not to ~make it all abt shipping~ or make you repeat yourself, but if you dont mind, id be interested in how you reconcile your view of yamato as being a source of comfort to sora w/ their āāargumentāā in loss; your views on tri always point a direction i hadnt thought of, but i cant quite find the angle on this one.
Thanks for the question! I hope this makes sense.
I should point out that the stuff I described in my earlier post are how I see Sora and Yamatoās relationship working when they are both in a good place. Every couple goes through their ups and downs, and I donāt see these two as being the exception to the rule. (Actually, one of the reasons why I find this ship compelling is precisely because I donāt think it would be sunshine and roses all the time; they are both complicated people.)
In Loss, it seems clear to me that, first, neither Sora nor Yamato areĀ doing great at this point in the series; second, theyāre teenagers, and they are still learning about emotions and about each other; and third, this is a somewhat new situation for them.
The argument in Loss is essentially caused by miscommunication. Yamato is the first to notice Sora is upset, but she refuses to explain what is going on; instead, she expects the boys to figure it out. Yamato is not only obtuse about the entire situation (heās not the only one, by the way; seemingly the entire group ignores that thereās something going on with Piyomon and Sora is upset ā in fact, the other five kids are sleeping soundly while this is happening!), but heās also quite bad at expressing feelings through words and is hesitating about what he should say; his and Taichiās nervous attitude only ends up angering Sora even more.
As Iāve written before, this is a different situation from the infamousĀ ālet her cryā scene.
So the way I interpret that scene is that they are still growing. Yamato is not being a source of comfortĀ to Sora at this point, even though heās trying to be. For one, heās not paying enough attention to her. He recognises that sheās upset and that heās supposed to say something to her, but is still not great at that (hence his instinct to ask Takeru, who is good at verbalising feelings). This is a common problem for Yamato throughout tri. ā heās very empathetic and recognises other peopleās suffering, but heās just bad at talking to them.Ā
Meanwhile, Sora isnāt exactly being easy, either ā sheās falling into her old pattern of bottling up her negative feelings, overanalysing peopleās reactions in a negative way, and refusing to open up about her problems. (Taichi points this out to her.) In fact, in this case, the problem is solved when Sora changes her attitude a bit and understands that Yamato and Taichi actually meant well and careĀ deeply about her.
What weāre seeing in Chapter 4 is actually a scenario Iāve played many times when I tried to imagine what Yamato and Sora having problems could look like!Ā
The scene does have a nice contrast with their little tĆŖte-a-tĆŖte in Chapter 6, when we see them in a much healthier, more balanced setting, and itās clear that Yamato is good at comforting Sora in his own way (though the final scenes shows he still has a lot to learn from Takeru when it comes to paying more attention). In my opinion, this scene, which takes place at the end of their character arcs, is better at showing where their characters are as they approach adulthood. I think as Yamato matures even more and as he and Sora become more connected, he would even become better at providing comfort through his words as well.
In short, the way I see it, the argument in Loss shows a moment of crisis when Sora and Yamato are in a situation of unbalance, and maybe even at a point when they need to learn to deal with these things better if they want to support each other. Towards the end of the series, we see that Yamato is better at providing comfort to her (though, of course, heās still not a perfect 17-year-old boy).
Considering that tri.ās Big Theme isĀ āgrowing into adulthoodā, Iām not surprised that they decided to show Yamato and Sora acting a little immaturely in that situation, in order to illustrate their growth in a clearer way.
