Hmm, you might have a point, and that would make it another sort of safety mechanism--Mai loves intensely, and with a degree of self-sacrifice that can be unhealthy, although it doesn't have to be (I was very irked by someone who characterized her love for Takumi as dysfunctional. Having separation issues when the brother you've raised starts to grow up does not make your love for him dysfunctional, it just makes it complicated), thus, she possesses enormous power. But she loves widely, and if she ran rampant with her power, she would hurt or alienate the people she loves.
(Perhaps that's another constraint on Shizuru? She not only hides her love from Natsuki, who she knows cannot or will not accept it, but she always wants Natsuki to think well of her. It's only when Natsuki is in direct physical danger that she's willing to use brutal violence where Natsuki can see--and it freaks Natsuki out, just as Shizuru probably anticipated.)
I don't think Mai displays the same degree of obsession with either Takumi or Tate that Shizuru does with Natsuki (and I think Takumi had to have been her original MIP; she simply didn't know Tate that well when she accepted Katsuguchi, and she explicitly accepted him to save Takumi from the Orphan). Though she responds to Takumi's death with unholy rage, and violently attacks another person she loves, she (emotionally) withdraws the attack at the last minute (oopsie), and then absolutely breaks down when Mikoto "dies," even though she thinks Mikoto was responsible for Takumi's death. Did Mai withdraw because she loved Takumi less than Shizuru loved Natsuki, or because she's invested in more than one person, and thus better equipped to deal with loss?
While the setup is clear--intensity of love of her Most Important Person determines a HiME's power level* (Natsuki's loss of the curiously underpowered Duran when her memory of her mother is shattered is pretty much cinches it for me), it seems like in the end, the show says that it's not just the MIP, HiMEs get power from all the people they love, hence her summoning Katsuguchi even after Tate is dead. I wondered when Takumi died if he hadn't been Mai's MIP at the time, and then her MIP switched over to Tate, whom she had intense feelings for (I also speculated that when Tate died, she would still be able to summon Katsuguchi because she still loved Mikoto. I don't think I ever got any positive evidence for that, but I don't recall if it was explicitly denied, either). Mai appears to love three different characters with equal fervor--Tate, romantically, and Takumi and Mikoto, in a motherly, sororital way; none of the other HiMEs do that. Akira only loves Takumi, Shizuru only loves Natsuki, Shiho only loves Tate.
Foo. Now that I'm really thinking about it, I wonder if the power-only-from-a-MIP thing (MIP is fan terminology anyway) isn't a cipher. Maybe it's just love-is-power.
*Initial fan speculation suggested that the degree of dysfunction in a HiME's love for her MIP determined her power level, which I don't quite buy. Though I may look askance at the 24-year-old's love for her older college professor, the show doesn't imply that it's unhealthy or dysfunctional, and Midori's pretty strong--and if twisted love equals strength, Nao's love for her mother, which is mixed in with aimless hatred and drive for revenge, should make her much stronger than she is. It also just doesn't fit with the show as a whole, particularly the light-hearted ending.
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ninetydegrees
whoa, essay
on 2005-08-07 04:32 pm (UTC)(Perhaps that's another constraint on Shizuru? She not only hides her love from Natsuki, who she knows cannot or will not accept it, but she always wants Natsuki to think well of her. It's only when Natsuki is in direct physical danger that she's willing to use brutal violence where Natsuki can see--and it freaks Natsuki out, just as Shizuru probably anticipated.)
I don't think Mai displays the same degree of obsession with either Takumi or Tate that Shizuru does with Natsuki (and I think Takumi had to have been her original MIP; she simply didn't know Tate that well when she accepted Katsuguchi, and she explicitly accepted him to save Takumi from the Orphan). Though she responds to Takumi's death with unholy rage, and violently attacks another person she loves, she (emotionally) withdraws the attack at the last minute (oopsie), and then absolutely breaks down when Mikoto "dies," even though she thinks Mikoto was responsible for Takumi's death. Did Mai withdraw because she loved Takumi less than Shizuru loved Natsuki, or because she's invested in more than one person, and thus better equipped to deal with loss?
While the setup is clear--intensity of love of her Most Important Person determines a HiME's power level* (Natsuki's loss of the curiously underpowered Duran when her memory of her mother is shattered is pretty much cinches it for me), it seems like in the end, the show says that it's not just the MIP, HiMEs get power from all the people they love, hence her summoning Katsuguchi even after Tate is dead. I wondered when Takumi died if he hadn't been Mai's MIP at the time, and then her MIP switched over to Tate, whom she had intense feelings for (I also speculated that when Tate died, she would still be able to summon Katsuguchi because she still loved Mikoto. I don't think I ever got any positive evidence for that, but I don't recall if it was explicitly denied, either). Mai appears to love three different characters with equal fervor--Tate, romantically, and Takumi and Mikoto, in a motherly, sororital way; none of the other HiMEs do that. Akira only loves Takumi, Shizuru only loves Natsuki, Shiho only loves Tate.
Foo. Now that I'm really thinking about it, I wonder if the power-only-from-a-MIP thing (MIP is fan terminology anyway) isn't a cipher. Maybe it's just love-is-power.
*Initial fan speculation suggested that the degree of dysfunction in a HiME's love for her MIP determined her power level, which I don't quite buy. Though I may look askance at the 24-year-old's love for her older college professor, the show doesn't imply that it's unhealthy or dysfunctional, and Midori's pretty strong--and if twisted love equals strength, Nao's love for her mother, which is mixed in with aimless hatred and drive for revenge, should make her much stronger than she is. It also just doesn't fit with the show as a whole, particularly the light-hearted ending.