PsyckoSama (Sam Phoenix) wrote:

About the hotaru abortion debate... it's damn simple. She's sick of
everything in her life being about death. I'm sure point that out in the
previous chapters.

Well, obviously that didn't come across to me as you intended.  That IS
quite a good starting point, however (and one that doesn't preclude the 
Usual
Outer Suspects from taking another point of view).

Oh, and about abortion in Japan... there is guilt about it. I don't want to
go into detail, but there are religious issues about the soul not being at
rest.

I'm quite aware of that.  Assuaging guilt over abortion is the main root of
all those little "buddlet" (to use the term my brother, sister, and I 
adopted) statues
decorating the entrance pathways into many temples.  It's not uncommon
for the parents to return every year to place an offering in front of 
the statuette,
I'm told.  (I noticed rather a LOT of these statuettes, though.)

However, the common presence of after-the-fact guilt hardly changes my
main point.  Hotaru's school peers would be expecting her to get an 
abortion,
and Hotaru knows this.  (In fact, most would probably view it as an almost
automatic decision.)  She decides to do otherwise.  Why?  What led to
this decision?  Show us, don't tell.

I think the best way for me, as one individual reader, to swallow Hotaru's
decision might in fact be to have her defend it, repeatedly, using your 
point
above (" 'Can't I for once have my purpose be about life rather than death?'
Hotaru pleaded tearfully") to Haruka and Michiru, who hard-headedly take a
"why don't you be reasonable about this!?  You're sacrificing college!
Sacrifices have to be made for the greater good!" standpoint.  While I don't
usually recommend characterization by conflict, in this case it might be 
a good
strategy.

btw, if this isn't helping, i'm happy to drop the point.  The ONLY point 
of C&C
is to help an author and a story become better.




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