I think the parallelism between Ishida's love and Orihime's love bears looking at. Many fans have predicted disappointment for both. Many fans have tried to interpret both as "idealized" versions of love--Orihime's conforming with the Japanese notions of the highly passive, loving, caring woman and Ishida's with the "I want what's best for her" noble guy sort of thing.
And it's VERY true, as you say, that we're not going to get as much in the way from Ishida about his own feelings as from Orihime. But Ishida is self-reflective---unlike Ichigo who doesn't dwell beforehand on his cluelessness. Ishida is Hamlet in comparison. He goes "I do not yet know what I want to protect and neither do I understand my father, but I know what I cannot allow."
I figure he's going to get some self-revelation in the manga that's on the order of the one when he fell to his knees after saving Ichigo's life and realized that he'd been misplacing his anger on Shinigami because he was mad at himself for not trying to save his sensei's life. Ishida's just smart like that. He's going to come to terms with his feelings. The question is--how will he act?
Orihime seems to have a fair grasp of what she feels but she DOES NOT ACT. At this point, I'm waiting for her to act. Her Tsubaki, like her love for Ichigo, is that gun on the wall that has to be used by the third act of the play. What drives me crazy is how much the girl is suffering.
But I don't see Ishida suffering. One would assume T_T that he's got enough angst for a dozen teenage boys with his dead grandpa and mean dad and all, but we don't see suffering on the order of what we see Inoue going through because well, he's a BOY.
And it's my belief that he's not desiring more from Orihime than her happiness. Orihime holds back, as you say, but she is unhappy because she still wants things from Ichigo--his attention, for one. That makes for two very different kinds of love.
My shipping stance is that neither Orihime or Ishida have much hope at this point--for happiness with their respective love objects let alone for each other. In Real Life, their chances of getting together wouldn't be high, but because this is a STORY and Kubo has invested so much time in their relationship to one another as well as paralleling their relationships to other people... well, who knows? It's another "could be"--not a "HAS to be" like a gun on the wall. Just a could be.
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
timeasmymeasure
Re: wow this took a long while to reply to XD
Date: 2007-11-22 09:01 pm (UTC)No worries. You made yourself very clear to me!
I think the parallelism between Ishida's love and Orihime's love bears looking at. Many fans have predicted disappointment for both. Many fans have tried to interpret both as "idealized" versions of love--Orihime's conforming with the Japanese notions of the highly passive, loving, caring woman and Ishida's with the "I want what's best for her" noble guy sort of thing.
And it's VERY true, as you say, that we're not going to get as much in the way from Ishida about his own feelings as from Orihime. But Ishida is self-reflective---unlike Ichigo who doesn't dwell beforehand on his cluelessness. Ishida is Hamlet in comparison. He goes "I do not yet know what I want to protect and neither do I understand my father, but I know what I cannot allow."
I figure he's going to get some self-revelation in the manga that's on the order of the one when he fell to his knees after saving Ichigo's life and realized that he'd been misplacing his anger on Shinigami because he was mad at himself for not trying to save his sensei's life. Ishida's just smart like that. He's going to come to terms with his feelings. The question is--how will he act?
Orihime seems to have a fair grasp of what she feels but she DOES NOT ACT. At this point, I'm waiting for her to act. Her Tsubaki, like her love for Ichigo, is that gun on the wall that has to be used by the third act of the play. What drives me crazy is how much the girl is suffering.
But I don't see Ishida suffering. One would assume T_T that he's got enough angst for a dozen teenage boys with his dead grandpa and mean dad and all, but we don't see suffering on the order of what we see Inoue going through because well, he's a BOY.
And it's my belief that he's not desiring more from Orihime than her happiness. Orihime holds back, as you say, but she is unhappy because she still wants things from Ichigo--his attention, for one. That makes for two very different kinds of love.
My shipping stance is that neither Orihime or Ishida have much hope at this point--for happiness with their respective love objects let alone for each other. In Real Life, their chances of getting together wouldn't be high, but because this is a STORY and Kubo has invested so much time in their relationship to one another as well as paralleling their relationships to other people... well, who knows? It's another "could be"--not a "HAS to be" like a gun on the wall. Just a could be.