An essay of the tl;dr variety
SO THIS WAS GOING TO BE AN ESSAY ON KINON AND ROMANCE AND HOW SOMEONE CAN GO FROM LIKING KAMINA TO LIKING ROSSIU, inspired by people saying that Rossiu and Kinon's relationship came out of nowhere. And it still covers that stuff. But it also covers Kinon's self-concept, and self-esteem, and the Meaning of Life, and maybe some other stuff, as those all happen to tie into it. It even has pictures, ooh, aah. Needless to say, there are GURREN-LAGANN SPOILERS until AT LEAST EPISODE 23. CAUTION, DANGER DANGER.
Why Kinon likes Kamina. Her sisters ended up talking about his legs and eyelashes instead...
Opposed to her sisters, who probably really wanted Kamina's awesome hot bod, Kinon's totally girly crush on Kamina, IMHO, was less "GOD HE'S HOT I WISH I COULD DO HIM" and more "MAN HE'S SO COOL I WISH I COULD BE HIM." Kinon when she's first introduced is shy and prone to blush and stammer and socially stumble. And then she's surrounded constantly by her two sisters and her brother who are all extroverted and fun sorts of people. Take that with the fact that she's usually taken with her sisters as a singular unit, and being stuck in the middle of those two keeps you a little overshadowed, and I get the feeling that she doesn't have the best self-esteem.
Then appears Kamina, who has already, this early in the series, accomplished what was thought impossible and captured a gunman for his own. He just shows up seeming about ten times cooler than Kittan (sry ilu because you are such a dork kittan), thus instantly topping who I assume was the sisters' main male role model for a long time. He is the humans' symbol of STRENGTH and HOPE and all of those glorious positive things. He also happens to be an attractive young man in their general age range--for Kinon at least, I think that's what pushed her idolization into blushy blushy crush.
Or, in a few sentences: Kinon is shy and awkward. Kamina is strong and determined and makes miracles happen through his willpower alone. Kinon desires such qualities for her own, and admires such qualities in other people, and this particular person both has those qualities and is in her dating pool, and thus she falls into the CRUSH TRAP.
All the relationship they ever have.
Kinon and Kamina rarely ever spoke directly to each other. Kinon fangirled him from the sidelines and cheered him on quietly. But an actual relationship between them would neverever work as far as I'm concerned.
Kamina goes off and dies. Kinon, like everyone else, becomes solemn and mourns. But she didn't have a personal connection with him, so she gets over it a lot sooner than, you know, some other certain people. At first she works with her sisters on the bridge, except somewhere along the line she gets promoted to operator of the Dai-Gurren, and then her sisters get their own gunmen and go out on the front lines, and thus begins their SEPARATION. And it also begins Kinon's assertion of her own identity as someone useful to her comrades.
which is something of a hang-up for her. as we can encounter when we enter PART 2: TIMESKIP.
Justification for everything. ...PS: App Kittan.
I end up filling the timeskip in by myself with lots of ideas that are solely based on my own thoughts and flights of fancy, but I'll just actually finish those fanfics one day and I won't go into aaaany of that here, save a few basic half-canon assumptions:
1) Kinon and Rossiu both work closely together (she's his personal secretary) and become close friends at least (as evidenced by Rossiu's letter, although that could just be Rossiu being retarded)
2) obviously, their relationship is not the instacrush that occurred with Kamina, but it develops graaaadually
3) by the time we've arrived at our destination in episode 17, Kinon is completely in love with and devoted to Rossiu.
Yes, it ends up being something of a 'wtf wait when--?' moment. It doesn't matter so much how it happened though: what matters is why it happened. And I can logically see why, given what we were pre-timeskip! Rossiu is--well. Remember the part where Kamina was strong and determined and made miracles happen? Rossiu's... trying. He's trying to support the hopes of humanity, he's trying to lead the world to a prosperous future, he does his best to save the world although he ends up steadily increasing the burden he puts on himself. However, unlike Kamina, Rossiu starts out trying to do these things during peacetime, where nobody really notices or cares... and also he ends up failing. a lot. more. when the peace actually shatters. The only people, then, that can truly appreciate what he's doing are the people who work close to him and associate with him on a regular basis--like Kinon. I personally think Kinon realizes that Rossiu is trying to do some noble things. But this time around, her idol hasn't rallied all of mankind to energetically follow his words, and he doesn't have a clear, magical GOAL to work towards like defeating the beastman regime. He's just trying to make things better, and Kinon's like: well, I'll help him then, since he can't do it all on his own, and it doesn't look like anyone else is doing it. She's not really overshadowed by everyone else who can fight on the front lines and who can make hot-blooded speeches anymore. She has found her niche, where she really can help! She finds purpose!
...but of course, the consequence of this is a pretty impressive dependency on Rossiu. In order to live her life this way, she needs him there, because he needs her. She needs to feel useful, or else she loses her concept of her own identity. And because Rossiu needs her, because he's placed trust in her and because she has decided to be strong with him and help him with that burden that keeps looming, she is going to do Everything She Can to fulfill his wishes. This is why she does something as utterly and superfluously insane as strapping herself to explosives just in case Simon POSSIBLY, and likely UNKNOWINGLY tries to unbalance the shaky foundations of the government's positive reputation. Because Rossiu needs everything to work out how he planned it! And that's what I'm here for--to make sure that Rossiu gets what he needs! Episode 23, I think, really cements the fact that she needs Rossiu there, or else she reverts to being shaky and insecure again. She gets all the strength and resolve sapped out of her and THANK GOD SIMON WAS THERE so she could appeal for help and he could get there and save him for her, or else there would have been a BAD END, because I think with the state that she was in she would have given up and locked herself away somewhere to get a head start on accepting her failures, pretending she was okay, and drowning herself in her work.
...I dunno, I think this speaks for itself.
So, on to more general topics! Kinon does not, contrary to what some may think, worship Rossiu as a god. ...really. He's not one! In fact, if she thought that, she... wouldn't have a relationship with him at all! Her relationship with him is largely based on the fact that she realizes that he is human. He is not "the Second-in-Command/Commander" to her, or "that forehead douche" or even "KYAA SO DREAMY". He's... Rossiu. She LOVES ROSSIU. And she knows that it's not fair that everyone expects more of him than he is, and she also knows that it can't be helped because he is a politician and that's just how things work. So no, she's not deluded into thinking that he is the one true savior of the people and that all who defy him will burn in hell etc. etc. It just comes off that way, because even if he is not perfect she believes in him and trusts him, one hundred percent. WHAT A COINCIDENCE THAT THIS IS SUCH A THEME IN THE SHOW HUH
However! Despite all this, she does place him above her. Selfishly. Her image of their relationship is kind of... as a bad analogy, Rossiu is like an actor on stage, the one who the audience sees and cares about, while Kinon is the stage manager which is IMPORTANT but she's working backstage and nobody sees her and Rossiu's the only one it really matters to. NOTE THAT THIS IS MERELY KINON'S VIEW OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP! I'm pretty sure she's the only one who sees it that way in camp. She still has low self-esteem, you see. She... hasn't really resolved those issues. What she did instead was go "oh man, I'm not very important and I cannot help the entire world. But looks like Rossiu's working on it. If I just focus on helping Rossiu, I will be indirectly helping the world!" Which makes things a lot easier for her, but also categorizes Rossiu as THE MORE IMPORTANT ONE. She values her own life at about 10% of Rossiu's. AGAIN, this is why when Rossiu tries to go kill himself she... loses her self-esteem. And why she is willing to put her life on the line for his sake. Her vicious protection of Rossiu is indirectly protecting herself. Rossiu's like... an extension of herself, AS CHEESY AS THAT SOUNDS OH WOW. She sort of throws all of her focus on Rossiu so that she doesn't have to worry about herself and how she's doing, because she must be doing all right if she's helping him, because that's what she's good for.
And this is what causes a sort of distance between them, even when they're not in business mode. She won't let herself be completely open with him because some things might make him somewhat less than happy and that is completely the opposite of what she is supposed to do. OOCLY, WE ALL KNOW THAT THIS IS EXTREMELY DUMB and Rossiu is not about to hate her whatever she says. But she doesn't want to risk it. Because... she is special and has all of the above issues. orz These issues are also why Kinon is SO VERY TOPPED by people complimenting her or paying attention to her for herself. She's not used to it! It's weird and why are they doing it! Maybe they haven't met Rossiu yet since he's the one they should probably be paying attention to! This right here is the basis behind all of the awkwardness she had with Hakim. She's just... SO TOPPED ;;
But you still can't escape the truth, Rossiu.
But despite everything it's really not THAT dysfunctional a relationship. She has all of these issues, but she's also... sane. She takes Rossiu's well-being and his contentment very seriously, but she is not completely out there and she is not going to kill herself if she gets him milk chocolate and he wanted dark chocolate. She even has the capacity to call him names and everything, see! But this is still how she works, and she's reluctant to change since she's pretty sure she knows when she's going too far so she has it under control okay. Basically, Kinon will always consider their relationship as superior and subordinate the most important, even if people in camp don't see them that way.
WELL. THE SHORT VERSION, because I sure forgot most of what I talked about:
1) Kinon liked Kamina because he was her ideal.
2) Kinon loves Rossiu because she believes they can reach that ideal together.
3) Kinon has made this her purpose in life--when this relationship is threatened, so is she.
4) This all hopefully explains things like why Kinon will probably bite your head off if you are mean to Rossiu :)
PLEASE TO BE ASKING QUESTIONS IF YOU ARE CONSIDERING THEM. I have been messing with this essay and making it get longer and longer for like, a month at least. This is stuff that's important to get down for playing her, so I'd like to make sure everything is cleared up! 8|b
Why Kinon likes Kamina. Her sisters ended up talking about his legs and eyelashes instead...
Opposed to her sisters, who probably really wanted Kamina's awesome hot bod, Kinon's totally girly crush on Kamina, IMHO, was less "GOD HE'S HOT I WISH I COULD DO HIM" and more "MAN HE'S SO COOL I WISH I COULD BE HIM." Kinon when she's first introduced is shy and prone to blush and stammer and socially stumble. And then she's surrounded constantly by her two sisters and her brother who are all extroverted and fun sorts of people. Take that with the fact that she's usually taken with her sisters as a singular unit, and being stuck in the middle of those two keeps you a little overshadowed, and I get the feeling that she doesn't have the best self-esteem.
Then appears Kamina, who has already, this early in the series, accomplished what was thought impossible and captured a gunman for his own. He just shows up seeming about ten times cooler than Kittan (sry ilu because you are such a dork kittan), thus instantly topping who I assume was the sisters' main male role model for a long time. He is the humans' symbol of STRENGTH and HOPE and all of those glorious positive things. He also happens to be an attractive young man in their general age range--for Kinon at least, I think that's what pushed her idolization into blushy blushy crush.
Or, in a few sentences: Kinon is shy and awkward. Kamina is strong and determined and makes miracles happen through his willpower alone. Kinon desires such qualities for her own, and admires such qualities in other people, and this particular person both has those qualities and is in her dating pool, and thus she falls into the CRUSH TRAP.
All the relationship they ever have.
Kinon and Kamina rarely ever spoke directly to each other. Kinon fangirled him from the sidelines and cheered him on quietly. But an actual relationship between them would neverever work as far as I'm concerned.
Kamina goes off and dies. Kinon, like everyone else, becomes solemn and mourns. But she didn't have a personal connection with him, so she gets over it a lot sooner than, you know, some other certain people. At first she works with her sisters on the bridge, except somewhere along the line she gets promoted to operator of the Dai-Gurren, and then her sisters get their own gunmen and go out on the front lines, and thus begins their SEPARATION. And it also begins Kinon's assertion of her own identity as someone useful to her comrades.
which is something of a hang-up for her. as we can encounter when we enter PART 2: TIMESKIP.
Justification for everything. ...PS: App Kittan.
I end up filling the timeskip in by myself with lots of ideas that are solely based on my own thoughts and flights of fancy, but I'll just actually finish those fanfics one day and I won't go into aaaany of that here, save a few basic half-canon assumptions:
1) Kinon and Rossiu both work closely together (she's his personal secretary) and become close friends at least (as evidenced by Rossiu's letter, although that could just be Rossiu being retarded)
2) obviously, their relationship is not the instacrush that occurred with Kamina, but it develops graaaadually
3) by the time we've arrived at our destination in episode 17, Kinon is completely in love with and devoted to Rossiu.
Yes, it ends up being something of a 'wtf wait when--?' moment. It doesn't matter so much how it happened though: what matters is why it happened. And I can logically see why, given what we were pre-timeskip! Rossiu is--well. Remember the part where Kamina was strong and determined and made miracles happen? Rossiu's... trying. He's trying to support the hopes of humanity, he's trying to lead the world to a prosperous future, he does his best to save the world although he ends up steadily increasing the burden he puts on himself. However, unlike Kamina, Rossiu starts out trying to do these things during peacetime, where nobody really notices or cares... and also he ends up failing. a lot. more. when the peace actually shatters. The only people, then, that can truly appreciate what he's doing are the people who work close to him and associate with him on a regular basis--like Kinon. I personally think Kinon realizes that Rossiu is trying to do some noble things. But this time around, her idol hasn't rallied all of mankind to energetically follow his words, and he doesn't have a clear, magical GOAL to work towards like defeating the beastman regime. He's just trying to make things better, and Kinon's like: well, I'll help him then, since he can't do it all on his own, and it doesn't look like anyone else is doing it. She's not really overshadowed by everyone else who can fight on the front lines and who can make hot-blooded speeches anymore. She has found her niche, where she really can help! She finds purpose!
...but of course, the consequence of this is a pretty impressive dependency on Rossiu. In order to live her life this way, she needs him there, because he needs her. She needs to feel useful, or else she loses her concept of her own identity. And because Rossiu needs her, because he's placed trust in her and because she has decided to be strong with him and help him with that burden that keeps looming, she is going to do Everything She Can to fulfill his wishes. This is why she does something as utterly and superfluously insane as strapping herself to explosives just in case Simon POSSIBLY, and likely UNKNOWINGLY tries to unbalance the shaky foundations of the government's positive reputation. Because Rossiu needs everything to work out how he planned it! And that's what I'm here for--to make sure that Rossiu gets what he needs! Episode 23, I think, really cements the fact that she needs Rossiu there, or else she reverts to being shaky and insecure again. She gets all the strength and resolve sapped out of her and THANK GOD SIMON WAS THERE so she could appeal for help and he could get there and save him for her, or else there would have been a BAD END, because I think with the state that she was in she would have given up and locked herself away somewhere to get a head start on accepting her failures, pretending she was okay, and drowning herself in her work.
...I dunno, I think this speaks for itself.
So, on to more general topics! Kinon does not, contrary to what some may think, worship Rossiu as a god. ...really. He's not one! In fact, if she thought that, she... wouldn't have a relationship with him at all! Her relationship with him is largely based on the fact that she realizes that he is human. He is not "the Second-in-Command/Commander" to her, or "that forehead douche" or even "KYAA SO DREAMY". He's... Rossiu. She LOVES ROSSIU. And she knows that it's not fair that everyone expects more of him than he is, and she also knows that it can't be helped because he is a politician and that's just how things work. So no, she's not deluded into thinking that he is the one true savior of the people and that all who defy him will burn in hell etc. etc. It just comes off that way, because even if he is not perfect she believes in him and trusts him, one hundred percent. WHAT A COINCIDENCE THAT THIS IS SUCH A THEME IN THE SHOW HUH
However! Despite all this, she does place him above her. Selfishly. Her image of their relationship is kind of... as a bad analogy, Rossiu is like an actor on stage, the one who the audience sees and cares about, while Kinon is the stage manager which is IMPORTANT but she's working backstage and nobody sees her and Rossiu's the only one it really matters to. NOTE THAT THIS IS MERELY KINON'S VIEW OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP! I'm pretty sure she's the only one who sees it that way in camp. She still has low self-esteem, you see. She... hasn't really resolved those issues. What she did instead was go "oh man, I'm not very important and I cannot help the entire world. But looks like Rossiu's working on it. If I just focus on helping Rossiu, I will be indirectly helping the world!" Which makes things a lot easier for her, but also categorizes Rossiu as THE MORE IMPORTANT ONE. She values her own life at about 10% of Rossiu's. AGAIN, this is why when Rossiu tries to go kill himself she... loses her self-esteem. And why she is willing to put her life on the line for his sake. Her vicious protection of Rossiu is indirectly protecting herself. Rossiu's like... an extension of herself, AS CHEESY AS THAT SOUNDS OH WOW. She sort of throws all of her focus on Rossiu so that she doesn't have to worry about herself and how she's doing, because she must be doing all right if she's helping him, because that's what she's good for.
And this is what causes a sort of distance between them, even when they're not in business mode. She won't let herself be completely open with him because some things might make him somewhat less than happy and that is completely the opposite of what she is supposed to do. OOCLY, WE ALL KNOW THAT THIS IS EXTREMELY DUMB and Rossiu is not about to hate her whatever she says. But she doesn't want to risk it. Because... she is special and has all of the above issues. orz These issues are also why Kinon is SO VERY TOPPED by people complimenting her or paying attention to her for herself. She's not used to it! It's weird and why are they doing it! Maybe they haven't met Rossiu yet since he's the one they should probably be paying attention to! This right here is the basis behind all of the awkwardness she had with Hakim. She's just... SO TOPPED ;;
But you still can't escape the truth, Rossiu.
But despite everything it's really not THAT dysfunctional a relationship. She has all of these issues, but she's also... sane. She takes Rossiu's well-being and his contentment very seriously, but she is not completely out there and she is not going to kill herself if she gets him milk chocolate and he wanted dark chocolate. She even has the capacity to call him names and everything, see! But this is still how she works, and she's reluctant to change since she's pretty sure she knows when she's going too far so she has it under control okay. Basically, Kinon will always consider their relationship as superior and subordinate the most important, even if people in camp don't see them that way.
WELL. THE SHORT VERSION, because I sure forgot most of what I talked about:
1) Kinon liked Kamina because he was her ideal.
2) Kinon loves Rossiu because she believes they can reach that ideal together.
3) Kinon has made this her purpose in life--when this relationship is threatened, so is she.
4) This all hopefully explains things like why Kinon will probably bite your head off if you are mean to Rossiu :)
PLEASE TO BE ASKING QUESTIONS IF YOU ARE CONSIDERING THEM. I have been messing with this essay and making it get longer and longer for like, a month at least. This is stuff that's important to get down for playing her, so I'd like to make sure everything is cleared up! 8|b