Working way down yesterday's list
Jan. 17th, 2006 08:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petroniaI suspect in the long run I'm going to regret passing on the Feist show tonight. But oh well. >_>
Last night I lent Tania the Bleach anime (she was saying she didn't recognize half the names mentioned on my blog anymore; this cannot be allowed), and we watched episodes 19-22 - which I'd never seen in fact, since I skipped directly from 17 to 30 looking for Renji. Watching like this it hit home how beyond the pale Urahara's so-called training methods are. It's not the usual shounen manga training formula of "You must acquire this god-mode skill in 72 hours which is flat-out impossible but you must not FAIL because you have SOMETHING YOU WISH TO PROTECT" (later employed by Yoruichi), but "Well, you signed the waiver form, now you become the 1-in-1000 longshot or you die horribly." It's quite obvious that Urahara doesn't believe unquestioningly that Ichigo will make it; the kid has a chance, and the risk becomes more acceptable if you don't happen to care very much if he lives or dies per se, that's all. And seen from a perspective that includes the Allancar, the Visoreds (where did they come from?), the hougyoku and what we now know Urahara's training created within Ichigo - well, I dare anyone to argue that Urahara is even meant to be seen as "good". Loveable, perhaps, but that is not the same thing.
And for what?
Rukia is a terrible hiding place for a mcguffin any way you slice it. The idea that Urahara might have put the hougyoku in her as a baby in order to lose it in the Rukongai masses is ludicrous: not only because it seems vastly OOC for him to abandon control of the situation to said extent, but because he took care to make the operation reversible (and without damage to the "container" at that). Whomever he puts the hougyoku in, he intends to keep near at hand - to be able to take it back out if needed. So he must have placed it in Rukia during the gigai operation. But why Rukia?
Even if one assumes a normal human isn't powerful enough to hold the thing and only a shinigami-class soul will do, Urahara must have kept it somewhere for the past 100 years. In Tessai, in one of the kids, in a trunk in the attic - why not in himself, for that matter? The object itself doesn't seem to do any damage to the soul containing it. So why did the original hiding place become unsuitable? Did events in Soul Society (and we know Urahara has his "ins") cause him to feel threatened? But it's difficult to think of a hiding place more easily accessible to powerful elements in Soul Society than Rukia, a patrolling officer of the Gotei 13 who lives in Seireitei. Urahara could not possibly expect to stick Rukia in a power-absorbing gigai and have her remain indefinitely on a short leash on earth, because it runs counter to the Gotei 13's entire purpose to lose track of a patrolling officer and not have an accounting. Sooner or later, someone was going to come looking for her. The only question Urahara could have answered by this rigmarole is the only question that remains: who?
Rukia was bait. Urahara was dangling the hougyoku out there to see what fish snaps, and he smoked his opponent out admirably. I'd go a step further and venture that Aizen knew Rukia was bait - if he knew Urahara or could gauge his mental processes well enough, knowing that Urahara would sacrifice defense to flush out the enemy seems to me the otherwise missing intuitive link between "the patrolling shinigami in Urahara's sector has gone missing" and "the hougyoku is hidden inside Kuchiki Rukia". So Urahara certainly intends to send a force to recover the hougyoku once the experiment is over (ref. Aizen's question to Ichigo). So what? Aizen's preparations are flawless. At any moment he can choose to cross the Rubicon; Urahara may be trying to force his hand, but Aizen's hand is not forced. He will simply put his plans into motion now rather than later, go in with his eyes open, and win the exchange.
Yet another step: perhaps losing the hougyoku is not even such a sacrifice, to Urahara. (He sends Ichigo and company but as aforementioned it's hardly a position of blind trust - the kid has a good chance, but that's all.) What else does he know? What other inventions does he have up his sleeve? Perhaps he was willing to concede Aizen that advantage to begin with, in exchange for the knowledge gained. Or - perhaps - in exchange for making Soul Society itself move, where it never had before.
I don't want to say that Urahara intended for Rukia to be executed. (Perhaps he expected Aizen to be even smarter than he turned out to be: after all Urahara did leave all those notes behind...). No doubt her and the hougyoku's rescue was the best-case scenario: Urahara and Yoruichi did everything they could to give Ichigo a shot. But it's the best-case solution to a situation he knowingly created.
...And that was your giant overthinking fan essay of the day! In other news, I finally got to watch Bleach 63 over the weekend. No one told me it was DVD commentary track on the fights, mwahaha. "I'm concerned about the damage you do to the surroundings" - thank you, Ichigo, but also pot and kettle please. I'm fannish enough re the series right now that I'm pleased to see the bits of scenes they add here and there in the anime, although they tend to be not as on-point as the bits of scenes they took out (why?).
Last night I lent Tania the Bleach anime (she was saying she didn't recognize half the names mentioned on my blog anymore; this cannot be allowed), and we watched episodes 19-22 - which I'd never seen in fact, since I skipped directly from 17 to 30 looking for Renji. Watching like this it hit home how beyond the pale Urahara's so-called training methods are. It's not the usual shounen manga training formula of "You must acquire this god-mode skill in 72 hours which is flat-out impossible but you must not FAIL because you have SOMETHING YOU WISH TO PROTECT" (later employed by Yoruichi), but "Well, you signed the waiver form, now you become the 1-in-1000 longshot or you die horribly." It's quite obvious that Urahara doesn't believe unquestioningly that Ichigo will make it; the kid has a chance, and the risk becomes more acceptable if you don't happen to care very much if he lives or dies per se, that's all. And seen from a perspective that includes the Allancar, the Visoreds (where did they come from?), the hougyoku and what we now know Urahara's training created within Ichigo - well, I dare anyone to argue that Urahara is even meant to be seen as "good". Loveable, perhaps, but that is not the same thing.
And for what?
Rukia is a terrible hiding place for a mcguffin any way you slice it. The idea that Urahara might have put the hougyoku in her as a baby in order to lose it in the Rukongai masses is ludicrous: not only because it seems vastly OOC for him to abandon control of the situation to said extent, but because he took care to make the operation reversible (and without damage to the "container" at that). Whomever he puts the hougyoku in, he intends to keep near at hand - to be able to take it back out if needed. So he must have placed it in Rukia during the gigai operation. But why Rukia?
Even if one assumes a normal human isn't powerful enough to hold the thing and only a shinigami-class soul will do, Urahara must have kept it somewhere for the past 100 years. In Tessai, in one of the kids, in a trunk in the attic - why not in himself, for that matter? The object itself doesn't seem to do any damage to the soul containing it. So why did the original hiding place become unsuitable? Did events in Soul Society (and we know Urahara has his "ins") cause him to feel threatened? But it's difficult to think of a hiding place more easily accessible to powerful elements in Soul Society than Rukia, a patrolling officer of the Gotei 13 who lives in Seireitei. Urahara could not possibly expect to stick Rukia in a power-absorbing gigai and have her remain indefinitely on a short leash on earth, because it runs counter to the Gotei 13's entire purpose to lose track of a patrolling officer and not have an accounting. Sooner or later, someone was going to come looking for her. The only question Urahara could have answered by this rigmarole is the only question that remains: who?
Rukia was bait. Urahara was dangling the hougyoku out there to see what fish snaps, and he smoked his opponent out admirably. I'd go a step further and venture that Aizen knew Rukia was bait - if he knew Urahara or could gauge his mental processes well enough, knowing that Urahara would sacrifice defense to flush out the enemy seems to me the otherwise missing intuitive link between "the patrolling shinigami in Urahara's sector has gone missing" and "the hougyoku is hidden inside Kuchiki Rukia". So Urahara certainly intends to send a force to recover the hougyoku once the experiment is over (ref. Aizen's question to Ichigo). So what? Aizen's preparations are flawless. At any moment he can choose to cross the Rubicon; Urahara may be trying to force his hand, but Aizen's hand is not forced. He will simply put his plans into motion now rather than later, go in with his eyes open, and win the exchange.
Yet another step: perhaps losing the hougyoku is not even such a sacrifice, to Urahara. (He sends Ichigo and company but as aforementioned it's hardly a position of blind trust - the kid has a good chance, but that's all.) What else does he know? What other inventions does he have up his sleeve? Perhaps he was willing to concede Aizen that advantage to begin with, in exchange for the knowledge gained. Or - perhaps - in exchange for making Soul Society itself move, where it never had before.
I don't want to say that Urahara intended for Rukia to be executed. (Perhaps he expected Aizen to be even smarter than he turned out to be: after all Urahara did leave all those notes behind...). No doubt her and the hougyoku's rescue was the best-case scenario: Urahara and Yoruichi did everything they could to give Ichigo a shot. But it's the best-case solution to a situation he knowingly created.
...And that was your giant overthinking fan essay of the day! In other news, I finally got to watch Bleach 63 over the weekend. No one told me it was DVD commentary track on the fights, mwahaha. "I'm concerned about the damage you do to the surroundings" - thank you, Ichigo, but also pot and kettle please. I'm fannish enough re the series right now that I'm pleased to see the bits of scenes they add here and there in the anime, although they tend to be not as on-point as the bits of scenes they took out (why?).
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no subject
Date: 2006-01-17 07:18 pm (UTC)As for the actual essay, all I keep going is "...oh I did not think of that" and "yes yes yes". It seems to fit together with Urahara's character rather than the blind assumption of "well, that's what the story says". Urahara never struck me as a selfless guy--hell, he's a salesman. A greedy salesman, and he thinks like one. He doesn't offer unless he expects SOMETHING in return. And while he may be well intentioned sometimes, it's still on the operation that there's something for him. A catch. Though sometimes the person isn't aware of the catch nor do they have to be.
I like this. Oh yes.
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Date: 2006-01-17 07:27 pm (UTC)(Basically, I was trying to write fic about what Aizen would have assumed Urahara's motivations to be. But it's the explanation that causes the rest to make sense.)
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Date: 2006-01-17 07:48 pm (UTC)(Isn't that always the way though ♥)
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Date: 2006-01-17 07:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-17 07:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-17 08:11 pm (UTC)under yaoi, scroll down to bleach. just a drabble.
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Date: 2006-01-17 07:35 pm (UTC)But the hougyoku is a big deal, is it not? It helps supervillains make powerful posses. And Yoruichi+Urahara has a tough time dealing with just Yammy and Ulquiorra. How would Urahara go about recovering something so well-guarsded? I am more sold on your theory that he did this to lure SS into action, which could be useful to him for many reasons: showing off and recovering his position, getting to people he couldn't normally get to, oh I don't know. He's a genius, he's like Vetinari, you have to see what he does before you know what he's been thinking all along.
As for Ichigo's training, I am inclined to believe that Urahara is trying very hard not to get him killed, because of
a) behing friends with his dad, and
b) Ichigo's talent, which would make a nice weapon and be a terrible thing to waste.
Another question: How in on all this is Yoruichi? She didn't know how much Urahara has told Ichigo, back at the healing springs. And she seemed miffed over Urahara's glib directions.
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Date: 2006-01-17 08:48 pm (UTC)If Urahara is trying hard not to get Ichigo killed he is sure going about it in a funny way. D: Still I suppose a sword is meant to be sharp, and a sharp sword is meant to be swung, and in that sense if you have an Ichigo (a Carrot?) to hand you may as well let the hero be a hero.
Yoruichi, and Isshin too. Of course Isshin is more in the way of trusting Ichigo to DO RIGHT, but still if I were him I would want to have at least a rough idea of what was going down in the life of MY SON. Isshin has been standing by and letting events take their course to sometimes deleterious effect for a very long time, and I'd like to know why. If it turns out both he and Ryuuken agreed to... what?
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Date: 2006-01-17 10:47 pm (UTC)But then again Ichigo doesn't scare the crap outta me, onna contrary he's sort of cuddly in a spiky way, so.
Ok yeah let's just assume it's a given Urahara was hiding behind some bushes even though there's no panel of it, I mean the panel's not there only because at the time we're supposed to believe Byakuya and Renji are more badass than anyone anywhere ever, and Urahara's a dodgy businessman who doesn't want trouble with them so he'd probably avoid the battle location. Which is why we think it makes great sense to send in Ichigo because ONOES ICHIGO YOU ARE RUKIA'S ONLY HOPE and everything. Eh.
I'm not saying Ichigo's life was never in danger, I'm saying Urahara wouldn't have sent him out there if he didn't think there was a big chance of him making it. Maybe it's the Carrot dynamic, maybe it's because Urahara'd do best keeping Isshin on his side by like. Not offing his only son. And Yoruichi came along to up the odds even more.
I am very curious about Isshin, Isshin and Urahara, Isshin and SS, Isshin and Masaki, and perhaps Isshin and Urahara's illegal gigai. Meanwhile, Ryuuken needs more paneltime.
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Date: 2006-01-18 12:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 02:27 am (UTC)...Uh, I think I'm all meta'd out now. XD XD
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Date: 2006-01-18 03:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 12:35 am (UTC)I think Urahara has a portable miniature hut. He carries it around from shrubbery to shrubbery and sits in it, eating popcorn and giggling behind his fan.
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Date: 2006-01-18 12:38 am (UTC)IN THE ANIME HE CAN FLY I CAN PROVE IT
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Date: 2006-01-18 12:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 12:59 am (UTC)Does he eat invisible popcorn? (Can he really fly?)
D:
Date: 2006-01-18 01:08 am (UTC)Invisible popcorn yes.
INVISIBLE BABIESAnd he totally flies in the training flashbacks in episode ... 31? Maybe 37? Somewhere in the 30s.Re: D:
Date: 2006-01-18 01:09 am (UTC)He only eats 100% visible babiesomg, I think you are right. Urahara: he's like the Flash in a way.IT WASSA FREUDIAN SLIPPPP
Date: 2006-01-18 01:13 am (UTC)It wasn't just shiunpo. It was like. Really poor (really great?) animation that did not comply with gravity.
FREUDIAN SLIP OF THE FIST, MORE LIKE
Date: 2006-01-18 01:29 am (UTC)("Urahara can't breathe in space!"
"How does he know? Has he tried?")
BUCK FUTTER
Date: 2006-01-18 01:41 am (UTC)"Hey! Urahara can't time-travel!"
"Hey! Urahara can't fly a jet!"
SHORTKOFFHAHAHAHA
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Date: 2006-01-17 08:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-17 08:38 pm (UTC)1) Mayuri, it can be assumed, was Urahara's subordinate when Urahara was captain, possibly VC. (Mayuri's too much of a mad scientist not to have spent his entire career in the 12th.) As we saw with Aizen and Gin, or even Yoruichi and Soi Fong, that kind of history counts for a lot - and not a word has been said re how Mayuri feels about his former captain, or how Urahara feels about his replacement.
2) Urahara sells goods that in Soul Society are produced by the research bureau. He gets shipments smuggled out, doesn't just cook them up in the basement - unless he cares enough to fake things like currently fashionable Pez dispenser designs for soul candy. *g*
3) Why is Mayuri so indifferent toward Aizen's treason?
...It occurs to me that the scene with the discovery of Rukia's gigai might contradict this theory, but I can't remember what happened innit it was so long ago. XD Argh, must check tankoubon once I get home.
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Date: 2006-01-18 10:19 am (UTC)*nods* I'm very curious about Urahara's and Mayuri's history AND their connection to Aizen (how much did they know about his little experiments for example?).
Urahara/Mayuri/Aizen - they are the mad scientists
lovetriangle of Bleach!P.S.: sorry for the re-post, but there should be a limit to the number of HTML errors in one entry...
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Date: 2006-01-17 10:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-17 10:48 pm (UTC)linked by <lj user="chirachira">
Date: 2006-01-18 01:42 am (UTC)While I believe that his intentions are good (not pure but good), in the sense that he's scheming to keep Bad Shit From Happening To The World, it's also pretty obvious that he's willing to go to extreme lengths to carry out his plans, and your analysis of his thought processes here makes a lot of sense.
Re: linked by <lj user="chirachira">
Date: 2006-01-19 04:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 01:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-18 02:06 am (UTC)(You too, Tania!)
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Date: 2006-01-18 03:40 am (UTC)This is a wonderful, well-thought-out theory. I love the idea of Rukia being used as bait because, as you've pointed out, she's a very poor choice for a hiding spot. I've always been a bit wary of Urahara because he does the crazy, dumb act almost a bit too well. I still kind of hold out the hope, however, that he is good. Ruthless doesn't necessarily mean evil. His methods are definitely underhanded and suspicious but we don't really have any idea what his goal is by using them.
I think perhaps the reason Urahara could be willing to give up the hougyoku is that he doesn't need it anymore? He's been able to successfully make at least one Vizored (if that's actually what Ichigo is now, and I think it's likely) without it. And I speculated awhile back that he's probably long since used it on himself. Perhaps he's found other ways to do the shinigami/hollow hybrid thing. Ichigo's training, though terribly dangerous and, yes, potentially fatal did something similar to what the hougyoku is supposed to do, break down the barrier between shinigami and Hollow. And it also coincidentally (or not), may have increased his chances of survival in Soul Society since the Hollow side seems to kick in for self-preservation.
wandered over here from chirachira's lj
Date: 2006-01-18 08:25 am (UTC)Re: wandered over here from chirachira's lj
Date: 2006-01-19 04:37 am (UTC)