind to or attempted to take care of him was Shido, the nobleman's son. Shido is also the cousin, sole friend and (as the series begins) righthand man of Shuri, Ageha's enemy and the man who took his eye. To Ageha, Shido was taking care of him like a pet, and as a result Ageha has spent his life both hating and loving Shido, though he lives in denial about the love part until he meets Senju, Shido's fiance. Ageha isn't so much bitter about life as he is bitterly apathetic...he cares about and believes in no one, not even himself. He doesn't slowly but surely find himself becoming involved in Tatara's cause because he believes in or is moved by Sarasa, but because he wants her to prove that there's something worth believing in(this is also why he challenges her a lot) and because of that, he eventually becomes the one who believes in Tatara the most. He also figures out pretty quickly that Tatara is actually a girl(he later says he only suspected, but it's pretty obvious that he knew) and a prophet once told him that he'd one day meet a woman worth dying for, something that, he tells us at the beginning, hasn't happened yet (and I cling to the fact that he was told he'd meet a woman WORTH dying for, not that he'd DIE for a woman...)
Ageha's origins haven't been directly addressed, but they have been very strongly hinted at. The Blue King, Asagi, Shuri's half brother once told Ageha that because the king had several wives, he only had half brothers, but his mother had given birth to a son before him(Shuri, incidentally, is the youngest of the king's children), but that he had died. There was a rumor, however, that the prince had actually lived, but been sold into slavery, and Asagi asked Ageha if he was that son. Ageha avoided answering him, but it would explain why Ageha always wears blue(Asagi's signature color, obviously) and has always tied himself to Asagi, who's the kind of person-at first-who he normally wouldn't tolerate. Shido's father(who we've never actually met) strikes me as the sort who would make sure his victim knew exactly how far he had fallen and what he had been denied, and it would go a long ways towards explaining his hatred for both Shido and Shuri.
Senju is Shido's fiance, and after his death at the hands of Hayato, she goes to Shuri for sanctuary, and he gives it unhesitatingly(for both Ageha and Shuri, it's a very simple case of Senju being the woman Shido loved, and the mother of her child. Therefore, both will take care of her unable they're literally unable to, period) Because he immediately takes her in, many at court assume that the baby is Shuri's(even without Sarasa, Shuri is as likely to touch Shido's woman as he is his own mother or sister) and when Shuri is overthrown, she becomes a target because of this belief. Ageha, who had come to investigate rumors of unrest, saves her from her attackers and, when he realizes who she is(especially after learning who's child she's pregnant with) becomes her protector. Because Senju loves Shido, she's able to recognize that Ageha does, too, and tells him that, something that he'd never considered before. Because he's unable to commit himself to her care fulltime, Ageha takes her to Tatara. It may sound cruel that he took her to the people who killed her lover, but he knew that once Sarasa realized that Senju and her child were robbed of protection because of her, she would feel responsible for them. He wanted Sarasa to learn the consequences of the path she was walking, and she wanted Senju to see Shido's killers as more than just killers so that Shido's child wouldn't grow up with the same hatred Ageha himself has always carried.
Ageha, I think, is incapable of romantic love-far too damaged and scarred emotionally, and it's highly questionable whether or not he's ever had sex for pleasure as opposed to being forced to or out of necessity-and I doubt that Senju is capable of ever actually being in love with someone other than Shido. However, both loves the other, in some fashion, simply because the other loved and was loved by Shido. If they ever WERE capable of romantically loving somneone, it would be each other(sometimes Yumi Tamura seems to be hinting that Ageha loves Sarasa but, to me, the love he has for her is more that she awakened his desire to believe in something than romantic love, rather like Asagi's desire to possess her stems from his belief that if he can "conquer" her-not that he stands a chance-comes from his refusal to believe in a cause, that's almost as strong as Ageha's, it just takes him longer to get over it) From their first scene together, you know that Ageha will protect her, and her baby, for the rest of his life.
Volume 8, where Ageha rescues her from Shuri's enemies.
(it cracks me up that people are always so shock that that broad shouldered, 6'3"~ dancer is a guy...)
Damsel in distress=rescue. Woman carrying Shido's child=protect for the rest of my life.
Later, in their travels(aka, vol 9)
Later(about 8 or so months) after Senju has had her son, Motomichi, Ageha sees the baby for the first time, and basically falls in love with him, the way people tend to when their own children are born.
(yeah, he hacked all the hair off a couple books back.) He's not looking at her like she's a goddess when he walks in or anything...
And then just 2 pages of Ageha kicking butt(and rescueing Senju, Motomichi and Sarasa when the boat is attacked) without even trying.
Incidentally, you have no idea how hard it was to not post some of the most awesome Shuri/Sarasa stuff from volumes 8-9 here...we're talking blindness, burning off your OTP's slave brand, dramatic rescues and near psychic OTP recognition.