Subject:  Thoughts on Hokuto as a character |
Author:
Natsuki
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Date Posted: 04:55:33 06/12/03 Thu
*delurks* This is certainly not going to be so well-thought-out as the commentary on the Yuzuriha/Kusanagi pairing and many of the other threads on here, but from what I've seen, this is one of the better places to actually get intelligent responses to character discussion. (*waves pompoms*)
Anyway, in reading 'fic with Hokuto contained therein, I've found she's been portrayed in a lot of ways, varying from the most shallow in which she is just a side-character (not taking into account the eventual result of TB) to where she's as angst-ridden as her brother or half the X cast.
Without parents in their lives or, really, an authority figure save for their grandmother, it seems to me that as the older twin and the more 'nurturing' personality of the two, Hokuto became as much Subaru's mother as his sister. The only problem with this is that the only model that she likely had for that was their grandmother and what she herself thought things should be like. No-one could call their situation normal in the least.
What it resulted in was her making a great many choices for Subaru when she had the chance to do so. It seems clear in the series (volume 7, when she speaks with Seishirou after the eye incident) that she knew that Seishirou was, to some extent, dangerous to her brother, and possibly even exactly who and what he was, and had for some time. The fact that she did not mention these suspicions to her brother at all during that year was a decision to take away Subaru's choice (by depriving him of information that, really, could have saved him a great deal of heartache) that I don't completely understand. She seemed to content herself with threatening Seishirou with dire consequences if he made Subaru cry, and yet in the end she gave him yet another chance with her brother in spite of everything that had been done, by sacrificing her own life.
Admittedly, there was another very, very important benefit to this: it woke Subaru from the depths of his own heart, but in another sense, it left him completely without any sort of support by anyone he loved after he awoke.
Going back to the parental/family situation and choices: there is a point at which decisions cannot be made for those you are caring for. Whether it's at a certain age physically or emotionally, a person /must/ learn to stand on their own two feet. Parents have seen this from the child's point of view through their own experience in growing up, and, if they're good parents, begin to allow a person to make their own choices after a certain point, even if it means making mistakes that they could see coming. They'll provide information in hopes that that mistake won't be made, but (one hopes) they don't stop the fall if it's to come.
Hokuto, though, continued to make decisions for Subaru when he was sixteen -- what he'd wear, to a point what he'd eat, protecting him from his own innocence (to a point -- a girl who would make jokes about Sei-chan seducing her twin can't exactly promote innocence) as well as her own other side -- the side that could threaten Seishirou without fear if he made Subaru cry or someone harmed Subaru. I believe that this is a result of her not having the knowledge/example to step back and allow Subaru to make his own choices.
If she had lived in the end -- had something or someone stopped her as she went to confront Seishirou for the last time -- I wonder whether she would have viewed her actions as an error and what she would have done.
A friend said, "When I look at X, I can think of only one decision that Subaru made that was solely his choice and not anyone else's and not influenced by what he thought others expected of him."
So, I wonder if her death wasn't an easy way out, in a sense, as well as an attempt to 1.) awaken her brother, 2.) by casting the spell she did, keep that other side of Seishirou contained, that instinct of self-preservation would bring the Seishirou he'd shown them for the year of the bet to the fore, and 3.) perhaps satisfy the Bet with Sumeragi blood and what power she possessed so that the Tree wouldn't bug Seishirou quite as much. I adore Hokuto; she's my favorite CLAMP character, and I often wish that she hadn't died, yet she's also one of the most complex to try to get a handle on.
Another question!
If you'll note, in the dreamscenes with Kakyou (and his memories of such), Hokuto is wearing relatively simple clothing that doesn't look like sleepwear or something that she'd normally wear. Is this a perception-of-self thing, where how she is in dreams is how she is beneath her own masks (which abound in TB), or is there a simpler explanation?
Anyway, I'm not entirely sure how coherent these questions and thoughts might be, but I'd love to hear everyone else's opinions on Hokuto.
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