Hello,
I've been wondering where can I ask this question whether in this meta thread or the translation thread so I give it a try here.
So these are my questions;
When did Naoe and Kagetora fall in love with each other? Or when did they start to feel attraction to the other? How did it all go wrong the past 400 years?
If it's stated in the main story, I'm sorry I may have missed it.
Well, it's a big question whether or not what they feel for each other can even be called love. I personally think it's not the best word to describe it :) Anyways, the feelings go back to their first round of kansho - it's all in Kaiko-hen, not the main story.
-----------
my blog
As to the early stuff, I know only what I've read in summaries, the bits of translation that are around, and others' meta, so I'm missing a lot, but here's my sense: it does seem, as Katinka said, that they attach very strongly very early, in that first kanshou. However, I get the sense that the sexual dimension, at least as a strong factor, came significantly later. It seems like Naoe is grappling with this on a new level in the Bakumastu prequel, which is in the 1860s (?). At any rate, he seems to be pondering in one scene that he wants to touch Kagetora as if this were rather a new revelation.
Katinka questions if "love" is the right word. I'd say, if it's not love, I don't know what it is, although it's so strong and weird it may bust our definitions. I do wonder, though, if "in love" is the word. I think there are moments they definitely both read as "in love": obsessed with thinking about each other, needing each other, wanting each other sexually, etc. But it's certainly not a typical case of meeting someone and "falling in love." It's so entangled with other things from rage and rivalry to something like friendship and family, lord and vassal, being colleagues, and so much more. It's hard to find the words for it. :-)
I would call it a co-dependency, a very strong mutual addiction that is destructive for both of them. I do realize it’s a question of definition, but for me love is at least something positive, progressive, something that elevates both parties and makes them better than they were before, better together than separate – not worse. I once saw a video where a rabbi was talking about the love of fish. It went like this: “So, you’re telling me you love fish. This is why you took it out of the water, killed it and ate it?” :) In NaoKage’s love there’s too much of the love of fish, so it’s not really love – but I still think it’s beautiful.
-----------
my blog
Very general character trajectory spoilers follow for post-vol. 20-ish.
I would call it a co-dependency, a very strong mutual addiction that is destructive for both of them. I do realize it’s a question of definition, but for me love is at least something positive, progressive, something that elevates both parties and makes them better than they were before, better together than separate – not worse.
I completely agree it's a mutual addiction that's destructive for both of them. However, I'd argue the larger trajectory of their relationship does, indeed, show them being elevated by each other and ending up better than they were before. Part of the reason they are so addicted to each other is that they each have what the other needs, and for much of their lives, they are both so needy that that manifests as addiction and is heavily destructive. But I think in a nutshell what they have to give is as follows:
Naoe gives Kagetora the assurance that there is someone who will always love him and never desert him. This is crucial to mending Kagetora's damaged sense of trust, security (in the Maslow sense), and self-worth. This lack is at the heart of the gaping vortex of black-holish addiction he, quite insightfully, describes as at the center of himself. He missed a crucial window for secure attachment in his childhood, and that needs remediation from an outside source: he can't will himself into self-worth. He needs to be shown he has worth, and the only people whose investment in him is deep enough and consistent enough to counter the depth of his self-negativity are Naoe and arguably Minako, if she'd lived. Now showing him his worth takes 400 years of varying degrees of hell, but once the message gets through (basically in vol. 20), Kagetora is very rapidly on the course to self-healing. He rapidly develops a much healthier sense of self-worth, security, and trust, behaves better (especially to Naoe) and begins to focus in a healthier, less self-damaging way on action to help other people.
Kagetora gives Naoe a role model of a selfless, good person who acts for others. Even early on (Kaiko, I gather, from summaries I've read), this begins to inspire Naoe to move beyond the narrowly ambitious egocentrist he had been to someone who is capable of self-sacrifice, deep love, and investment in someone else (first and foremost Kagetora but also others). Of course, he remains an ambitious egocentrist for 400 years but not in the same way or to the same extent. By the time Takaya meets Naoe, Naoe is really quite a deep thinker about responsibility for others, the duty of Yashashuu, etc. I think this predominantly comes from knowing Kagetora, and I think one could argue (depending on how one reads the final volumes) that Naoe will eventually (like in 4 billion years!) go down the bodhisattva path toward being a much more selfless helper of others, also enabled by knowing Kagetora.
However, I'd argue the larger trajectory of their relationship does, indeed, show them being elevated by each other and ending up better than they were before.
Yes, good point, and I agree that after volume 20 the trajectory changes and psychologically things do get better between them: they stop hurting each other. As to the ending, I still haven’t finished the last 6 volumes (I know how ridiculous that sounds), but I’m really hoping that after reading it one day I will be convinced they ended up better than before :) I can’t be sure, but I believe Kuwabara as an author has matured enough by that time to be able to give substance to her idea of the “ultimate perfect state”, so that I as a reader would be able to actually feel it. We’ll see. Someday :)
-----------
my blog
My read is that over the years Naoe and Kagetora have woven each other into their identities (which of course a lot of people in relationships--not just romantic--do). It's that feeling of "what am I without you?" As Katinka pointed out, it tends to be frowned upon as co-dependency because it can lead to intractable mental health problems: if I can't change or control anyone but myself, what happens if I see you as part of myself?
What makes the issue even worse for the Yasha-shuu is that they have to hold very hard to their identities by necessity. That makes identity not just a question of consciousness, memory, emotion, morality, etc., but one of existence.
Given that that's what I think makes Naoe and Kagetora's relationship so interesting and powerful, I'd have to say I have no idea to the original question. :)
What makes the issue even worse for the Yasha-shuu is that they have to hold very hard to their identities by necessity. That makes identity not just a question of consciousness, memory, emotion, morality, etc., but one of existence.
This is very true, especially for Kagetora – at least he’s the one who suffers the most from it, I think. He cannot live without Naoe (without hurting Naoe, to be more precise). If he wants to relieve Naoe’s suffering, he has to stop hurting him – either by leaving or by changing his ways – but that means he himself won’t be able to exist. He’d be happy to cease existing, but he is obligated, bound by his mission, the promise he made to Kenshin. So for him there’s really no way out.
Naoe is much less dedicated to the mission, this is why death as a way out seems possible for him – he just always chooses otherwise.
-----------
my blog
These are great observations about identity.
It's that feeling of "what am I without you?" As Katinka pointed out, it tends to be frowned upon as co-dependency because it can lead to intractable mental health problems: if I can't change or control anyone but myself, what happens if I see you as part of myself?
This passage stood out to me because it touches on some ethical questions I've been pondering for a book. Apologies if this goes a little afield from Naoe and Kagetora specifically. It is, of course, true that we have a degree of control over ourselves that we have over nothing and no one else. By the same token, it is true that we can't genuinely control others--and to the extent we can/do, it's usually coercive and unhealthy, with some exceptions, like parents managing small children.
That said, I'd argue it's not actually true that "I can't change or control anyone but myself." This is a very popular thing to say in current psychology/therapy, at least in the US, which is a hyper-individualistic society with a very strong ideological bent toward every individual being solely responsible for every condition in their lives. ("If you're poor, it's because you're lazy or make stupid decisions," etc.) In fact, I'd argue, we change and/or have some degree of control over each other all the time. People affect each other wherever their actions touch; I'm affected by reading these posts; that's a change, if a tiny one. People who are emotionally close are almost by definition interwoven. (In fact, the working title for my book is Interweaving!) That's why we grieve when someone dies. It's why we hurt when we're criticized or why having a shoulder to cry on makes hurt easier. Now, Naoe and Kagetora are obviously an extreme case, and their relationship is profoundly unhealthy in many, many ways. But I don't think that having a life fairly deeply interwoven with others is, by definition, co-dependent or a risk factor for intractable health problems--unless we want to go in the ultimate Buddhist direction of all attachment bringing suffering. Generally, I think this means we are part of emotional ecosystems, just as we are part of physical ecosystems. It's part of being a social species.
I agree that there's a lot we can do to influence other people, and also (trending towards the unhealthy end) to manipulate and coerce them. Every meaningful relationship changes us in some way.
When I say "I can't change or control anyone but myself," though, I mean a direct application of will: "When I want you do do X, you'll do X." "I want you to love me, so you'll love me." The first is possible if you're deprived of your free will, the second is not possible at all.
I would say a major difference in negotiating relationships between cultures (e.g. Western individuality vs. Eastern collectivism) is the concept of boundaries. What constitutes healthy boundaries? What sort of boundaries am I allowed to place around myself? What sort of boundaries will I get backlash from society for reinforcing? For example: arranged marriage. In the US, parents are okay setting up an initial meeting for a child and a prospective SO, such as in a family dinner. Push much harder than that, though, and society frowns on the parents for getting too much up in their child's business. On the other hand, in Eastern societies it's perfectly okay for parents to push a child right up to marriage (though forced marriage is no longer prevalent), and society puts pressure on the child to obey. In other words, there's a much higher social cost in maintaining boundaries in the latter case, so parents, elders, "the authorities," etc. have an easier time controlling and changing people. I'm not saying that's always/necessarily a bad thing (see: COVID infection and death rates in China vs the US. It's way more complex than just obedience of authority, of course, but it does help that people stay home when they're told to stay home.)
Of course, there are serious ways that individualism (concentrating on the US-branded version of it) can be detrimental to the self as well to society--as you pointed out, "If you're poor, it's because you're lazy or make stupid decisions" (just ignore all the systematic ways in which the poor are kept that way by discrimination, predatory corporations, the healthcare system, etc.) which is also tied to racism/caste system (and keeping it invisible and therefore unaddressed), the inability to set up a national healthcare system despite spending more on healthcare (with worse outcomes) than other high-income countries, etc. etc.
Welp, that's gotten a bit far afield from Naoe and Kagetora. From a boundaries framing, their relationship might qualify as a horror story. Hee.
This is a little off topic, but all this meta inspired me to write down some thoughts in my head for a while on Mirage and Shingon, including the Naoetora ship. I'll include the link here:
http://www.asphodelshaven.com/forums/religion-mysticism-and-spirituality...