Katawa Shoujo Forums

Liminaut wrote:That's kind of the nature of KS. There are huge chunks of the story, such as how Lilly feels about her parents, that are just left out completely. Hemingway said that leaving stuff out of a story makes the story stronger, as long as the author knows what the resolution to these missing pieces are.

I largely agree with this. Also, Tolkien's whole world-building backstory and others like it.

However, sometimes the author doesn't need to know or has desired ambiguity. And the story can still be stronger for such lacunae.

I've come around to Mirage's point of view that there is no support for any physical disability for Misha in the VN.

Same here.

That leaves the option that Misha doesn't have any disabilities, but that creates another absolutely unanswerable question of why she is at Yamaku, as opposed to another school. Misha says she is her to learn sign language, but who decides as fifteen that their dream is being a sign language interpreter? If that's the reason Misha is at Yamaku then there is another, huge question of why does she want to become a sign language interpreter?

Not interpretor. Teacher. And why not? Lilly decided in middle school that she wanted to become an English teacher and she's stuck with that throughout high school. No reason for Misha to be different.

I agree with Brythain. Certain things aren't very important to the main plotline and don't need to be known in order to enjoy the story the author wants to tell. It's often more fun to leave it up to the imagination of the readers.

Liminaut wrote:This Misha's disability thing is really annoying, y'know?

I've come around to Mirage's point of view that there is no support for any physical disability for Misha in the VN. I could make a case for clinical depression (as opposed to teenage angst because she's been jilted) but there are multiple instances in the VN of being told Yamaku doesn't take mental disabilities. That leaves the option that Misha doesn't have any disabilities, but that creates another absolutely unanswerable question of why she is at Yamaku, as opposed to another school. Misha says she is her to learn sign language, but who decides as fifteen that their dream is being a sign language interpreter? If that's the reason Misha is at Yamaku then there is another, huge question of why does she want to become a sign language interpreter?

The only other clue I can think of is that Misha's life before coming to Yamaku was bad enough that being left alone seemed like a big step up. I could make up a story about how Misha needed to get into a very supportive private school and the family could swing Yamaku if Misha learned sign, but there's no support for that in the VN.
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Like I said, this Misha disability thing is really annoying. The story function of the disabilities is to show that the students of Yamaku are very strong and resourceful. That's not part of Misha's story.

That's kind of the nature of KS. There are huge chunks of the story, such as how Lilly feels about her parents, that are just left out completely. Hemingway said that leaving stuff out of a story makes the story stronger, as long as the author knows what the resolution to these missing pieces are.

Guest Poster wrote:Not interpretor. Teacher. And why not? Lilly decided in middle school that she wanted to become an English teacher and she's stuck with that throughout high school. No reason for Misha to be different.

I agree with Brythain. Certain things aren't very important to the main plotline and don't need to be known in order to enjoy the story the author wants to tell. It's often more fun to leave it up to the imagination of the readers.

Now, you see, I can respect that. Unfortunately, I can't go that far myself. Mostly because no one who supports that viewpoint has been able to give a satisfactory answer to the following:

In her big rooftop confession, Misha admits two things: that she didn't want to come to Yamaku at first, and that she was "exposed" about the fact that she didn't know sign language. The former implies a situation where going to Yamaku was presented to her before she elected to go there, and the latter implies that there was some degree of deception in her coming to Yamaku on a Sign Language pretext. Together, they put serious question to the idea that she came to Yamaku because she wanted to be a sign language teacher. Who relocates to an entirely different school they don't really want to go to teach something they don't know themselves (and potentially have no intention of learning)?

Her previous school/classmates having a Hanako-level hate boner for her only gets you so far. We still need to answer who or what planted the idea of going to a cripple school in her head in the first place, and what exactly it means that she was "exposed" for not knowing Sign Language. There's no "exposure" going on when an incoming student learning Sign Language is *gasp* revealed to not know what they were coming to the school to learn. I'd compare it to a Med School resident - yeah, he's coming to the residency to learn, but he's still expected to know a lot of prerequisites before he ever steps foot in the residency.

So I'm willing to accept the "no (physical) disabilities" as a plausible theory. But in doing so, I maintain that we'd need to resolve the above situation before we can consider it anything stronger than "plausible."

And as for the last bit, about being open for interpretation, isn't that the entire point of this discussion? About the fact that the devs have strongly implied that there's a "canon" reason that they'll take with them to their graves? If it's supposed to be open to interpretation, we should be allowed to, you know, interpret it. I'll agree that there are elements of this discussion that are annoying, not the least being the repetition of several points over the course of passing years, but the core idea - discussion of whether or not Misha has a disability, and what it might be - remains quite relevant and worthwhile.

ProfAllister wrote:And as for the last bit, about being open for interpretation, isn't that the entire point of this discussion? About the fact that the devs have strongly implied that there's a "canon" reason that they'll take with them to their graves? If it's supposed to be open to interpretation, we should be allowed to, you know, interpret it. I'll agree that there are elements of this discussion that are annoying, not the least being the repetition of several points over the course of passing years, but the core idea - discussion of whether or not Misha has a disability, and what it might be - remains quite relevant and worthwhile.

Yes, it is certainly relevant. Yes, it must be worth the while of anyone who is bothering to post here.

The important metaquestion is whether there is sufficient evidence in the text as presented for us to come to solid conclusions. There doesn't seem to be, so this is a speculative discussion, within limits, with no firm conclusions. That is, it's fun.

And also, very useful to anyone who wants to write Misha.

In her big rooftop confession, Misha admits two things: that she didn't want to come to Yamaku at first, and that she was "exposed" about the fact that she didn't know sign language. The former implies a situation where going to Yamaku was presented to her before she elected to go there, and the latter implies that there was some degree of deception in her coming to Yamaku on a Sign Language pretext.

I don't really see where there is a problem... The two lines you are probably referring to are:

"I didn't really want to come to this school, Hicchan~. But it sounded interesting, and even if everyone hated me, at least it felt like they would leave me alone. I was learning sign language, but wasn't very good at it~."

and

"But~! Shicchan wouldn't use her pen and paper. She knew that I was taking sign language classes. I was exposed quickly, I didn't know any~… That only made her try harder, and I hated Shicchan and thought she was making fun of me."

So she didn't really want to go to a school for disabled people at first? I'd say that is hardly surprising. What fifteen-year old girl would?
So she wasn't very good when she started to learn sign? It's normal to be bad at something you've just started learning.
She was coming to Yamaku to learn sign language, so you can hardly blame her for not being perfect before.
And the bit about being "exposed" just refers to Shizune finding out about her lack of skills - or whatever Shizune would think of as a lack of skills. We know how demanding she can be.

The only other clue I can think of is that Misha's life before coming to Yamaku was bad enough that being left alone seemed like a big step up. I could make up a story about how Misha needed to get into a very supportive private school and the family could swing Yamaku if Misha learned sign, but there's no support for that in the VN.

No, there's no support for it, but there is nothing contradicting this version, and it makes a lot of sense. It also resolves all the problems the Prof mentioned.
I'd have no problems accepting it as true, even if I probably could come up with two or three other plausible scenarios.

But in doing so, I maintain that we'd need to resolve the above situation before we can consider it anything stronger than "plausible."

The only way for us to consider anything more than "plausible" would be for a dev to step in. I'm quite happy with "plausible", though.

So, it sounds like we've resolved that there can't be any real resolution, but it does make sense to have plausible explanations of what Misha was doing in Yamaku. I think any explanation has to respect the few things we really know about the character: 1) Misha doesn't have any symptoms in the VN 2) Misha didn't want to come to Yamaku 3) Misha thought that being ignored would be a big step up from what she had before.

Given that, I think it makes sense to put together a petting zoo of Misha possibilities.

My entry:

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Misha came out as a lesbian early, at age fourteen. She loved strongly but not perhaps wisely. Misha and her love became targets of bullying.

Bullying in Japan is a nasty beast. The whole class will relentlessly attack the target, often with the excuse that they are trying to to get the target to behave better and be like everybody else. Students that might be on the sidelines will join in for fear of becoming the next target. Teachers will often ignore the bullying on the theory that any intervention will actually make the assaults worse.

It is in Misha's blood and bones to suffer for love, and she suffered until she just couldn't take it any more. Her parents realized that they had to get her out of that school, and into one that would be more supportive. They couldn't afford private tuition on their own, and many of the private schools were just as harsh as the public schools. Then they found out about Yamaku, and that they could get a substantial scholarship for a student that was willing to learn sign. For Misha, telling people that she wanted to become a sign language interpreter and teacher made the story easier to manage. And that is how Misha wound up at Yamaku.
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Mirage, you mentioned that you could think of two or three equally plausible stories. I'd love to read them.

On a completely different note, I've been thinking of what it means in terms of the story for Misha not having noticeable disabilities.

The story function of the disabilities is to show that each of the women are very strong, capable and resourceful. Misha doesn't get that. That's not to say that Misha isn't strong, or capable, or resourceful, but rather that demonstrating her qualities through overcoming disabilities isn't part of her story. This means that her story is inherently less complete that Lilly's, Shizune's, Hanako's, Rin's, or Emi's stories.

Poor Misha. She had no idea that Yamaku had a "you must be this crippled to be a main character" policy.

Liminaut wrote:On a completely different note, I've been thinking of what it means in terms of the story for Misha not having noticeable disabilities.

The story function of the disabilities is to show that each of the women are very strong, capable and resourceful. Misha doesn't get that. That's not to say that Misha isn't strong, or capable, or resourceful, but rather that demonstrating her qualities through overcoming disabilities isn't part of her story. This means that her story is inherently less complete that Lilly's, Shizune's, Hanako's, Rin's, or Emi's stories.

Poor Misha. She had no idea that Yamaku had a "you must be this crippled to be a main character" policy.

But you've just put your finger on it. Her disability is that she isn't main character material although she gets so much face-time. (Cue sad wahaha~! )

Liminaut wrote:Mirage, you mentioned that you could think of two or three equally plausible stories. I'd love to read them.

We also know that she was bullied at her previous school (as implied in your point three). It's not outright stated but heavily implied.
The actual reason for the bullying might be different (though her romantic preferences are the most likely bet), and her wish to become a sign-language teacher could be a more important part of the story, maybe a relative who is deaf or hard of hearing - but that would be pure speculation.
The main points of your story would probably come up in all of my versions as well, though.

brythain wrote:But you've just put your finger on it. Her disability is that she isn't main character material although she gets so much face-time. (Cue sad wahaha~! )

So THAT'S why Misha dyed her hair pink!

I'd watch any anime with HER as the main character.
Please notify me if the project appears on Kickstarter

You know what? I think Misha's partially deaf. The clues can be interpreted that way - she mishears Hisao, she speaks too loudly. She might be deaf in one ear, or have diminished hearing in both. Maybe she wears her hair like that to hide hearing aids. Perhaps it has stabilised with time, but it's also a reason for her learning to sign and having Shizune as a friend.

brythain wrote:You know what? I think Misha's partially deaf. The clues can be interpreted that way - she mishears Hisao, she speaks too loudly. She might be deaf in one ear, or have diminished hearing in both. Maybe she wears her hair like that to hide hearing aids. Perhaps it has stabilised with time, but it's also a reason for her learning to sign and having Shizune as a friend.

Probably one of the more sensible answer i've seen

There's nothing in the VN to support this theory but at least it's plausible.

Partially def sounds plausible. I've heard some sort of head injury, cancer, etc. But those don't seem likely. Something mental? Plausible.

I think it's kind of either intended for us to believe she doesn't have one, or make us guess.


I've also kind of wondered if they had originally had something planned to reveal something on her disability (Assuming she has one), but the idea got scrapped.

Her struggling with certain words kind of makes me wonder, though. Maybe she's just not that good with certain things. She seems quite intelligent, at least in some ways. To be able to master sign language, etc.