#tw bleach and inoue analysis smh thats an entire genre on its own

[hashtagartistlife]

▲ for inoue

lmfao I KNEW i was gonna get a bleach-related one it was a russian roulette toss-up between inoue ih bleach itself and kubo and i guess inoue drew the short stick!

anyway, inoue: 

when she confesses to rangiku during the arrancar invasion that she’s jealous and petty and selfish I think that was an incredibly accurate assessment of herself. People tend to view inoue as self-sacrificial to the extreme; I’m gonna posit the exact opposite. Inoue’s primary character trait is selfishness, and her self-sacrificial tendencies actually stem from her need to have people view her as pitiable, and therefore as lovable + worthy of attention and protection. 

Like, I know the sentence ‘inoue is selfish’ elicits a knee-jerk response of ‘how the HELL is she selfish’, but, like, I’m not talking ‘won’t share a snickers bar with a friend during lunch break’ selfish, I’m talking primary character motivation kind of selfish. Everyone’s selfish to some degree, it’s a goddamn survival instinct! and it’s no wonder that inoue, who’s had to survive hostile situations since she was little, has a little more of it than most other people. Inoue’s niceness is a coping mechanism!!!! Some people get traumatized and become prickly and shut the world out. Inoue got traumatized and decided, well, she’s going to go in with all white flags waving. She’s gonna extend her wrist out to people wielding knives, and well, if they slit her wrist, at least the people watching won’t be able to blame her- they’ll be on her side, they’ll think she was a poor thing who got taken advantage of. inoue isn’t self-sacrificial in the usual sense of the word; her self-sacrificial tendencies are for display, for an ulterior motive. and the ulterior motive is: love me. you can’t hate me, not when I’m this nice. Not when I’m risking life and limb for what’s ‘’’’’right’’’’’. 

you can really see this base motivation come through in the arrancar arc, especially when she’s healing loly and menoly after they abuse her. That part? it was’t put in the manga to show what a paragon of mental fortitude and purity inoue is. it was put in there to show us that inoue has an unhealthy obsession with needing to appear as ‘worthy of love and protection’ at all times, and that’s why she’s in hueco mundo. She’s not there for some lofty reason like ‘i’ll kill your friends if you don’t come’ – that’s the reason given for it out loud, sure. But the unspoken, subconscious motivation was that she needed to know they’ll all come to rescue her- that she is worthy of All That, just like kuchiki-san was. That’s why the other nakama are dying out there in the sands – because of her. because she needed to know that she was as worthy and as loved as kuchiki-san. that scene wasn’t an ode to inoue’s all-forgiving nature. it was a condemnation. (shit, that entire arc was a condemnation of inoue, and funnily enough, ichigo. because their faults lie along a very similar ley line– it’s why they’re so terrible for each other. but that’s another meta for another day.) 

anyway, that doesn’t mean she’s not a nice person. Who cares if her actions are motivated by a subconscious trauma response that not even inoue fully recognises is driving her? The actions themselves are good actions. Just as a tragic backstory and childhood trauma doesn’t excuse you being a raging asshole, a tragic backstory and childhood trauma doesn’t negate the good actions that you do because of it. Inoue does good things, and she means well, and it’s only because her genre HAPPENED to be shounen (where every fucking NPC on the street has superhuman goodness and courage + her actions, however well-meaning, led to actual blood and consequences for people) that her faults even came to light in the first place. That’s out of her control! 

So basically, i guess the unpopular opinion here is: inoue’s primary character trait is selfish. but a) that’s because it’s a coping mechanism and trauma response, and b) it doesn’t negate the fact that she does Good Things with Good Intent, and c) I LIKE HER BETTER WITH A LITTLE SELFISHNESS ANYWAY. SEASON YOUR FOOD. LET YOUR FEMALE CHARACTERS BE FLAWED ETC ETC 

#tw bleach and inoue analysis smh thats an entire genre on its own #Anonymous #q&a #replies #bleach #bleach meta #fangirl life