Kyon's "Tics" Essay
Ok then, first essay. For this one, I'm going to get into Kyon's "tics". As for what I mean by "tics"... Tics is a term used in the "Paranoia" RP game, to indicate unique character traits that instantly make them recognizable in a crowd. I'm not using it in this exact way, but all of Kyon's "tics" are unique character traits that make him a lot easier to RP as, and help reveal a lot of his personality... Which is why I'm getting into them here.
Of the unique character traits, the ones which will be addressed in this essay (behold, as the past two paragraphs break every rule of topic paragraphs in essays) are his slight Jesus complex, mised with his taste in women.
The most easily noticeable trait of his is probably the Jesus complex. Kyon states repeatedly that the only reason he stays around Haruhi not really because he enjoys it, but because Mikuru clearly needs protecting from it. The second trait of course, is his belief that girls should be independant, which creates an interesting comparison to the second trait.
Kyon's Jesus Complex has a lot of canonical evidence, even though it might not be easy for a person to see. He's stuck with Haruhi through and through, even when sticking around Haruhi could result in him getting killed. Why? According to his own words, it's to protect Mikuru. This actually makes for a very interesting thing for several reasons.
Even without the attempts on his life, putting up with Haruhi was quite a challenge for him. Ultimately, he establishes himself and maintains his sanity in spite of everything else due to one primary thing: The Jesus complex. Who in their right mind would maintain their sanity through an obsession with martyring themselves in the name of protecting someone? Why, Kira Kyon, of course.
To be precise, to maintain his sanity, Kyon establishes one person to be his "Pillar of Sanity" - normally, some cute, sweet girl who he finds to be absolutely adorable in every way. In the Haruhi series, this wound up being Mikuru. In Kyon's eyes, so long as he can look at Mikuru and she's happy and healthy, he can take any amount of insanity or threats on his life, as the "Pillar of Sanity" has been maintained. It's definately not particularly healthy, but it allows Kyon to take any amount of pain and suffering in stride.
Of course, in camp, there's a distinct lack of Mikuru, which ultimately forced him to take on someone else to fill the role of "Pillar of Sanity" for him. For better or worse, this wound up being Kohaku, who hit him as helpful, sweet, and cute -- completely unlike the others in camp., in his opinion. Thus, Kohaku has effectively become one of the central points of his camp life, and he acknowledges this.
What's particularly fascinating about this though, is that the Jesus complex doesn't result in a relationship necessarily. By the end of the first volume, Kyon knew full well that a relationship with Mikuru was impossible -- it can also be noticed that from thereon, most of the time he spent on relationships was focussed more on Nagato than on Mikuru, despite the fact that he admits to thinking Mikuru as cute. He had largely given up on Mikuru in terms of relationship once the future Mikuru popped up to prove that a relationship was clearly impossible. Of course, he still protected Mikuru regardless of such things. Why? Because she was his Pillar of Sanity, even if she was unattainable object, and he knew it.
Kyon doesn't chase after things he acknowledges are impossible. It's impossible to have a relationship with Mikuru, so he doesn't bother trying. He protects her regardless, as her mental health affects his own, but he's not really interested in a relationship any longer.
Another interesting yet downright bizarre trait is Kyon's tendency to look at the Pillar of Sanity as a distinctly non-sexual thing. This might sound odd, considering that he kept rather questionable photos of Mikuru, but Kyon makes an interesting remark in the novels:
"I felt the maid costume suited her best. To put it simply, it's because this costume has no hidden meaning or innuendo"
Ignoring the fact that the maid costume DOES have innuendo and Kyon's not aware of this, which indicates he's somewhat ignorant of the Japanese pronographic market (which I have to some extent worked in), it indicates a lot about how Kyon thinks. It's not necessarily anything sexual with the Pillar of Sanity - it's about looking nice, being happy, and healthy. The reason why he kept the pictures of Mikuru was stated to be because "it would be a shame to delete them". Another thing which helps drives down the point that he didn't use the pictures for anything sexual in nature would be the fact that in Day of Saggitarius, he was grumbling about how he would have to move the pictures to some other media.
Why is that important? He never moved the pictures off the computer, and there is no way a person really expects him to be doing anything in a room that people like Yuki and Haruhi are prone to jump into without any warning whatsoever. As such, it's safe to assume he never used them that way. Before a person states that it's due to a lack of opportunity, the events of the first novel occured some time in May, whilst the events of Day of Saggitarius occured in November. It's unreasonable to believe that he didn't have a single opportunity to move them off in the span of five months, even considering the sort of chaos Haruhi normally gets into.
Kyon's Jesus complex thereby establishes itself as an interesting thing: In a bid to maintain sanity, he latches onto someone, and becomes protective of them, in a way that could be construed as almost a form of worship -- so long as he can see that person happy and healthy, he can remain sane. There's nothing sexual about it, and while ideally he would be able to get into a relationship with said person, not being able to get into a relationship wouldn't change his actions at all.
This does however, make for an interesting comparison when one looks at his reactions to Nagato in particular. Whilst Kyon's interested in a relationship with Yuki, he makes one thing consistently clear: he wants her to make her own choices, not just do whatever he wants. If he's going to get into a relationship with someone, he wants it to be a mutual thing -- he doesn't want a girl wherein he has decide everything for her, he wants a girl who's independant.
This creates a very interesting examination into Kyon's mind. He doesn't want a girl who needs to depend on him, but rather wants someone he can depend on. In contrast however, he needs to protect someone to keep himself calm. How exactly does one handle these conflicting drives? Well, that's a lot of how I'm trying to role-play Kyon in terms of relationships.
Earlier on in CFUD, after Kohaku referred to Kyon with the suffix "-sama", he basically told her that he's not important enough to deserve that suffix. Kohaku's response was to ask if he wanted to be referred to as "-chan", to which Kyon stated that it's her decision. To be perfectly honest, Kyon probably would have preferred a simple "-kun", to a "-chan", but as it's Kohaku's own choice, -san is good enough for him, so long as she's happy and healthy.
Of the unique character traits, the ones which will be addressed in this essay (behold, as the past two paragraphs break every rule of topic paragraphs in essays) are his slight Jesus complex, mised with his taste in women.
The most easily noticeable trait of his is probably the Jesus complex. Kyon states repeatedly that the only reason he stays around Haruhi not really because he enjoys it, but because Mikuru clearly needs protecting from it. The second trait of course, is his belief that girls should be independant, which creates an interesting comparison to the second trait.
Kyon's Jesus Complex has a lot of canonical evidence, even though it might not be easy for a person to see. He's stuck with Haruhi through and through, even when sticking around Haruhi could result in him getting killed. Why? According to his own words, it's to protect Mikuru. This actually makes for a very interesting thing for several reasons.
Even without the attempts on his life, putting up with Haruhi was quite a challenge for him. Ultimately, he establishes himself and maintains his sanity in spite of everything else due to one primary thing: The Jesus complex. Who in their right mind would maintain their sanity through an obsession with martyring themselves in the name of protecting someone? Why, Kira Kyon, of course.
To be precise, to maintain his sanity, Kyon establishes one person to be his "Pillar of Sanity" - normally, some cute, sweet girl who he finds to be absolutely adorable in every way. In the Haruhi series, this wound up being Mikuru. In Kyon's eyes, so long as he can look at Mikuru and she's happy and healthy, he can take any amount of insanity or threats on his life, as the "Pillar of Sanity" has been maintained. It's definately not particularly healthy, but it allows Kyon to take any amount of pain and suffering in stride.
Of course, in camp, there's a distinct lack of Mikuru, which ultimately forced him to take on someone else to fill the role of "Pillar of Sanity" for him. For better or worse, this wound up being Kohaku, who hit him as helpful, sweet, and cute -- completely unlike the others in camp., in his opinion. Thus, Kohaku has effectively become one of the central points of his camp life, and he acknowledges this.
What's particularly fascinating about this though, is that the Jesus complex doesn't result in a relationship necessarily. By the end of the first volume, Kyon knew full well that a relationship with Mikuru was impossible -- it can also be noticed that from thereon, most of the time he spent on relationships was focussed more on Nagato than on Mikuru, despite the fact that he admits to thinking Mikuru as cute. He had largely given up on Mikuru in terms of relationship once the future Mikuru popped up to prove that a relationship was clearly impossible. Of course, he still protected Mikuru regardless of such things. Why? Because she was his Pillar of Sanity, even if she was unattainable object, and he knew it.
Kyon doesn't chase after things he acknowledges are impossible. It's impossible to have a relationship with Mikuru, so he doesn't bother trying. He protects her regardless, as her mental health affects his own, but he's not really interested in a relationship any longer.
Another interesting yet downright bizarre trait is Kyon's tendency to look at the Pillar of Sanity as a distinctly non-sexual thing. This might sound odd, considering that he kept rather questionable photos of Mikuru, but Kyon makes an interesting remark in the novels:
"I felt the maid costume suited her best. To put it simply, it's because this costume has no hidden meaning or innuendo"
Ignoring the fact that the maid costume DOES have innuendo and Kyon's not aware of this, which indicates he's somewhat ignorant of the Japanese pronographic market (which I have to some extent worked in), it indicates a lot about how Kyon thinks. It's not necessarily anything sexual with the Pillar of Sanity - it's about looking nice, being happy, and healthy. The reason why he kept the pictures of Mikuru was stated to be because "it would be a shame to delete them". Another thing which helps drives down the point that he didn't use the pictures for anything sexual in nature would be the fact that in Day of Saggitarius, he was grumbling about how he would have to move the pictures to some other media.
Why is that important? He never moved the pictures off the computer, and there is no way a person really expects him to be doing anything in a room that people like Yuki and Haruhi are prone to jump into without any warning whatsoever. As such, it's safe to assume he never used them that way. Before a person states that it's due to a lack of opportunity, the events of the first novel occured some time in May, whilst the events of Day of Saggitarius occured in November. It's unreasonable to believe that he didn't have a single opportunity to move them off in the span of five months, even considering the sort of chaos Haruhi normally gets into.
Kyon's Jesus complex thereby establishes itself as an interesting thing: In a bid to maintain sanity, he latches onto someone, and becomes protective of them, in a way that could be construed as almost a form of worship -- so long as he can see that person happy and healthy, he can remain sane. There's nothing sexual about it, and while ideally he would be able to get into a relationship with said person, not being able to get into a relationship wouldn't change his actions at all.
This does however, make for an interesting comparison when one looks at his reactions to Nagato in particular. Whilst Kyon's interested in a relationship with Yuki, he makes one thing consistently clear: he wants her to make her own choices, not just do whatever he wants. If he's going to get into a relationship with someone, he wants it to be a mutual thing -- he doesn't want a girl wherein he has decide everything for her, he wants a girl who's independant.
This creates a very interesting examination into Kyon's mind. He doesn't want a girl who needs to depend on him, but rather wants someone he can depend on. In contrast however, he needs to protect someone to keep himself calm. How exactly does one handle these conflicting drives? Well, that's a lot of how I'm trying to role-play Kyon in terms of relationships.
Earlier on in CFUD, after Kohaku referred to Kyon with the suffix "-sama", he basically told her that he's not important enough to deserve that suffix. Kohaku's response was to ask if he wanted to be referred to as "-chan", to which Kyon stated that it's her decision. To be perfectly honest, Kyon probably would have preferred a simple "-kun", to a "-chan", but as it's Kohaku's own choice, -san is good enough for him, so long as she's happy and healthy.