SUPER EXHILARATING. I'm super pumped now!
Surprisingly Complex: M.S.S.S Episode 14
Now it's on! Okay, it was confirmed that the Serpent doesn't come from her doubt, but more likely her guilt. But that ending left me... Unsatisfied, addicted. But that's a good cliffhanger for you. Anyway, this episode has one of the best uses of character lens for a while, if not ever.
Remember the opening scene with Tsukihi? That was one hell of a character lens scene there. If I were to count the word "cute" in there, it would be damn too much. See how much it just started to pour after it was said the first time? Tsukihi either did not say the word so much, or Nadeko stopped listening anything else than that word. It's also a good way to tie the whole episode together. By the end of the scene with Tsukihi Sengoku starts to get really really anguished from Tsukihi, seeing her as a monster and a crime detective. It's the power of the lens.
By the way, when they were talking about Araragi's girlfriend, the name was left out on purpose. Nadeko thought that the girlfriend was Hanekawa, where as Tsukihi knew it was Senjougahara, but didn't realize Nadeko's mistake.
Anyway. After the glorious opening we get more Tsukihi and the cutting of the bangs. She couldn't hide behind her hair no more, causing some interesting things. When she can't hide anymore, she goes to the offensive, and it was really weird. It's a completely different Nadeko, but! Even though Nadeko said it was 100% her, I say it wasn't. I say that the aggression actually comes from the Serpent, and it was intentional. It was to put her into submission. Because if she doesn't have control over her body, it implies that she is doing something wrong, feeding her guilt, and thus feeding the Serpent.
Notice how the cutting of the bangs, which was at most, like, two centimeters, made a HUGE impact on her. That is change, she fears it. She fears it so bad, that she is hung up on loving Araragi, just so she can keep things status quo.
And the end of the episode, the infiltration of Base Araragi and finding the old-Hanekawa-esque porn mags made extra-clear that Nadeko had mistaken. Also tells us something about Araragi, too. He probably got those mags because Hanekawa changed appearance. Makes sense to me.
Now, to the ending which left me exhilarated. Nadeko wants her unobtainable love to be obtainable, but she really pleas for it only because she is being manipulated. The fact that the Serpent has a mission to complete for her gives it a perfect reason to take over her body, causing the flustercluck that was the arc's beginning.
TL;DR (Come on, this is one of the shorter ones):
Nadeko went a little nutty before her grumpy moment, and is being manipulated.
EXTRA EXTRA:
I never went in depth with the opening's lyrics, and I tell you they're important, there hasn't been a single opening without meaningful lyrics.
The lyrics themselves are actually pretty creepy. It's all about putting the world into submission if Araragi won't love her back. And by the fact that she wants nothing but everything, it just means everything she wants, meaning Araragi, obviously.
By the "delusions" she is singing about in the beginning, it's either the whole love toward Araragi, or she knows she's being tricked by the Serpent. If she knows she's being tricked, she just tries not to cause problems, causing her to believe her own delusions, leading up to her final demise. There's also an interesting part in the middle. "I understood nothing, but closed my eyes, and looking so very cute asked the stars for help." It signifies the importance of her bangs. They were her cover, so that she could close her eyes in peace and feign ignorance and helplessness.
The "If you will not fall in love with me too, nothing will ever change" is about her desire to keep the status quo, but with a bitter remark. Which is complimented by the ending of the song, where the whole world will be turned upside down just to get Him. It means she wants things to change, but is too afraid of it that she cannot.
This is a ridiculous analysis. While I do admit your view in character lens is certainly right, because it is shown to us the whole damn series, your character analysis is bleak, at the most.
VastaaPoistaYou're assuming Nadeko's character is static, that she's being manipulated into it, as if she was this fragile little cute girl that is going OOC because of some intervention, and that is not the case at all. Actually, the contrary is the whole point of this arc. She's a character that's been throughout the whole series merely "assumed"; she's so innocent and cute, that people simply cannot understand how she could try to make trouble, how could she hate her whole class, etc. She's a person who's made use of the image people have created off her to get by on life, living confortably as a victim, unable to ever be an agressor. And as Shinobu said, that makes her less human. And once Shinobu says that, she realizes it. That's it, she's been hiding her whole life. She subconsciously knows that's what's happening, and that she hates that about herself. People, at most, just assume her. In the end, the Sengoku Nadeko they see is not more than just the fantasy that she herself has allowed them to believe. And that's the whole point in the serpent's existence. She sees him. She goddamn acknowledges him; of all of the people in the world, it is her. It is the same as Hanekawa and the tiger, or that is, all of the oddities in this series. There's a reason why they appear, and in the particular case of Nadeko, it's because she finally needs to acknowledge that what people see her as is a facade, not her real self, and that she's completely and utterly fucking tired of it. She's not manipulated by the serpent. It's the other way around. She's using it. Through the serpent, she can finally have a tool to finally go around and do the shit that she wants so much.
If anything, it seems to me that you're actually just evaluating the series/characters on the anime and by what it's shown there? You should try the novels, really. Though the adaptations are pretty flawless, so I guess it's fine. But at least, please refrain yourself from judging the characters before their arcs are even over. Nadeko is one of the characters that suffers from one of the hardest changes in the whole series, and Nadeko Medusa is HUGE for her, for the reasons explained above. As with Hanekawa, this change is so big for her, that she stops developing as a character in the series, so please try to reevaluate your analysis before just doing what the rest of the cast in the series has been doing the whole goddamn show.
Sincerely, a Monogatari fan.
5 points for pointing out that my thoughts are not coming across. Did you read the posts about the previous episodes? I made pretty clear there that she is the prosecutor.
PoistaSo.. Err.. If you may look, I have done analysis on every single episode of Second Season... Because I need to blurb the text out of me somehow. I am going to do a full-on analysis later, these episodical ones have nowhere near the level of analysis my full texts have.
Just to make sure, I do not think Nadeko is just what the cover says, if you got that impression from this post, I am sincerely sorry. I did not intend it that way. But, this one was in no way intended as a stand-alone text, but it just has my current analysis on the current episode. I don't write the same sentence twice. Okay, that's a lie, I write the same lines again and again, but I mean that I did some kind of analysis on Nadeko's fake self before, even though my previous theorem had more to do with DOUBT than GUILT. It still hits kind of close. Take a read of the analyses on the other episodes of the arc, I do apologize for the confusion.
On regarding the novels: I have no intention to read them yet, but I will in the future.
+100 points on commenting : DD, +592 for criticism.
There is one tiny section in the Mayoi Jiangshi light novel that this episode made me think of. It wasn't covered in the show, as it was a kind of throwaway line, but it does foreshadow some of Nadeko's true personality. Shinobu is asking Koyomi if he would be able to just copy or get help with his forgotten homework from one of his friends. Koyomi says that Nadeko would be terrible even ignoring that she's in middle school. Nadeko didn't bother with her homework on purpose and made light of how she would be yelled at for it. When he looked at one of her notebooks, he noticed that although her handwriting was beautiful, every answer was wrong.
VastaaPoista"I've only recently understood that Sengoku is just quiet and calm, but by no means is she diligent or smart, nor is she a good girl."
There was already something off about her personality. Back in her first story she didn't make sense as a real person. Someone cursed her. So she looks up a counter to it. Seems normal enough. The weird part is that she went through with it. She killed and mutilated dozens of snakes to counter a curse that there was no evidence at the time that it was even real. It only became real after she started going to the shrine. It was easy to ignore at the time. All the girls had weird personality quirks. The difference is that the others were explained in time. Hitagi had lived years without emotions and so had difficulty expressing them. Tsubasa was blocking all negative thoughts in a kind of alternate personality. We've never learned the reason behind Nadeko's strangeness however. I'm almost certain that will be in the next episode.
Nadeko's main trait seems to be a kind of laziness. She's quiet and shy only because it causes people to ignore her. She's not averse to using her attractiveness to get what she wants. Think her scene in Nisemonogatari and also in the previous episode. She is spoiled in a way. I wouldn't doubt that she could become a true villain if she didn't get what she wanted.
Also think of the words the snake mentions when it unlocks the Araragi's door. He is the opener of barriers. I don't think he manipulated her in the normal way. He just removed the barriers that blocked her hidden true personality.
Goddamnit son. You have some brains! But..!
PoistaYour analysis on the snake being a opener of barriers is something I totally overlooked... It really does give a different feel to the idea of the snake manipulating her... Anyway.
Nadeko's main trait, in my mind, seems to be laziness, but! She takes every task she's asked to do, even though she couldn't fulfill it. I think it's not laziness, but some kind of disapproval of self. She doesn't want to do the things, but she cannot say no. Have we ever heard her disagree about anything? I think we haven't.
The fact that the snake opens barriers is probably a big part of the first scene of the arc. I think that Nadeko suppresses all her true thoughts because she doesn't want people to judge her. She wants to be as anonymous as possible. When the snake comes along, all the true thoughts are surfaced in turn. So... From this we can analyze the lyrics of the opening. She really wants Araragi, and is capable mentally to do anything to achieve that. Even killing him. She doesn't want the world that doesn't listen to her wishes, so when the idea escapes from her inner thoughts to her actions, taking account the snake, she will go berserk.
We should also inspect that why is the being called a "medusa." The hair turning into snakes was a PUNISHMENT. That may help us, or it may not. Of course, I would say that it's self-punishment, but I can't be sure.
+100 for comment, +592 for criticism, +15712361512 for new ideas!
Correction: Nadeko's main trait, in the VIEWER'S mind, seems to be laziness.
Poista