Bleach: Geometry
Nov. 3rd, 2005 02:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
branchandrootKubo is very given to matching up his symbolism in twos and his people in threes. Sometimes, of course, the symbols get triangulated and the people get paired, but in general he seems to favor the other way around.
Swords. Byakuya and Rukia have remarkably similar images associated with their swords; both hold the swords point down for one release or another, and both swords are white at some point. Byakuya's is shown as a white blade in it's final form, in 164. Rukia's, of course, is named First White Snow (or Sleeve of White Snow, depending on the translation you favor; I follow ocean's translation), and characterized by being totally white. This underlines the similarities in attitude that the two have, such as reserve and arrogance--the starkness of white--and helps emphasize the bond between them that even the characters don't always acknowledge.
Rukia and Ichigo are opposing images in this. The comments of others, on first seeing their swords released, note the color. "A black/white zanpaku-tou..." Since the zanpaku-tou are expressions of spiritual force, given shape by the developing spirit of the shinigami, this says some interesting things about kinship and complementarity. So, too, Byakuya and Ichigo are established as "White Pride" and "Black Passion", as the title of 165 puts it. They balance and oppose.
Back to similarities, we can observe that, in the first chapter, the pattern on the guard of Rukia's sword is clearly shown. After she has transferred her spiritual force to Ichigo, the sword he uses has exactly the same shape and guard-pattern, though in a much larger size. This suggests that, as Renji and Byakuya note later, Ichigo has provided only the raw force; Rukia provided the shape. We might say that, during the first arc, Ichigo was fighting with Rukia's spirit. Only after Byakuya cuts free her spiritual power from Ichigo does Ichigo have a chance to develop his own zanpaku-tou.
Masks. The Visored and the Arrancar are mirror images, as their names reflect. The Visored start as shinigami and gain a Hollow-ness, and the mask of a Hollow; note that "visor" is another word for something that covers the face. The Arrancar start as Hollows and gain shinigami powers, losing their masks; "arrancar" is a Spanish verb meaning to rip away or uproot. (More about the connection and difference between Hollows and shinigami on Hueca Mundo.)
Uniforms. This one forms something of a continuum. At one end are the shinigami uniforms, gi and hakama, black with white underthings. At the other end are the Arrancar uniforms, hakama and some variation on a tight-fitting coat, white with black linings. In the middle of the range, making the connection between them especially clear, is Ichigo, whose uniform during bankai is tailored like an Arrancar's but colored like a shinigami's, and, just to add to the complications, tattered like Zangetsu's coat. Note that Aizen, when we first see him among his Arrancar, wears the tailored white coat over a shinigami uniform; he has not merged the possibilities the way Ichigo does, but rather added one to the other.
Hunger. In 62, Ginta tells Ichigo that for a soul to feel hunger means that it's on the edge of becoming a Hollow. According to Rangiku's memory of when she met Gin, for a soul to feel hunger is a sign of spiritual power and the potential to become shinigami. Kubo gives us quite a few clues to lead us toward the idea that Hollows and shinigami are connected, or converging on a common center.
The complexity of relationships in this story is wonderful. I particularly like it that, rather than having romance out of balance with everything else, either hugely over-weighted or else brushed off with a token gesture, it is woven in with all the other strong emotional bonds.
Rukia-Ichigo-Orihime. Ichigo has equally intense relationships with both Rukia and Orihime; they are not, however, equivalents or rivals or anything cliche like that. This evolves quite reasonably from their characters. Orihime is deeply determined and courageous, but she is also, as Ishida has cause to note during the Rescue arc, not a fighter per se. It carries over, emotionally, in that she does not force confrontations. Rukia, on the other hand, would never dream of letting Ichigo have his space when there's a chance she might talk/pound some sense into him. Orihime is the healer; Rukia is the wake-up call. They both motivate him, but in very different ways; and, as Rangiku points out in 201, Ichigo needs both their ways to stay on an even keel. And, while Ichigo has a fixation on rescuing both of them, Rukia's need for and acceptance of that is a limited-time thing, intense but pointed, much the way that being able to protect her life pulled Ichigo once and for all past his helplessness in face of his mother's death. Orihime accepts that protectiveness of her as an ongoing thing, a reflection of her protectiveness of him.
Ichigo-Rukia-Renji. In a reflection of the set above, Rukia has equally intense relationships with Ichigo and Renji. At first glance, again, she seems to relate to both very similarly--with lots of yelling and name-calling and pummeling. Again, however, what they are to her differs according to character and circumstance. Just as she is Ichigo's lifeline and moral compass, he is hers, the one who shoves back her apathy and sets an example. Renji, ironically for such a tough-talker, is her emotional comfort. The division of forces between them is telling; Ichigo is the one who stops the moment of her execution, but Renji is the one who carries her away.
I would say, in fact, that these two triangles form a reflecting pair. Both Orihime and Renji offer continuous support, though both of them are somewhat hampered by their respective traditional roles (Japanese school-girl and vice-captain). Ichigo and Rukia both offer each other sharp, singular moments of support. Looking for words that condense the flavor of the difference, I would say that the first is emotional support and comfort, while the second is spiritual support and comfort.
Byakuya-Hisana-Rukia. This one is just fascinating, and seems to revolve around sameness and absence. Hisana, of course, is physically absent, first from Rukia's life and then from Byakuya's. This points up the amount of time Byakuya has spent emotionally absent from Rukia's life, in parallel opposition to the way her emotional presence in his life is a pointed reminder of Hisana's absence. The stabbing point of that reminder, of course, is the strong resemblance between the sisters. And that resemblance may call to mind the similarities between Byakuya and Rukia; they share the graveness of their manners (except when Rukia is dealing with Renji or Ichigo), a tendency to keep things from their important people and try to take everything on their own shoulders, and even a style of fighting.
Ichigo-Ishida. Kubo seemed to take some amusement in paralleling these two, when we first meet Ishida, even giving them the same words with which to fend off social contact, as Orihime notices. ("It's no big deal" 35.13) Mizuro also notes the similarity of their general social grumpiness. This despite their stylistic contrast, of hot versus cold tempers. They both have the one-on-one ideal of fighting, certainly, as we see when they meet up for the second time, during the Hollow infestation. Their adherence to a personal reason for fighting (not out of duty or for an old grudge) also parallels. They each provide a mirror and critique of the other's way of dealing with life, power and trouble.
Hitsugaya takes part in two different triangles of the same shape. Hitsugaya-Hinamori-Aizen is one, and Hitsugaya-Rangiku-Ichimaru is another. In both cases, the woman has to choose between her captain and a childhood friend. In both cases, the woman turns away from her childhood friend and toward her captain. In the first case, Hitsugaya is the one Hinamori turns away from; in the second, he is the one Rangiku turns toward. In one instance, the captain is Good and in the other he is Bad, yet the pattern stays the same; and in the Bad case, Hitsugaya (Good captain) is the alternative, just to make it more pointed. That Kubo went to the trouble of setting these triangles up so precisely highlights that the loyalty owed to duty, rather than the loyalty owed to friends, forms the backbone of how shinigami act. Which, of course, is one reason Ichigo is such a startling and chaotic-seeming intrusion into their world.
Brothers. Orihime and her brother, and Rukia and Byakuya make a pair, the first paving the narrative way for the second. In both cases the brother expresses an intention to kill his sister, and in both cases Ichigo is especially incensed and insists that big brothers exist to protect their younger siblings. Orihime and her brother form a short, high-contrast view. Having become Hollowed, he expresses the worst sort of possessiveness toward Orihime, wanting her to either live for him or at lest die for him. Given her sympathy, he winds up "dying" for her, in the end. This sets us up with the clue that un-brotherly behavior may, in fact, rise out of love and be twisted by miscommunication. Byakuya and Rukia, in a more complex register, are certainly textbook examples of miscommunication.
Rukia and Ichigo--Rain. These two ping-pong back and forth, calling to mind for each other past episodes of their lives, reliving those episodes, and eventually changing them. Ichigo's fight with the Grand Fisher, who killed his mother, recalls for Rukia Kaien's fight with the Hollow that killed his wife. In both cases she is asked not to interfere. In Kaien's case this results in his death; Ichigo, however, survives, offering her some redemption from the past iteration.
Byakuya and Renji's arrival to take Rukia into custody, and Ichigo's attempt to stop them, recalls for him the incident in which his mother was killed. Again, he thinks, he tries to save someone only to wind up being the one saved at the cost of someone important to him (57). The unchanging repetition drives him to make a far more extended effort to save Rukia, and, when it finally succeeds, he thinks that, because of Rukia, the rain has stopped. Given how consistently the painful-past scenes, and their reiterations, are marked by rain, and what Zangetsu tells us about rain marking sadness in Ichigo's inner world, the end of the rain serves as a fairly dramatic sign that Ichigo's painful past has been rewritten and redeemed, as Rukia's was.
Rukia and Ishida--Family. Rukia and Ishida share a rather painful relationship with their families. Both Rukia's brother and Ishida's father deny them the opportunity to advance in an attempt to protect them from the dangers that power and responsibility would bring. Neither Rukia (134) nor Ishida (124) understand at the time what motivates their guardians to denigrate their ability. Both of them wish to be acknowledged by their families. Since Kubo seems to pair or repeat things he particularly wants us to notice, I suspect this pattern of the powerful stifling those close to them in an effort to protect them will be one that Ichigo has to deal with in some form as he gains in power.
Symbols
Swords. Byakuya and Rukia have remarkably similar images associated with their swords; both hold the swords point down for one release or another, and both swords are white at some point. Byakuya's is shown as a white blade in it's final form, in 164. Rukia's, of course, is named First White Snow (or Sleeve of White Snow, depending on the translation you favor; I follow ocean's translation), and characterized by being totally white. This underlines the similarities in attitude that the two have, such as reserve and arrogance--the starkness of white--and helps emphasize the bond between them that even the characters don't always acknowledge.
Rukia and Ichigo are opposing images in this. The comments of others, on first seeing their swords released, note the color. "A black/white zanpaku-tou..." Since the zanpaku-tou are expressions of spiritual force, given shape by the developing spirit of the shinigami, this says some interesting things about kinship and complementarity. So, too, Byakuya and Ichigo are established as "White Pride" and "Black Passion", as the title of 165 puts it. They balance and oppose.
Back to similarities, we can observe that, in the first chapter, the pattern on the guard of Rukia's sword is clearly shown. After she has transferred her spiritual force to Ichigo, the sword he uses has exactly the same shape and guard-pattern, though in a much larger size. This suggests that, as Renji and Byakuya note later, Ichigo has provided only the raw force; Rukia provided the shape. We might say that, during the first arc, Ichigo was fighting with Rukia's spirit. Only after Byakuya cuts free her spiritual power from Ichigo does Ichigo have a chance to develop his own zanpaku-tou.
Masks. The Visored and the Arrancar are mirror images, as their names reflect. The Visored start as shinigami and gain a Hollow-ness, and the mask of a Hollow; note that "visor" is another word for something that covers the face. The Arrancar start as Hollows and gain shinigami powers, losing their masks; "arrancar" is a Spanish verb meaning to rip away or uproot. (More about the connection and difference between Hollows and shinigami on Hueca Mundo.)
Uniforms. This one forms something of a continuum. At one end are the shinigami uniforms, gi and hakama, black with white underthings. At the other end are the Arrancar uniforms, hakama and some variation on a tight-fitting coat, white with black linings. In the middle of the range, making the connection between them especially clear, is Ichigo, whose uniform during bankai is tailored like an Arrancar's but colored like a shinigami's, and, just to add to the complications, tattered like Zangetsu's coat. Note that Aizen, when we first see him among his Arrancar, wears the tailored white coat over a shinigami uniform; he has not merged the possibilities the way Ichigo does, but rather added one to the other.
Hunger. In 62, Ginta tells Ichigo that for a soul to feel hunger means that it's on the edge of becoming a Hollow. According to Rangiku's memory of when she met Gin, for a soul to feel hunger is a sign of spiritual power and the potential to become shinigami. Kubo gives us quite a few clues to lead us toward the idea that Hollows and shinigami are connected, or converging on a common center.
.
People
The complexity of relationships in this story is wonderful. I particularly like it that, rather than having romance out of balance with everything else, either hugely over-weighted or else brushed off with a token gesture, it is woven in with all the other strong emotional bonds.
Rukia-Ichigo-Orihime. Ichigo has equally intense relationships with both Rukia and Orihime; they are not, however, equivalents or rivals or anything cliche like that. This evolves quite reasonably from their characters. Orihime is deeply determined and courageous, but she is also, as Ishida has cause to note during the Rescue arc, not a fighter per se. It carries over, emotionally, in that she does not force confrontations. Rukia, on the other hand, would never dream of letting Ichigo have his space when there's a chance she might talk/pound some sense into him. Orihime is the healer; Rukia is the wake-up call. They both motivate him, but in very different ways; and, as Rangiku points out in 201, Ichigo needs both their ways to stay on an even keel. And, while Ichigo has a fixation on rescuing both of them, Rukia's need for and acceptance of that is a limited-time thing, intense but pointed, much the way that being able to protect her life pulled Ichigo once and for all past his helplessness in face of his mother's death. Orihime accepts that protectiveness of her as an ongoing thing, a reflection of her protectiveness of him.
Ichigo-Rukia-Renji. In a reflection of the set above, Rukia has equally intense relationships with Ichigo and Renji. At first glance, again, she seems to relate to both very similarly--with lots of yelling and name-calling and pummeling. Again, however, what they are to her differs according to character and circumstance. Just as she is Ichigo's lifeline and moral compass, he is hers, the one who shoves back her apathy and sets an example. Renji, ironically for such a tough-talker, is her emotional comfort. The division of forces between them is telling; Ichigo is the one who stops the moment of her execution, but Renji is the one who carries her away.
I would say, in fact, that these two triangles form a reflecting pair. Both Orihime and Renji offer continuous support, though both of them are somewhat hampered by their respective traditional roles (Japanese school-girl and vice-captain). Ichigo and Rukia both offer each other sharp, singular moments of support. Looking for words that condense the flavor of the difference, I would say that the first is emotional support and comfort, while the second is spiritual support and comfort.
Byakuya-Hisana-Rukia. This one is just fascinating, and seems to revolve around sameness and absence. Hisana, of course, is physically absent, first from Rukia's life and then from Byakuya's. This points up the amount of time Byakuya has spent emotionally absent from Rukia's life, in parallel opposition to the way her emotional presence in his life is a pointed reminder of Hisana's absence. The stabbing point of that reminder, of course, is the strong resemblance between the sisters. And that resemblance may call to mind the similarities between Byakuya and Rukia; they share the graveness of their manners (except when Rukia is dealing with Renji or Ichigo), a tendency to keep things from their important people and try to take everything on their own shoulders, and even a style of fighting.
Ichigo-Ishida. Kubo seemed to take some amusement in paralleling these two, when we first meet Ishida, even giving them the same words with which to fend off social contact, as Orihime notices. ("It's no big deal" 35.13) Mizuro also notes the similarity of their general social grumpiness. This despite their stylistic contrast, of hot versus cold tempers. They both have the one-on-one ideal of fighting, certainly, as we see when they meet up for the second time, during the Hollow infestation. Their adherence to a personal reason for fighting (not out of duty or for an old grudge) also parallels. They each provide a mirror and critique of the other's way of dealing with life, power and trouble.
Hitsugaya takes part in two different triangles of the same shape. Hitsugaya-Hinamori-Aizen is one, and Hitsugaya-Rangiku-Ichimaru is another. In both cases, the woman has to choose between her captain and a childhood friend. In both cases, the woman turns away from her childhood friend and toward her captain. In the first case, Hitsugaya is the one Hinamori turns away from; in the second, he is the one Rangiku turns toward. In one instance, the captain is Good and in the other he is Bad, yet the pattern stays the same; and in the Bad case, Hitsugaya (Good captain) is the alternative, just to make it more pointed. That Kubo went to the trouble of setting these triangles up so precisely highlights that the loyalty owed to duty, rather than the loyalty owed to friends, forms the backbone of how shinigami act. Which, of course, is one reason Ichigo is such a startling and chaotic-seeming intrusion into their world.
.
In Between
Brothers. Orihime and her brother, and Rukia and Byakuya make a pair, the first paving the narrative way for the second. In both cases the brother expresses an intention to kill his sister, and in both cases Ichigo is especially incensed and insists that big brothers exist to protect their younger siblings. Orihime and her brother form a short, high-contrast view. Having become Hollowed, he expresses the worst sort of possessiveness toward Orihime, wanting her to either live for him or at lest die for him. Given her sympathy, he winds up "dying" for her, in the end. This sets us up with the clue that un-brotherly behavior may, in fact, rise out of love and be twisted by miscommunication. Byakuya and Rukia, in a more complex register, are certainly textbook examples of miscommunication.
Rukia and Ichigo--Rain. These two ping-pong back and forth, calling to mind for each other past episodes of their lives, reliving those episodes, and eventually changing them. Ichigo's fight with the Grand Fisher, who killed his mother, recalls for Rukia Kaien's fight with the Hollow that killed his wife. In both cases she is asked not to interfere. In Kaien's case this results in his death; Ichigo, however, survives, offering her some redemption from the past iteration.
Byakuya and Renji's arrival to take Rukia into custody, and Ichigo's attempt to stop them, recalls for him the incident in which his mother was killed. Again, he thinks, he tries to save someone only to wind up being the one saved at the cost of someone important to him (57). The unchanging repetition drives him to make a far more extended effort to save Rukia, and, when it finally succeeds, he thinks that, because of Rukia, the rain has stopped. Given how consistently the painful-past scenes, and their reiterations, are marked by rain, and what Zangetsu tells us about rain marking sadness in Ichigo's inner world, the end of the rain serves as a fairly dramatic sign that Ichigo's painful past has been rewritten and redeemed, as Rukia's was.
Rukia and Ishida--Family. Rukia and Ishida share a rather painful relationship with their families. Both Rukia's brother and Ishida's father deny them the opportunity to advance in an attempt to protect them from the dangers that power and responsibility would bring. Neither Rukia (134) nor Ishida (124) understand at the time what motivates their guardians to denigrate their ability. Both of them wish to be acknowledged by their families. Since Kubo seems to pair or repeat things he particularly wants us to notice, I suspect this pattern of the powerful stifling those close to them in an effort to protect them will be one that Ichigo has to deal with in some form as he gains in power.
