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This week's Tsubasa: RETCON ORGY
Another chapter of pure exposition. It sure is convenient that a) Fay already knows everything and can explain it to everyone, because FWR apparently TOLD HIM EVERYTHING, and b) Yuuko is omnipotent and can also talk to herself for the benefit of the reading audience any time she wants. Oh wait, she's not talking to herself. She's talking to Mokona. Well, she may as well be talking to herself.
Here's where the whole plot of the entire manga breaks down, though:
CLAMP is trying to resolve all of the love triangles by introducing a second Sakura. Only that won't work because--
Well, let me explain the CLAMP tact first. Clone!Sakura told real!Syaoran "I'm not your Sakura" right before she died. She also told him: "Your Sakura is waiting for you. She is your truly beloved person." And this week's chapter basically revolves around everybody talking as if real!Sakura were the Sakura who fell in love with real!Syaoran, or that real!Syaoran fell in love with real!Sakura, or something. Which would resolve all of the love triangles nicely. Except that's bullshit because real!Sakura and real!Syaoran don't love each other. In fact, real!Sakura HAS NEVER EVEN MET real!Syaoran.
This is how it breaks down:
Clone!Syaoran and real!Sakura fell in love during their childhood together.
When SHIT WENT DOWN in Clow Country, real!Sakura was replaced with clone!Sakura. They both presumably lost their memories of their childhood with Syaoran. Then, over the course of the journey, clone!Sakura fell in love with clone!Syaoran. (Clone!Syaoran did not know that Sakura was also a clone, and he thought that he was with real!Sakura the whole time, so his feelings didn't change.)
When clone!Syaoran lost his heart, the manga made it VERY CLEAR that it was HIS heart that fell in love with Sakura. Not real!Syaoran's heart. It was clone!Syaoran who really loved Sakura.
Real!Syaoran was able to watch clone!Syaoran's entire life through his borrowed eye. So it's entirely possible that real!Syaoran also developed feelings for one or both Sakuras. But it's unlikely that real!Sakura would feel anything for him, considering that she has never met him.
Right now the manga seems to be expousing the idea that real!Syaoran is in love with real!Sakura. If that's the case, then this has really come out of left field, with pretty much zero buildup or explanation. Why did he fall in love with one Sakura and not the other? What's his rationale for choosing between the two? How easy is it to fall in love with someone if you're only able to see her through somebody else's eye?
And the big problem with this is: Real!Sakura probably doesn't remember clone!Syaoran, has never even met real!Syaoran, and basically we have no idea where she is, what she's feeling, or who she's in love with, if anybody at all. Yet the dialogue in this week's chapter treated real!Sakura and real!Syaoran's romance as a foregone conclusion.
It also brings up an interesting conondrum: Who exactly does clone!Syaoran love? He fell in love with real!Sakura during his childhood. He continued to love clone!Sakura, but that's mostly because HE THOUGHT THAT she was real!Sakura. Now the manga is treating it as if he's suddenly and completely in love with clone!Sakura. Which makes little sense, when you think about it, because his love for clone!Sakura is really only a continuation of his love for real!Sakura and the result of a case of mistaken identity, and not a new and complete feeling altogether. Also, more importantly - whatever happened to his love for real!Sakura?! He spent a decade of his life falling in love with real!Sakura, as opposed to the year-or-so that he spent with the clone. He was willing to die for real!Sakura. So what of his feelings for her? Does he not love her that much anymore? Does he love the clone more? What could have possibly led to him choosing the clone over the girl that he's loved since as far back as he can remember?
This "second Sakura" plot device is forcing CLAMP to retcon the loves of both Syaorans in order to make it work. Argh.
Here's where the whole plot of the entire manga breaks down, though:
CLAMP is trying to resolve all of the love triangles by introducing a second Sakura. Only that won't work because--
Well, let me explain the CLAMP tact first. Clone!Sakura told real!Syaoran "I'm not your Sakura" right before she died. She also told him: "Your Sakura is waiting for you. She is your truly beloved person." And this week's chapter basically revolves around everybody talking as if real!Sakura were the Sakura who fell in love with real!Syaoran, or that real!Syaoran fell in love with real!Sakura, or something. Which would resolve all of the love triangles nicely. Except that's bullshit because real!Sakura and real!Syaoran don't love each other. In fact, real!Sakura HAS NEVER EVEN MET real!Syaoran.
This is how it breaks down:
Clone!Syaoran and real!Sakura fell in love during their childhood together.
When SHIT WENT DOWN in Clow Country, real!Sakura was replaced with clone!Sakura. They both presumably lost their memories of their childhood with Syaoran. Then, over the course of the journey, clone!Sakura fell in love with clone!Syaoran. (Clone!Syaoran did not know that Sakura was also a clone, and he thought that he was with real!Sakura the whole time, so his feelings didn't change.)
When clone!Syaoran lost his heart, the manga made it VERY CLEAR that it was HIS heart that fell in love with Sakura. Not real!Syaoran's heart. It was clone!Syaoran who really loved Sakura.
Real!Syaoran was able to watch clone!Syaoran's entire life through his borrowed eye. So it's entirely possible that real!Syaoran also developed feelings for one or both Sakuras. But it's unlikely that real!Sakura would feel anything for him, considering that she has never met him.
Right now the manga seems to be expousing the idea that real!Syaoran is in love with real!Sakura. If that's the case, then this has really come out of left field, with pretty much zero buildup or explanation. Why did he fall in love with one Sakura and not the other? What's his rationale for choosing between the two? How easy is it to fall in love with someone if you're only able to see her through somebody else's eye?
And the big problem with this is: Real!Sakura probably doesn't remember clone!Syaoran, has never even met real!Syaoran, and basically we have no idea where she is, what she's feeling, or who she's in love with, if anybody at all. Yet the dialogue in this week's chapter treated real!Sakura and real!Syaoran's romance as a foregone conclusion.
It also brings up an interesting conondrum: Who exactly does clone!Syaoran love? He fell in love with real!Sakura during his childhood. He continued to love clone!Sakura, but that's mostly because HE THOUGHT THAT she was real!Sakura. Now the manga is treating it as if he's suddenly and completely in love with clone!Sakura. Which makes little sense, when you think about it, because his love for clone!Sakura is really only a continuation of his love for real!Sakura and the result of a case of mistaken identity, and not a new and complete feeling altogether. Also, more importantly - whatever happened to his love for real!Sakura?! He spent a decade of his life falling in love with real!Sakura, as opposed to the year-or-so that he spent with the clone. He was willing to die for real!Sakura. So what of his feelings for her? Does he not love her that much anymore? Does he love the clone more? What could have possibly led to him choosing the clone over the girl that he's loved since as far back as he can remember?
This "second Sakura" plot device is forcing CLAMP to retcon the loves of both Syaorans in order to make it work. Argh.
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And here I thought that this sort of thing was reserved for bad fanfic writers.
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Although as a philosopher I am absolutely fascinated by the implication of the CLAMP's love quadrangle madness for philosophy of personal identity.
He continued to love clone!Sakura, but that's mostly because HE THOUGHT THAT she was real!Sakura
Well, he might have thought it was real!Sakura, but presumably his feelings were renewed and sustained by the personality and behaviour of the woman in front of him, i.e. the clone. He might have thought he kept loving the real!Sakura, but what he was really in love with was the person he was actually interacting with.
So this I don't see too much problem with.
Everything else is just a soap opera on crack, though.
Just wondering, though, has it been completely ruled out that it was real!Syaoran and real!Sakura who met/fell in love as kids, or could it be magically retconned if necessary?
Also on a completely unrelated note, I have received my copy of AMG First End. I read a bit of it, while half asleep, so I may have misunderstood something but since when does Bell have violet or "amethyst" eyes? The novel keeps mentioning her eye colour (not unlike a typical fanfic), and it is always violet.
I'm completely confused by this...
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Yeah, it's been completely ruled out. The manga explicity shows that it's clone!Syaoran who is adopted by Fujitaka as a young child. The reason that he has no memories before when he met Fujitaka is that he didn't exist before that moment.
As for Belldandy's eye color... Yeah, sometimes in the anime they're blue, sometimes they're purple. I dunno. I kind of tuned out the eye color descriptions as I read.
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I never believed in the pre-vol.14 relationship between Sakura and Syaoran. Maybe reading CCS would have helped, but I just didn't see the connection. Clone!Syaoran was so hellbent on returning those feathers, it's like he didn't want to get to know the memoryless Sakura. He loved the girl he remembered, not the semi-comatose Clone!Sakura. The whole tragic lost love thing just wasn't working for me. Like you said, real!Syaoran doesn't even fit in the picture.
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Yeah no shit. I'm v happy that CLAMP has gotten fairly blatant with the KuroFai relationship. (Although I'm still worried that they might end up like Touya and Yukito, finishing up the entire series without so much as a single kiss.)
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(Anonymous) 2008-01-25 06:21 am (UTC)(link)Fisherman Horizon