Katawa Shoujo Forums

I never said you had to write a giant essay, but let's look back at a couple of the recent exchanges:

Oddball wrote:

ProfAllister wrote:
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.

Shizune Act 4, 'Infinity' wrote: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.

How am I supposed to respond to comments like that? How do those comments move the conversation forward? What is gained by their presence? All I see is the insistence that you disagree with me. There's nothing wrong with disagreeing with me, but there's really no need to come into a conversation and say "Yeah, I disagree with you. Peace out."

I was saying you seem to be blinded and irrational not because you disagree with me, but because I present evidence and logical chains right in front of you and you do not seem to see them. You do not dispute my logic or try to find countervailing evidence, you just seem to pretend they simply don't exist. I could be missing some important nuance. If so, please inform me.

On the subject of Sociopathy:

Oddball wrote: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?

DSM-IV wrote:A) There is a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others occurring since age 15 years, as indicated by three or more of the following:
1: failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest;
2: deception, as indicated by repeatedly lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure;
3: impulsivity or failure to plan ahead;
4: irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated physical fights or assaults;
5: reckless disregard for safety of self or others;
6: consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations;
7: lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another;

Your comments seem to imply that you feel she regularly displays 2, 3, 6, and 7. Depending on how willing you are to be flexible, you could even argue for mild manifestations of 1 and 4.

Of course, I've already said that armchair diagnoses like this are really poor form, so, as a counterpoint, let's take the term "sociopath" as it's commonly used (interestingly enough, Urban Dictionary seems to be the best reference for this sort of thing:

Urban Dictionary wrote:A person with antisocial personality disorder. Probably the most widely recognized personality disorder. A sociopath is often well liked because of their charm and high charisma, but they do not usually care about other people. They think mainly of themselves and often blame others for the things that they do. They have a complete disregard for rules and lie constantly. They seldom feel guilt or learn from punishments. Though some sociopaths have become murders, most reveal their sociopathy through less deadly and sensational means.

Urban Dictionary wrote:A sociopath is mainly identified by there being something very wrong with a person's conscious. They either 1) have a conscious with "holes" in it, 2)they don't seem to have one at all or 3) they are able to completely neutralize their sense of conscious into a perspective that they aren't doing anything wrong.
One thing is for sure: Sociopaths only care about themselves and only see themselves as being "real" or truely human. Everybody and everything outside of themselves are twisted in their mind into mere objects to be used to achieve personal fulfillment.
A sociopath oftin believes that they are doing nothing wrong or doing something greatly good, due to their egocentricity and grandiose sense of self-worth. They will cold-bloodedly take what they want and do as they please at any expense of anyone in their lives; predators who satisfy their lust for power and control through superficial charm, manipulation, intimidation, and violence.

I may be wrong in my interpretation, but I believe that it's possible to see a fair bit of overlap between your description of Shizune and these definitions of sociopath. It could be a failure of communication, but this is what I end up seeing when you talk about her issues.

The whole "revoking your 'talking about Shizune' privileges" thing was a joke. Probably one in poor taste that never should have been made, but no offense was intended. I had been under the impression that you were in on the fact that it was meant playfully, but that appears to not be the case. For that I apologize.

And I do want to discuss things. But there needs to be something to discuss. I may be missing something here. My objection is not that your arguments are so pathetic that they are beneath my notice; I am having trouble seeing you make any arguments at all. I don't want to "win" the debate. I want to discuss the issues, weigh the arguments for and against, and, honestly, get other people to start to think more deeply about the topic at hand (in this or other debates). I give no quarter when analysing someone else's arguments, but I also make every effort to be intellectually honest, and concede a point when appropriate. If I feel there is some information that presents a weakness in my argument, I will even volunteer such weaknesses, as a show of good faith.

In that sense, pushing you to give up on the argument is a loss, and one I sincerely regret. I apologise if I've offended (which I seem to have done), and will try to be less offensive. But in return, I ask that you try to provide evidence for your assertions. Vague statements that there's a counter argument "somewhere" in the text are pretty hard to dispute.

Xanatos wrote: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 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!"

It's actually two things, smushed together. Oddball threw in the comment about not knowing if they were even together at the end, which is why they kind of ran into each other.

My point is that we don't really see change. We see a turning point. Emi lowering her shields is huge. Hanako coming out of her shell is huge. Rin coming to terms with herself is huge. But Shizune, endlessly driven, endlessly assertive, endlessly competitive, endlessly striving to be the best, admitting she was wrong, that she's made some pretty big mistakes, that everyone else realised it before her, and that she needs to change, isn't huge?

None of these are permanent changes. They can all relapse quite easily. Actions speak louder than words, you might say. After all, Emi said that she was going to let Hisao get close to her, but she also revealed herself to him. Hanako said that she was going to trust Hisao, but she also exposed herself to him, both physically and emotionally. Rin said that everything feels right with the world, but she also did what she could to connect with Hisao without words. Shizune said that she needed to change, but she also admitted fault, admitted defeat, and admitted that she was no better than anyone else.

They're still words, and talk is cheap. But words aren't inherently meaningless. People can lie, they can say things they don't truly mean, and so on and so forth. The same is true, to a lesser extent for actions.

More importantly, though, is the overall theme of the importance of words that occurs throughout her route. The difference between the good end and the bad end is not precipitated by what he does so much as by what he says. Sign language works as a bit of a (clumsy) metaphor here, because Shizune's words are actions. It is stated time and time again that Shizune only says things if she truly means them.

When it comes down to it, though, it is simply unfair to assume that Shizune will have any less follow-through than any of the other girls. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Saying "we have no reason to believe her" has no more weight than its counter: "we have no reason not to believe her." If you can argue why we specifically have reason to not believe her, then I'm more likely to be convinced that you're on to something.

ProfAllister wrote: The whole "revoking your 'talking about Shizune' privileges" thing was a joke.

That's the kind of joke that works better if it isn't so uncomfortably close to the truth.

You come here and present opinions that are really no more convincing than anybody else's and then you spend thousands of words expressing your disbelief that people disagree with you. Perhaps you think that the amount of text adds weight to your argument or that you get credit for the effort because it shows that you somehow mean it more than others, but I don't think it is working. You just end up suffocating the discussion.

I think you underestimate how much of your argument is based on your own subjective judgments. Making those judgments is unavoidable in discussions like this one, but occasionally one should try to take a step back and recognize them as such. Most of the time the others aren't objectively wrong and treating them as if they were won't get you anywhere. Claiming rationality, objectivity and quality of discourse for yourself while denying others those qualities comes across as rather aggressive, especially if you are, with all due respect, not living up to it.

What's with all the talk of sociopathy? There are no sociopaths anywhere in Katawa Shoujo.

I think the first paragraph in Oddball's last post sparked that part.

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?

I don't think it was meant to be taken literally though. Not everyone may be equally fond of Shizune, but I doubt even her haters consider her a sociopath.

Weird Heather wrote: 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).

(Using ASL as my basis) Sign language has no written form. So you can't translate word for word unless you're using something like Signed Exact English which is intended to teach Deaf people to read, not as a primary form of communcation (why? it's too slow).

Things that can affect the meaning of a sign include the speed, amount of movement, facial grammar, lexical mouthing... there's a lot to it, not forgetting most crucial thing which is the context. Something you learn very early on as an ASL student is that signing without these non-manual signs is like someone with a neutral facial expression speaking in a monotone (ie: Rin ). This is Misha's problem, except instead of a monotone it's always bouncy and happy. If you weren't aware of Misha's own personality contaminating it, you'd think Shizune was insane, saying all these angry things with a cheery tone like she was the Joker or something.

When you say she can't communicate as she intends, that was something that really pulled me into the route. I figured there was something missing from Misha's interpretation and was eager to see what Hisao would get once he learned sign.

metalangel wrote:If you weren't aware of Misha's own personality contaminating it, you'd think Shizune was insane, saying all these angry things with a cheery tone like she was the Joker or something.

Solution: Watch Shizune's body language, not Misha's.

ProfAllister wrote:

Lianam wrote: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.

Hey that's me!

ProfAllister wrote: 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.

First off, I wasn't saying that Shizune didn't have any character development, I was saying she just didn't have as much as other characters in other routes, or at the very least, it wasn't as obvious. Actually it's more of the that. So yeah, I was wrong in what I said, but I still believe Misha does have a lot of character development.

She does have an introduction: Her's and Shizune's are the same.
As for growth and revelation, Both are present, except in reverse order: Growth comes before the revelation.
Growth, according to you, is the movement of a character's... um... character, from X to Y.
Then what's X and Y?
At X, Misha believes that if she stays with Shizune, Shizune might change her mind.
At Y, Misha accepts that life moves on- she's happy because Shizune if with someone, even if it's not her, and she accepts that Shizune probably won't change her mind, and that she believes she'll find someone else.
Now I know what you're saying, "It's never said that she believes she'll find someone else, so that's invalid!" Trust me, I know that's what she's think about. How? Because I've gone through what Misha went through, (okay, not exactly. The person I'm thinking about, as far as I'm aware, she isn't seeing anyone, so part of me thinks she may change her mind, but another part of me knows she probably won't, but if she does find someone, I'll be ok with it, and I'd be happy for her) and that's what I believe.

ProfAllister wrote: It seems odd that she'd be instrumental in getting Hisao and Shizune together if she didn't want them to be together.

You're right. That would be odd. That's why she doesn't not want them to be together. She wants Shizune to be happy because she loves her, no matter how much it may hurt her in the process. And what would make Shizune happy? Getting her to go out with the boy she has a crush on. (C'mon, we all knew she, at least initially, had a thing for Hisao during the first act, and it remains if you get on her route.)

ProfAllister wrote: 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?

She held in the depression. Seeing them together made it get worse everyday, until she finally cracked.

ProfAllister wrote:

Oddball wrote:t 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.

Umm... no. You're both wrong. The Lilly/Shizune debate isn't black and white. It's a matter of the rights of the many versus the rights of the few. Shizune believes that making the whole school happy by doing so much for the festival is what's most important, while Lilly believes that all of the extra workload Shizune puts in the festivals isn't worth the increase of happiness (if any) that comes as a result from her work, but above all, not if it the extra workload would require Lilly to take time away from aiding individual students that need help.

Think of it like this:
f(t)=h, where t is time put into the festivals, and h is the increase in happiness it would produce.
Shizune believes that this is a linear function, so as t increases, h increases proportionally, while Lilly believes that this an exponential function, where an increasing, conclave down parabola is produced, so as t increases, h increases at a progressively slower rate, to the point that the time put into the festivals isn't worth the happiness it produces.

And they said Stats class was useless.

WARNING: In order not to be a hypocrite, everything in the spoiler... cloak?, I dunno, Spoiler-thingie, contains spoilers to all 5 routes. The rest of the post, (that is not censored) contains spoilers to Emi and Hanako's route, (but mainly Emi). You have been warned.

Oh, and another thing,

ProfAllister wrote: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.

• 1. Spoilers, cover up 'dem spoilers.
  2. That's a little harsh and over the top.
  3. Okay, about Hanako, that's not why she had sex with Hisao. She had sex with him as a desperate last-ditch (that's a saying, right?) effort to get Hisao to see her as something more than someone that needed protecting (well, he did, she just didn't know that, but that's beside the point.) Would she've cried rape if he did decide to leave? No, of course not. She wouldn't want her have Hisao "bond" to her out of blackmail, but only if it was out of Hisao's free will.
  4. On Emi: ...w...wha...h...how?...Did you even READ her route?!?!? First off, she had a boyfriend before because she had feelings for him, not because she wanted to have sex all the time. She left him (and if I recall correctly, Emi broke up with him, not the otherway around) because he tried to be a "white knight", and Emi felt that, as a result, he was only helping her so that he,
  • A. could get Emi to have sex with him when ever he wanted,
    B. feel better about himself because he fixed the "broken, crippled, legless girl",
    or C. both.
  In other words, Emi felt, kinda used. Whether or not that was her ex-boyfriend's intentions however, is unknown.
  Secondly, if she was a slut, she wouldn't have left her boyfriend (again, it's stated, or at least implied, that she left him), because then she couldn't have sex with him.
  Lastly, Emi wouldn't leave Hisao.
  • A. As stated before, she wouldn't "leave Hisao the moment she meets a guy with a bigger dick." because she isn't a slut,
    B. Why would she leave Hisao if she specifically asked him not to leave her? She literally says, "Don't leave me."- I think that this can be short for: I won't leave you, and please, don't leave me.

Now can we please keep this discussion, a little less heated?

Lianam wrote:-snip-

he's casting deliberately negative interpretations on the other girls in the same way that everyone else casts them on Shizune, his conclusions being blatantly wrong are the entire point.

...sarcasm does not carry on the internet. Still, mark 'dem Spoilers!

Lianam wrote:C'mon, we all knew she, at least initially, had a thing for Hisao during the first act, and it remains if you get on her route.

Trust me, I know that's what she's think about. How? Because I've gone through what Misha went through

B. Why would she leave Hisao if she specifically asked him not to leave her? She literally says, "Don't leave me."- I think that this can be short for: I won't leave you, and please, don't leave me.

We all know something that isn't evident at all? And you can read someone's thoughts just because you experienced something kind of similar and for some reason believe a person completely different from you would mirror your thought processes?

Whoa.

"Why would she leave Hisao if she specifically asked him not to leave her?" ...Ask Lilly.

Xanatos wrote:"Why would she leave Hisao if she specifically asked him not to leave her?" ...Ask Lilly.

Loopholes.

Lilly asked Hisao to not leave her.
She never said anything about her leaving him.

Xanatos wrote:And you can read someone's thoughts just because you experienced something kind of similar and for some reason believe a person completely different from you would mirror your thought processes?

Whoa.

Point taken. Honestly, I had a vague idea and that was the first thing that came to mind in trying to support that theory.

But it is a logical assumption when you think about it:
Well she isn't depressed at the end of Shizune's route and she was depressed because Shizune wouldn't be her girlfriend. Therefore, she's accepted that Shizune won't be her girlfriend and she's moved on, therefore, assuming she's hoping she'll find a mutual lover (which is something I expect Human-beings to want) that she know's won't be Shizune, then we can assume she hopes to find to find someone else.

Xanatos wrote:We all know something that isn't evident at all?

You really didn't pick up on that? Well, then again, I kinda assumed that at the beginning of Act 1, and a lot of what Misha said and the actions Shizune and Misha did seemed to support that. Just try playing Act 1 with the assumption that is the case and you'll see why I thought that.

Xanatos wrote:"Why would she leave Hisao if she specifically asked him not to leave her?" ...Ask Lilly.

Haven't played Lilly's route yet, so I have an excuse to use (apparently) flawed logic.

Lianam wrote:Just try playing Act 1 with the assumption that is the case and you'll see why I thought that.

Yes, I'm sure going into a route with weird preconceived assumptions would color the experience a fair bit. But it's still a stretch.

Xanatos wrote:

Lianam wrote:Just try playing Act 1 with the assumption that is the case and you'll see why I thought that.

Yes, I'm sure going into a route with weird preconceived assumptions would color the experience a fair bit. But it's still a stretch.

Well, that assumption wasn't disproven and the more I played, more evidence showed up that seemed to support this.

I dunno, maybe I am over thinking things. Let try to get another opinion. Does anyone else seem to think that?