[FFML] [SHnY] The Score of Haruhi Suzumiya

[Brian Randall]

On Mon, Sep 5, 2011 at 10:26 AM, Henry Cobb <henry.cobb at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Sep 5, 2011 at 8:51 AM, Brian Randall <durandall at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Out of curiosity, why do you always make Kyon so much of a buttmonkey?
>>  Or do you just not care for the Kyon/Haruhi relationship, and that's
>> why you make her so unlikable?
>>
>> I'll admit, it makes it very hard for me to get into your stories....
>> Granted, you are consistent; I'm just curious about the reasons for
>> your characterizations.
>
> How would you like to see her? This version is NEVER depressed, as
> she's sitting on her on switch. Why shouldn't she be excited? She
> wants to be special and is clearly aware that she is special.

I don't understand why that means 'in any mood, Haruhi's got to try
and one-up her canon-self as far as being demeaning to Kyon'.  She
gets what she wants (evidently), and has even less regard for people
around her?  Considering I find canon Haruhi at the limits of my
tolerance before her character growth, making her worse never sits
well with me.

Anyway.

If Haruhi were to avoid the cram school mention (which, canonically,
you're introducing about a year too soon, since no one should know
what Kyon's grades are at this point -- probably including him) and
instead say she was trying to get Kyon into a better college, suddenly
it turns into an oblique declaration of intent/commitment, instead of
'just another jab at Kyon'.  It'd also line up really well with the
fact that Haruhi's old boyfriends all wind up dead, and her
declaration that this time will be different.

Haruhi's derisive comments can be reduced only to center on the fact
that Kyon is not a good action hero/action survivor (or he's not genre
savvy).  In fact, if you do that, you can take her complaints up to
eleven, and still be hilarious.  These things make Haruhi a bit more
of a cloud cuckoo lander, but also mean that Kyon's just as likely to
be amused at her insults, and can return snarky one-liners.  Haruhi
complaining that Kyon's dry, cool wit is suited towards an action hero
(and that's the only part of him that cuts it) could make for
hilarity, especially if Kyon doesn't particularly care to become an
action hero/survivor.

You get some hint of redemption in your main female lead, and a male
lead that your readers can regard as more than a joke character.

But maybe that's actually the opposite of your goal?

> Would you rather see a story where Haruhi has a small window into her
> true nature and fears it? She'd be constantly blaming and suppressing
> herself and Kyon's role would be to first take an interest in her
> himself and then slowly work her out of her shell. That would be a
> complete inversion of the standard oblivious jerkass Haruhi.

My suspicions are that characterization is not _terribly_ far from
canon, actually....  Given her reaction to things it seems she'd
rather not know (she just never thinks about the two timelines, she
accepted and doesn't like thinking about Koizumi's explanation for the
Snow Mountain Syndrome).

It'd be interesting.  Not sure what it has to do with this, though.

>> You've got 'Miss' and '-chan' in the same sentence.  Technically, it's
>> not too bad a case of mix-and-match, since they aren't remotely
>> equivalent honorifics, but it does stick out to me.
>
> How to translate Tsuruya? I'd use southern gentry, but there's no
> Kansai dialect in the sources.

Just use 'honey' or 'dear', like they did when they translated Ukyou's
'Ranchan'?  Maybe 'darling'?  I'm not sure what dialects have to do
with honorifics, really; in this case, the entire cast speaks the same
way, so it should be consistent from Tsuruya and Haruhi.

> Pity the old list tradition of MST has died out. Perhaps we need a MST
> tolerant tag?

It's only died out because people don't do it anymore.  There's
nothing stopping people (other than initiative).

-- 
Brian Randall
--
Yrne awaits those with the courage to seek it.
--
I write fanfiction. Too much of it. You can read it here, on my
terrible webpage:
http://pishoque.net/brian/