We've always known that fan translations, like pot, are a gateway drug to a life of hardcore crime danced upon the trampled bodies of starving crack babies.
And Yoko's story is more dramatically interesting, also, what with all the mortal peril and running around the countryside meeting mostly very terrible people, and having hideous, soul-destroying adventures. Taiki's story is positively domestic in contrast. I think it works well as sort of a follow-up expansion on how this divine ordinance mechanism is supposed to work.*
*I mean, it sounds so neat and cold and didactic, but almost from the beginning, we know about wassername--Joyei? The queen of Kei before Yoko? The one who was in love with Keiki, I mean--the one who was properly chosen by the kirin, and who should have had what it took to be a good monarch, but who failed quite horribly, instead. For whatever reason--because she lacked confidence, because she wasn't encouraged or supported by people who understood her and knew how to help her, because she didn't go through the right character-building experience/trauma like Yoko, because just having the potential to succeed doesn't guaranteed success--she didn't step up to the responsibilities of monarchy, and when Keiki, trying to adapt to her needs, offered her more emotional intimacy and support, she obsessively fixated on him and turned into an murderous monster. And there's also Kou, who we know had ruled for several decades before his prejudices ran his kingship and his country and his kirin into death and ruin. So clearly, what the divinely-inspired kirin are drawn to are merely the qualities that indicate the potential for kingly greatness, not a predetermination of same. Which is ever so much more interesting than the alternative.
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ninetydegrees
no subject
on 2009-11-18 03:53 am (UTC)We've always known that fan translations, like pot, are a gateway drug to a life of hardcore crime danced upon the trampled bodies of starving crack babies.And Yoko's story is more dramatically interesting, also, what with all the mortal peril and running around the countryside meeting mostly very terrible people, and having hideous, soul-destroying adventures. Taiki's story is positively domestic in contrast. I think it works well as sort of a follow-up expansion on how this divine ordinance mechanism is supposed to work.*
*I mean, it sounds so neat and cold and didactic, but almost from the beginning, we know about wassername--Joyei? The queen of Kei before Yoko? The one who was in love with Keiki, I mean--the one who was properly chosen by the kirin, and who should have had what it took to be a good monarch, but who failed quite horribly, instead. For whatever reason--because she lacked confidence, because she wasn't encouraged or supported by people who understood her and knew how to help her, because she didn't go through the right character-building experience/trauma like Yoko, because just having the potential to succeed doesn't guaranteed success--she didn't step up to the responsibilities of monarchy, and when Keiki, trying to adapt to her needs, offered her more emotional intimacy and support, she obsessively fixated on him and turned into an murderous monster. And there's also Kou, who we know had ruled for several decades before his prejudices ran his kingship and his country and his kirin into death and ruin. So clearly, what the divinely-inspired kirin are drawn to are merely the qualities that indicate the potential for kingly greatness, not a predetermination of same. Which is ever so much more interesting than the alternative.