Shizune Arc (misha, jigoro)

[Guest Poster]

I'd like to imagine that's not what you're implying, but the only way that makes sense is if Jigoro is a complete idiot. He's raised a deaf daughter, hired sign language tutors and interpreters, and interacted with Misha, but he doesn't recognise sign language? Even if he doesn't know sign language, he should be intelligent enough to realise that unfamiliar arm flailing could be sign language. There's absolutely no ambiguity in that opening that he was antagonising Hisao - his knowledge of sign language is irrelevant.

There's also the possibility that he could tell Hisao was introducing sign language to Hideaki, but he a low opinion of it, so he slams it. (despite the fact it would be in his interest to actually be encouraging his son's interest in the subject rather than ridiculing it) Personally I think it reflects worse on him to be making fun of an attempt by his son to pick up a way to interact with his daughter than it would if he were merely ignorant of it.

[ProfAllister]

There's also the possibility that he could tell Hisao was introducing sign language to Hideaki, but he a low opinion of it, so he slams it. (despite the fact it would be in his interest to actually be encouraging his son's interest in the subject rather than ridiculing it) Personally I think it reflects worse on him to be making fun of an attempt by his son to pick up a way to interact with his daughter than it would if he were merely ignorant of it.

That seems to be pretty uncontroversial. He obviously has issues with sign language, whether he refused to learn it, tried to learn it and failed, or learned it but stopped using it for some other reason (we haven't read his biography, after all). I'd say it's most likely that he's deriding Hisao, rather than sign language, but the latter is possible. As for the why of it or how it reflects badly on him, you may as well question why Hideaki never learned sign language in the first place - it would arguably trace to the same root, and is once again independent of whether Jigoro knows sign language.

[metalangel]

[
Even if Jigoro does not know sign language, he has been exposed to sign language enough (and has hired interpreters likely to explain) that he should be aware of two key details. 1) Interpreters repeat both sides of the conversation the parties exactly (or as exactly as possible, given translation). Any variation from what is actually said is a serious breach of trust. No cleaning up the language, no expressing the gist of what was said - the exact words (And you would be correct in noting that Misha does not do this). 2) Sign language is directed to the recipient by body language - primarily eye contact.

An interpreter conveys the meaning from one language and culture to the other. It's not a literal word for word translation because the syntax is completely different, but the intention and emotion behind what has been said is.

Neither Hisao nor MIsha are trained professionals so a lot of what should be conveyed across is probably lost.

[Oddball]

Neither Hisao nor MIsha are trained professionals so a lot of what should be conveyed across is probably lost.

In some cases, intentionally and for good reason.

[Steinherz]

Neither Hisao nor MIsha are trained professionals so a lot of what should be conveyed across is probably lost.

In some cases, intentionally and for good reason.

Jigoro, Lilly

[Kutagh]

Neither Hisao nor MIsha are trained professionals so a lot of what should be conveyed across is probably lost.

In some cases, intentionally and for good reason.

Intentionally, I accept. For a good reason? It is not Misha's nor Hisao's choice as to whether someone says something to Shizune, nor whether Shizune says something to someone. They shouldn't take any responsibility about what is being said either, through censoring, adding or manipulating the translation. If someone is acting offensively towards someone else, that is a conflict between those two, regardless of whether it's through an interpreter, internet, face to face conversation or whatever. Those two have to solve it too. There is a difference between offering your help and enforcing it. Look at Hanako's arc.

I seriously would be ticked off if any of my interpreters would manipulate the translation in the same way. It's just a slippery slope, where do you stop taking responsibility for what is being said? Should you specifically censor your client at a job interview, which could mean the difference between getting a job or not? If you say yes, I pose you the following question: Why should Deaf people have that right which Hearing people don't (feel free to substitute for different languages of interpreting, such as Chinese - English)? It would be unfair but even more important, the interpreter changes how the client is perceived by the other party. That is something I dislike.

And yeah, I know that Hisao and Misha are not certified interpreters. It doesn't mean that it is suddenly okay, just that they're less accountable because they simply didn't know that etiquette yet.

[ProfAllister]

[
Even if Jigoro does not know sign language, he has been exposed to sign language enough (and has hired interpreters likely to explain) that he should be aware of two key details. 1) Interpreters repeat both sides of the conversation the parties exactly (or as exactly as possible, given translation). Any variation from what is actually said is a serious breach of trust. No cleaning up the language, no expressing the gist of what was said - the exact words (And you would be correct in noting that Misha does not do this). 2) Sign language is directed to the recipient by body language - primarily eye contact.

An interpreter conveys the meaning from one language and culture to the other. It's not a literal word for word translation because the syntax is completely different, but the intention and emotion behind what has been said is.

Neither Hisao nor MIsha are trained professionals so a lot of what should be conveyed across is probably lost.

I understand and agree. Perhaps saying "the exact words" was a little inaccurate. What I was getting at was that if a deaf person says "the fucking chair," it would be inappropriate for the interpreter to say "the chair." Also, I myself am not holding Hisao or Misha to that standard. The Misha parenthetical was simply to note that she doesn't follow that standard, since I felt someone would ask about it if I didn't mention it. As far as their training goes, it's obvious that Hisao isn't trained, but it's a little less clear for Misha, since she even says that she wants to be an interpreter. And, even if Misha were aware of the "rules," she'd also understand that they're relaxed a little when the deafie and the terp know each other well. My point was that Jigoro would most likely be aware of this standard, and, especially if he wanted to demean Hisao, he'd call Hisao out if Hisao failed to adhere to that standard.

The bigger issue that leads me to consider this possibility at all is the latter point - the intended recipient of the signing. Canonically, it is even emphasised that Shizune gets annoyed when people talk to Misha instead of to her, along with the fact that Misha does not interpret signing directed to her.

This does touch a bit on something that I've felt has been a bit of an elephant in the room for this discussion, though, and I feel it's only fair that this be addressed:

We don't know how much the writer (Anonymous22) knows about deafness, deaf culture, etc.

From a literary standpoint, that makes the whole thing even more fascinating, because everything seems to make sense for the person who knows nothing about those things. But it also seems to have a reasonable interpretation for someone who DOES have familiarity there. And from what little is available to the public about A22, he strikes me as the sort of person who may have blown off the research entirely and bullshitted his way through, but also may have gone through great efforts to get every detail right. There are several other instances in Shizune's route, for example, where he makes allusions to elements of Japanese culture that will pass the casual reader unnoticed, but add a deeper level of meaning to the informed and careful reader.

So what do?

Personally, I tend to subscribe to a literary theory which perhaps holds some relation to "the author is dead." What the author knew and his intent are nice, but they aren't intrinsic to the work. It's nice, because it allows a lens for interpreting the work and the reader can thus share in the author's thoughts, so to speak, but it is absurd to limit a work to the author. Under such a strict interpretation, a work in which we do not or cannot know the author's intent has no possible interpretation and therefore no value, because any interpretation would be plagued by the unanswerable question "but is this what the author intended?" On the other hand, the unknowable author allows the reader to consider all possible interpretations, because there is no "right" author-endorsed interpretation. Hence "the author is dead" - a dead author cannot provide the authoritative interpretation.

So I'd say that an interpretation is valid and acceptable so long as it can be sustained by the text itself (potentially alloyed with what we can reasonably assume the author would/would not know).

Therefore, my answer to the question of "Did A22 know about sign language, deaf culture, etc.?" is "It doesn't matter." If the text can support an interpretation in which the writer knew nothing, then that's a valid interpretation. If the text can support an interpretation in which the writer knew everything, then that is also a valid interpretation.

Similarly, I'm not saying that my interpretation is "right." I can argue how the text supports my interpretation, or how it does not seem to support other interpretations, but I'd say that's the whole point of discussing literature.

And, to pull a quote from the "Favorite Artwork" thread that I felt was more appropriately discussed here...

I think the main reason people don't like Shizune is that that she doesn't change much as a character in her route (unless you get the bad ending). But the problem with that is that those people don't seem to get Shizune's route- the reason Shizune doesn't have so much character development is because her route (ironically) isn't about her; it's about Misha. Misha is the main focus of the route and most of the character development is from her: Shizune's route is more about the effects of the Hisao/Shizune relationship on Misha than it is on the actual relationship, or on the characters in said relationship.

God, I've been wanting to get that off my chest for awhile.

Now, I hope people don't mind me doing this, because this kind of shifts gears from Jigoro to Misha, but I certainly don't object to the Jigoro discussion being continued. It's not terribly difficult to sustain two different discussions under one thread.

Now, on the question of Shizune and character development, I think we need to dig down into that a little bit. "Character Development" is used to refer to three very different things 1) Introduction, 2) Revelation, and 3) Growth. Introduction is the "first impression." For the main girls, it's covered in act 1. This is what gives you the shy and dependent Hanako, the oddball Rin, and the bossy/tsundere Shizune. Revelation is when a new aspect of a character is well, revealed. We get Misha's affection for Shizune, Lilly's absent parents, and Emi's stubborn independence in that category. Growth is a character changing from what he was. Unlike "revelation," growth has no real bearing on what came before. When a character undergoes a revelation, you view all the previous actions and events in a new light. When a character experiences growth, you can look back and see how the events led to their growth, but the events of the past are not changed in this reflection. Hisao experiences significant growth in all the routes (as that's kinda the point), while the girls also tend to go through some growth as well.

So why does Shizune seem to get so little "Character Development"? The Introduction is come and gone for her, but that's the case for all the girls, so it can't be that. So we have Revelation and Growth.

Shizune doesn't get much explicit revelation, in large part because she simply doesn't talk about herself much at all - she's always directed toward others (both positively and negatively). Most of her revelation comes in how she behaves, but they're little things, and a good portion of those revelations begin in Act 1. It's worth noting that you can't really discuss Shizune's route without touching on act 1. She gets a very strong introduction, and that's what you tend to see when you follow other routes. On the other hand, there are a good number of Shizune Route-exclusive (or included in Emi's Route via "Slow Recovery") which begin the process of revelation. This is part of the reason that Shizune's "ending" was so popular in the Act 1 demo. These sort of "quiet" revelations continue through the Post-Act 1 route as well, but they're somewhat understated after the initial Act 1 reveals.

But those aren't the only reveals Shizune gets. She also gets a lot that are tied to one of the more popular complaints about her route: it has too many characters. This is nonsensical, considering the number of characters juggled in what are widely considered to be great works (For example: Gandalf, Frodo, Samwise, Merry, Pippin, Aragorn, Legolas, Gimli, Boromir). In fact, Shizune's route has three primary characters (Hisao, Shizune, Misha) and an assortment of secondary characters who, for the most part, get little more than cameos (Lilly, Akira, Hideaki, Jigoro, Aoi, Keiko, Kenji, Mutou, Yuuko, Nurse(?)). By comparison, Lilly's route has four primary characters (Hisao, Lilly, Akira, Hanako) and an assortment of secondary characters who, for the most part, get little more than cameos (Shizune, Misha, Hideaki, Rin, Emi, Othello, Kenji, Mutou, Yuuko, Nurse). That's right - Lilly's route has more characters, even when I cheat and give it the twofer of Aoi and Keiko. The actual objection is "there are a bunch of pointless introductions of characters that have no further relevance." Either that or they think Kenji gets too much screen time. But what characters get introductions with little follow-up? Akira, Hideaki, and Jigoro. Pair that with the revelation that Lilly and Shizune are cousins, and you get a common thread - they're all Shizune's family. Pull in Mutou's quantum physics lecture from Emi's Route and things become even more clear - these introductions serve the added purpose of being revelations related to Shizune. It's like a jigsaw puzzle - the pieces closest to a missing piece will tell you something about that piece.

And then we come to growth. This is what people tend to focus on because it's the most tangible. With a revelation, X is still X, but you know more about what X is. With growth, X is now Y. Did Shizune grow? Of course she did. At the beginning of the story, she had no direction - she was spinning her wheels (to mix metaphors). She was so caught up int he moment that she didn't even begin to think about what should come next. Before she entered Yamaku, becoming the Student Council President was her goal. Once she reached that goal, all she could think to do was "more." Everything needed to be bigger and better. And things can always get bigger and better. The whole conflict with Misha makes it clear to her that she's given no thought to the future. Misha's fear of the future is exhibited by her concerns of what comes after graduation. Shizune's fear of the future is exhibited by her refusal to even think about it. So Shizune comes up with the goal of becoming extremely rich and then being a philanthropist. It's overly ambitious, and a little unrealistic, but that's the kind of person Shizune is. This gets people upset, because it feels like she didn't learn anything. They're missing the point. She didn't need to have a realistic plan, or one set toward an achievable goal - she simply needed a goal. People say a lot of stuff goes on in her route, but nothing actually happens (until Misha jumps into center stage), without realising that that's the point. The whole issue (at the center of just about every conflict in the story) is that Shizune has a lot of motion without any direction. And, by the end, she has the direction she needs.

But what about Misha? I'm glad you asked, me. Misha is the direction. She takes Shizune's motion and turns it toward lasting achievements. Shizune drags Hisao along to do "stuff," in the hopes that Hisao will join the student Council because it's so much fun. Misha is the one who actually does the hard sell, and thanks him for his help. Shizune is smitten by Hisao, and does "stuff" with him, in the hopes that Hisao will ask her out. Misha sees that Hisao is interested in Shizune and gives him the push to man up and ask her out. Shizune prepares to hold Student Council elections, because that's what the outgoing Student Council does. Misha tries to actually make the elections appealing, so people will participate. And then one interpretation (of many possible) of her propositioning Hisao is to again give Hisao a push (or a test), this time to take charge of the relationship. If Hisao is going to replace Misha, he needs to be able to give Shizune direction, and to do that, he needs direction himself. I don't really think I agree with that interpretation, but it's one that may be supportable by the text.

And the Shizune-Misha conflict also ties back to Shizune's lack of direction. Shizune sees that Misha is upset, and something must be done. She knows that Misha likes food, so her "master plan" is to give Misha lots of good food, to make her happy. Hisao takes the radical step of trying to figure out what's wrong, and cheer Misha up by addressing the underlying cause (in other words, he has a sense of direction when he tries to solve the problem). In the good ending, Shizune realises her lack of direction and takes steps to fix it. In the bad end, Shizune realises her lack of direction (and quite possibly takes steps to fix it), but realises that he directionlessness has caused both Hisao and Misha to drift away irretrievably.

As for Misha, what character development does she get? No introduction, obviously. One huge revelation (that's a bit of an infodump) and several smaller ones, all more or less directed to the implication that she's a lot more thoughtful and perceptive than she lets on.

As for growth, no so much there, either. Yeah, she likes Shizune, but is willing to let it go. Is that a new development, though? She says that she wants Shizune to be her girlfriend, but is that just a feeling, or a goal she's trying to attain? It seems odd that she'd be instrumental in getting Hisao and Shizune together if she didn't want them to be together. And why would it come to a head some time after they got back from vacation, rather than before or shortly after Hisao and Shizune get together? Add in the overall shift in focus toward the future that accompanies this conflict, and it's clear that that's the bigger concern, not the unrequited love. Add in the fact that Misha's reaction seems to be exactly the same in both the good end and the bad end, and I'd argue that Misha doesn't really have all that much growth on her part.

[dewelar]

many excellent and insightful words

Demonstrating once again why you are my favorite poster on these boards. Well said.

[Oddball]

Going to have to disagree with you again about Shizune getting a goal. She states earlier that she wanted to be Student Council president to help people then her big revelation later in the game is that she wants to grow up and help people? She really didn't change at all. She has no more of a goal than she did at the start.

It all gets worse when you look at the fact that the student council rarely does anything to help people. In fact, one of the reasons she's mad at Lilly is that Lilly didn't take her duties seriously and instead chose to *gasp* help people instead! The idea that the New Student Council introduced at the end is pretty much going to ignore the way she did things and go it's own route further cements that she really hasn't accomplished anything. She has an ideal that she takes little to no effort to live up to, instead trying to live in the moment but that's okay because (in her eyes) she's pretty much fine the way she is and doesn't need to change. Even at the end when she said she knows she needs to change, we see nothing to suggest she is going to do so.

[Weird Heather]

I have watched this thread from time to time, and the discussion has been fascinating. Unfortunately, I have been too busy lately to put enough thought into a response, and ideally before wading into the discussion, I would like to re-read Shizune's story. However, thanks to a point that ProfAllister just made, I can add a little to the discussion.

Personally, I tend to subscribe to a literary theory which perhaps holds some relation to "the author is dead." What the author knew and his intent are nice, but they aren't intrinsic to the work. It's nice, because it allows a lens for interpreting the work and the reader can thus share in the author's thoughts, so to speak, but it is absurd to limit a work to the author. Under such a strict interpretation, a work in which we do not or cannot know the author's intent has no possible interpretation and therefore no value, because any interpretation would be plagued by the unanswerable question "but is this what the author intended?" On the other hand, the unknowable author allows the reader to consider all possible interpretations, because there is no "right" author-endorsed interpretation. Hence "the author is dead" - a dead author cannot provide the authoritative interpretation.

So I'd say that an interpretation is valid and acceptable so long as it can be sustained by the text itself (potentially alloyed with what we can reasonably assume the author would/would not know).

I also tend to be in agreement with the Death of the Author idea. Literary theories along these lines seem to have become popular at least since the Modernist period in the twentieth century. The New Criticism, a movement in literary theory which peaked around the 1940s, emphasizes the close reading of texts and insists upon seeing a text as a self-contained unit independent of its external context. While I find the rejection of any external context, including authorial intent, reader response, and historical and social context, to be somewhat extreme, I do agree with the New Critics (and others who have similar views) that the text is essentially a self-contained unit, and that interpretations based mostly or entirely on textual evidence are perfectly valid whether or not they are consistent with the intentions of the author. When a text is released into the world, it takes on an interpretive life of its own, and interpretations that did not occur to the author may well take hold. Readers may agree with the New Critics and rely entirely on internal evidence, or they may - and I believe this is more likely - read the text through the lens of their own knowledge and life experiences. In this thread, we have seen a lot of reliance on textual evidence and also a great deal of reference to life experience and external knowledge. Of course, the author of Shizune's story has decided to remain in the background, so we appear to have little information on authorial intent. I believe this is good, for it forces all of the readers to implicitly accept the Death of the Author and rely entirely on their own abilities to interpret the story. Discussions in this thread may be heated at times, but there is no single authoritative interpretation, so the many conflicting interpretations are all valid - as long as the interpreters can back them up with rational arguments.

And on a different note... The issue of sign language interpretation in this story is an interesting one. The process of translating from one language to another is never perfect. As far as I understand (and I may be wrong), words in sign language are supposed to be the same as the words in the spoken language from which it is derived. However, words alone do not convey all of the information present in communication. Even if the words are translated perfectly, other audible cues, such as tone of voice, may be lost or changed; perhaps these cues can be approximated through differing levels of excitement in the hand gestures. When the inherent problems with interpretation are combined with Misha's occasional tendency to change Shizune's words and with her unique mannerisms, it becomes clear that Shizune can never communicate exactly as she intends with most of the people around her. It is as if she is posting to and reading from a web forum, where the unspoken emotional content of the communication is mostly lost or modified, and on top of that, the words themselves are occasionally changed by a well-meaning but sometimes misguided editorial voice. When I finally have time to re-read Shizune's story, I plan to pay closer attention to this dynamic, and maybe I'll have more to say about it in this thread (if it is still active at the time).

[ProfAllister]

Going to have to disagree with you again about Shizune getting a goal. She states earlier that she wanted to be Student Council president to help people then her big revelation later in the game is that she wants to grow up and help people? She really didn't change at all. She has no more of a goal than she did at the start.

Who said it was a revelation? First off, "revelation" is type 2 of character development. I was saying this was "growth," which is type 3. :p

More to the point, there is a significant difference. "I want to help people," is the airy, wishy-washy platitude of someone who doesn't know what they want to do with their life. "Really you want to help people? That's overrated. I want to kneecap people and take their money." There's quite a difference between a vague "help others" and "get a job (possibly using connections in a manner that may be less than fair), accumulate a vast fortune, and use your vast fortune to provide funding for major works intended toward the betterment of the community."

I never said it was a realistic goal, but it's unfair to say it's not a goal, or no more of a goal than she had before.

It all gets worse when you look at the fact that the student council rarely does anything to help people. In fact, one of the reasons she's mad at Lilly is that Lilly didn't take her duties seriously and instead chose to *gasp* help people instead! The idea that the New Student Council introduced at the end is pretty much going to ignore the way she did things and go it's own route further cements that she really hasn't accomplished anything. She has an ideal that she takes little to no effort to live up to, instead trying to live in the moment but that's okay because (in her eyes) she's pretty much fine the way she is and doesn't need to change. Even at the end when she said she knows she needs to change, we see nothing to suggest she is going to do so.

Rarely does anything to help people, huh? So all those booths for the cultural festival and Tanabata? Everything other than booths they did for those two festivals? Helping timid burn victims when they lose their ID cards? The fireworks that played a significant role in every girl's act 1? (well, not Emi's...) And those are just the events explicitly mentioned. Never mind the fact that the festivals are so work-intensive that they seem to consume nearly every free moment the three of them have for a few weeks.

Shizune isn't criticising Lilly for helping people. She's criticising Lilly for shirking her duties under the excuse of "helping people." It's a purely utilitarian argument: Lilly has valuable duties as the class representative, duties in the service of her class and the student body as a whole; rather than attend to those duties, she looks for excuses to avoid them. It's like polishing your boots in the middle of a firefight - yeah, polishing your boots is a good thing, and something you should do, but there's a proper time and place for that kind of thing, and this isn't it.

As for the "accomplished nothing" bit, it's like you didn't even read the route. Final scene of Shizune's route. Go look at it again. I'll wait.

You do it yet? No? Stop reading this right now and go through it!

...Now? No? Fine, I'll quote it for you.

Shizune is already happy, because if something goes well, there will always be someone else to see it and remember it. That's what makes her happy.

Aside from that, what gives you the idea that the Student Council is going to ignore the way Shizune did things and go their own route? Was it the way they asked Shizune for advice, or the way they thanked Hisao for all he'd done?

And the whole bit about Shizune saying she knows she needs to change, but there not being some sort of indication, what to you want? The story reached its conclusion, and there's only the wrap-up scene at/after graduation. And Shizune is particularly notable in that she says what she means and means what she says.

If you're going to cast doubts on the authenticity of what the girl says in the resolution of the story, why stop with Shizune? Lilly resents Hisao for pulling her away from her family, and will bring it up whenever they get into a fight. Hanako had sex with Hisao as a ploy to bind him to her forever, and will cry rape the moment he decides to leave. Rin realised that if you let a cute boy fuck you, he'll shut up about wanting to understand you, and you'll never be alone. Emi had a boyfriend before, meaning she totally had sex all the time, and is a total slut, and will leave Hisao the moment she meets a guy with a bigger dick.


ANYWAY, on to Weird Heather's post, which appeared while I was typing this.

Just a little factual note. ASL(or JSL, in this case) is NOT SEE(or whatever Japanese equivalent there may be). There ARE linguistic cues in ASL, and Hisao is usually able to pick up on them in spite of Misha's interpretation.

As for Misha's interpretation and the actual implications thereof, I will admit that that's one area where I'm less comfortable speaking with anything remotely resembling authority. I've been told that some leeway is given when you have a close relationship with an interpreter (but also that Misha and Shizune's is probably too close for a proper relationship), but that's really something where you'd need to talk to someone with actual experience. For as much as I seem to know about deafness and deaf culture, it's primarily through research and talking to people who DO have experience. If I know anything about deafness and deaf culture it is by standing on the shoulders of deaf giants.

[Oddball]

More to the point, there is a significant difference. "I want to help people," is the airy, wishy-washy platitude of someone who doesn't know what they want to do with their life. "Really you want to help people? That's overrated. I want to kneecap people and take their money." There's quite a difference between a vague "help others" and "get a job (possibly using connections in a manner that may be less than fair), accumulate a vast fortune, and use your vast fortune to provide funding for major works intended toward the betterment of the community."

She goes from "I want to help people," to "i want to be rich and help people." I don't see how either is more or less vague than the other.

Rarely does anything to help people, huh? So all those booths for the cultural festival and Tanabata? Everything other than booths they did for those two festivals?

She's not helping people as much as she is doing a job and assuming that will make people happy. This is actually one of her character flaws in that she has a very difficult time in thinking small. She does things rather than reaching out to people.

Helping timid burn victims when they lose their ID cards?

I seem to recall that incident ending with Hanako fleeing in terror and Shizune bad mouthing her after she left. Come to think of it, I can't even recall if they actually did give her a new card in that scene or not.

The fireworks that played a significant role in every girl's act 1?

I'm going to admit I don't remember what she personally had to do with the fireworks. I don't have my saves anymore so I can't immediately go and check.

Never mind the fact that the festivals are so work-intensive that they seem to consume nearly every free moment the three of them have for a few weeks.

I'll admit she works hard, but she wouldn't be working nearly as hard if she hadn't chased away the rest of the council.

Shizune isn't criticising Lilly for helping people. She's criticising Lilly for shirking her duties under the excuse of "helping people." It's a purely utilitarian argument: Lilly has valuable duties as the class representative, duties in the service of her class and the student body as a whole; rather than attend to those duties, she looks for excuses to avoid them. It's like polishing your boots in the middle of a firefight - yeah, polishing your boots is a good thing, and something you should do, but there's a proper time and place for that kind of thing, and this isn't it.

We have no evidence that Lilly was avoiding any of her duties other than Shizune's word. Now you can say that it was Lilly's job to do the paperwork herself, but what Lilly was doing was getting her class more involved. Getting other people involved is one of the things Shizune tries and fails to do herself. I don't see how that's any worse than Shizune dragging Hisao along to help with all of her work.

Shizune is already happy, because if something goes well, there will always be someone else to see it and remember it. That's what makes her happy.

It says it, but evidence seems to point elsewhere.

Aside from that, what gives you the idea that the Student Council is going to ignore the way Shizune did things and go their own route? Was it the way they asked Shizune for advice, or the way they thanked Hisao for all he'd done?

The scene where they're talking to two of the new student council members and they look shocked and call the old council "weird." Then later Hisao mentions how they're using their own computer to do things and have members and official titles for everyone, while elsewhere in Hisao's route he seems to question what his and Misha's role actually is in the council.

And the whole bit about Shizune saying she knows she needs to change, but there not being some sort of indication, what to you want? The story reached its conclusion, and there's only the wrap-up scene at/after graduation.

Then perhaps the game ended a few scenes too early.

And Shizune is particularly notable in that she says what she means and means what she says.

She's also very set in her ways and somewhat of a hypocrite.

If you're going to cast doubts on the authenticity of what the girl says in the resolution of the story, why stop with Shizune? Lilly resents Hisao for pulling her away from her family, and will bring it up whenever they get into a fight. Hanako had sex with Hisao as a ploy to bind him to her forever, and will cry rape the moment he decides to leave. Rin realised that if you let a cute boy fuck you, he'll shut up about wanting to understand you, and you'll never be alone. Emi had a boyfriend before, meaning she totally had sex all the time, and is a total slut, and will leave Hisao the moment she meets a guy with a bigger dick.

I cast doubt's on Shizune's ending and not theirs because they actually SHOWED the characters changing and reacting. Shizune just tells you things. You don't even know if they're still together in the ending or not.

Now I'm not saying she's satan or evil or anything like that. She's just very set in her ways and nothing in her route suggests she's going to change. Most characters have scenes in their routes where they acknowledge they have a problem and need to do something about it, but don't know how to or what to do. Then they follow it up later in the route with them actually trying to do something about it, or at the very least Hisao trying to help them with it. We don't get any follow up in Shizune's route.

It boils down to character interpretation here. Do you think Shizune is honest with herself and others and that she's really going to try to change, or do you feel that she's just going to keep being herself and assume everything will work out for her and that the problem is other people?

Personally, I go the second route there. She can be an interesting character, but she's too stubborn for her own good. She takes after her old man in that respect.

[ProfAllister]

Back and forth.

I'll be honest with you - discussing Shizune with you is aggravating, because it feels like you are so blinded by your distaste for her that you simply can't think rationally when discussing her. I feel a strong temptation to dismiss your counter-arguments as no more substantial than "nuh-uh" and be done with it. But I know that wouldn't be fair to you.

She goes from "I want to help people," to "i want to be rich and help people." I don't see how either is more or less vague than the other.

...How? How do you take my detailed, point-by-point list of how Shizune plans to get rich (taken almost directly form the text, no less), and simply pretend it doesn't exist? "Do A then B then C in order to reach Point D, and from point D you can do E, which will allow you to achieve F" is more detailed, more coherent, and in all other ways superior to "Do F." I'm willing to concede that it's perhaps a little presumptuous, and maybe a little unrealistic, but you aren't satisfied with that. You want to deny that it even exists.

She's not helping people as much as she is doing a job and assuming that will make people happy. This is actually one of her character flaws in that she has a very difficult time in thinking small. She does things rather than reaching out to people.

Wait a second here. Are we talking about Shizune's intentions, or the effects? I agree with that interpretation of her character flaw. I addressed it back up there when I was talking about her motion without direction. But that's beside the point. You're assuming that the work didn't help. Because...? On the other hand, we have Shiraki thanking Shizune in act 1 for "your help with this booth"; we have Aoi and Keiko approaching Shizune after the festival because they want a Halloween event; we have the New Student Council thanking Hisao for all he's done. Do you need an endless aprade of people thanking the Student Council every other scene to believe that they're truly being helpful?

I seem to recall that incident ending with Hanako fleeing in terror and Shizune bad mouthing her after she left. Come to think of it, I can't even recall if they actually did give her a new card in that scene or not.

Shizune and Hanako mix like sulphur and water. It's a surprise that Hanako "Ivegottagodosomething" Ikezawa runs away from a social situation in terror? And what was Shizune's terrible crime? Treating Hanako exactly the way she claims she wants to be treated. And Shizune wasn't "bad mouthing" her. Yes, she said that Hanako was bad at chess, but that was because she was analysing Hanako, and arguably has more insight into Hanako in that one scene than Hisao or Lilly do in the entirety of Hanako or Lilly's routes.

They tried to give her a new card, but Hanako ran away before they could - Misha even tried to chase her down. However, that is probably not the only time they were ever approached about a lost ID. The specific instance may have not been terribly helpful, but it establishes one of the roles the Student Council has with regard to helping people.

I'm going to admit I don't remember what she personally had to do with the fireworks. I don't have my saves anymore so I can't immediately go and check.

Hmmm... Looking back, I don't see anywhere where it says she had a direct role in the fireworks. Probably a combination of my remembering that she had a major role in planning the festival and Hisao suggesting Misha ask Shizune to petition for there to be fireworks at the Tanabata festival. I'll grant you this battle, but not the war.

I'll admit she works hard, but she wouldn't be working nearly as hard if she hadn't chased away the rest of the council.

Wouldn't she?

…And remember, you have to take this job seriously. Too many people think you can just slack off, and that it isn't important. That is a dangerous way of thinking.
Definitely~. You can't take it too seriously~! If you aren't always thinking big, thinking positive, and if you show any signs of weakness, people will start to think you're incompetent, you know~.And soon you won't be able to do anything because your power is going to be delegated off to others piece by piece, and you'll be left with nothing. That's what happened last time~.

I think you have it backward. The Student Council was large but didn't do anything; Shizune came in and tried to whip them into shape so the Student Council would actually be relevant; the other members left, leaving her to do it herself. Yeah, you could argue that she was pushing too hard and drove them all away. On the other hand, if the Student Council really was as irrelevant and worthless as they seem to imply, is it really so terrible she drove out the people who had no intention of taking its seriously?

We have no evidence that Lilly was avoiding any of her duties other than Shizune's word. Now you can say that it was Lilly's job to do the paperwork herself, but what Lilly was doing was getting her class more involved. Getting other people involved is one of the things Shizune tries and fails to do herself. I don't see how that's any worse than Shizune dragging Hisao along to help with all of her work.

Again, what are we discussing here? Lilly's guilt, or the reasons why Shizune criticises her? I would consider Shizune's word pretty authoritative on the latter, personally. And as far as the "getting other people involved" bit goes, Shizune didn't really take issue with that. She took issue with Lilly's refusal to take responsibility to the job. She was making it sound pretty, but Lilly was telling Shizune that it's not her fault that the reports are late - she delegated the responsibility to someone else, so it's that person who's responsible for it being late. In other words, she's blaming her "subordinates" for her failure to get the job done. No matter how you slice it, that's pretty unprofessional and irresponsible. Yeah, it's "not that big of a deal" because this is only High School, but it is pretty inexcusable behavior for someone in a leadership position.

It says it, but evidence seems to point elsewhere.

Put your money where your mouth is and we have a discussion. I hope you understand why I can't simply take your word for it on this one. So come up with some specific examples and we can look at those more closely to see if there's any reason to cast doubt on Hisao's interpretation of Shizune's happiness.

The scene where they're talking to two of the new student council members and they look shocked and call the old council "weird." Then later Hisao mentions how they're using their own computer to do things and have members and official titles for everyone, while elsewhere in Hisao's route he seems to question what his and Misha's role actually is in the council.

That's... a bit of a stretch. The Old Student Council was called "weird" becasue they gave an hour-long lecture comparing Student Council work to gladiatorial combat in response to the question of whether one of them might not be taking the job seriously enough. And using a computer and having official positions is a far cry from categorically rejecting all that Shizune had done before. Shizune took on all the roles because they needed to be done. She never abolished them as unnecessary or any similarly dictatorial actions. She made (half-serious) comments about abolishing the position of Treasurer, but that is hardly some sort of official policy of how a Student Council should be run.

Then perhaps the game ended a few scenes too early.

No, my point was that it didn't. I wasn't saying that A22 got so far and was like "Welp. I've hit my quota. Time to wrap this up." I'm saying that the story was finished, and any further additions would be masturbatory fluff (and that's what fanfiction is for).

She's also very set in her ways and somewhat of a hypocrite.

Really, now? I'm hoping you have examples of this hypocrisy or a stubborn refusal to follow through on her stated actions, because it really isn't the sort of thing that would be self-evident.

I cast doubt's on Shizune's ending and not theirs because they actually SHOWED the characters changing and reacting. Shizune just tells you things. You don't even know if they're still together in the ending or not.

I just listed an example from each girl's ending where there was no such "showing" going on. All we have is an assertion or an assumption that things turn out well. And you're also implying that the story would be more satisfying if they added an "and they all lived happily ever after" epilogue. What would it add to the story if it said "Hisao and Shizune went on to get married and have lots of little kids. The girls all looked exactly like Shizune and the boys all looked exactly like Hisao, except for Hitoshi, because he's going to be the star of the sequel. Misha become a famous and inspirational interpreter, beloved and respected everywhere. Peoeple often said of her that 'she's like Helen Keller, except not blind or deaf.' Kenji got married, settled down, and lived an entirely ordinary life. Lilly snapped in her late 20s after she added three sugars to her tea instead of two, and went on a two-year long murder spree."

Why don't you know if they're still together in the ending? Because you expect that Shizune would bore of Hisao and just move on? Because it doesn't explicitly say "Even after graduation, Shizune and I are going to stay together, because we love each other so very much"? You claim you don't hate her, but you refuse to give her the benefit of the doubt. You assume the worst because you don't have a notarised statement saying that the worst was averted.

Hanako has severe trust issues which won't go away from having sex or kissing a boy in public. It's going to be a long struggle for her to ever achieve anything resembling normalcy. But you don't complain that we never learn if she manages to adjust and become a normally functioning individual.
In the throes of post-coital bliss, Hisao concludes that he doesn't need to understand Rin for them to build a relationship together. But you don't complain about the fact that Rin might have an ever more severe withdrawal or more harrowing event in her future, but we're never assured that it will be all right. We don't have any guarantee that Hisao will be able to stick to his resolution when the gap once again seems too great.
Lilly decides to not return to Iverness because she wants to be with Hisao. You don't complain that it's unclear if her parents truly will allow Lilly to stay (we only have their word, after all), or that Lilly won't resent Hisao pulling her away from her family.
Emi is afraid of losing someone important to her again, but she decides that she should stop running and admit that she's in love with Hisao, because she can't lie to herself anymore. But we know that Hisao has a deadly heart condition. You don't complain that we have no guarantee that Emi won't get spooked and try to push Hisao away after his next near-death experience.

But with Shizune, you have trouble believing that she and Hisao are still in a relationship at the end of the story, because it doesn't say "Shizune and I are still in a relationship."

It boils down to character interpretation here. Do you think Shizune is honest with herself and others and that she's really going to try to change, or do you feel that she's just going to keep being herself and assume everything will work out for her and that the problem is other people?

"Do you think the [political party] truly has your best interests at heart? Or do you feel that they simply can't overcome their filthy elitist money-grubbing exploitation of the people?"

I'm pulling from the text in order to try to interpret Shizune as a real human being (or a realistic approximation thereof), with strengths, weaknesses, mistakes, and everything. You are making vague allusions to stuff that may have been stated or implied somewhere in the text in order to interpret her as, quite frankly, a sociopathic monster.

And, when it comes down to it, I'd be willing to consider the potential validity of a sociopathic monster interpretation if it were properly argued and defended with specific references to the text. If you want to present such an argument, I would gladly welcome it. But please, please, please refrain from making claims or arguments that you can't or won't back up. Without supporting arguments, it really is nothing more than eloquent trolling.

[Oddball]

Seriously, All? Is this how you want to do things? My opinion doesn't count unless I write out a 5,000 word essay, otherwise I'm just trolling? I'm being blinded and irrational because I don't agree with you? I'm trying to paint somebody as a sociopathic monster? I also believe last time you said I wasn't allowed to talk about Shizune?

This is exactly why I don't like talking with Shizune fans about Shizune. They fill their posts with passive aggressive B.S. and insist that if you don't pout as much work into answering them as they put into their statements that you're views somehow count less.

You don't want to discuss things. You want to somehow defeat me and win a debate. It's very ... Shizune of you, and things like this are exactly why so many people don't like Shizune.

I have no interest in making this into a contest. If you want to think that you somehow "win" because of that or that my opinion isn't worth anything because I'm not making owerpoint slides, then you're free to think that.

Congratulations. Ten points to you ... or whatever you think your prize is supposed to be.

On the other hand, if you want to stop being so confrontational and stop telling other people what they are and are not allowed to think, we can talk, but it will NOT be a contest. I have no reason to waste my time discussing things with people that are only looking for a way to prove their own superiority.

[Xanatos]

[damn these posts are long]

You seem to be taking "We don't know if they're in a relationship at the end" and twisting it into "We don't know nothing bad ever happens to anyone ever in the future"...


We know Hisao and Hanako are together at the end of that story.

We know Hisao and Rin are together (arguably, given Rin's likely anomalous views on the whole concept) at the end of that story.

We know Hisao and Lilly are together at the end of that story.

We know Hisao and Emi are together at the end of that story.

We don't know Hisao and Shizune are together at the end of that story.


We see change in most of them. We see Emi lower her shields. We see Hanako come out of her shell. We see Rin come to terms with herself. All we see with Shizune is "I'm sure going to try to change, maybe!"