Kendappa-ou and Kurogane thoughts

[katharos]

My opinion of Kendappa-ou sinks dramatically in the last few chapters of RG Veda, although I can still wibble over her and Souma's death. But the revelation of her motivations makes my teeth grind.

Her obsession with mere strength, stregth defined by how much more powerful you are than the next person and her idea that strength justifies you, justifies your position as a ruler. That strength is your highest value as a person. And if you place the highest worth on strength than strength becomes, inevitably, the end rather than the means to achieve something.

But it does make me wonder about Clamp's choice of her as the ruler of Kurogane's Japan; that very same obsession with strength is Kurogane's big weakness. Maybe Tomoyo had another reason for sending him off an a trek around the worlds; maybe her big sister and Emperor was a really bad influence on him. And I really can't see that philosophy as a good one for a ruler to hold...

Comments

[katharos-8.livejournal.com]

I could see Kurogane picking up that attitude during his early days around them; it would be something he needed to believe, that fit in with what his Father had taught him but was more suited to the harshness and unfairness of his life now; If I become strong, nothing else will matter. If I'm strong, I can do anything.

She probably doesn't know exatly who the culprit is, but she may suspect that it's someone from another dimension. She has the same powers as Kurogane's mother afterall, and she's heard Kurogane's description of what happened, so she may have been able to figure out the means. Which would suggest a 'who.'