さっきだなんて過去のこと きっと忘れちゃうから
Dec. 12th, 2006 12:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
arishaSo on Saturday night I went on a Ghostly Walk with one of my friends, where we were led around the supposedly haunted parts of downtown Victoria. >:D The Empress, the Christmas store, Rogers' Chocolates, Bastian Square - apparently they are all haunted! It was really interesting. One of the two tour guides has actually worked on one of my favourite cheap-o shows, Creepy Canada, which is awsm! XD! I must admit, though, that I couldn't help being a little disappointed ... the stories were really good and everything but we didn't see any ghosts. :(
We had parked in a parking garage and on our way back, there was a group of four guys standing outside the door of the garage, drinking beer. Lo and behold, two of those guys were former classmates of mine. =_=;; CLASSY! One of them told me he got a B- in our Japanese lit. class without even handing in his second essay. This makes me feel really bad being all "I got an A in English 12 and I never even read Jane Eyre!" because I would like to think I'm better than this guy. :/ On the last day of class he was begging for someone to describe the ending of Tale of Genji to him. I was like, dude, I slagged through that entire thousand-page novel, no way I'm telling anyone how it ends! You can see I can be very stuck-up when I want to be.
After that I came home and looked to see if my mark was up but it wasn't!! Weird?? It didn't appear until this evening. But I got an A+ in Japanese lit. and that's my first mark of the semester so here's hoping that bodes well. :D :D :D Well, I do like to think I deserve that A+ because I did feel like I had Genji on the brain the entire semester. Speaking of!
I have neglected to post about this for almost a week now, because it is kind of stupid and really dorky and I don't know if anyone else will find it interesting like I do. But I was taking the bus home on Wednesday and I do like taking the bus by myself, especially when it's a route I know so well, because it's like a little twenty-minute pocket of time where all I have to do is think about whatever I want and it doesn't matter if it has actual merit or not because it's not like I could be spending that time any differently. And so on this particular occasion I was thinking about one of the fan-made Escaflowne music videos I found on YouTube, set to the song "Low" by Kelly Clarkson.
So I guess this video is supposed to be about the things that Allen did that broke Hitomi's heart, or at least that's what the creator has to say about it. And I was thinking about how I disagree with that interpretation of Allen/Hitomi storyline. It seems kind of a shallow way to read it, like you believe the storyline to be more typical than it turns out to be. (It kind of reminds me of the way I saw Allen when I was fourteen and hated like everything he did. XD; ) And I was thinking about how I disagreed with it for various reasons that have been mentioned on numerous fan sites. It's not that Allen breaks her heart, it's that he turns out to be less perfect than she first believes and gradually her crush on him just fades away. It's not that he breaks her heart, because he does offer her everything she wanted, it's just that by that time she doesn't want it anymore. It's not that Allen breaks her heart - that clip of Allen and Millerna kissing is repeated several times during the music video, but it's not like he let her kiss him for the purpose of hurting Hitomi, he's probably not even thinking of Hitomi there, if he's thinking of anyone other than Millerna he's thinking of Marlene. Because Allen is all about substitutions like that.
And then I thought: GENJI!!
All throughout The Tale of Genji there is this theme where a man, for whatever reason, is unable to claim for his own the woman that he wants. So he simply goes out and find another woman that reminds him of her, and he marries her instead. To me this seems really messed up, but Genji makes it seem that in Heian times it wasn't that uncommon, because like every other male character in the novel has his unattainable lady and his substitute lady. The novel opens when Genji's mother dies and his father marries a woman who looks uncannily like her, Fujitsubo. Fujitsubo serves as Genji's substitute mother. And then when Genji is older, he sleeps with her. :X Let's ignore that part right now. Unable to call Fujitsubo his own, Genji pursues ten-year-old Murasaki, who is related to Fujitsubo and looks uncannily like her. (Could you then say that Genji himself becomes a substitute for Murasaki's father, at the same time as he is her husband? Hmm ...) The idea of substitution is such a big thing in the book that the author even parodies it. I don't remember the names of the people involved in this situation, but one male character, unable to have the woman he wants, steals her cat and refuses to give it back. XD;;; EXCELLENT PLAN!
I love how, next to these crazy Heian aristocrats, Allen and his women issues seem so boring. XD!!! But even if you watch the series without analysing it as I like to pretend to do, it's pretty clear that Allen does the same thing, using one woman as a substitute for another woman he can't have. Eries is pretty blunt when she tells him that's what he's doing, letting Millerna pursue him because she reminds him so much of Marlene. You could argue that Millerna is out of his reach, too, being betrothed, but she's still a lot more accessible than Marlene, who is married. And dead. (Actually, I am always confused by Hitomi's reading the day of the wedding, which tells her that Allen is the man for Millerna. I don't even think I've ever seen a fan site that talked about that part. But all of Hitomi's visions/readings/predictions come true, don't they? Except for that "bad feeling" at the end of episode six which I sort of think was left hanging just so that the episode could have a cliffhanger. Bad things do happen in episode seven but the feeling isn't mentioned in that episode so I don't think we're meant to think Hitomi knew what was coming. But Hitomi's reading the day of the wedding - it's so weird that it's kind of mentioned and never brought up again ... are we supposed to read into the characters' actions that they're thinking about it? I don't know. Allen and Millerna end the series apart and I mean, yeah, the reading doesn't necessarily mean that they will end up together, just that they ... should? Maybe I'm just forgetting something important. Because as I'm thinking about it right now it seems kind of random.)
At the same time, Allen uses Hitomi as a substitute for his long-lost sister, but as they're not related, he mistakes the feelings of sibling affection for feelings of romantic love. (Haha, I feel like I am pretty well quoting that off a fan site, but I can't remember specifically which one. AND LET'S FACE IT, it's probably down by now anyway. =_=; ) Or at least this is what he tells us, and you can choose whether or not to believe it. I think we're supposed to believe it, but at the same time I can see believing that's just Allen's way to justify the whole thing to himself. (Hahaha, twenty-one-year-old Allen proposing to fifteen-year-old Hitomi ... I think that weirded me out a lot less when I was fifteen myself. Now I'm like, man, I'm only nineteen and the thought of even going out with a fifteen-year-old is just weird. That's younger than my brother!! Ew!!)
So yeah, that is my big amazing breakthrough, that Allen has the same habit of substituting as does Genji, although I think with Allen it's a bit less creepy. (No mother substitute, thank goodness! XD; ) Obviously I can't go so far as to say that Allen was based on Genji, although I do love the idea of the Creators being in the process of fleshing out the series and saying to each other, "You know what this story needs? Our boy Hikaru Genji." I mean, I dunno. XD; Can I at least pretend that Genji has had such an influence over the whole of Japan that they subconsciously gave Allen some of Genji's traits? Yes, I think that will work. XD "One of the main characters of my favourite anime series was subconsciously based on the hero of the world's first psychological novel, yes of course he was, what are you talking about!!" XD XD XD!!
(If Allen is Genji, does that make Van Tou no Chuujou? XD )
Ahahaha, would you rather I posted about Escaflowne or about PotC2? I was actually going to write a post about PotC but then got embarrassed and wrote this one instead. Haha, I'll wait till I get un-embarrassed and then I'll try again. XD;; I am trying to censor myself less in my LJ but it's haaaaaard. :/
Within the first three days of owning the PotC2 DVD, I watched the movie three times and my brother and his girlfriend watched it once. They watched it while I was out ghost walking, otherwise I would've watched it with them. XD A couple weeks ago - I think when I was watching PoA for the second time in two days - my mother was commenting on my habit of watching movies over and over and over and over and over again, and I replied that at least I know that when I buy a DVD, it's never a waste of money, as it's guaranteed to pay for itself within the first few days. XD Man, it's so weird. Am I weird? Because it's like, yeah, I watch tons of movies. It's just that they're all the same ones ... XD XD XD XD
We had parked in a parking garage and on our way back, there was a group of four guys standing outside the door of the garage, drinking beer. Lo and behold, two of those guys were former classmates of mine. =_=;; CLASSY! One of them told me he got a B- in our Japanese lit. class without even handing in his second essay. This makes me feel really bad being all "I got an A in English 12 and I never even read Jane Eyre!" because I would like to think I'm better than this guy. :/ On the last day of class he was begging for someone to describe the ending of Tale of Genji to him. I was like, dude, I slagged through that entire thousand-page novel, no way I'm telling anyone how it ends! You can see I can be very stuck-up when I want to be.
After that I came home and looked to see if my mark was up but it wasn't!! Weird?? It didn't appear until this evening. But I got an A+ in Japanese lit. and that's my first mark of the semester so here's hoping that bodes well. :D :D :D Well, I do like to think I deserve that A+ because I did feel like I had Genji on the brain the entire semester. Speaking of!
I have neglected to post about this for almost a week now, because it is kind of stupid and really dorky and I don't know if anyone else will find it interesting like I do. But I was taking the bus home on Wednesday and I do like taking the bus by myself, especially when it's a route I know so well, because it's like a little twenty-minute pocket of time where all I have to do is think about whatever I want and it doesn't matter if it has actual merit or not because it's not like I could be spending that time any differently. And so on this particular occasion I was thinking about one of the fan-made Escaflowne music videos I found on YouTube, set to the song "Low" by Kelly Clarkson.
So I guess this video is supposed to be about the things that Allen did that broke Hitomi's heart, or at least that's what the creator has to say about it. And I was thinking about how I disagree with that interpretation of Allen/Hitomi storyline. It seems kind of a shallow way to read it, like you believe the storyline to be more typical than it turns out to be. (It kind of reminds me of the way I saw Allen when I was fourteen and hated like everything he did. XD; ) And I was thinking about how I disagreed with it for various reasons that have been mentioned on numerous fan sites. It's not that Allen breaks her heart, it's that he turns out to be less perfect than she first believes and gradually her crush on him just fades away. It's not that he breaks her heart, because he does offer her everything she wanted, it's just that by that time she doesn't want it anymore. It's not that Allen breaks her heart - that clip of Allen and Millerna kissing is repeated several times during the music video, but it's not like he let her kiss him for the purpose of hurting Hitomi, he's probably not even thinking of Hitomi there, if he's thinking of anyone other than Millerna he's thinking of Marlene. Because Allen is all about substitutions like that.
And then I thought: GENJI!!
All throughout The Tale of Genji there is this theme where a man, for whatever reason, is unable to claim for his own the woman that he wants. So he simply goes out and find another woman that reminds him of her, and he marries her instead. To me this seems really messed up, but Genji makes it seem that in Heian times it wasn't that uncommon, because like every other male character in the novel has his unattainable lady and his substitute lady. The novel opens when Genji's mother dies and his father marries a woman who looks uncannily like her, Fujitsubo. Fujitsubo serves as Genji's substitute mother. And then when Genji is older, he sleeps with her. :X Let's ignore that part right now. Unable to call Fujitsubo his own, Genji pursues ten-year-old Murasaki, who is related to Fujitsubo and looks uncannily like her. (Could you then say that Genji himself becomes a substitute for Murasaki's father, at the same time as he is her husband? Hmm ...) The idea of substitution is such a big thing in the book that the author even parodies it. I don't remember the names of the people involved in this situation, but one male character, unable to have the woman he wants, steals her cat and refuses to give it back. XD;;; EXCELLENT PLAN!
I love how, next to these crazy Heian aristocrats, Allen and his women issues seem so boring. XD!!! But even if you watch the series without analysing it as I like to pretend to do, it's pretty clear that Allen does the same thing, using one woman as a substitute for another woman he can't have. Eries is pretty blunt when she tells him that's what he's doing, letting Millerna pursue him because she reminds him so much of Marlene. You could argue that Millerna is out of his reach, too, being betrothed, but she's still a lot more accessible than Marlene, who is married. And dead. (Actually, I am always confused by Hitomi's reading the day of the wedding, which tells her that Allen is the man for Millerna. I don't even think I've ever seen a fan site that talked about that part. But all of Hitomi's visions/readings/predictions come true, don't they? Except for that "bad feeling" at the end of episode six which I sort of think was left hanging just so that the episode could have a cliffhanger. Bad things do happen in episode seven but the feeling isn't mentioned in that episode so I don't think we're meant to think Hitomi knew what was coming. But Hitomi's reading the day of the wedding - it's so weird that it's kind of mentioned and never brought up again ... are we supposed to read into the characters' actions that they're thinking about it? I don't know. Allen and Millerna end the series apart and I mean, yeah, the reading doesn't necessarily mean that they will end up together, just that they ... should? Maybe I'm just forgetting something important. Because as I'm thinking about it right now it seems kind of random.)
At the same time, Allen uses Hitomi as a substitute for his long-lost sister, but as they're not related, he mistakes the feelings of sibling affection for feelings of romantic love. (Haha, I feel like I am pretty well quoting that off a fan site, but I can't remember specifically which one. AND LET'S FACE IT, it's probably down by now anyway. =_=; ) Or at least this is what he tells us, and you can choose whether or not to believe it. I think we're supposed to believe it, but at the same time I can see believing that's just Allen's way to justify the whole thing to himself. (Hahaha, twenty-one-year-old Allen proposing to fifteen-year-old Hitomi ... I think that weirded me out a lot less when I was fifteen myself. Now I'm like, man, I'm only nineteen and the thought of even going out with a fifteen-year-old is just weird. That's younger than my brother!! Ew!!)
So yeah, that is my big amazing breakthrough, that Allen has the same habit of substituting as does Genji, although I think with Allen it's a bit less creepy. (No mother substitute, thank goodness! XD; ) Obviously I can't go so far as to say that Allen was based on Genji, although I do love the idea of the Creators being in the process of fleshing out the series and saying to each other, "You know what this story needs? Our boy Hikaru Genji." I mean, I dunno. XD; Can I at least pretend that Genji has had such an influence over the whole of Japan that they subconsciously gave Allen some of Genji's traits? Yes, I think that will work. XD "One of the main characters of my favourite anime series was subconsciously based on the hero of the world's first psychological novel, yes of course he was, what are you talking about!!" XD XD XD!!
(If Allen is Genji, does that make Van Tou no Chuujou? XD )
Ahahaha, would you rather I posted about Escaflowne or about PotC2? I was actually going to write a post about PotC but then got embarrassed and wrote this one instead. Haha, I'll wait till I get un-embarrassed and then I'll try again. XD;; I am trying to censor myself less in my LJ but it's haaaaaard. :/
Within the first three days of owning the PotC2 DVD, I watched the movie three times and my brother and his girlfriend watched it once. They watched it while I was out ghost walking, otherwise I would've watched it with them. XD A couple weeks ago - I think when I was watching PoA for the second time in two days - my mother was commenting on my habit of watching movies over and over and over and over and over again, and I replied that at least I know that when I buy a DVD, it's never a waste of money, as it's guaranteed to pay for itself within the first few days. XD Man, it's so weird. Am I weird? Because it's like, yeah, I watch tons of movies. It's just that they're all the same ones ... XD XD XD XD