Honestly, real Konoha is being real pathetic in this week’s episode. Sol and Yomi are destined to clash, and she believes that no matter who dies, her death flag will be triggered. But as the story unfolds, she begins to hold some rather outlandish positions. For instance, she thinks, “He may be a villain, but he isn’t rough or stupid.” Um, okay? Who cares? You think it matters if a villain has class or not? If a villain has manners? Let me spoil it for you: they’re still a villain who wants to hurt the people you care about. Real Konoha reflects on why Yomi was created in the first place. At the time, she was fueled by petty jealousy over her classmate getting special treatment from a boy. Naturally, Yomi needed a backstory, so cue the sob story about being bullied by his brothers and whatnot. Real Konoha ultimately concludes, “I have no right to be exasperated with Yomi.” Nonsense.
Do we believe these characters have the freedom to think and act on their own? Or must they obey their “programming”? If you think about it, the latter is untenable from a narrative standpoint. If these characters are merely “robots” acting out real Konoha’s story, then what’s the point? You’re not living with real people. You’re not interacting with a real sister. You’re not really falling for the hot, blond butler who originally wanted to kill you. You’re not preventing a real childhood friend from committing murder due to his real feelings. We may as well just pack it up, because what’s the point of watching a show where the main character lives among fakes? So again, it’s ridiculous to hold the viewpoint that these characters can’t help themselves. We have to accept that the people around real Konoha have real thoughts and feelings, and thus the free will to decide their own fates.
As such, the fact that real Konoha wrote Yomi to be a villain ultimately doesn’t matter. Obviously, the past plays a crucial role in shaping us into who we are today, but we’re not powerless before it. We can always rise above our past. You’re not forced to be a villain just because you have a sad backstory. You’re not forced to become a crazed maniac who kills just because you fell in love with someone. I mean, how is this even a debate? The fact of the matter is that Yomi can always stop himself from being a bloodthirsty weirdo, but he refuses to. He absolutely refuses to listen to real Konoha’s pleas. He refuses to do anything but come up with outlandish delusions about how Iana is being bullied or coerced. And we’ve talked about this exact thing before. Sol was also “programmed” to kill Iana and yet he can somehow rise above it and think for himself. So what’s Yomi’s excuse? I think it’s pathetic that real Konoha keeps trying to jump through all sorts of mental hoops in order to justify saving his sorry ass.
Unfortunately, I suspect that real Konoha will eventually be able to have her cake and eat it too. After failing twice to kill Sol, Yomi finally directly challenges Sol to a duel. According to real Konoha’s self-admittedly embarrassing world-building, the pretty boys must throw down lest they offend the god of battle or whatever. Sure. So they fight and they fight. But as real Konoha observes the duel playing out before her, she slowly realizes that Sol isn’t in his best condition. He probably injured himself when he saved her in last week’s episode. So her solution is to get in the middle of the boys and challenge Yomi herself. We get some backstory about how her chuuni younger self had begged the gods to bestow her with magic to no avail. I suspect Iana will somehow awaken to magic in next week’s episode. But to what end? To take Yomi down? No way. I can’t see it happening — I can’t see her putting down the rabid dog with her own hands. I bet Yomi will have some bizarre change of heart at the last second, so we’ll have our happy, little ending where all the pretty people get to survive. Look, I just think he’s a bad guy. And bad guys need to face the consequences.
