[Essay] Reasons Why I Dislike Kyouya/Haruhi As Much As I Do
So hey, today's exam turned out to be disappointingly easy, so I distracted myself by thinking about ouran. Which leads me to this.
See, Kyouya/Haruhi has always, always struck me as implausible and unrealistic and how it plain cannot happen. I kept thinking 'why' and, well, my thoughts can be summarised in just one sentence:
Kyouya and Haruhi are similar to each other, but they have nothing in common.
I'll get back to that later, but first. Objecting to the 'evidence' of the pairing.
All the Kyouya/Haruhi shippers I've seen kept harping on two scenes, in the manga and the anime as well. They all have an underlying theme that is there, always there, but is mostly ignored by most. I'll elaborate about the manga first.
The beach episode is considered the Kyouya/Haruhi scene by more shippers than I can count, quite possibly all of them, actually. In my opinion, the scene actually isn't Kyouya/Haruhi. Let me get the scans.
The seventh panel,
Haruhi: You were just defending Tamaki-senpai right now.
You made me realize it by playing the villain, didn't you?
Tamaki. The keyword here is Tamaki. Kyouya was defending Tamaki. He pretended to rape Haruhi not because of his sexual desire or his lust for her, but he pretended to be the villain to defend Tamaki and teach Haruhi a lesson. Haruhi told us it. This is canon. Also, this page:
I greatly believe that the sole reason that Kyouya even bothered to try to teach Haruhi was because Tamaki whined to him the whole time they were going back to their rooms. I can't, honestly, see any other reason for him to risk his reputation by pretending to want to rape Haruhi. This scene is not 'proof of his lust for her'. Really. So please stop trying to say that it is.
The next 'Kyouya/Haruhi scene' in the manga is the whole of chapter 28. I'll just upload the parts where they actually have some interaction (isn't it just so lucky that I actually have the scans? And that I downloaded them only three days ago?):
Where, pray tell, is the Kyouya/Haruhi? I can't see any evidence for it in a romantic sense. Even if I squint and tilt my head sideways, I can't.
This chapter is actually the chapter that completely convinced that Kyouya/Haruhi cannot work in anyway. I shall go back to my beginning summary: Kyouya and Haruhi are similar to each other, but they have nothing in common. No, this is not an oxymoron.
Kyouya and Haruhi are similar in that their personalities belong to the same side of the spectrum. Kyouya is calculating, Haruhi is apathetic. Kyouya and Haruhi both hide their emotions, unlike Tamaki, although Kyouya hides them far better than Haruhi does. That is all to it.
They have nothing in common, except Tamaki and perhaps the Host Club. This chapter convinced me of that. What did that talk about in the fast food restaurant? Tamaki. WHat is their topic of conversation in the beginning of the market scene? Tamaki.
Their family backgrounds have nothing in common: Haruhi is an commoner, Kyouya is a rich 'young master'. Kyouya even says so. Unlike Tamaki and Haruhi, they don't even have their missing-mother similarity - we don't even know if Kyouya's mother is alive or not. Or if she even exists. So nothing in common there.
And that is the crux of this essay, actually. I cannot see a way in which Kyouya and Haruhi can relate to each other or even talk to each other. Their topics of conversation were Tamaki, Tamaki, and more Tamaki with a few mentions of the Host Club sprinkled in. Oh, and Haruhi asked Kyouya about his family (page 20) and Kyouya... didn't tell her. In fact, when Haruhi said that 'Looks like things are hard on you', Kyouya told her that he actually thinks of it as a challenge.
Again, nothing in common here. Haruhi don't understand Kyouya, or, at least, she understands him the least compared to the other Host Club members. Which is why I get frustrated at most Kyouya/Haruhi fics, because they don't recognise this. I have never read a fic in which the author acknowledges that they basically have nothing except a few basic personality traits in common, and it frustrates me so much.
Now we come to the most 'important Kyouya/Haruhi part' of the chapter. Pages 24 to 33.
I see no basis for the Kyouya/Haruhi ship here either. What I see here is what Hatori-sensei has already told us, way back in Chapter 9: Kyouya is a decent person.
Kyouya/Haruhi shippers I know of (which is rather few, so forgive me if I generalise) think that this scene is a Kyouya/Haruhi one because of pages 29-30, where Haruhi said: 'Kyoya-senpai, what is your definition of benefit? ... Were you trying to stand up for me when you saw the shopkeeper being rude to me?'
But Kyouya said, in pages 30-32: 'Just now you said that I helped you because it gave me some sort of emotional benefit? Is that right? ... I find that theory very interesting.'
The keyword here is 'theory'. In my hardcover copy, the translation is 'interpretation'. The difference in meaning in this context is negligible. The fact remains that Kyouya did not back Haruhi's view up, he did not agree with what Haruhi said. He thought it to be 'interesting' (that word remains the same in both copies).
You can argue that Kyouya used the word because he didn't want Haruhi to know he did that for her sake. But I don't think Kyouya is the type of person to go out of his way to 'stand up' (or 'get back', which sounds rather petty) for Haruhi. He isn't an obvious a person as that. I admit that the shopkeeper being rude to Haruhi might have been a part of the reason why he did that, but in my opinion, Kyouya is just being a decent person and stopping the old lady from buying a bunch of fake goods.
Even if he did it for her, you can't say automatically that he is romantically interested in her. There is such a thing as friendship, you see.
I'm not going into the anime because it is completely the same, except for that the market episode didn't have the Haruhi-being-scolded-by-the-shopkeeper scene. Given the anime's message throughout the whole thing, I think they took it out for a pretty good reason. It would've looked... awkward, actually.
The next item is what I've seen a few Kyouya/Haruhi shippers talk about: Ranka. See, according to them, Kyouya went to get to know Ranka first because he 'wanted first dips on parental approval'.
Er, no.
Kyouya is a person who seeks to understand other people. This is one of the other ways that he is so very different from Haruhi - she learns about people by watching them and from what they tell her, he learns about people by deliberately going out of his way to understand them. I believe that one of Kyouya's mottos is 'knowledge is power', and how better to get to know someone than to ask their parent?
Haruhi is something new in the world of the Host Club. I don't think Kyouya understands her, not in the beginning anyway. He called upon Ranka to find out more information about her, to get to know her better, so he can figure out just who she is and how he could use her better.
Case in point: Haruhi's middle-school photos were used as bait to provide him entertainment during Hikaru and Kaoru's game of 'let's find out Haruhi's weakness! :D :D :D'.
Second case in point: Haruhi constantly said that she didn't mind being mistaken for a guy and she doesn't have very strict opinions about gender. This is a rather strange opinion, but Kyouya could know exactly why she felt this way when he found out that her father is an okama.
You can interprete all this as 'Kyouya wants to know Haruhi better because he likes her!', but no, sorry, this isn't it. Wanting to know about someone does not equate him liking a person. It equates to him wanting to understand how this person's mind work, and how he could manipulate them.
The more you know about someone, the better you can predict their actions, and the more likely you can counter said actions. This applies to war, and this applies here as well.
Kyouya is, I believe, a person who dislikes anything he doesn't understand. Haruhi was one of them. She is a new, interesting puzzle, a challenge for him to solve, and so he called her father for clues to know more about her. That was all there is to it, really. He did the same thing before he first met Tamaki. He already knew that Tamaki was the son of the Superintendant, the son of his mistress, without even having met Tamaki. And I can bet you that he researched as much as he could about Mori, Honey and the twins the moment Tamaki told him that he was planning to have them join his new club. He is just that kind of person.
Plus having information like that gives him a advantage over everyone else, and Kyouya is all for having advantages. So, no, he didn't call Ranka up to get 'parental approval' or anything. He did it so he can understand more about Haruhi, so he can manipulate her better. He's like a chess player, really; a new piece is introduced into the game that he doesn't know of, and so he researches as much as he could about it so he will know where and how to move it. It isn't because he was romantically interested in her.
These are all just my personal interpretations and so on, though. You are free to disagree with me, agree with me, add in points, whatever, in the comments. I'm making this entry public anyway.
18 September 2007: Addendum to this post, with regards with the most recent manga chapters -
http://www.krysyuy.net/forums/index.php?topic=2793.30
See, Kyouya/Haruhi has always, always struck me as implausible and unrealistic and how it plain cannot happen. I kept thinking 'why' and, well, my thoughts can be summarised in just one sentence:
Kyouya and Haruhi are similar to each other, but they have nothing in common.
I'll get back to that later, but first. Objecting to the 'evidence' of the pairing.
All the Kyouya/Haruhi shippers I've seen kept harping on two scenes, in the manga and the anime as well. They all have an underlying theme that is there, always there, but is mostly ignored by most. I'll elaborate about the manga first.
The beach episode is considered the Kyouya/Haruhi scene by more shippers than I can count, quite possibly all of them, actually. In my opinion, the scene actually isn't Kyouya/Haruhi. Let me get the scans.
The seventh panel,
Haruhi: You were just defending Tamaki-senpai right now.
You made me realize it by playing the villain, didn't you?
Tamaki. The keyword here is Tamaki. Kyouya was defending Tamaki. He pretended to rape Haruhi not because of his sexual desire or his lust for her, but he pretended to be the villain to defend Tamaki and teach Haruhi a lesson. Haruhi told us it. This is canon. Also, this page:
I greatly believe that the sole reason that Kyouya even bothered to try to teach Haruhi was because Tamaki whined to him the whole time they were going back to their rooms. I can't, honestly, see any other reason for him to risk his reputation by pretending to want to rape Haruhi. This scene is not 'proof of his lust for her'. Really. So please stop trying to say that it is.
The next 'Kyouya/Haruhi scene' in the manga is the whole of chapter 28. I'll just upload the parts where they actually have some interaction (isn't it just so lucky that I actually have the scans? And that I downloaded them only three days ago?):
Where, pray tell, is the Kyouya/Haruhi? I can't see any evidence for it in a romantic sense. Even if I squint and tilt my head sideways, I can't.
This chapter is actually the chapter that completely convinced that Kyouya/Haruhi cannot work in anyway. I shall go back to my beginning summary: Kyouya and Haruhi are similar to each other, but they have nothing in common. No, this is not an oxymoron.
Kyouya and Haruhi are similar in that their personalities belong to the same side of the spectrum. Kyouya is calculating, Haruhi is apathetic. Kyouya and Haruhi both hide their emotions, unlike Tamaki, although Kyouya hides them far better than Haruhi does. That is all to it.
They have nothing in common, except Tamaki and perhaps the Host Club. This chapter convinced me of that. What did that talk about in the fast food restaurant? Tamaki. WHat is their topic of conversation in the beginning of the market scene? Tamaki.
Their family backgrounds have nothing in common: Haruhi is an commoner, Kyouya is a rich 'young master'. Kyouya even says so. Unlike Tamaki and Haruhi, they don't even have their missing-mother similarity - we don't even know if Kyouya's mother is alive or not. Or if she even exists. So nothing in common there.
And that is the crux of this essay, actually. I cannot see a way in which Kyouya and Haruhi can relate to each other or even talk to each other. Their topics of conversation were Tamaki, Tamaki, and more Tamaki with a few mentions of the Host Club sprinkled in. Oh, and Haruhi asked Kyouya about his family (page 20) and Kyouya... didn't tell her. In fact, when Haruhi said that 'Looks like things are hard on you', Kyouya told her that he actually thinks of it as a challenge.
Again, nothing in common here. Haruhi don't understand Kyouya, or, at least, she understands him the least compared to the other Host Club members. Which is why I get frustrated at most Kyouya/Haruhi fics, because they don't recognise this. I have never read a fic in which the author acknowledges that they basically have nothing except a few basic personality traits in common, and it frustrates me so much.
Now we come to the most 'important Kyouya/Haruhi part' of the chapter. Pages 24 to 33.
I see no basis for the Kyouya/Haruhi ship here either. What I see here is what Hatori-sensei has already told us, way back in Chapter 9: Kyouya is a decent person.
Kyouya/Haruhi shippers I know of (which is rather few, so forgive me if I generalise) think that this scene is a Kyouya/Haruhi one because of pages 29-30, where Haruhi said: 'Kyoya-senpai, what is your definition of benefit? ... Were you trying to stand up for me when you saw the shopkeeper being rude to me?'
But Kyouya said, in pages 30-32: 'Just now you said that I helped you because it gave me some sort of emotional benefit? Is that right? ... I find that theory very interesting.'
The keyword here is 'theory'. In my hardcover copy, the translation is 'interpretation'. The difference in meaning in this context is negligible. The fact remains that Kyouya did not back Haruhi's view up, he did not agree with what Haruhi said. He thought it to be 'interesting' (that word remains the same in both copies).
You can argue that Kyouya used the word because he didn't want Haruhi to know he did that for her sake. But I don't think Kyouya is the type of person to go out of his way to 'stand up' (or 'get back', which sounds rather petty) for Haruhi. He isn't an obvious a person as that. I admit that the shopkeeper being rude to Haruhi might have been a part of the reason why he did that, but in my opinion, Kyouya is just being a decent person and stopping the old lady from buying a bunch of fake goods.
Even if he did it for her, you can't say automatically that he is romantically interested in her. There is such a thing as friendship, you see.
I'm not going into the anime because it is completely the same, except for that the market episode didn't have the Haruhi-being-scolded-by-the-shopkeeper scene. Given the anime's message throughout the whole thing, I think they took it out for a pretty good reason. It would've looked... awkward, actually.
The next item is what I've seen a few Kyouya/Haruhi shippers talk about: Ranka. See, according to them, Kyouya went to get to know Ranka first because he 'wanted first dips on parental approval'.
Er, no.
Kyouya is a person who seeks to understand other people. This is one of the other ways that he is so very different from Haruhi - she learns about people by watching them and from what they tell her, he learns about people by deliberately going out of his way to understand them. I believe that one of Kyouya's mottos is 'knowledge is power', and how better to get to know someone than to ask their parent?
Haruhi is something new in the world of the Host Club. I don't think Kyouya understands her, not in the beginning anyway. He called upon Ranka to find out more information about her, to get to know her better, so he can figure out just who she is and how he could use her better.
Case in point: Haruhi's middle-school photos were used as bait to provide him entertainment during Hikaru and Kaoru's game of 'let's find out Haruhi's weakness! :D :D :D'.
Second case in point: Haruhi constantly said that she didn't mind being mistaken for a guy and she doesn't have very strict opinions about gender. This is a rather strange opinion, but Kyouya could know exactly why she felt this way when he found out that her father is an okama.
You can interprete all this as 'Kyouya wants to know Haruhi better because he likes her!', but no, sorry, this isn't it. Wanting to know about someone does not equate him liking a person. It equates to him wanting to understand how this person's mind work, and how he could manipulate them.
The more you know about someone, the better you can predict their actions, and the more likely you can counter said actions. This applies to war, and this applies here as well.
Kyouya is, I believe, a person who dislikes anything he doesn't understand. Haruhi was one of them. She is a new, interesting puzzle, a challenge for him to solve, and so he called her father for clues to know more about her. That was all there is to it, really. He did the same thing before he first met Tamaki. He already knew that Tamaki was the son of the Superintendant, the son of his mistress, without even having met Tamaki. And I can bet you that he researched as much as he could about Mori, Honey and the twins the moment Tamaki told him that he was planning to have them join his new club. He is just that kind of person.
Plus having information like that gives him a advantage over everyone else, and Kyouya is all for having advantages. So, no, he didn't call Ranka up to get 'parental approval' or anything. He did it so he can understand more about Haruhi, so he can manipulate her better. He's like a chess player, really; a new piece is introduced into the game that he doesn't know of, and so he researches as much as he could about it so he will know where and how to move it. It isn't because he was romantically interested in her.
These are all just my personal interpretations and so on, though. You are free to disagree with me, agree with me, add in points, whatever, in the comments. I'm making this entry public anyway.
18 September 2007: Addendum to this post, with regards with the most recent manga chapters -
http://www.krysyuy.net/forums/index.php?topic=2793.30