labingi

I've lost access to the MoB forum for some reason, so I'll post here, just to share my perspective with you (I've just finished reading the Showa arc, and I didn't skip any volumes, so I have the whole picture).

Kuwabara gave it a really, really good try. I expected things to be much worse with Minako, so I was actually pleasantly surprised. No, Minako is not a superhuman, and Kuwabara spends some time on reiterating that: she seems like Kannon since she has that calming and reassuring effect on people, but it’s just a peculiar quality of an otherwise ordinary human being.

Now, rape scene has parts written from Minako’s POV. So we know for sure how bad it was for her, there were all those natural human reactions in the process – and after. She did not forgive, she felt revulsion, rage etc. for quite some time. Even when she said those words to Naoe right after - “your wish will come true” - they were not meant as forgiveness. For me it came across more like an unintended prophecy made in a state of delirium (she was deeply traumatized but she also probably realized a few things about the whole situation).

So, she was having all those human reactions until she found out she’s pregnant, and after, when Haruie came to see them, because Haruie could feel her rage, her inner turmoil, that she was trying very hard to suppress. But then Minako has to decide, how to go on with it. Her initial reaction was to take it to her grave – now she can’t do it anymore, but what can she do? My guess (and from Kuwabara’s writing I can at least assume this, because all the hints are there) is that Minako must have figured that Kagetora does not love her the way she was hoping (maybe) he is. If he truly loved her, and cared for her, he wouldn’t have put her in this situation with a mentally unstable person holding a grudge against her, saying that this is for her _protection_. So, Kagetora does not love her, but she still loves him and wants to be a part of his life. She wants some sort of connection – and she can have it as a mother, if not a woman. Hence her brilliant decision that (as an added bonus) makes Naoe feel miserable and horrified, compensating at least in part for what he had put her through. So, she decides to keep the baby as a vessel for Kagetora, and to make herself calm down a bit she uses Kagetora’s favorite trick: shove it all into a dark corner, put a wall around it and don’t look that way anymore. She’s so often compared to Kagetora in terms of inner strength (which translates into the ability to conveniently scratch things out of your own mind) that she seems fully capable of doing that.

But then, after a while she must have really come to terms with everything, because by the time of her death there was no indications to any bad feelings. The last goodbye that Haruie catches is full of positivity and light. Here – yes, we are left to believe in naturally high level of compassion. But that’s in character, I would say. Minako forgave eventually, but she didn’t forgive right away.