#re: Kikyo's modus operandi being 'the ends justify the means'

[mustardyellowsunshine]

Kay I’m very curious about your opinion on this but I hadn’t read the manga in like quite some time and I’m rereading it, and many in the fandom talk about how kikyo actually wasn’t bad or people just misunderstand her, but now that I’m rereading she tried on multiple occasions to kill Kagome or leave her for dead. I guess I just don’t understand if kikyo is so good why she tried to kill kagome or leave her to die with no real reason other than what seems like petty ones

'Nony, your timing is honestly amazing. I had literally just finished reading the chapter with Kikyo's final death scene, and I was sitting in my thoughts and feelings about her character, and then this popped into my inbox. Synchronicity! Freaky.

Anyway, I've been an on-again, off-again active participant in the InuYasha fandom since 2002 (20 years?!! oh crikey, existential crisis incoming). In that time I've seen the Opinion Pendulum™ swing from absolutely villainizing Kikyo's character to the other extreme of dismissing people who are insufficiently effusive about how much they love Kikyo (the sentiment being, "if you say or imply anything even mildly critical of Kikyo's character then you're a Kikyo hater and it's not a good look, you should really grow up").

Which is to say, the Kikyo discourse has always been annoying. In my opinion, there hasn't been nearly enough nuance brought into discussions about Kikyo's character, or enough honest recognition that she simply is morally ambiguous for a good chunk of the series (and that it's indeed okay to find a fictional character's moral ambiguity off-putting, but we gotta whisper that part apparently).

I mean, I'll be honest off the bat: I've always been pretty apathetic to Kikyo's character. I don't hate her, I don't love her: she's there, and I could take her or leave her. 🤷🏼‍♀️ That said, I've never read her as evil. If pressed, I'd summarize her character this way: she's morally gray until she isn't.

Kikyo certainly starts off as an antagonist (there are few other ways to read a character who tries on several occasions to kill the two main protagonists), so you're not wrong to see her character in that light, especially if you're still in the early series. But as the series progresses, Kikyo slowly becomes more of a gray character, still motivated by self-interest and bitterness over her (unquestionably tragic and shitty) lot in life, but less antagonistic to Kagome and InuYasha. (She actually tries to stay out of their way for a good chunk of the middle series, which bothers InuYasha at some points, but anyway.) She then disappears "off screen" for arcs upon arcs at a time, and when she does pop back in, we often see her helping out random villagers or other side characters; by this point, her motivations are noticeably less self-driven (less resentful, less angry), and her focus is largely on defeating Naraku. By the end of the series, Kikyo has become an ally to our main protagonists, in that she's trying her best to take out their mutual enemy. Regardless of one's opinion on her methods of defeating Naraku, her intention is clearly to take him out with as little collateral damage as possible (e.g., her efforts to spare Koga and Kohaku while still trying to collect their Shikon shards). Now, I personally do think her methods are morally suspect, but what's interesting is that by the end of the series, so does she—Kikyo has second thoughts about her plan to defeat Naraku precisely because it could hurt others. It's a far cry from the Kikyo we see immediately after her resurrection.

And that disparity between intention and results? That's another reason Kikyo feels morally gray. Her ultimate intentions may be "good," but her methods often aren't. And that sort of disparity is both realistic (I think most people have experience with good intentions that went astray, y'know?) and interesting. It gives layers and colors to a character.

I've always thought Kikyo's modus operandi throughout most of the series represented her biggest character flaw: she thinks the ends justify the means. She isn't actively malicious, but she's not afraid to cause harm (specifically to Kagome, and to a lesser degree InuYasha) if it'll get her closer to her goals. Again, that changes at the end of the series when she starts to doubt her plans, but for the majority of the series I think "the ends justify the means" accurately describes her motivations and behaviors.

I.e., Kikyo is morally gray until she isn't.

When it comes down to it, her character development isn't much different from other antagonists in the series, like Sesshomaru, Kagura, Koga, etc. I actually think Kikyo and Sesshomaru's respective character arcs are remarkably similar, in that their progression is essentially: obvious antagonist -> extremely morally gray -> slightly less morally gray -> unlikely ally.

(I also happen to be pretty apathetic to Sesshomaru as a character — I'm sensing a pattern here.)

Anyway, I personally think people who want to classify Kikyo as "evil" have it wrong, and people who want to classify Kikyo as "good but misunderstood" have it wrong too. She's more ambiguous and complex than that. She's selfish. She's tragic. She's a victim who suffers something unimaginable. She herself victimizes innocent people (mostly Kagome). She can't really be pigeonholed.

And I also think it's perfectly fine to dislike her. 🤷🏼‍♀️ She is a fictional character, her feelings will not be hurt if you just don't like her. Her antagonism in the early series makes it hard for a lot of people to like her. If her character leaves a bad taste in your mouth, and her changed behavior in the middle/end of the series feels unearned/poorly developed, then just keep disliking her. Who cares? You can feel however you want to about a fictional character.

My personal feelings about Kikyo are much the same as my feelings for side characters like Sesshomaru: she's there, she's more interesting in the beginning of the series than she is in the middle/the end, I think her character wasn't developed especially well, her presence in the story was dragged out too long and it felt like Rumiko Takahashi didn't really know what to do with her....

And I also try to keep in mind that InuYasha was a weekly, monster-of-the-week shounen series, that Rumiko Takahashi wasn't necessarily concerned with long-term narrative or character development, and then I try to modify my expectations accordingly.