|
A rant about Change Wufei |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Ok, let me just start by saying that I have a real problem with a lot of the characterizations of Wufei that are out there. Now, I might be as guilty as everyone else, my interpretation Wufei probably sucks...BUT...this is what I think of Wufei. *ahem*
First of all, Wufei is NOT an emotional eunuch, and neither is he a ticking time bomb! A lot of people seem to have the impression that he's a jerk, he's got an obsessive nature, he's mean, etc. I couldn't disagree more. (This is something I and a couple of my proofreaders have talked about a LOT)
Think back to Wufei's child hood. He was a scholar. He loved to learn. That's what he spent most of his time doing, actually. Also, while he might not have been an absolute pacifist, neither was he a violence loving testosterone machine. He was very quiet, very gentle, and very intellectual...which is why Meiran was convinced he was a weakling. Wufei never wanted to fight, not really...but when Meiran got killed, he was suddenly saddled with a huge, overwhelming burden of guilt and shame. I think he did care for her, a great deal, or at the least felt responsible for her as her husband...and so when he couldn't protect her and she died, it was such a blow that he was knocked completely off balance. He became convinced that because he couldn't save her, he was weak, and he was unworthy. So, he became obsessed with the idea of making himself worthy. Now...the justice thing. As far as I can tell, when Wufei rants about justice, he's not trying to convince his opponents.
Big surprise. He's trying to convince HIMSELF.
Deep down inside, he's still a very gentle, quiet person, so he has to convince himself to keep fighting. He doesn't like hurting people, so he has to convince himself that he does. He builds such an effective fake personality where he is strong like Meiran wanted him to be that he can't escape it later, once the war is over, and that's why he joins up with that creepy little girl whose name I can't remember.
Wufei cares deeply about his friends, a lot more deeply than he will EVER let on. Frankly, when you get down to it, I think he's got almost as caring and nurturing a nature as Trowa...except he's blocked that portion of himself off, because he's afraid that it makes him weak, he's afraid that it makes him vulnerable, and it simply hurts him too much to let remain open. Wufei has lost everything in his life that he really cares about. First, he lost Meiran, and then later, he loses his entire colony. What's left for him but guilt, anger, emptiness, and the overwhelming feeling that everything he loves DIES because he's too weak to protect it? He NEEDS people and affection, but at the same time, he refuses to reach out because he doesn't want to set himself up for failure again. He doesn't want to see another person he cares about die.
People like Wufei get hurt very easily if they don't build strong masks to hide behind, because they feel everything so personally. If someone dies, it's because THEY couldn't protect them...that sort of thing.
Another reason Wufei joined up with the creepy little girl...he's looking for MEANING. Think about it...up until the war, he had a home. Now he has none. All he had was the fight and violence, and as much as he hated it, it still gave him a definition of who he was and where he was going. So now that the war is over, he has nothing. He's lost. He can't go back to being who he was before the war...it's impossible for him.
In Endless Waltz, at the end when Wufei fights Heero, I think that wasn't about Wufei losing it...I think it was Wufei trying to find a way to be himself again, instead of the extreme warrior that he had built up around himself. He was so used to being the warrior that when the war ended, he didn't know what to do, and he didn't know how to escape the facade he had built up around himself, but at the same time, his true self was trying to get out because it was over, and it was time to stop fighting. So the last fight was the internal struggle that he was dealing with, the warrior versus the real Wufei, where the warrior was trying to give himself a reason for his continued existence. And in the end, when Heero asks "How many more times must I kill that little girl" (or something like that) that's basically when Wufei realizes what he has made himself into.
And that's why he's able to blow up Nataku at the end. Because he's finally able to let it go.
Feral Mule · Wed Jul 28, 2010 @ 04:04pm · 0 Comments |
|
|
|
|
|