The Hanako Thread - Spoilers, obviously

[themocaw]

I've been a white knight before, and honestly, it sucks.

The thing you need to understand is that white knighting makes three very bad assumptions.

1. It assumes that you can fix whatever is wrong with the other person. In many cases, this isn't true in the slightest.

2. It assumes that you're the one who can save the other person. Again, this isn't true in the slightest.

The biggest, hugest problem for it, however, is that you immediately get drawn towards people who need rescuing. . . and in a lot of cases, it means that you wind up fetishizing their troubles. In the worst case scenario, it winds up taking both of you down, and no one comes out of it a better person.

[Bagheera]

Unfortunately, I can't really agree with that last bit considering that, during the good ending scene, Hisao is shocked to discover that pretty everything he thought he knew about her was wrong.

Not quite. He acknowledges that he didn't understand her, but that doesn't mean he was wrong. It just means he didn't know what she wanted.

But still, you're probably right. That scene was probably necessary if the conversation at the end was to occur.

Here's the way I understand the scene: Hanako took Hisao to her room knowing full well that their ending up having sex together was a distinct possibility and was prepared to offer herself to him sexually because she was afraid she'd up losing him to another girl. She initiated the sequence of events and forced herself to go through with it.

That being said, there were several red flags that Hisao noticed but completely ignored during the whole sequence. That she was nervous and jittery the whole time (including when he touched her), that she avoided eye contact with him a lot of the time, that she couldn't even kiss him properly, her flinching when he took off his pants, resignation in walking towards the bed with him, her anxiousness and focus on their genitals when he was about to have sexual intercourse with her, her pain during penetration, her forced smile during sex, her continued pain while they were having sex...any two or three of these would've been enough for me to pretty much stop and walk away because it was clear that she wasn't enjoying what we were doing.

I think you're right about pretty much all of the above. However, given the first paragraph, and the fact that Hisao probably had at least an inkling of the fact that that was what she was after . . .

. . . it's really hard to bother with the rest. If she wants sex, and is prepared to force the issue, who is he to second guess her? Avoiding that is his primary goal! The problem isn't that she didn't want it so much as that she very much wasn't ready for it, but he was in a position where he couldn't make that decision for her. Yes, it would be nice if he'd handled it with more finesse, but given the situation and his (lack of) experience that's an unreasonable expectation.

Honestly, a woman for me isn't a living sex toy. One thing that majorly gets me off is her getting off. I'm not sure I could've stayed hard with Hanako acting the way she was either.

But, paradoxically, that's exactly what she needed at the time.

You know, the more I hear people throw around the term "White Knight", the more it annoys me because they either seem to have a completely distorted concept of it from 4chan or they're describing a particular lunatic fringe element of the group.

I've tried being the White Knight before. The whole point of the damn thing - at least for me - was never to go charging into the cave, slay the dragon, and then keep the princess locked up in there and in chains while standing on guard duty forever because letting her out into the big bad world was too dangerous. That would just make me a new and different type of dragon. The goal was to let her out of the cave and offer emotional and moral support (and protection, if asked for) while she learned to fend for and protect herself. The princess and the White Knight kicking ass together is way more awesome.

Yes, but that's not what a white knight is. A white knight, as the term is commonly used, is another form of dragon. What you're describing here is a partner, not a knight. It's very much the right way to do things, but it's not at all what we're describing when using the term.

[Lunar Archivist]

I've been a white knight before, and honestly, it sucks.

The thing you need to understand is that white knighting makes three very bad assumptions.

1. It assumes that you can fix whatever is wrong with the other person. In many cases, this isn't true in the slightest.

2. It assumes that you're the one who can save the other person. Again, this isn't true in the slightest.

The biggest, hugest problem for it, however, is that you immediately get drawn towards people who need rescuing. . . and in a lot of cases, it means that you wind up fetishizing their troubles. In the worst case scenario, it winds up taking both of you down, and no one comes out of it a better person.

I realize this is going to sound horrible, but, given the fallout from both of my failed "White Knight" efforts, the princesses in question would have been better off taking a chance and listening to me. And I'm not indulging my own ego or being delusional when I say that. I'm talking hardcore crap, like physical and verbal abuse, domestic violence ending in a hospital visit and jail time, public beatings, substance abuse, and a brutal sexual assault being direct results of their choices. You can't fix bad judgement, but you can sure as hell try to keep things from getting worse and sparing the person you love a lot of pain. The best you can do is hope that spending enough time with them and offering some emotional stability and care will make things better for them in the long run.

The problem isn't that she didn't want it so much as that she very much wasn't ready for it, but he was in a position where he couldn't make that decision for her. Yes, it would be nice if he'd handled it with more finesse, but given the situation and his (lack of) experience that's an unreasonable expectation.

While the first girl I ever slept with wasn't a virgin, I played things as if she were and did my best to make her feel comfortable, something which she found endearing. Hisao twisted Hanako into some kind of awkward position for penetration and couldn't even get her panties and nylons off. Ye god.

[xaolindragon]

While the first girl I ever slept with wasn't a virgin, I played things as if she were and did my best to make her feel comfortable, something which she found endearing. Hisao twisted Hanako into some kind of awkward position for penetration and couldn't even get her panties and nylons off. Ye god.

Yeah. I agree with that last sentence. I couldn't really understand why he couldn't take a little bit more time to completely take off her panties/nylons. If I remember correctly, Hisao did mention he might end up ripping the panties/nylons, but still. =\ I felt that was really weird.

[Robnonymous]

I've tried being the White Knight before. The whole point of the damn thing - at least for me - was never to go charging into the cave, slay the dragon, and then keep the princess locked up in there and in chains while standing on guard duty forever because letting her out into the big bad world was too dangerous. That would just make me a new and different type of dragon. The goal was to let her out of the cave and offer emotional and moral support (and protection, if asked for) while she learned to fend for and protect herself. The princess and the White Knight kicking ass together is way more awesome.

Absolutely. Couldn't agree more.

While I don't think it really fits the White Knight mentality accurately, it's the exact same way I approached Hanako's story. I didn't want to protect her, I wanted to help her realize that she can open up. I wanted her to be able to show the world who she really is rather than feel like she has to hide from it. It confused me to no end as I was playing through because I came at it with that exact mentality, but the dumbass at the helm kept taking it in the wrong direction. This probably has a lot to do with why Hisao bugged the ever-loving crap out of me in it. He was doing it wrong.

On the other hand, it's probably why I managed to get her good ending so easily. I was trying to bring her out of her shell the whole time.

[themocaw]

I realize this is going to sound horrible, but, given the fallout from both of my failed "White Knight" efforts, the princesses in question would have been better off taking a chance and listening to me. And I'm not indulging my own ego or being delusional when I say that. I'm talking hardcore crap, like physical and verbal abuse, domestic violence ending in a hospital visit and jail time, public beatings, substance abuse, and a brutal sexual assault being direct results of their choices. You can't fix bad judgement, but you can sure as hell try to keep things from getting worse and sparing the person you love a lot of pain. The best you can do is hope that spending enough time with them and offering some emotional stability and care will make things better for them in the long run.

There's a line from the movie "Serenity" that sums up how I feel about it: paraphrased, "You can't make people better." I don't mean you shouldn't try to help people. But if you invest yourself so deeply into helping others that you sacrifice your own self to do it. . .that's not healthy.

If there is one thing I hugely regret, it's that there was this one girl I really cared for and enjoyed the company of whom I could have had a meaningful romantic relationship with, but I wound up caught in the wake of another girl who triggered all of my protective instincts. And in the end I realized that. . . I wasn't helping. All I was doing was enabling this other person to not improve at all in life: why did she need to when, I was there to bail her out every time?

Eventually, in the end, I had to stop spending time with her at all, even, because me being present at all meant that she kept trying to drag me into her drama. I regret that she hasn't improved. I wish that I could have done more to help. Mostly, though, I regret that I let my desire to save her cause me to lose out on something that could have been fantastic for me.

I guess what I'm trying to say is: Lily's words in Hanako's route really, seriously, hit home for me.

[Bagheera]

I realize this is going to sound horrible,

Yeah, you're right about that. Sounds like your efforts got the girls in question jack and squat, since they didn't put forth the effort to change their circumstances. That's rather the point: it's not about you. You can't fix people. The best you can do is offer help and support while they fix themselves.

(Why are you hanging around so many physically and emotionally damaged women, anyway? Got something against healthy folks?)

While the first girl I ever slept with wasn't a virgin, I played things as if she were and did my best to make her feel comfortable, something which she found endearing. Hisao twisted Hanako into some kind of awkward position for penetration and couldn't even get her panties and nylons off. Ye god.

It wasn't that awkward, really (it's kind of a good position if you know what you're doing). And the bit with the nylons is he didn't wanna rip 'em.

Also note that Hanako did absolutely nothing here. Input from her at this point would have been extremely helpful. The scene makes a lot more sense if you look at it as the product of two people rather than one guy who's doing it wrong.

[Guest]

I think you are going to deep into the psyche of it all, I already find a huge wall in a more basic level. I am literally incapable of getting hard by watching a scene like that and acting upon it.

Uh . . . how is that even remotely relevant to the discussion at hand?

I myself have had intimacy with women with scars and by god man, it takes a lot of care to open that shell, not in the scene of it being "ugly" or anything like that (it was still soft and warm), but in the sense that it has a great emotional weight attached to it and it has to be dealt with utmost care.

That might be relevant if Hisao was the pursuer here, but he wasn't. Hanako's the one who initiated things in this instance and that puts a very different spin on things.

(and good grief, white knight much? Hanako's not a prize to be won, for chrissakes; the point of the route is to give her the space she needs to come out of her shell on her own, not to manipulate things so that you "win" by coaxing her out of it. Paying attention to what she wants and assuming she's tough enough to take it if you screw up a little is a big part of that. That's why things worked out the way they did in her route.)

... Looks to me like you aren't bothering to listen to other people. Anyway, Lunar Archivist said what I'm trying to get through perfectly. This isn't about "white knighting", or "giving space", this is about how a person bared their goddamn soul to you and you pretty much ignored it, jammed yourself in there, got off and still managed to be surprised a day later about how utterly fucked up the whole scene was. Basically, approaching somebody that has scars with care is not white knightning, in the personal case I'm alluding to, I wasn't protecting her from anything, hell, she is one of the most hard boiled people I have ever met, she doesn't need me protecting her for jackshit. That doesn't change that the time she revealed them and their origin to me she wasn't showing me a huge part of her, something barely anybody knows and something incredibly intimate, she was scared witless that I might get scared off because of it and how I reacted gave her a great piece of mind, and frankly, after a while, they stop being "those scars", it just becomes another part of the person you love, no more no less. When somebody opens up to you to such a level, you have to be up to the level and answer it in kind.

Hisao did not answer in kind, he left his impulses get the best him and worse still, he left them get over him after going through every single red flag Lunar Archivist mentioned and the only reason Hanako didn't pretty much hide inside herself again was because this was a scenario she covered and was outright desperate to get the image of a woman inside Hisao's mind, no matter how painful it would have been. Lets also remember that Hisao was still playing white knight there, it's only till the great talk in the park where she explains clearly how she doesn't like people and so forth that Hisao finally understands, hell, it's the reason why I really like Hanako's bad ending, if it were by me, that emotional beatdown would have been cannon in the whole of Hanako route, because she said a lot of things that needed to be said and god knows I believe Hanako keeps way too much emotion bottled up already to never really get a chance to discharge it as it also shows how incredibly frustrated by how Lilly and Hisao treat her and how the rest of the world doesn't even bother to.

[Dampwaffles Alternate Personality]

I thought it was interesting how Lily and Hanoka share the same path for the first part of the game, though I also thought this shortchanged Hanako a bit in the telling of her story. Hanako's Good Ending is absolutely adorable.

[gecko]

A lot of people are taking extreme positions in this debate, and you might not understand each-other because of it. So I'll try and repeat (again) my middle of the road position:
Yes, Hanako had planned for sex to happen.
Yes, Hisao is a virgin teenager seeing his girlfriend naked for the first time, losing some blood from his braincells to somewhere else is excusable, and an awkward / unsatisfying sex scene was pretty much on the road.
BUT, there's one piece of dialogue missing (whether verbal or not)
Hanako's disrobing isn't a clear-cut sexual signal. It could very well be for showing Hisao she trusts him. All the precautions, locked door, curtains, make sense just because she's going to be naked.
Hisao's answer: pants down
Me: WTF?
Seriously, just a question (do you want to do that?), or a look or touch and a nod, or maybe a previous hint at naked=sex from Hanako, anything to confirm Hanako's consent, would have eased the transition very much, while still keeping the story line and the possibility for an awkward scene, while here, Hisao comes through as jumping the consent part... Not good for someone emphatic as he is portrayed otherwise.

[newnar]

Hanako's disrobing isn't a clear-cut sexual signal. It could very well be for showing Hisao she trusts him. All the precautions, locked door, curtains, make sense just because she's going to be naked.
Hisao's answer: pants down
Me: WTF?
Seriously, just a question (do you want to do that?), or a look or touch and a nod, or maybe a previous hint at naked=sex from Hanako, anything to confirm Hanako's consent, would have eased the transition very much, while still keeping the story line and the possibility for an awkward scene, while here, Hisao comes through as jumping the consent part... Not good for someone emphatic as he is portrayed otherwise.

Exactly. Someone give this guy a medal.

[Ry74]

Exactly. Someone give this guy a medal.

Actually, she does give a nod to it before sextime- Hisao starts to ask and she responds. Some people would prefer to be "right" than correct, I guess.

[Bagheera]

Seriously, just a question (do you want to do that?), or a look or touch and a nod, or maybe a previous hint at naked=sex from Hanako, anything to confirm Hanako's consent, would have eased the transition very much, while still keeping the story line and the possibility for an awkward scene, while here, Hisao comes through as jumping the consent part... Not good for someone emphatic as he is portrayed otherwise.

He doesn't, though. He says her name, she nods. He moves to the bed, she follows. He sits, she joins him. All of these are specific indications of consent. I don't think a verbal question would have changed anything, except to get her even more worked up. And don't forget, this is what she wanted all along -- it's what she planned from the beginning, as she herself notes. That isn't just a matter of luck, either; it's the reason she went along with it every step of the way, despite numerous chances to back out or say "I don't want to do this."

But that said I'll reiterate my own middle of the road argument, which is that the scene shouldn't have played out that way to begin with. I think if Hanako hadn't gone to such extremes they might have had the park conversation in their room, and that would have smoothed things out for later. But OTOH, as others have noted, that sort of shift in Hisao's thinking might not have been possible without the H scene. So, with that in mind . . . I think it's fine. I might have done it differently if I were writing it, but that's okay. It's still fine the way it is.

[newnar]

OK this has got nothing to do with the argument at hand but I just wanna say: Playing Lilly's arc after finishing all of Hanako's arc makes me really uneasy. I keep thinking what Hanako is doing atm. Them always being together doesn't help at all.

[Brogurt]

I don't think a verbal question would have changed anything, except to get her even more worked up.

I bet you think that a hint of appreciation would have gotten her more worked up too.