Sorry but we're going on cycles here, so I'm not going to respond to the essays. We have different opinions and better respect that you can't just convince someone to feel the same way like you do for a character. Sometimes the interpretation just depends on the individual and there's not a universal objective answer.

@Heavensrun
I do see your points, with my head a bit more cooled off. And you're right. They are kids. And make mistakes.

But what still has me on the wrong foot with her is the context (in the available text); she achknowledges Chidori's honest feelings (in the past) but it's all about her own. Without reckognizing how pushing Chidori away hurt the other kid.
She's hurt now, but there's hardly any proof that she learned from her mistakes.

Just before stepping out, the scene in which she met Nanoha, she - for no apparent reason - stepped in and proclaimed the "ex-girlfriend" bit.

I mean, we've talked about this when it happened, but:
a) if she magically recognized Nanoha as a rival - that's not a smooth move, she would have no knowledge what Chidori felt.
b) if she just made a joke (as she claims) - for someone being so worried about stepping outside the norm herself, that is a rather twisted joke to make about someone else (esp. if she wants Chidori on her good side).
c) she was trying to feel out if Nanoha (unless your FF happens, where she watched over Chidori before and after the chocolate, I still go with "magically") was in any way close to Chidori - see b). Even if she herself had moved past that, she wouldn't know if Chidori liked to be dragged out of the closet, so... yeah, d*ckmove.

You mean the scene where Igarashi gracefully stepped down from the confrontation as soon as she realized Chidori had moved on, and even lied to try and cut off any further drama between the happy couple?

If by gracefully you mean, saving her own face, yeah she did that (as you suggested, that scene can be read either way).
And amazingly she left without a further fight or challenge. But as said before and for those reasons, as of now, I doubt she did so for Chidori's sake.
Even with the translation in the last chapter meaning something more affectionate, even if she really tried to become more empathic towards Chidori - the ex-girlfriend-scene doesn't help her case. Even if she apologized for that.. (but it may at least be a step in the right direction...)

One can be in a "comforting" relationship and then develop deeper feelings for someone else. One can slip up and confess their feelings to them. One can get scared and pull back, trying to hit the breaks. That's all a big mess, but yeah, it happens and is even understandable.
She broke Chidori's heart over that.
She tried to get back with her and got blown off. (Chocolates)
She tried once more (telling Chidori it was her mistake in the literature room) and Chidori didn't respond.
And then found out it was all in vain and way too late.

That's all sad and understandable (not excusable, but I get it).

What bugs me is that she cannot understand that she hurt Chidori first, badly.
That from Chidori's POV, the girl she liked had a boyfriend despite telling her sweet things.
That the girl harshfully shot her down and crushed her heart (with the old "but we're both girls" trope XD).
That months passed between Igarashi's attempts and she couldn't fathom that Chidori didn't want to get/feel hurt anymore and moved on.
That Igarashi when she returned, she first thought of "you rejected me" before being reminded by Chidori that she did it first.

There's not one frame in the text that shows Igarashi undoubtfully sad about making Chidori sad. (I can give "ambiguous" to some frames, but that's it. The last chapter could have been a perfect spot for that, but all there was was ...well, self-pity...)

"I just wanted..." doesn't cut it. Unless that was followed by an explicit "...make it up to her."
(no matter how open-minded I read the translation for that bubble, I cannot find selfless Chidori-love in there)

...

I can see the narrative you portray. Or at least, Igarashi having broken up with her dude in the intermediate months before the chocolate. Trying to get with Chidori on an honest and more ...intimate and 2-girls relationship.
As I said before, yeah, I can see Igarashi in her own mind thinking that her love was a good one and worth pursuing.
But... yeah... sorry, the ex-gf bit and other items on the list kinda work against her truely thinking about Chidori's feelings. And that should come first whenever one claims to care for another.

Even in your FF I'd ask "but wait, isn't Chidori maybe happier now?"
(I'd still read it. But I am not one to accept everything a protagonist does. Even heroes make mistakes and it would be bad form to not recognize those mistakes or to not have them have consequences. In that regard, maybe Chidori should have let Igarashi talk and whilst her cold attitude was understandable - especially with Igarashi's attitude was so non-cholant und unreflective - she could have asked her "why?" and let Igarashi answer properly... But wait-- Chidori did that! And Igarashi responded with chuckles and claims of jokes and further lack of understanding why Chidori was angry/mad at her ...yeah..)

I respect your liking for Igarashi. You do you :P So defend her to your heart's content.
But to me... up to this point there's nothing suggesting Igarashi wasn't self-centered or really cared for Chidori and her feelings.

... convince ... [cutting out the sass a bit] ... that the phrase “I made a mistake” actually is “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

Tl;dr: ^ That ^

last edited at Sep 28, 2019 7:20AM

I don’t really disagree with anything you say, and as usual your argument is thoughtful and well-supported.

I just don’t give a shit. Yes, if this story were framed differently, it would be different. But I’m reading this story, where Chidori is our precious cupcake, and Igarashi is the thoughtless, self-centered bitch who casually hurt her, then had the gall to assume that her cute, short, round but evidently unable-to-be-fully-conceptualized-as-a-real-human-being kouhai could never reject her own wonderful sempaian self twice.

So kudos to your powers of empathy and imagination. Just don’t come around Nanoha with that bullshit, or there’ll be trouble.

May I just observe this isn't the first time in this topic where you're sounding downright dogmatic...?

I don’t really disagree with anything you say, and as usual your argument is thoughtful and well-supported.

I just don’t give a shit. Yes, if this story were framed differently, it would be different. But I’m reading this story, where Chidori is our precious cupcake, and Igarashi is the thoughtless, self-centered bitch who casually hurt her, then had the gall to assume that her cute, short, round but evidently unable-to-be-fully-conceptualized-as-a-real-human-being kouhai could never reject her own wonderful sempaian self twice.

So kudos to your powers of empathy and imagination. Just don’t come around Nanoha with that bullshit, or there’ll be trouble.

May I just observe this isn't the first time in this topic where you're sounding downright dogmatic...?

I'm not sure what that observation is supposed to signify. Certainly there are alternate ways of reading any given character--we have seen a number of them in this thread.

As I have pointed out several times, any text sets up its own internal value system, one that may be related to but is not necessarily identical to that (those) of real life. My argument has been that, granting certain, mostly equivocal or ambiguous, elements of the text that allow for a degree of sympathy for Igarashi and her motivations, the text itself presents her as a person who is doing the wrong thing.

As is not surprising in this forum, she has received an outpouring of fellow feeling from some readers as a young person confused about her sexuality, which she certainly seems to be. As Heavensrun has demonstrated, it's quite possible to imagine another text, one in which Igarashi would be positioned as a highly sympathetic central character, even a hypothetical text where Igarashi not only suffers but actually learns from her own suffering and reflects on the suffering that she has caused.

My position, dogmatic though it may be, has been that the latter text is not the text that actually exists.

last edited at Sep 29, 2019 2:23PM

Well was referring more to this part:

I just don’t give a shit. -- But I’m reading this story, where Chidori is our precious cupcake, and Igarashi is the thoughtless, self-centered bitch who casually hurt her,

...because you've voiced that kind of thing often enough in different contexts that I'm having some trouble taking it as ironic. Now correct me if I'm wrong but didn't you a while (ie. several chapters and pages) ago mention something about identifying with the scenario?

Well was referring more to this part:

I just don’t give a shit. -- But I’m reading this story, where Chidori is our precious cupcake, and Igarashi is the thoughtless, self-centered bitch who casually hurt her,

...because you've voiced that kind of thing often enough in different contexts that I'm having some trouble taking it as ironic. Now correct me if I'm wrong but didn't you a while (ie. several chapters and pages) ago mention something about identifying with the scenario?

It’s true that it’s sometimes easy to slip into talking as if referring to real existing people, and I think that many (apparent) disagreements in these forums arise because much of the discourse, sometimes my own, veers back and forth between two different ways of perceiving the characters:

• As if they are (hypothetical) human beings with an (imagined) existence outside the text. (This is where I see most of the highly pro-Igarashi discourse oriented.)

• As signifiers within the text itself whose significance is primarily in relation to other elements of the storyworld. (That’s where my facetious characterization above comes in—slightly exaggerated, it’s what I see as the primary internal POV of the series.)

Again, there’s no doubt that my buy-in to the prevailing ethos of the series makes me resist the “Igarashi-senpai, Lost Lesbian Duckling” reading of that character.

[I’m not sure when or if I “identified” with the scenario, and I don’t have time to check back right now—I have bread I need to get into the oven.]

This is such a nice series.

• As if they are (hypothetical) human beings with an (imagined) existence outside the text. (This is where I see most of the highly pro-Igarashi discourse oriented.)

Well my stance is that if the author has gone to the trouble of writing a psychologically plausible character you could without excessive difficulties take for a real person then it's only good manners to also treat them as such. Would be rude to not take the effort invested with due gravitas.

• As signifiers within the text itself whose significance is primarily in relation to other elements of the storyworld. (That’s where my facetious characterization above comes in—slightly exaggerated, it’s what I see as the primary internal POV of the series.)

Note that she already had meaningful narrative significance as Chidori's original Closet Key - Nanoha's confession probably wouldn't have been processed and accepted nearly so smoothly and swiftly if Chidori hadn't already come to terms with being lesbian earlier with Igarashi (heartbreaks nonwithstanding). and then we'd have had to deal with the usual loves me loves not uncertainty period

Again, there’s no doubt that my buy-in to the prevailing ethos of the series makes me resist the “Igarashi-senpai, Lost Lesbian Duckling” reading of that character.

To be frank this sounds at best like the sort of "genre puritanism" - "oh noes actual drama in my fluff, vade retro satanas" - I've denounced before in other contexts; at worst it sounds like a form of warped "purity obsession", nothing negative is allowed into intrude into my fluffy candyland story kind of thing...

Also that easy assumption you're making about "the prevailing ethos of the series" could be debated, as could whether it's even relevant to the topic in the first place.

Personally I find Iggy to be, besides an interestingly conflicted character, straight up narratively useful - she more or less accidentally shakes up the status quo and gives cause for the main pair to engage in some serious thinking (as well as an excuse reveal more of their backstory to the audience), and serves as a healthy reminder that people are fallible beings who can irrepairably fuck up their relationships with wrong choices born out of unresolved anxieties. (Also that trying to have your cake and eat it too rarely works out.)
I believe the technical literary term for the role she plays here is "foil".

[I’m not sure when or if I “identified” with the scenario, and I don’t have time to check back right now—I have bread I need to get into the oven.]

TBH I asked because I, too, had other things to do and it was worth a shot to see if you'd remember and I could skip the backlog trawling. ._.

last edited at Sep 28, 2019 12:16PM

random posted:

Personally I find Iggy to be, besides an interestingly conflicted character, straight up narratively useful - she more or less accidentally shakes up the status quo and gives cause for the main pair to engage in some serious thinking (as well as an excuse reveal more of their backstory to the audience), and serves as a healthy reminder that people are fallible beings who can irrepairably fuck up their relationships with wrong choices born out of unresolved anxieties. (Also that trying to have your cake and eat it too rarely works out.)
I believe the technical literary term for the role she plays here is "foil".

I agree wholeheartedly with this paragraph. Even if you can't empathize with the character, her presence and mindset are crafted in a way that makes sense in the scope of the story.

She's part of Chidori and Nanoha's story and history and played a role in their relationship, while being an interesting character.

I don't think we will see more of her at this point (her arc ended), but in my head-canon, she will later find her way and realize how wrong she was. And maybe find her own happiness.

I don't think we will see more of her at this point (her arc ended), but in my head-canon, she will later find her way and realize how wrong she was. And maybe find her own happiness.

I'm willing to bet against that. IMO, that tear spoke of things being unresolved for Iggy. So... I predict she'll return... someday.

Random, our conversation has near run its course, because I don’t disagree with anything you say about Igarashi’s function in the narrative—she’s been absolutely crucial in tipping the story from the fluffy SOL mode over toward something like progress.

What I have been objecting to is the inclination of a number of readers to rehabilitate the obvious antagonist of the series, a character whose behavior and values are overtly antithetical to those of the MCs, into a misunderstood victim.

Igarashi’s cavalier attitude toward the emotional pain she has caused and her single-minded focus on her own feelings rather than on Chidori’s can’t be simply handwaved away. As one poster put it, her behavior in the story is explained but not, as a number of readers would have it, excused, and she leaves the scene sadder but by all evidence no wiser than when she re-appeared.

To be frank this sounds at best like the sort of "genre puritanism" - "oh noes actual drama in my fluff, vade retro satanas" - I've denounced before in other contexts; at worst it sounds like a form of warped "purity obsession", nothing negative is allowed into intrude into my fluffy candyland story kind of thing...

This, however, I will deny unto my dying breath. I’m not saying the character shouldn’t be in the story; quite the contrary—she adds depth that was previously absent (although the series would have still been incredibly pleasant had it remained in its completely fluffy mode). Igarashi isn’t a heavy villain, because this isn’t a heavy story—she’s exactly the right kind of villain for Hana ni Arashi.

It would have been trivially easy for the author to have made Igarashi overtly sympathetic, but, most obviously, the author conspicuously avoids having Igarashi make a sincere apology in a situation that calls for exactly that; the irony is that so many readers seem so eager to make those apologies for her.

She wasn't serious. Having feelings for someone and thinking that she could act on it, but when the reality comes she goes "lol I was just messing with you" is different.

You've got the order of events backwards. She had feelings for her, got scared and ran away, and then steeled her will and came back with a serious attempt. There is nothing in the text or subtext that suggests she was anything other than resolved and serious from Valentine's on.

I didn't understand Igarashi until this latest chapter but, based on "her side of the story," I agree with your characterization of the events and Igarashi's feelings. All along, Kovachi-senpai has been telling a story about two girls learning what it means to love someone who must do so IN SECRET, because of the unknown and feared "corrective" responses from friends and family of the social norm that two girls should not love each other. Igarashi's behavior is just another manifestation of the effect of fear of severe enforcement of social norms. I feel bad for Chidori for the pain she experienced, but also feel bad that Igarashi could not overcome her fear of social stigma before she hurt Chidori and herself.

Chidori can be delicate, but she has the strength to be true to herself despite social norms and had the courage to confess to Igarashi on the basis of Igarashi's sincere expressions of affection for her. Igarashi had not processed her own feelings or anticipated Chidori's response, and was not ready to reciprocate. While Igarashi's parroting of the usual social rule did not prevent Chidori from beginning a relationship with Nanoha, it made it harder for Chidori to fully express her love to Nanoha. I love how Kovachi-senpai used the tiptoe kiss from the curb to show how Nanoha freed Chidori from her doubts by coming to her rescue and stating plainly that she and Chidori were together.

One thing I really like about Hana Ni Arashi is that the characters are not wise beyond their years, but are just awkward kids trying to figure things out. Despite her cool exterior, Igarashi remains an awkward kid, trying to understand herself and the people around her. She hurt Chidori, but it wasn't her intention cause pain. She is not a villain, just an imperfect person who messed up and (thankfully) moved on so that Chidori could meet her perfect match.

I didn't understand Igarashi until this latest chapter but, based on "her side of the story," I agree with your characterization of the events and Igarashi's feelings. All along, Kovachi-senpai has been telling a story about two girls learning what it means to love someone who must do so IN SECRET, because of the unknown and feared "corrective" responses from friends and family of the social norm that two girls should not love each other. Igarashi's behavior is just another manifestation of the effect of fear of severe enforcement of social norms. I feel bad for Chidori for the pain she experienced, but also feel bad that Igarashi could not overcome her fear of social stigma before she hurt Chidori and herself.

While I agree with you in general, I think you're overestimating the impact of social norms on Chidori and Nanoha. Two other girls at their school are publicly dating, and no one seems bothered by it. Fear of judgement might be part of why they're keeping things secret, but it seems like the main reason is just regular old shyness. Igarashi, on the other hand, clearly felt some intense pressure to conform to what she sees as normal.

All along, Kovachi-senpai has been telling a story about two girls learning what it means to love someone who must do so IN SECRET, because of the unknown and feared "corrective" responses from friends and family of the social norm that two girls should not love each other. Igarashi's behavior is just another manifestation of the effect of fear of severe enforcement of social norms.

Let's not forget Kovachi also tells a story in which those fears are not necessarily always to come true; in NanoChidori's case namely their friends (albeit unbeknownst to N&C, yet) being actually rather open-minded and Nanoha's imotou immediately knowing the Chidori her nee-san keeps talking about is her date without issue, to the point of protecting them / their secret for their sake...

Just wanted to leave that out there for completeness sake...
(I've already written several essays here about my stance on Igarashi, her mistakes and her take-away from them / lack of a proper learning-curve esp. in regards to her own empathy, so I'll leave it at that.)

last edited at Sep 29, 2019 6:12AM

Well, the fact it's a "secret from everyone" can mean two things:

• It would be labeled as "disgusting" by a sizable amount of persons, because reasons. And they would be harassed/isolated. And they don't want that.
• They would be teased a lot, as would probably be any couple, even a straight one, because that's what teens do. And they don't want that.

Or a mix of both.

The first one is illustrated by Igarashi.

The second one is illustrated by their friends

KueKyuuQ posted:

imotou

It's imouto.

KueKyuuQ posted:

imotou

It's imouto.

...I shall burn in the pits of hell for making that unforgivable typo.

KueKyuuQ posted:

imotou

It's imouto.

...I shall burn in the pits of hell for making that unforgivable typo.

It's typou.

KueKyuuQ posted:

imotou

It's imouto.

...I shall burn in the pits of hell for making that unforgivable typo.

It's typou.

arougato

KueKyuuQ posted:

imotou

It's imouto.

...I shall burn in the pits of hell for making that unforgivable typo.

It's typou.

arougato

It's oregano

KueKyuuQ posted:

imotou

It's imouto.

...I shall burn in the pits of hell for making that unforgivable typo.

It's typou.

arougato

It's oregano

Oureganou*

BV posted:

KueKyuuQ posted:

imotou

It's imouto.

...I shall burn in the pits of hell for making that unforgivable typo.

It's typou.

arougato

It's oregano

Oureganou*

What did I create!?

last edited at Sep 29, 2019 2:58PM

BV posted:

KueKyuuQ posted:

imotou

It's imouto.

...I shall burn in the pits of hell for making that unforgivable typo.

It's typou.

arougato

It's oregano

Oureganou*

What did I create!?

Nobody knows.

BV posted:

KueKyuuQ posted:

imotou

It's imouto.

...I shall burn in the pits of hell for making that unforgivable typo.

It's typou.

arougato

It's oregano

Oureganou*

What did I create!?

Nobody knows.

Noubody knous.

BV posted:

KueKyuuQ posted:

imotou

It's imouto.

...I shall burn in the pits of hell for making that unforgivable typo.

It's typou.

arougato

It's oregano

Oureganou*

What did I create!?

Nobody knows.

Noubody knous.

Auh, yes. Excouse me