Yamaku Book Club (20220124 Dish Washing)

[Blank Mage]

If it please the court...

I would like to address Question 3 in Chief Justice Brythain's instructions-

....I... I don't actually have an objection. It's all pretty sound. It's just my base reaction when people do that.

Anyway, I hadn't commented on Dewelar's piece, because there's really nothing in it. I don't mean that it's a useless piece, but I feel like there's no commentary to be had there. It doesn't introduce anything to the characters, really, it's just an interlude for the real story. Unless we want to get real meta, and assume that a pleasantly written story that states nothing of true relevance is an excellent example of Hisao in a nutshell.

You know what, yep, that's my story, I'm sticking with that one.

[Fardels]

Quite so, Blank Mage. In a meta sort of way, maybe that's why I chose to do it like that. And your conclusions on the story are dead on. As Brythain says, it's a gentle push into a much more substantial work.

[SirKaid]

I believe I can make a rebuttal to your argument that Hisao's past does not largely inform his present due to the circumstances of his life at the time of the game. Instead, I assert that his past not only informs his present, but outright moulds it into what it is in canon wholesale.

Specifically, I believe that Hisao is something of a social chameleon and always has been. My evidence for this assertion is threefold: his home life, his school life prior to the fateful snowy day, and how he acts in each of the routes.

First, his home life. It is known that young children often shape who they are in relation to their parents, yet Hisao's parents both work long hours and are rarely home. As such Hisao is largely unable to form a real sense of who he is based on who they are.

Second, his pre-heart-attack school life. Hisao seems to have largely gone with the flow in his social life prior to Yamaku. Note that he played soccer enough for the absence in his new life to be notable, yet doesn't seem to be particularly unhappy about the newfound inability to play except as a reminder of his condition. It seems likely, therefore, that he was playing not out of any particular love of the sport, but instead because his friends were playing. Similarly, he took no initiative with regards to Iwanako; she was the one who asked him, she picked the location for the confession, and she was the one who displayed the interest which he reflected.

Finally, in each route Hisao changes to better match the girl he is pursuing. He's more thoughtful in Lilly's route, more assertive in Shizune's route, etc.. While it could be said that the different Hisaos are a result of Act 1 being the player deciding who Hisao is (and that there are in fact six mutually exclusive Hisaos in some kind of quantum superposition until we observe him and collapse the waveform) I would instead assert that they are all the same Hisao who merely fills whatever social mould he finds himself in by chance.

Therefore, when writing Hisao, one must first observe the social environment he is in and use that observation to learn just what kind of reasonably intelligent man would fit into that environment - the man will bear a startling resemblance to who Hisao becomes.

[Blank Mage]

...it could be said that the different Hisaos are a result of Act 1 being the player deciding who Hisao is (and that there are in fact six mutually exclusive Hisaos in some kind of quantum superposition until we observe him and collapse the waveform...)

...Be right back, I have to go write something...

[Fardels]

SirKaid's use of quantum mechanics is absolutely appropriate; I think we may be approaching the issue of Hisao's evolution from two different angles and coming to the same conclusion.

Whoever Hisao is at the beginning of canon is different from who he is at the end, whether the difference is growth or... something else. Whatever his previous life (and we do have some clues, as SirKaid says), his interactions at Yamaku reflect the new reality of his heart. Hisao is scarcely a static character, whether by temperment or transformation; I doubt any of us are. A canonic Hisao would compromise that, at least a little bit.

[brythain]

Whoever Hisao is at the beginning of canon is different from who he is at the end, whether the difference is growth or... something else. Whatever his previous life (and we do have some clues, as SirKaid says), his interactions at Yamaku reflect the new reality of his heart. Hisao is scarcely a static character, whether by temperment or transformation; I doubt any of us are. A canonic Hisao would compromise that, at least a little bit.

Similarly, when writing Hisao for fan fiction, the 'new reality of his heart' needs to be taken into consideration. In 'A Walk in the Park', Hisao makes attempts to do things that show he is alive, but he comes across as rather 'dead', or at least lying fallow for a season. In the rest of his arc, his expression reflects what's happening to him and around him. He's a mirror, just as he is when he's the protagonist in KS itself—but he's also a conduit from that world to our own selves.

[dewelar]

Whoever Hisao is at the beginning of canon is different from who he is at the end, whether the difference is growth or... something else. Whatever his previous life (and we do have some clues, as SirKaid says), his interactions at Yamaku reflect the new reality of his heart. Hisao is scarcely a static character, whether by temperment or transformation; I doubt any of us are. A canonic Hisao would compromise that, at least a little bit.

Similarly, when writing Hisao for fan fiction, the 'new reality of his heart' needs to be taken into consideration. In 'A Walk in the Park', Hisao makes attempts to do things that show he is alive, but he comes across as rather 'dead', or at least lying fallow for a season. In the rest of his arc, his expression reflects what's happening to him and around him. He's a mirror, just as he is when he's the protagonist in KS itself—but he's also a conduit from that world to our own selves.

*nods* Indeed, this is true within KS, but it doesn't have to remain that way. In Developments, for instance, Hisao's arc has been about taking control of his self rather than simply being, as he puts it, a leaf in the wind, carried by the eddies and currents of his relationships. Yeah, it's at least slightly meta, and has had its share of criticism in the thread comments, but I'm hoping that, once it's all wrapped up, folks find the outcome at least somewhat satisfying.

[Puncyclopedia]

I think it depends on how strictly or loosely you define "canon." I think there are a handful of personality traits that any Hisao has to have to really feel like Hisao - at least if we're talking about something taking place during the main story of Katawa. Hisaos before or Hisaos after that I can deal with them not being present - but if it's after especially, I'd like some sort of explanation as to why he's changed.

Puncyclopedia's Desired Traits In Hisao:

1. Self-deprecation. It's probably his most defining trait to me. He does it often - mostly in smaller, subtler ways rather than "I AM AWFUL AND EVERYTHING I DO IS AWFUL" thankfully.

2. General well-meaningness. Hisao's not a jerk. Even in his bad endings, he's never really a jerk - he just tends to misunderstand and misread situations that are usually at least ripe to some sort of misinterpretation (Shizune bad ending excepted, though I have my own theory about that ending which I'll write up at some point in the future).

3. Worry about his condition. It's the elephant in the room in all of the routes, and it either hides in the corner or looms with ferocity. It has to come up. It doesn't have to be the central focus - Hell, I don't even think he has to have an attack or anything like that at all, but it needs to be something he thinks about/talks about/lives. When reading the novel at first, I thought it was a copout choice for the MC's disability, but the more you delve into the KS world the more you realize the genius of it (he's actually the most likely to die of any of the main characters due to his disability, it's not visible, meaning people are more likely to wonder about it, so on, and so forth.)

Otherwise, he does vary in the different routes - which is both good and realistic, but I think these three things are key. They're sort of bland, yes, but I think they're very important in providing the proper Hisao experience.

You could probably talk me into "mental narration sarcasm" as #4, though.

[dewelar]

I think it depends on how strictly or loosely you define "canon."

*cringes* Here we go...

Actually, I agree with most of your post, with one exception:

2. General well-meaningness. Hisao's not a jerk. Even in his bad endings, he's never really a jerk - he just tends to misunderstand and misread situations that are usually at least ripe to some sort of misinterpretation (Shizune bad ending excepted, though I have my own theory about that ending which I'll write up at some point in the future).

Actually, Hisao's a pretty big jerk in Hanako's bad ending as well. He speaks to her in a seriously condescending way, which he hadn't done up until then, and he ignored her repeated requests to leave. If there's such a thing as an OOC moment for Hisao, this is it, and it really does seem to come out of nowhere, but it does show that he will show jerk-like tendencies on occasion.

[Puncyclopedia]

You're right. I'd entirely forgotten about that ending - largely, I think, because of just how out of character it does feel, versus the neutral ending, which seems the much more likely negative ending for the two of them. The fact that those moments stand out so glaringly, I think, supports my overall contention, though.

It's a testament to just how well written the whole thing is (and even more so given just how many people came together to do the writing) that Hisao feels as generally consistent as he does.

[brythain]

You're right. I'd entirely forgotten about that ending - largely, I think, because of just how out of character it does feel, versus the neutral ending, which seems the much more likely negative ending for the two of them. The fact that those moments stand out so glaringly, I think, supports my overall contention, though.

It's a testament to just how well written the whole thing is (and even more so given just how many people came together to do the writing) that Hisao feels as generally consistent as he does.

He shows jerk-ish tendencies in Rin's route as well. However, I'd say that it's because Hisao has the three driving forces you've implied: 1) self-deprecation and possibly a sense of uselessness or unworthiness, which is correlated with 3) a sense of doom (or some lesser relative) from his condition—both of which can overpower 2) his generally good and helpful nature. So with Hanako, he wants badly to help her (2) but his head is full of (1) and (3) and so he fails to understand her—and this is true of Rin's route too, non-good endings.

Hisao writing thus has to account for the interplay between these three, understanding that he's a good Everyman to begin with, but things do get to him and he can be overwhelmed or distracted by them. Similarly, by mirroring him off other characters (and even new characters, as dewelar and others have done) help us to understand the developments which are occurring in Hisao and which may slowly make him not quite the Hisao we think we know.

[dewelar]

*nods* I was going to mention Rin, but I figured that was pretty much entirely explicable due to Hisao's inability to understand her. Putting myself in Rin!Hisao-space, I can easily see myself being fed up with what I perceive as Rin's inscrutable nature and throwing in the towel. I just can't bring myself to equate being dense with being a jerk, even if it comes off that way .

Hanako!Hisao is a different animal altogether, because if you pick the choice that leads to the bad end, it really does seem like a switch gets flipped and he starts treating her completely differently than he had been to that point. From a meta perspective, I just think it was flat-out poorly written (one of the few places in the game I can say that), but from a character perspective, he seems to be doing it on purpose moreso than elsewhere. Thus: jerk .

[Leaty]

Misstep!Hisao is really the only permutation of the character I can't sympathize with, to be honest. For all people talk about how much of an asshole he is in the bad endings, none of his behavior in the other endings really strikes me as especially unreasonable.

He's definitely always placed in a position of moral inferiority relative to the girls, though. That was one of the reasons Báthory turned out the way it did, I think; Hisao never actually gets to deliver any sort of justified chewing-out and I wanted to reverse that trend a little.

[Mirage_GSM]

Well, he could have done some justified chewing out in Lilly's route but he didn't.

Regarding Rin, I think his explosion there was a) entirely justified and b) neccessary to help Rin understand Hisao which is also a prerequisite for reaching the good end.

[brythain]

The weekend is coming to an end itself. The last desperate sounds of fading alternate-Hisaos have been recorded by the Blank Mage, amongst others. Are you all ready for a return to the wintry wood where the mystery of Iwanako's Eve awaits Hisao's Adam?

Here is a document that might be of use (somewhat) for people inclined to structure and simple ideas. Enjoy.