Air TV - 09
I'd be a lot happier right now if there had been more than three (and a half) characters in this storyline.
My problem, specifically, is that there was never any decent motivation for all those faceless minions to be hatin' on poor Kanna. Koi, of course, has dropped a handy little note in the front of the episode to try to save the day, but come on - these are movie villians, who act not according to any logic of their own but according to whatever will bring the heroes the greatest grief.
Now, it's a credit to Air in the first place that I can complain that some of its characters are uncharacteristically unconvincing. But it doesn't help me do what I'd really like to do, which is expand on the connections between the very little we've found out about winged people and their modern counterparts - the best I can seem to do is "Erm, they're all miserable for reasons that have less to do with their own actions than with the requirements of the plot?"
I don't like martyrs. That is, I don't like watching people whine about what a lousy lot they've been dealt, which is neither martyrdom nor tragedy in the classical sense; remember, Hamlet and Macbeth triumphed through their deaths, not despite them. That distaste seems to be a mostly arbitrary thing in my emotional makeup, and you're welcome to enjoy these two episodes yourself, but if this was the only plotline in Air, I wouldn't be blogging it.
Also, this Friday I have to unveil the video game I've supposedly been working on all year. So, um, here's a page on crows in mythology, and I can't wait till next week when I actually have time to write decent entries again.
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posted by Charlie at 4:50 PM
4 Comments:
I'm not sure who you are referring to as a martyr, or a whiner, but I don't believe anyone in this arc of the show was. Kanna was indeed far from happiness, but I never heard her truly complain about her situation, she even rebukes Ryuuya for suggesting so. Her death wasn't as a martyr; she didn't "die" for some belief or principal, it was to save the lives of the two people that she loved most. She is tragic, and perhaps you are right about the depth of her grief being just a plot device and nothing more, but she isn't exactly the kind of character that sits around moaning about her situation. If you were refering to the other two characters, Uraha and Ryuuya aren't even close to being whiners; they are proactive in their attempts to save Kanna from her curses.
I don't know. Something about this arc rubbed me the wrong way, and I'm still trying to figure out what.
I'm sorry, it was a lousy post. I've been coding 20 hours a day all week... I sort of grabbed a half hour to write up something (I usually spend 3-4 hours on an Air post), but I'm not really entirely sure what I was thinking. (I wasn't really sure at the time, either.) I'll try to come back to this next week, when I have time to think hard about anything but class Boss1 : public Entity.
Maybe I'm more upset at the sense of inevitability the storyline had; I kept feeling like there was this awful plodding Very Tragic Story vibe the whole time.
That, and nobody ever made a mistake; there was no tragic flaw, no reason for their suffering. It was just "Let's pit all of Japan against these three people for no adequately explained reason." Compare Grave of the Fireflies, which has you constantly screaming, "No, don't do that, you idiot, you're going to die!"
Like I said, though, what I really had was a visceral, reptile-brain reaction of distaste for the storyline, and that sort of thing doesn't lend itself well to worthwhile discussion.
Well actually your distaste is worthwhile for discussion. I feel the reasons for your distaste are the same exact reasons why I'm not a huge Key fan myself. You are correct in thinking this is a tragedy...without any real tragedy. Shit just seems to happen for no reason (or reasons that are greatly detached from the main story)...just to make things sad. I keep telling people that want to cry to these episodes that they cry because they want to, not because there is any wonderfully writen tragedy that touches your soul. I love how you point out that the characters have no tragic flaws; its so true.
I was a big fan of the story telling in this episode, though. Its just missing that extra something to make it special.
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