Like I've mentioned before, Kyou is a character I've had to come to terms with after a while. I think it's just something about tsundere characters that causes me to inherently mistrust them. I think I tend to view those characters as manipulative to some degree, and I tend to have little pity when they make emotional problems for themselves. When I rewatched the series, though, I began to develop just that: sympathy for Kyou, and for everything she has to put up with.
Violent Tempests
Really, you can wrap it all up in this scene, right here. If you see this scene and think "Gee, I don't get Kyou at all. She just needs to get over it!" then you probably don't like the Kyou arc. That used to be me. When I gave it a second look, though, I really began to understand just what Kyou was all about. And it's really contained right here, in this video.
Kyou's heart is powerful, and there's a lot of things she wants. Kyou's greatest struggle is trying to understand how to reconcile those desires. She's literally torn between her and her sister, between wanting her sister to find happiness and her own attraction to Tomoya. This scene is where it all comes to a head. Kyou herself gives Tomoya the command to stay away from her, so that Ryou can be happy. She then leaves him to follow up on it.
It's a very different type of relationship from the Tomoyo or the Nagisa pairings. It's tumultuous and unsteady and very impassioned. It demands action from Tomoya. In the end, I can find that good and interesting as well. Every relationship, after all, reaches a sort of balance from one end of the spectrum to the other. The Tomoyo relationship began peacefully, and turned stormy, eventually stabilizing when Tomoya made his decision to grow up and take responsibility for his own life. The Kyou relationship begins violently, but everything clears up when Tomoya takes responsibility for his relationships, and chooses Kyou.
Stagnant Flames
This ending sees Tomoya in a really sticky situation. Youhei, in one of his rare moments of incredible intelligence and insight, rather sticks it to Tomoya for keeping it in this state. Kyou and Ryou both like Tomoya, and he's sort of trying to dance around the issue, pushing it off to avoid hurting them. He doesn't want to commit to something, and cause pain. Youhei points out that the longer he keeps it up, the more it'll hurt when he has to make a choice.
This is the significant point of the Kyou episode. With so many high-strung emotions going every which way on Kyou's part, there has to be a choice made. She's depending on Tomoya to choose, because it really is his call to make. And, compared to Tomoyo's chapter, what Tomoya winds up doing is rather pain-free. It's a neat resolution.
In fact, it's Kyou that goes through the most sacrifice here. She winds up disguising herself as her sister, on Ryou's suggestion, just to hear the truth from Tomoya. And it provides an avenue for Tomoya to make up for his mistakes. He makes his commitment, and this decision leads rather smoothly to the final resolution...
There's something interesting to be seen here, too, amidst the simple and happy ending. It's Kyou and what she says. She asks Tomoya if he really thinks she was the "right choice". She then tells him that she'll rest easy if he truly gets angry at that suggestion. It says a lot about Kyou. She's in reality a rather insecure person. With her passionate heart jerking her this way and that, she can't trust anyone else to stay with her. She needs reassurance. Since the language she speaks best is the passions of the heart, anger is simply another signal, for her. If Tomoya gets angry, that tells her that he really means what he says.
Oh, and there's one other video that I think would close this post nicely. It sums up Kyou pretty dang well.
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