RG Veda Vol 9-10 (end)

[meganbmoore]

Uhm…rocks fall and almost everyone dies? Maybe I was spoiled by the endings of Basara and , where, halfway through, you’re pretty much convinced that everyone is going to be dead by the end, but you end up with a respectable body count and more survivors than not, and pretty much everyone who died died accomplishing something, or making it possible for someone else to accomplish something. Not in the middle of finding out the good guys had unintentionally been aiding in the apocalypse.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed to “rocks fall, everybody dies” when it makes sense, but when you add it to learning that everything you’ve watched the characters go through wasn’t to save the world, but to destroy it, it starts to feel gratuitous. At one point, Zouchouten said he was sick of all the dying. I actually said “me too” out loud.

And yet, I’m still pretty fond of this thing.

But is Clamp capable of just writing a good old-fashioned bad guy? I mean, I’m all for complex characters and motives and twists, but it’s nice to just have a villain you can root to have defeated from beginning to end. For that matter, why does the reveal on these things always have to end up “and all this was because I loved someone”?

Other bits:

1. Kendappa was the 4th general. This pleases me.
2. That Lord Ashura and Taishakouten both married Sanshi because she had the seal while they had a thing going themselves didn’t exactly make me sympathize with them the way the backstory was supposed to. Not that I particularly sympathize with Sanshi, but really…
3. Kujaku is the spawn of an incestuous union between the former god king and his sister, was kept locked in a jail cell to hide his father’s sins, and his mother tried to kill him. I am deeply concerned that something like that no longer shocks me. Possibly even more concerned that it makes me go “Whee!”
4. Ashura really shouldn’t have made the “Everyone loves you”! speech to Tenou. While it was pretty understandable under the circumstances, it made me want to point to Yasha, Souma and Ryuu and go “What are they? Fertilizer?”
5. Thank you for at least leaving two characters I liked-Zouchouten and Tenou-alive, Clamp. (Though I feel compelled to point out that it was three until you went for the last second death.) (Yes, I do like Yasha and Ashura, too, but…)
 

Comments

[la-vie-noire.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know. That's all.

But is Clamp capable of just writing a good old-fashioned bad guy?

To be honest, I don't think so. That's why I think FWR will end like a deconstruction or something of The Bad Guy. He is like... too stereotypical.

And yaaay, CLAMP fan!

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

It's quite the wham ending, isn't it?

I was so very sad for Kujaku. But in a squeeing way as well XD so what says you less angsty or as angsty as Fay?

But is Clamp capable of just writing a good old-fashioned bad guy?
Nah, I don't think they are. Then again, there's Sashi, one of the rare evil character of CLAMP not motivated by love in the slightest. I kinda love her for that XD

Taishakuten and Ashura-Ou are both very much prat, yes, with or without the last revelations. I kind of think it's hilarious how the rare moments where Taishakuten shows compassion it's all about how it was similar to his own being screwed, but he's still a dick to most everyone in the manga in general and made a very bad job at fulfilling Ashura-Ou's request.
But the canon vore between the two still makes me squee.

[rekallthegreat.livejournal.com]

But is Clamp capable of just writing a good old-fashioned bad guy?

Nope. I'm completely convinced we'll never see a good old-fashioned bad guy from them. I don't mind it for the most part but I like hating FWR and don't want to feel any sympathy for him.

I am deeply concerned that something like that no longer shocks me. Possibly even more concerned that it makes me go “Whee!”

Welcome to the darkside! XD

[kakkobean.livejournal.com]

*starts thinking of the bad guys in CLAMP fiction that she has read*

Hmmm...uuummm...don't think so. Unless you count the dude in Clamp Campus Defenders Duklyon, but then again no one really thinks about that series (because he ends up not being so stereotypical in the end, but whatever). Or maybe the villains in Rex, the story with the dinosaur where all of the bad guys just want to capture him for science. Then again, Alcione from Magic Knight Rayearth seemed kind of stereotypical to me (in the whole "I am a crazy psycho bitch who kills people because the man I love one-sidedly told me to" way)...and then there's Evil Sheep Beast Wooltar 8DDD (loves on Evil Sheep Beast Wooltar)

So. Uh. I guess it depends on where you look in CLAMP literature, since the Legend of Chun Hyang never got beyond volume one (so no more info on the guy responsible for her mother's death), nor do we have any more info on any "bad guys" for Legal Drug since that series died...and--and gah, a loosing battle I am fighting here =_=

[amewarashi.livejournal.com]

Well, yeah, not everyone. BTW, I'm still amazed Tenoh survived the whole deal. And happy, too. I love him dearly, the poor, cute thing ♥

Okay, so, I'm still pretty annoyed at the fact Kujaku died like that. Then again, the fact I was never fond in the least of Ashura and Yasha (as characters and as a pairing) doesn't help. And trying to look at it from an objective point of view, I think that such a butchery of a story getting a "happy ending"* feels so strange and anticlimatic. At least to me.



* For the two main characters, that is. And you could argue that for Kendappa as well, in a twisted way. But ARGH! Then I remember Ryuu-oh's puppy face while dying and how it didn't matter to anyone (not even Ashura), or Karura-oh never getting her revenge, and I go D:

[badtzphoto.livejournal.com]

"But is Clamp capable of just writing a good old-fashioned bad guy?"
Probably not. However, now that I've seen one too many time, I've come to suspect that Fei Wong Reed is very likely to be a good guy, too. That'd be highly annoying.