Beam's take on Shirou (Or, why I always write lesbians and never write about the hero).
by
, March 23rd, 2012 at 10:50 PM (4345 Views)
So, on my blog post about why I tend to write so much about lesbians, I made a comment about how I found Shirou 'boring'. At the time I left it at that, mostly because my post then wasn't about Shirou. But recently I have been wondering why the guy doesn't click with me much when it comes to writing; I really just rarely write him, even when I usually end up giving him a happy end with his girl of choice.
I want to start off by saying that as a character, I don't dislike Shirou. I actually like his character types a lot. I'm a sucker for the idealistic, kind hero who keeps on fighting even when they get kicked down, and stick to what they believe in because dammit, it's gotten them this far and they aren't about to abandon it and quit now. This is probably why I love UBW Shirou the most out of all Shirous; he's the one that I truly felt grew and matured the most, while staying true to the ideals he had at the start of the game.
What I don't like about Shirou is the way he's written, most of the time, and I blame this more on Nasu's abilities as a writer than Shirou as a character. I don't know if Nasu got too many complaints about Shiki being a rapist dick in Tsukihime or what, but it seems like he tried to dial it back to make Shirou more likable, and ended up writing the guy as a complete and utter dumb ass most of the time. It was a bit endearing at first, but after a few hours of it.... it starts to grate. Just a teensy bit. His character development does eventually move him beyond that point, but it's pretty damn painful to sit through at times.
(Nasu's constant OH HAI GUYS DID YOU KNOW SHIROU HAS IDEALS BECAUSE HE HAS THOSE THINGS didn't help much, either. I'm starting to think subtle writing is not one of his strengths.)
So, if I like Shirou a lot, why don't I write about him?
Simple. We already were told Shirou's story in FSN; we were told three different versions of Shirou's story in FSN (possibly four, if you count MoS bad end). We got to see Shirou grow and develop, we got to see him start and finish, we got to see him get the girl. It's fun to read and amazing to see when it gets awesome, but it doesn't leave much desire to actually write him out in other scenarios because to me, there's really nothing left.
So, for me, it's as simple as that. Shirou already got his story told, and far more skilled writers than me (*cough*Moczo*cough*Chaos Theory*cough*) are telling yet another version of his tale. Why should I bother?