RAYE HINO
I'll admit that in the very beginning, I didn't like Raye, not even a little bit. Okay, I'll come right out and say it, I hated her. Bad tempered, impatient (especially with poor, hapless Serena), arrogant and domineering, I thought Raye was a Grade A, one hundred percent, stone cold bitch. It took a long time for me to warm up to our favorite temple maiden, and it was through reading her profile on other websites that I learned Raye didn't have much in the way of a happy childhood, thus explaining her often irascible personality. Raye's mother died when she was young and her estranged father, for lack of a better explanation, abandoned her, leaving her in the custody of her lovably addled grandfather so he could pursue a career in politics.
To lose one parent and be left behind by the other, no wonder Raye grew up temperamental. At the same time, Raye possesses an enormous amount of compassion beneath her sometimes surly exterior, and nowhere else is that more evident than her dealings with Serena. It's no secret that Raye loves Serena like a sister, yet, maybe because of her abandonment as a child, she's afraid to be close to anyone for fear of being hurt, so she rarely, if ever expresses her real feelings for her best friend. Though you wouldn't know it from the seemingly cruel way Raye relentlessly pushes, prods, berates, insults and generally makes Serena's life miserable, Raye is in fact helping Serena become a stronger person. Call it her version of tough love.
My goal with Raye was to balance her volatile edge and her sensitive, caring side which she keeps hidden from everyone. The more I get into Raye's head to plot the course her life takes during the course of a story, the more I realize that she's not just an occasionally unlikable shrew. She's a creature of deep, fiery passions who refuses to suffer fools gladly, even when they're her friends, an iron willed young woman who takes her responsibilities as a Shinto Priestess and a Sailor Scout seriously and, most of all, will do anything for Serena, even give up the man she once loved to her because of destiny. I've come full circle with Raye, I've gone from hating her to admiring her, and the fires of humanity that burn brightly in her heart.
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