Partial redemption of Clow Reed
Nov. 10th, 2010 12:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
branchandrootOkay, I think I may have a rationalization for Card Captor Sakura that does not make Clow Reed an utter bastard.
Because when you think about what he did to Yue, in particular, well... utter bastard, yes.
He essentially says to Yue, who loves him, "I'm fixing to die and I'm going to pass you on like a piece of property, but look on the bright side I'll let you pick who your next owner is; only, surprise, I'm also going to fix the deal so that you don't have an actual choice, instead I'm going to totally ignore and overwrite the choice I know you'll make!" If he was going to fix the deal, he shouldn't have told Yue he'd be the one to choose, and if Yue was actually to be given that choice, there should not have been any cheating with bells. In external terms, this is, of course, just CLAMP's usual carelessness with the details. Internally, though, Clow = utter bastard.
However, there is a way out of this is we posit that, to divide his soul, he had to make the halves roughly equal in "weight". From this it follows that, if Eriol got all the memories and all the magic, then Fujitaka must have gotten something else, and a fairly significant something else at that, to balance them out. Looking at how the two of them turn out, it isn't terribly hard to imagine what that might have been.
Eriol is courteous enough, but he's distant. He doesn't have much, if any, visible emotional engagement with anyone around him, especially in the manga. He also seems to be taking some actual amusement from what he does to Sakura, and that goes beyond "twisted sense of humor" to "really a little sadistic". I'd wonder about Mizuki Kaho supposedly being in cosmic love with him, but frankly her sense of humor seems rather twisted too so perhaps they'll do all right after all.
Fujitaka, on the other hand, is quite possibly the sweetest human being on the face of the earth. He's unendingly gentle and patient with his children despite his heavy teaching and excavating and house-husbanding schedule; he's kind and courteous to Nadeshiko's family who seem to spend most of their time calling him names; he's perfectly welcoming to his son's boyfriend who is, incidentally, a mystical construct; and he has succeeded in raising two well-socialized, bright, responsible, and energetic children as a single parent.
I don't think it's actually a stretch to suggest that what Fujitaka got was Clow Reed's heart.
If we posit this, then it makes perfect sense that Clow would wish Yue and Keroberos and the cards to be in the keeping of the half with the heart, but that half has no magic. And the magic half has no heart. Problem! Fujitaka will have a daughter, though, and she has plenty of heart, her father's example, and magic to boot. Yue et al will be cared for by the whole family of Clow's heart, if they go to her. Solution!
Of course, being a foreseer, he knows the cards will come to Sakura very young, and that she won't have the strength to defeat Yue as he demands unless she knows, viscerally, the consequences of losing. Thus the second-chance with the bell. It is entirely possible that Clow thought it would be obvious that she won on the strength of her own heart, rather than by his interference, and that in any case it would be enough that she defeated Yue in the end. He might have even believed that she would win his heart by doing so, the same way she becomes the most beloved of the cards by defeating and sealing them.
Honestly, I see some serious BDSM themes in CCS.
At any rate, if we posit that Clow honestly intended to keep Yue within the protection of his heart, I can much more easily write off the rest of it as Clow really being a little clueless when it comes to love. Which, fortuitously, also explains how he could possibly fail to foresee that Yue-as-Yukito would love Touya and vice versa.
...of course, now I'm actually wondering a little about that whole "binding equals love" theme, and just how it would apply to Touya and Yue. Hmmmm.
Because when you think about what he did to Yue, in particular, well... utter bastard, yes.
He essentially says to Yue, who loves him, "I'm fixing to die and I'm going to pass you on like a piece of property, but look on the bright side I'll let you pick who your next owner is; only, surprise, I'm also going to fix the deal so that you don't have an actual choice, instead I'm going to totally ignore and overwrite the choice I know you'll make!" If he was going to fix the deal, he shouldn't have told Yue he'd be the one to choose, and if Yue was actually to be given that choice, there should not have been any cheating with bells. In external terms, this is, of course, just CLAMP's usual carelessness with the details. Internally, though, Clow = utter bastard.
However, there is a way out of this is we posit that, to divide his soul, he had to make the halves roughly equal in "weight". From this it follows that, if Eriol got all the memories and all the magic, then Fujitaka must have gotten something else, and a fairly significant something else at that, to balance them out. Looking at how the two of them turn out, it isn't terribly hard to imagine what that might have been.
Eriol is courteous enough, but he's distant. He doesn't have much, if any, visible emotional engagement with anyone around him, especially in the manga. He also seems to be taking some actual amusement from what he does to Sakura, and that goes beyond "twisted sense of humor" to "really a little sadistic". I'd wonder about Mizuki Kaho supposedly being in cosmic love with him, but frankly her sense of humor seems rather twisted too so perhaps they'll do all right after all.
Fujitaka, on the other hand, is quite possibly the sweetest human being on the face of the earth. He's unendingly gentle and patient with his children despite his heavy teaching and excavating and house-husbanding schedule; he's kind and courteous to Nadeshiko's family who seem to spend most of their time calling him names; he's perfectly welcoming to his son's boyfriend who is, incidentally, a mystical construct; and he has succeeded in raising two well-socialized, bright, responsible, and energetic children as a single parent.
I don't think it's actually a stretch to suggest that what Fujitaka got was Clow Reed's heart.
If we posit this, then it makes perfect sense that Clow would wish Yue and Keroberos and the cards to be in the keeping of the half with the heart, but that half has no magic. And the magic half has no heart. Problem! Fujitaka will have a daughter, though, and she has plenty of heart, her father's example, and magic to boot. Yue et al will be cared for by the whole family of Clow's heart, if they go to her. Solution!
Of course, being a foreseer, he knows the cards will come to Sakura very young, and that she won't have the strength to defeat Yue as he demands unless she knows, viscerally, the consequences of losing. Thus the second-chance with the bell. It is entirely possible that Clow thought it would be obvious that she won on the strength of her own heart, rather than by his interference, and that in any case it would be enough that she defeated Yue in the end. He might have even believed that she would win his heart by doing so, the same way she becomes the most beloved of the cards by defeating and sealing them.
Honestly, I see some serious BDSM themes in CCS.
At any rate, if we posit that Clow honestly intended to keep Yue within the protection of his heart, I can much more easily write off the rest of it as Clow really being a little clueless when it comes to love. Which, fortuitously, also explains how he could possibly fail to foresee that Yue-as-Yukito would love Touya and vice versa.
...of course, now I'm actually wondering a little about that whole "binding equals love" theme, and just how it would apply to Touya and Yue. Hmmmm.
