Between the Ideal and the Real
Been a while guys, sorry for that, life has been busy, can't make many promises of continuing this project yet, I want to, just unfortunate that life takes up so much of my time.
So I wanted to cover a topic, it's one that I've actually recently thought of due to real life circumstances and it actually motivated me to write this.
Early in the series, Kagome is asked who her ideal guy would be, she describes the prince charming stereotype, outright mentions that the guy would be the exact opposite of Inuyasha.
When looking at the series, and most specifically Kikyo and Inuyasha, that's kind of what they are.
This is a fairytale after all.
The amusing thing is, Kagome and Inuyasha aren't the fairytale couple (I mean technically they are, it's still a human girl from the future, and a half-demon from the past, getting together :D), they're not an idealized couple, they're actually a pretty grounded couple, they fight, they argue, they annoy one another, hurt each other's feelings, pull away from one another, but somehow, some way they always end up back together. Friction, repair, gradual increase in trust. They don't change who they are, they grow within the identities they already have.
Often the issue with a fairytale couple is there's questions left on the table. They work great in the concept of their story… but what happens when the flaws start coming out? Long-term relationships are built on flaws, and the repeated choice to work around them, what happens, when they're tested?
When Inuyasha and Kikyo believed they'd turned on one another, they are immediately prepared to toss the relationship aside.
Inuyasha and Kagome fight constantly. But they repeatedly make up with one another and grow from the situation.
Naturally, there's nuance to this, Inuyasha and Kikyo turning on one another makes sense, their trust issues, and naturally their trust issues are justified under their individual circumstances.
But it doesn't change that the one instance where their relationship was tested, it fell apart. Where Inuyasha and Kagome's relationship is tested, time after time after time, and they always come back to one another. That's the difference between a relationship that exists under ideal conditions (never having to show the real you, being afraid to show the real you), and one that has already had to survive ordinary conflict.
Now I won't say Inuyasha and Kikyo are the 100% ideal naturally, both are under circumstances they don't want to be under, their lives themselves aren't the ideal, but their romance is.
Kikyo never is shown seeing the parts of Inuyasha that define his character. She says she never saw the look in his eyes that she sees after her revival. But she also doesn't see the brash, obnoxious, angry side of Inuyasha, and even post revival, she hardly ever sees that side, she sees a stunted Inuyasha, often mournful, but also one who seems to be trying to hide those flaws from her.
In turn Inuyasha's view of Kikyo is very idealized, he never sees her flaws, when he sees her, composed, selfless, pure, quietly kind. Her guard and duty never allowed her to be anything else. Outside of instances where he believed that she betrayed him, he's never seen having the kind of outburst with her, not in the same frame as he would with Kagome.
This view of one another largely sticks, frozen in time. It never develops, never changes, because even when they do interact with one another later, their interactions are limited to these constructs. The only thing that does change is Inuyasha, first because he's still living and developing, but also because Inuyasha wasn't just hiding one side of himself from Kikyo, but two different sides, that brash, immature, obnoxious side, and that more tender side. The argument could be made that from Inuyasha's side, Kikyo was much more idealized, since she was a lot more composed and was better equipped to hide those flaws, but you could equally argue that the Inuyasha that Kikyo sees isn't as idealized, but more subdued because of how much of his personality he's hiding.
It's generally easier, in a smaller span of time, to hide your flaws, and live as the idealized version of yourself for someone else. Not uncommon either, often people think they know one another, get married, only to see the flaws in the other person they never knew about, from there they either work around those flaws, accept them and live happily ever after, or the relationship falls apart. We have no evidence to say how things would have gone, other than from what we know about Inuyasha, the circumstances of becoming a human likely would have caused a strain and brought out those flaws in him.
Now, if we were to flip this around.
The Kagome that Inuyasha meets is loud, emotional, jealous, stubborn, sometimes immature, and sometimes direct. Sure, her good aspects are out in the open, she's kind, she's persistent, courageous, and most importantly, she treats him like a person, instead of viewing him as a monster, even when he brings up the fact that he wants to become more powerful, she simply questions "Why? Aren't you strong enough as you are?"
Kagome to Inuyasha has her flaws dominate his view of her. To him she's "that annoying girl who looks like Kikyo and won't shut up". But despite looking like Kikyo, he struggles to associate them because her flaws are things he never saw with Kikyo, and because she starts out with her flaws on full display, it becomes harder for Inuyasha to associate her with Kikyo, because she's constantly surprising him.
Kagome walks into this situation with a lot of disadvantages, Inuyasha's already walking into this disliking her because she looks like Kikyo (and believes Kikyo betrayed him), she's constantly fending off this idealized version of how he thinks she should be (she should be able to fight, she should be able to use a bow, she should act a certain way, she shouldn't dress a certain way). In most instances that would come across as controlling or manipulative, but we know the reason Inuyasha feels this way, the betrayal in his mind happened yesterday, she looks like Kikyo and he hates Kikyo because of that, but it's also because she has to fight off the stigma of his idealized view of Kikyo, and probably of women in general.
If we go based on what we know of Inuyasha's history with women, he likely never saw the flaws in a person. His view of his mother is idealized because she died at a young age, his view of Kikyo is idealized because he was around her for a limited time, and she never showed her flaws, but Kagome? Right front and center, she's got flaws, she knows she has flaws, but she's not going to hide them from him, especially when they first meet, and those circumstances surrounding their first meeting.
Every piece of respect that Inuyasha gives to Kagome has to be earned through action, nothing with Inuyasha is ever given.
For Inuyasha it's much easier, Kagome is willing to give him a chance, because while he's loud, rude, defensive, childish and obnoxious, there's something there that tells her that he's not a bad guy.
That's not to say that Inuyasha isn't fighting his own challenges when faced with the threat of an idealization. Kagome does mention her ideal guy, as mentioned, and it's the template of a prince charming and openly stated "the exact opposite". Inuyasha faces his own threat with Koga, who's a full-demon and who's interested in Kagome, immediately making him assume that Koga is the kind of man that Kagome is supposed to want.
That is crippling to him, he finds Kagome, someone who not only accepts him, but actively motivates and supports him, and now he's placed into familiar territory (have to be stronger, have to be better), we do hear him think about becoming full-demon at this time too, only adding to this pressure he felt before. But over time, that opinion shifts, instead of taking the easy way out, he decides to become as powerful as he can be because of Kagome's acceptance.
He never changes either, despite this, he's still brash, abrasive, defensive, doesn't try to publicly declare his love (despite Koga doing that), it takes Inuyasha much longer to build that confidence to do so, but he never changes, never tries to become even what he believes to be the ideal, because he knows Kagome accepts him for who he is regardless. His fear of Koga is irrational, rooted in jealousy that blinds him to how Kagome actually feels about him.
But at the same time Inuyasha doesn't hide his flaws with her. His first interaction with her showed that, and when she countered back at him, and wasn't afraid to hide her own, he was more than comfortable showing his own flaws.
That openness and her willingness to accept who he was allowed him to show that more tender side. Inuyasha's view of being a man came down largely to how tough he had to be perceived, but then came Kagome who told him essentially "I know how tough you are. I know how strong you are. You'll always be that way in my eyes" so that avenue of being more open about his feelings (at least as open as only she got to see that side of him, and if anyone else asked about it, he'd deny).
Inuyasha was always looking for justification to be himself, rejection turned him to the view that he never could be, he'd have to be a certain way for others to view him different. One way was human, one way was full-demon, but the road map Kagome had for him was the one he wanted most, let me be who I am. Kagome didn't like Inuyasha's flaws, but she accepted them, Inuyasha didn't like Kagome's flaws, but he accepted them as well, because their best traits make one another better.
Inuyasha and Kikyo represent idealized love that was never fully tested by each other’s real flaws. Inuyasha and Kagome represent grounded love that forms after the flaws are already visible and is sustained by repeatedly choosing each other anyway. That second kind is the one most real long-term relationships actually have to become.
I should make clear, this is not an argument that Inuyasha didn't love Kikyo. Idealized love is still love, just incomplete (i.e. both parties don't have all the information), but it is love. And quite frankly, if you like the couple because they're idealized, that's fine too. There's a reason this trope works, and is used so much in media.
This piece is focused more so how it was written in the story, and generally how this is pretty common, typically it's the main couple that's often idealized, but Kagome and Inuyasha are realistic, grounded, they're flawed, not afraid to show their flaws, and their repeated conflict because of their flaws strengthens their love for one another.
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