Welcome to Gaia! ::

I guess it goes back to the nature vs. nurture argument again. I'm not sure that I'm really in either camp, because some things are one and some things are another, but when I think personality, I think of the way someone reacts to the world and everything around them, their habits and their ways of thinking and their quirks and their instincts and their moral outlook. It's really hard for me to think of an unborn child having that, because they haven't had any experiences, and haven't had time to develop a personality. So I see where you're coming from, it just doesn't quite click in my head.

You know, though, I'm actually a little more okay with the concept on an individual basis. Rather than saying that human souls have moral properties or that demon soul's don't, if you say specifically that Shuuichi's soul is very gentle and leave room for variation, it makes me much less philosophically uncomfortable.

As for a pure Youko soul in a human body, think about what he went through as a human baby. The value system for humans is not only opposite the basic value system he followed as a demon, but almost antithetical -- the ways humans act towards each other and the things demanded of them by society are things that get you killed in about three seconds in the demon world, and conversely, if you act like a demon towards other humans, you get ostracized, punished, shunned, and lots of other unpleasant things. He's got two conflicting sets of values, and every vaguely moral decision that he makes is going to betray one of them.

Now consider being stuck in an tiny, helpless form -- unable to communicate, unable to do anything for yourself, and unable to stop anything from happening to you -- for years, while everything around you is alien to you, and every person that interacts with you behaves in a manner that is the opposite of the way you've always behaved, and it's made clear to you that you're expected to mimic them or be punished. If that's not a mind-screw, and something guaranteed to force you to radically adapt, I really don't know what is.

As for reverting back, Youko really wasn't any crueler than the regular Kurama -- he was just a bit more flamboyant about it, which, since the form is more powerful, can be blamed on a number of things, possibly including adrenaline or physical power-high. I'm not sure why you say he was more intelligent, though; what missing knowledge are you referring to? I guess I just didn't note any points where he failed to know something as Kurama but did know as Youko. He used some great plants that made stuff really easy for him right after he transformed, but I always took that to mean that Kurama doesn't have the power to use demonic plants when he's in his human form, or that demon energy has specific properties that the demonic plants need in order to grow. He never uses anything but roses and other basic, human-world plants until he gets to be the Youko again . . . but consider that regardless of power, he still carried all those nasty demonic seeds with him, anyway. He way outdoes the Boy Scouts on being prepared.



Yeah, he was really close to death . . . but most humans have s**t for energy, so they wouldn't be that much harder than a baby for someone of his original power level, especially backed by desperation. I just always figured there had to be some other reason he didn't go the easy route, but instead went the route that bascially psychologically screwed him sideways.

Those were meant as general examples. What I was getting at, was that in order to survive for ten years without drawing attention to himself, blowing his cover, or otherwise jeopardizing his ability to regain his energy, he had to adapt. The conditions to which he had to adapt were radically different from the conditions he'd been under for the last thousand years. You can't just "sit idle" as a child in Japan -- there are rigid, harsh expectations, and when you don't meet them, things become harder and harder for you, you're given less and less leeway and privacy, and you begin to lose what few privileges you had. Rather than having the attitude that he should just do what he wants and not care, if you're going to append a specific attitude to Kurama during those years, I would think it would be that he had to play these human games in order to survive.

But he didn't have the opportunity to really choose whether or not he would play those games. Death, as has been shown, is a shaking and disorienting experience no matter who you are, and he transitioned directly from off-balance, traumatized desperation to powerlessness and complete dependence. When you're that powerful, or even if you're just used to being on your own and making your own decisions, forced dependece changes you. You can bet Youko didn't depend on anyone for his survival, and to be suddenly forced to do so, not by a threat or being tricked but by the simple mechanism of being unable to care for himself, would have screwed with him pretty hard. And it lasted for years. Suddenly he was in a place where he couldn't answer his body's needs, he couldn't stop anyone from inflicting pain on him if they wished, and he had to relearn basic things like speaking and walking and hand-eye coordination. In demon parlance, that's called submitting, which is shown to be a really, really big deal for them -- and look who he submitted to.

It's always been my belief that he came to return his mother's care not only out of gratitude, but because what he'd done in order to survive had made him lower than low in the eyes of the demon he once was. He placed himself at the mercy of beings he once considered pathetic. He abased and humiliated himself, and subjected himself to years of what would have amounted to psychological torture. He'd survived, yes, but there was no way he was coming through that unscathed. Being shown constant love and care that never expects anything in return, no matter how suspicious he is or how much he'd been hardened by his life, would be difficult not to respond to; after a certain point, disbelieving in it or rejecting it becomes out-and-out stupid, because it's been proven as much as it can be. From Youko's backstory with Yomi, we see that he prizes loyalty, but that he responds viciously to betrayal; from his behavior in general, we see that he holds himself to that standard. That's why Shiori and the broken dish was a turning point for him -- it showed him that everything was genuine, and deserving of his loyalty in return.

One of the things I love about Kurama is his ambivalence, and I see that as him not knowing which half of himself to hate more. He despises himself both for his sentiment and caring (hence why he as good as apologized to Yuusuke right before he tried to use the mirror, for being weak enough to love his mother) and for his cruelty and coldness. I think he feels as though he's not really fit to be a demon any longer, which is why he eventually chooses humanity -- because the kind of weakness he's been shown to have is not the kind of thing that the demon world either forgives or forgets.

Hiei turned out the way he did because, essentially, no one has ever shown him love or compassion or care who didn't later on betray or abandon him. Kurama's experiences are a lot different, and they include the unconditional love and care of his mother. I would think that it's no surprise he'd become attached to her the way he has -- because of, and not in spite of, the previous lack of love in his life.

I guess the only issue I have with your viewpoint is that you seem to be saying that it's impossible that someone so coldhearted could change, no matter what they experience -- and since I consider his experiences to have been drastic and traumatizing and exactly the sort of thing that would drive him to change his views, I disagree. Any complex personality is capable of change; unfortunately, the more established it is, the less well it's going to take forcible change, and thus we get exactly what we see: someone who is abivalent and ******** up and still uncertain of who he's supposed to be anymore.

...we are talking about the same Kurama who uses bright-colored variations on roses for his weapons, is never subtle about it unless he has to be, and loves to show off, yes?

It may have been several things past power high. One, he'd just been given back the form he'd thought he would never have again, which probably gave him a great deal of euphoric confidence. Two, he immediately used that form's reputation and established behavior pattern to intimidate the s**t out of Uraurishima -- who, as you'll recall, practically wet himself and was ready to tell Kurama everything he knew, so it obviously worked. Three, being in that form again probably made it easier to fall back on that behavior set, because it would have felt more natural, and it might even have been somewhat of a tension reliever since he doesn't really indulge in acting like that these days anymore. Bets on him feeling like crap about it later when we can't see him.

After the Dark Tournament, when we see him in Youko form again several times, there really isn't much of a change in personality at all. When he fights Karasu, the main changes are, again, in demeanor and confidence, and he also uses the unexpected and drastic change in his form to attempt to put Karasu off-balance. He doesn't even try a bluff in human form because Karasu already knows he has the upper hand, but once in Youko form, he can afford to do a lot more because not only are his resources better, but Karasu doesn't know what they are anymore. It's not that he was losing the mind-games and then was suddenly winning them, but more that a lot of the mind-games' substance was based around Kurama's human characteristics -- how pretty he is, how weak he is, how fragile he is, how little he can really do with his limited plants -- and once he shifts, Karasu doesn't have those to plink at anymore, and Kurama's able to use the disorientation that causes to temporarily turn the tables on him. It goes back the other way just as quickly when he shifts back, for the same reasons.

Lastly, because he suddenly has a chance of winning when he's pretty sure his human form had no shot whatsoever, he's probably hiding relief behind that confidence. Just about the only thing Youko does during that fight that we don't normally see Kurama do is the "Bang" thing, and I'm willing to give him that much melodrama just for being relieved alone.

heart Thanks. ^^

I agree with your assessment; that's basically been my stance. I think that what havi was saying was a little different -- that souls have intrinsic properties, but not all souls have the same ones. So instead of saying that any human soul would have gentled Kurama, I believe she was postulating that Shuuichi's soul in particular was gentle, and thus had that effect. I'm a little more okay with that theory, personally, because it doesn't feel so . . . I dunno, biased towards humans in general. However, it does bring into the argument a kind of philosophy similar to original sin; from what I remember from my long-ago research into it, reincarnation as espoused by Shinto/Buddhist philosophy doesn't include that. There are old souls, and I even recall something about being born as a human meaning that you've done well in previous lives and thus get to be the "highest" life-form this time (although that may be exclusively from-India-Buddhism, and not necessarily a facet of Shinto or Shinto-Buddhism), but I think it also makes it clear that reincarnation is a fresh start and a clean slate, and that only very, very few people are aware of, or retain in any part, their past lives. Essentially, that's a very long-winded manner in which to state that I'm not sure I agree with the philosophy behind that theory, especially since I believe that psychology accounts for the difference well enough already.

I'd forgotten that line from the anime that you mention, where he says that he's caused his mother great pains; he also says something to the effect of, "It's hard raising a child who thinks you're inferior," or at least I think so. If there is indeed a parallel in the manga, that's actually a telling quote.

Kurama is such an evil, cruel b*****d when he wants to be. It's another thing I love about his character.



Thanks. I'm still working on my Kurama analysis (even though it's been forever since the Yuusuke one, and I still haven't done the pairings section), and that's one of the things I've been exploring.



I remember him saying, "This is a merger, not a possession," but at the same time, that could have a number of meanings. If it were out-and-out possession, he'd be able to separate his soul from the body, or at least that's the intimation -- given that in a traditional possession, both souls are present in the body, but the original soul is pushed into the background or into unconsciousness and is no longer in control (that's also how it worked for Yuusuke when he took over Kuwabara) -- but for his soul to be anchored in such a way that he can't do that, it would not necessarily mean that he merged with an existing soul. From what I understand, body energy, while immediately similar to spirit energy, is necessary for life to be sustained and for the soul to have a grounding point; however, another thing they don't illuminate for us is whether or not the body energy is generated by the soul, through the conduit of a physical form, the way spirit energy is. My tentative theory runs that in order for even an unborn to exist, there must be body energy, but since it's apparently possible for an unborn to not yet have a "proper soul", body energy is likely separate from spirit energy in that they don't come from the same source. However, given that they're so similar that body energy can be tapped and used in exactly the same way as spirit energy if the person wishes, they're probably nearly identical in all ways, except that the body energy wouldn't have a "signature" of its own until the soul had grounded in it/merged with it/whatever. Clearly, if this theory is true, it's the body that determines which type of energy it emits, regardless of the soul grounded in it; Kurama's mentioned as having reiki for most of the time, and youki only when he's in demon form, also suggesting that the soul may be able to override this if conditions are correct -- kind of that the body filters the energy of the soul in a specific way. This is also shown with Yuusuke, when his body has become a demon's body and he begins to use youki rather than reiki, but later manages to access both energy types.

Ergo, my theory is that there wasn't a spirit grounded in the infant yet, but there was body energy, which is a lot like spirit energy except in terms of source and not having any personality or resonance of its own yet. Kurama could easily have used the word "merger" in referring to joining with that existing life, rather than necessarily meaning it in reference to another actual soul.

What I really mean to say is that I dunno if the merged-souls thing sounds like the kind of thing that makes sense to me, and I'm often not certain why (I'll have to think about it good and hard, obviously), so I've come up with a roundabout, loopy way to achieve plausible deniability. But I still think it could work either way. I'm just not sure how to interpret the words "proper soul" in this context. Does a soul form slowly, growing like a seed? Does it get assigned after a certain point? Is it implanted at conception but just takes time to form from its initial spark? They don't really say, and I don't know enough about the religious/spiritual beliefs of Togashi's culture (despite my blitherings above) to have a reference point. I've generally gone with the second option, hence a lot of the preceding elucidation. But I do agree unequivocally with you that kicking the soul out would have been stupid, and even if he could have done it, he wouldn't have.

No worries; I'm fine agreeing to disagree. ^^ Sorry to have gotten so long-winded about it.

sweatdrop I just skimmed through all that. Eheheh...to save time xD

anyway, I agree that there has to be some human kind of element to make Kurama the way he is..but the truth is, we don't know that much about Youko. He comes off as only being aloof and methodical...but in the movie we got to see that part with Koronue..It's just....I don't know. I can honestly see it either way.

Yay! Me too! Like who was Youko's mother! OO for a mother's day special I should like do a feature on all the YYH mommies X3

Though Hiei's will be depressing.... crying

hahah you said Hiei confront hiei XDDD.

um..it'd be uber interesting OO. hmph.