#I still have zero hate for satoko herself

[thewhitefluffyhat]

Let’s Talk About Satoko

A lot went wrong in Sotsu, but I think the biggest problem was this: it failed to make its main character sympathetic.

.

When I consider the strengths of the When They Cry series, one of the major aspects that stands out to me is its tragic and sympathetic antagonists. In both Higurashi and Umineko, despite the monstrous actions of the culprits, I still found myself rooting for them. Not to succeed at their self-destructive goals, of course, but for someone to finally reach out to them and stop them.

So I’m still kind of reeling in shock and confusion at how badly SotsuGou failed on that front, when I had previously considered this area to be one of the highlights of Ryukishi’s writing. I’d spent this whole season valiantly hoping and trying to theorize otherwise, but I now have to conclude that Satoko was a one-dimensional villain. One who doesn’t show a shred of remorse or even appear to be affected by all the violence she inflicts to the very end.

Indeed, the finale has Rika be the one to apologize, with Satoko even saying her actions were worth it!

How did this go so wrong? Especially when compared to original Higurashi or Umineko, a tragic Satoko should have been easy mode! She starts off as a pre-existing character the audience has sympathy for, she has the instant feels backstory of looping to try to change something and failing, and she even got 13 whole episodes of Sotsu to focus on her and show her perspective!

But despite all of that, the writing seemed determined to make her as dislikeable as possible. There were plenty of ways to add nuance and complexity to her motives (see: all the fan analysis and even some Ryukishi interviews), but instead it doubled down on her selfishness, her possessiveness, and her just... not wanting to study. And on top of that, during the first few -akashi arcs, Satoko commits her murders gleefully, barely facing the slightest setback or twinge of conscience. So aside from the (too little, too late, and never touched on again until a blink and you’ll miss it line in the finale) fight between two Satokos in Episode 10, there’s no reason to care about the ostensible protagonist. Instead of building to a conclusion where you want Satoko to be forgiven, she just becomes increasingly uncomfortable to watch and her relationship with Rika increasingly hard to root for.

I kept waiting and waiting and waiting for this Satoko to finally get some character development. I even wrote fanfic predicated on that development. Given the patterns of past WTC works, it seemed so obvious that it had to happen for the story to work!

But then it just… didn’t happen.

And thus, the story as a whole didn’t work either. Because the emotional foundation of the anime was resting on the audience being invested in Satoko and Rika’s relationship, with their separation being framed as bittersweet. Because again, the finale has Rika be the one to apologize, implying the audience was supposed to be on Satoko’s side this whole time. Because everything around the anime - the music and visuals of the OP/ED, the promotional art, etc. - were emphasizing the beauty and pathos of a tragedy, not a one-sided yandere rampage.

(Seriously, what happened to this Satoko? There’s nothing like her or the symbolism of this moment from the OP in the show!)

All I can conclude is that this unsympathetic Satoko was somehow a failure in execution, because it makes no sense for the tone or themes of the rest of the narrative. According to Ryukishi himself, this wasn’t meant to be the story of Rika escaping her abusive, toxic friend! It was supposed to be the story of two mistaken friends both learning to understand each other better!

But as Sotsu wore on, fewer and fewer people saw it that way, and I can’t blame them.

And unfortunately, this massive tonal dissonance casts a cloud that overshadows everything else about the anime. Had the character beats landed strongly, I could probably have forgiven the poor pacing, structural problems, and over-the-top gore. But when the fundamental emotional center is off, then even an otherwise stellar story would be in deep trouble. And this show did not recover from it - indeed, the other problems just compounded with it.

Indeed, I think even fanfiction is going to struggle to recover from it. Now every SatoRika fic, every LambdaBern fic is going to have to grapple with Satoko/Lambda’s odd lack of remorse or trauma. 

So what got us to this point? Well… I think at least one big component of it is that the writers - Ryukishi or Passione or both - failed to flesh out the actual character arcs.

Looking back on Sotsu (and even Gou’s!) plot beats in hindsight, it’s all just so janky. Satoko shows zero internal conflict, until suddenly she gets in a fight between her witch and human halves. Hanyuu is completely absent from the plot, until she’s suddenly half the focus of the finale. Eua is an enigma whose only purpose is to laugh about being entertained, even to the very end. And Rika gets it perhaps worst of all, completely clueless and passive until miraculously she understands everything just in time for a final battle.

There's no sense of build up, of progression. There were several raw ideas and character interactions that could have been interesting, but they never actually went anywhere.

In some cases it even feels like there were plot beats that were outright dropped or missing. Eua threatening Satoko with a world without Rika should she fail? Satoko’s conflict between her witch and her human self? Anything dealing with the other club members?

None of those ideas actually go anywhere, so I’m left scratching my head at their inclusion.

But regardless of how it happened, the result is clear: none of the characters ultimately important to the plot - Satoko, Rika, Eua, or Hanyuu - had any meaningful development during Sotsu. The characters literally froze in place for 13 episodes while the audience’s patience slowly ran out. Sure, the reused footage didn’t help either, but I think it was this lack of development that truly sealed the show’s fate - including that of Satoko in the eyes of the fandom.

[aeondeug]

list 10 different female faves from 10 different fandoms, then tag 10 people

@wolffyluna left it open to whoever felt like it and I need a break between class and studying so...let’s go in no particular order... 1. Jame from The Chronicles of the Kencyrath. For a lot of reasons, really. Jame is just kind of...A mood? And one I personally really have needed. She’s like very much not a girly girl, but she’s still got like girly concerns and also she rides a death metal unicorn and she has a cat she is magically bonded to. Jame is very much a little girl power fantasy kind of character, but she’s also like deeply fucked up due to her very fucked up upbringing. And the handling of said mental issues and trauma is handled really well and in a Very Real sort of way. Jame’s also just fun and cute and hot and she falls off of something once a book at least. Also a character, a woman at that, whose method of helping things is breaking stuff? While also challenging the fact that choices are hard and your best intentions might still fuck shit up? Hell yeah. Go Jame. 2. Harrowhark Nonagesimus from The Locked Tomb Trilogy. THE NEWEST FAV OF THE BUNCH. She’s goth. She’s a nun. She’s gay. She’s a necromancer. This is all very good shit alone. But then there is like the sort of person Harrow is. And Harrow is the sort of girl who will go days without sleep and break a bone and be like “Well I got a test today...” before downing 15 Red Bulls and taking some pain killers before going to class. Then she will get an A on the test and be a fuck about that. She’s mean, she’s got an ego, she’s weird and standoffish. But like she hates herself and she’s like weirdly repressed in certain ways and she’s neglected as shit. I love this awful bone witch 10/10 would watch her kick Griddle in the face again. 3. Soifon from Bleach. She’s angry. She’s short. She’s wasp themed. Also like the entirety of her story in the Soul Society arc is this like...It’s the aftermath of your typical S narrative, except the little sister and big sister were highly trained murder ninjas from the afterlife. Also one turns into a cat. Soifon’s just kind of a mood and she’s fun and she’s got a lot of potential for fans to play around with, both seriously and jokingly. Also like Soifon’s bookending is just...It works really well I feel like. Honestly, Soifon’s arcs in general are fun things and they’re good shows of what the narrative strengths of Bleach are and where they are. 4. Edelgard von Hresvelg from Fire Emblem: Three Houses. I have written over 80 poems involving this woman. I have written essays about her. El and her deal with trauma just...Hits right in a lot of ways. Also I appreciate having like an abuse survivor who is a woman who like...Doesn’t just lie down and take shit? And I appreciate that we can see what an Edelgard who doesn’t start recovering becomes versus what an Edelgard who does start recovering is like. We get to see both sides of this in one character. She can be both a hero and a monster. And that’s just really important to see when you’re an abuse survivor with BPD. I also really appreciate that she’s just such a cute goober about romance? Like El’s a romantic. She wants a fairy tale romance and a happily ever after. That’s cute as fuck. 5. Zero from Force of Will. Is Force of Will’s story awkward trash? Yeah. It is. But I love this grumpy gay vampire bitch so much. She is a gay vampire wizard who is married to a gay elf and her magic is at its most potent when she is pissed the fuck off. Good shit. She’s also the ruler behind my absolute favorite deck in the entire game and like in a tcg in general? She’s scrappy and annoying and hard to get rid off and she’ll tell you “No” a lot while also hitting you very hard in the face. I like that. It’s fun and can make people feel helpless against it. Which I think works well with her character? Her rulers also never work well with her wife’s, which I find a funny way of representing that they argue a lot via gameplay mechanics. 6. Houjou Satoko from Higurashi. A lot of people say she’s irritating and the worst character and you know what? That’s fair. Satoko is annoying. She’s a huge fucking brat. But like. I dunno. I get why she is. And she’s the first time I can think of where I saw like the way kids can and will sabotage attempts to get CPS involved in their situation portrayed. Like she knows she’s being abused and she knows that shit sucks and would like it to not suck, but she still sabotages her friends’ attempts to get the authorities involved because she knows what happens when the authorities can’t get you out. I’ve got a complicated relationship with CPS, due to my experiences with it as a kid. The arc where they come this close to saving her and fail is the most soul crushing fucking thing. 7. Tsukino Usagi from Sailor Moon. So like with Jame this is partly a case of like a girl who is very authentically girl. She cries a lot and easily. She’s kind of lazy as hell. She wants to just laze about and eat shit food and read comics and play games. But she also like wants to have a fairy tale romance and like. Fuck that’s a mood. Like that’s it. That’s what being a girl is like! Authentically a girl! Also there’s just something very satisfying about Usagi getting so fucking sad that the universe just outright apologizes to her basically and brings a dead girl back to life. Is it realistic? No. But I don’t care. Sometimes you just want reality to listen to you and your feelings. 8. ENA from...ENA. ENA’s rapid and extreme mood swings are like. They’re cool. I mean not cool cool but like. I’ve got BPD so like seeing extreme mood shifts like that is cool. Also she’s fucking rad as hell looking and in a really weird ass series of shorts? With hourglass dogs and turrónes and what not. I find ENA hard to describe. Just go watch Auction Day. 9. Fate Testarossa from Nanoha. Starts out a highly abused child and then ends up a gay mom. Fate’s just a really sweet person and she cares a lot. And I really like that she like has a weird complicated relationship with her mom. Like she knows the woman hated her and she knows that they way she was abused was shit but like...She does still love her mom. A lot. And what happened to her affects the entire trajectory of her life from that point on. Hell, she fucking chooses her career path as like a space cop for the express purpose of making sure that there aren’t any other Fate Testarossas made. Fate’s a character who is affected heavily by her trauma, but she’s not stuck in her trauma. She’s not destroyed by it. But it still very much impacts her life and it’s never going away. 10. Remilia Scarlet from Touhou. She’s a fucking vampire what the fuck else do I need? She’s like one of those eternal child vampires too so she’s a fucking brat who tries to act cool and refined. But really she’s like a dumb kid in a lot of ways. She still tries to be an adult though. There’s a lot of fun ways you can handle Remilia. A lot of fun ways that people have written her. That’s part of the fun of Touhou in general, really. Remi’s just my favorite of the Touhous because she’s a bratty vampire with a Dio reference maid. Also have you seen her blocking animation from Hisoutensoku? Because if not you fucking should. It’s great. anyway. whoever else wants to do this go for it i guess.