♦ “Demon Slayer” » 81 Kb (Normal), 112 Kb (Original)

Woot—the second of my rant pics. As usual, it’s nothing special—solo character in front, plain background behind. Sorry for slapping my signature so abruptly across her legs—while I was finishing this I had just discovered another art thief, and was made appropriately paranoid. I wish I could redo this one; I’m not very happy with it.

Okay, now I get to rant about Sango! First off, ever since I opened this site there’ve been some people who don’t seem to understand why I focus on her a great deal in my fan works, and even though I explained this in my “Profile” page, I don’t think it’s too much trouble to expand on it here. Also, I’ve noticed that there’ve been a lot of very odd incarnations of her floating around in the fandom, and I just wanted to state my opinion on them.

Every good character has his/her misrepresentations, and Sango is no exception. A good (bad) example for these is bad fan fiction (the likes of which should be maimed and beaten and wiped off this plane of existence if I had my way, but that’s another rant entirely). Case in point: you read a story where you find Miroku following Sango around continually asking her, “Will you bear my child?” with Sango responding with, “For the last time, no!” before pounding him into oblivion.

At this point, you should be tipped off to the fact that this is a Very Bad Fanfic. Capitalized and everything.

Here’s something to chew on: one of the first clues that tips you off that’s there’s Something There between Sango and Miroku is that he never, ever asks her to bear his child, to the point that she actually has to remind him. Why do you think that when he finally does ask her, it’s such a friggin’ big deal?

Some people give her flak because they think she’s too “prudish” and therefore a bad match for the outgoing, extroverted Miroku; she’ll blow him off even when he’s actually being sweet toward her, then get mad when he flirts with other girls. But you have to understand where this girl is coming from: she’s just lost her family, for crying out loud—her father and, to lesser extent, her brother. And when a girl loses a father she adores, she’ll react in a number of ways—either she’ll grab onto the first boy who shows interest in her desperation for another male presence to take the place of the one she lost, or she’ll be wary of forming an attachment to another male because in the back of her mind, as irrational as it is, she’ll always be afraid that she’ll lose this one as well. Trust me, I know what I’m talking about. She won’t be able to help it. In Sango’s case, her reaction is the latter: her impulse to push Miroku away is actually less irrational than it should be because, in addition to his initial flightiness, he also has a potentially limited lifespan. It is for this reason that Miroku is actually the last person on Earth she should fall in love with. She’s not stupid: she know this full well, and she tries very, very hard to keep herself from doing just that. Of course, Miroku keeps ruining it by listening to her, talking to her, risking his life to save hers and her brother’s, and other pesky stuff like that.

Contrary to some people’s opinions, they don’t spend every moment in each other’s presence playing grope-slap-grope. As befitting two people who have to spend a lot of time in each others’ presence, they’ve developed a genuine friendship. They’ll laugh together, whisper in each other’s ears, stand near each other when they can, and on certain occasions they’ll actually be apart from the main group for no discernable reason at all except to talk about nothing. I’ve seen them finish each other’s sentences and communicate without speaking a word—a lot of longtime couples don’t even get to that stage.

In additional to the one-dimensional SuperPrude!Sango, you’ll also come across her other fanon persona, PsychoFreak!Sango. You know, the kind who will beat Miroku within an inch of his life for touching her, almost-touching her, for even looking at her wrong. All of a sudden it’s like she’s morphed from the perfectly normal girl in the anime and manga into someone who could use a lot of Demerol. Or an anger management class or three. It’s become so bad and downright disturbing that I can almost hear the music from Psycho starting up every time this detestable fanon version of Sango shows up in a scene.

The truth is, Sango will get annoyed at Miroku for his misbehavior, but, as one would expect after a hundred episodes, for the most part she’s become resigned to it. She will discipline him with a slap, an elbow to his ribs, and a thump from Hiraikotsu, but she won’t outright bludgeon him. For his part, Miroku won’t bother to avoid his punishment—I mean, if he’s fast enough to deflect spears in mid-flight, surely he can dodge a slap or two, even from Sango—but he takes it like a good little boy, and I think the both of them like it that way. In later episodes you’ll notice that Sango no longer seems shocked at his actions; instead she hits him, or brushes him off, or, during rare instances, even laughs it off. It’s their schtick. Because he does not do it all the time, she’s not afraid to sit next to him on logs, in dining rooms, temples, and what have you.

I think the reason there are these incredibly horrid and inaccurate incarnations of Sango out there is because she barely registers enough in some IY writers’ little fanon radars for them to muster up any sort of individuality for her. Which, of course, is just ridiculous, especially when you consider that Sango, with her familial loss and her conflicting feelings, is one of the most complex and empathic characters out there. It’s just damned sad that she’s usually relegated to set dressing who occasionally comes to life to either hammer Miroku or remark on Inuyasha and Kagome’s relationship. Yeah, like the author hasn’t spent the last eight paragraphs expounding on the latter.

I adore Sango, by the way, if you haven’t caught on by now. I think she’s an amazing character: tough and sympathic, proud and insecure, rough and exquisite. Sometimes she’s emotional, headstrong, and introverted, but that’s okay; for someone who’s lost her family and way of life, I think she’s doing more than fine. She can be angry, she can be vengeful, but she has enough moral fiber to know the limits. She’s a modern woman in warring times; put her in either timeline and I don’t think she’ll need to change much to adapt. She gives as good as she gets and she’s strong enough, emotionally and physically, not to take any guff from anyone, not even Miroku.

Okay, I’m done. Next up: Kouga.