Drops of Jupiter

kikyosboobs:

I really, really want to like Kagome but I just can’t bring myself to find her character appealing. I just can’t get into her character at all, she’s so uninteresting and downright cliché to me. Someone make me like her, please? Being serious. Not joking.

This must be my 8th time rereading the…

If you don’t mind me asking, why do you feel you should like Kagome? Personally, she’s my favourite character but I don’t think everyone else has to like her. Not everybody has the same ideas about what makes a good or interesting character. Different strokes for different folks and all.

If you want to know why I like her, well, I’ve talked a lot about why I like Kagome so much here and here but to save you from having to read even more of my tl;dr (unless you particularly want to), I’ll focus on the points you brought up.

I think it helps if you understand that in my opinion, there’s no direct relationship between a character’s morals and how well-written or interesting that character is. I don’t think anti-heroes are inherently more complex or interesting than heroes or vice versa. Why am I saying this? Because 1) I don’t agree with the point of view that jealousy is Kagome’s only significant character flaw and 2) I don’t think having strengths that outweigh your flaws makes for an inherently dull character.

Jealousy is certainly one of Kagome’s biggest flaws but it’s not her only one. She’s also insecure, has some serious self-esteem issues regarding her relationships with others, is quick-tempered and emotionally volatile, naive, has a tendency to jump to conclusions and often leaps into dangerous situations without heed for the consequences of her actions. Is she as deeply flawed as some of the other characters? No, but she doesn’t have to be to be believable or interesting, imho. Kagome’s main role in Inuyasha’s gang is holding the group together: it’s pretty hard to do that when you’re an emotional wreck most of the time. Her emotional strength also balances out her physical weakness when compared to the rest of the group (yeah, she can dish out huge amounts of damage but an ordinary human body without any martial arts/weapon training is much, much weaker than the average youkai’s).

I’d actually say that Kagome’s biggest flaw is her insecurity, which is really the main cause of her jealousy. Whereas Kikyou’s biggest flaw is her pride/superiority complex, Kagome’s biggest flaw is her insecurity/inferiority complex. Kagome has to step out of Kikyou’s shadow and define herself as her own person and a miko in her own right, whereas Kikyou has to come to terms with her pride and unwillingness to accept her own mistakes and flaws. I’ve always found the parallels between their character arcs to be really interesting (which is part of the reason why I find the Kagome vs. Kikyou war deeply annoying - neither of them could be the character they become at the end of the series without the other’s influence).

To sum up, if you don’t like Kagome, that’s fine: you don’t have to. I don’t like Sesshoumaru (blasphemy, I know :p ), that doesn’t mean I don’t think anyone else should like him or that I can’t possibly understand why they would find him likeable or interesting. I think so long as you take the time to understand and respect others’ opinions, disliking a character shouldn’t be an issue. It’s when people start acting like complete wankers about said dislike (see the aforementioned Kagome vs. Kikyou war) that it becomes annoying.

Is this helpful at all? It kind of turned into tl;dr anyway. ^^;