Sorato

Ah, the dreaded Sorato.  The couple everyone loves to hate.  Well, actually not everyone.  Believe it or not, Sorato does have its fans.  And, quite scarily, they are on the rise!  Yep, Sorato's supporters are growing every day.  And why shouldn't they?  No-one's ever had problems with official pairings before, just gone on liking them or otherwise liking whatever their favourite pairing happened to be.  But Sorato seems to be a bit more than that.  Many fans simply cannot stand it.  So where, exactly, did Sorato come from?  And why do we hate it so much?

Right from the start of series one, Yamato and Sora have had a lot of contact with each other.  Although they didn't know each other too well at the start, they were firm friends by the end of the series.  Someone once said that any friendship has the potential to go further.  Of course, this was already being exercised in the Taiora fandom, but I digress.  I, personally, have always been a bit of a Sorato girl and I'm not about to give up now.  I'm sure you're all wondering why I went for Sorato way back in 01 when Taiora was so blatantly obvious.  Let's look at the evidence, shall we?

I started watching Digimon right at the beginning of the Myotismon saga.  The episode where they all got back from the digital world, to be exact.  Sora, Taichi and Yamato all had quite a lot of contact with each other back in that saga, I believe.  I do remember, very clearly, when Yamato was supposed to be looking after Hikari and a certain Phantomon decided to show up.  Sora popped up to help Yama out in the fight against Phantomon, and Birdramon digivolved into Garudamon.  I didn't know what the crests' meanings were at the time, but since then somebody has pointed out that Birdramon digivolved because Sora's crest of Loooove began glowing when Yamato was hurt by Phantomon.  ^_~  Anyway, at the end of the episode we see Hikari taken away by Phantomon.  Right at the start of the next episode is Yamato banging his fist on a wall repeatedly in one of his typical shows of guilt / self-deprecation (it makes me sick sometimes).  If Taichi had been there he probably would have yelled at Yamato and they would have gotten into a fight and given the Taitoists a whole lot of new screenshots to stick dirty captions on.  But not Sora.  She snapped him out of it and they got on with the job (one of the reasons I love this girl).

So, that was when I became a Sorato fan.  There was evidence later, in the Dark Masters saga as well.  Sora and Yamato have both been through that depressing thing, first Yamato in the tunnel and Sora in the pit.  Yamato escaped his darkness with Gabumon's help, but it he and Joe had to pull Sora out of it together.  See, I think that the two of them can really help each other that way.  They both know that darkness, even if they deal with it very differently.
Oh, and who could forget the keychains?  Sora was the last digidestined that Piedmon changed into a keychain and before she was transformed she grabbed the YAMATO keychain and tossed it to Takeru.  Of course, this was mostly because Yama still needed to talk to TK so that Angemon could digivolve, and was undeniably convenient to the plot, but I think it was interesting that Sora was the one chosen to help the two younger children and get a hold of Yamato.

In series two things got a little more complicated.  For the first half Yamato and Sora were rarely on screen, let alone interacting with each other.  The focus had shifted to their successors with the D3s.  But if Toei and everyone had just wiped the 01 DigiDestined completely out of sight they would have had a riot on their hands.  So they brought 'em all back in the Digimon World Tour.  Six groups sent all over the world, one 01  and one 02.  But before they could all set off they had to have their Very Digi Christmas.  and this is where it all happened.

Matt, in his typical fashion, had arranged a Christmas concert and automatically drawn a huge crowd.  Among them were Taichi, Sora, Koushiro and Jyou (Mimi, I'm sure, would have loved to come if she was still in Japan).  The morning before the concert their digimon all come to visit for Christmas and we see Sora approaching the back door of the place Matt's using for the concert, holding a little pressie for him as a token of her... ah... affection.  Sora likes Matt.  A lot.  I think this is sufficient proof, don't you?

And this is where it all goes wrong.  Tai chooses this precise moment to get up his courage and ask Sora to go with him to the concert.  'Not that it really matters or anything, I was just... wondering.' as he said.  To which Sora replies: 'I was kinda hoping Matt would be free afterwards...'
The Taito fans worst fears were immediately confirmed.  Tai loved Sora.  Not Matt.  And Sora did love Matt.  could it get any worse?
They weren't alone.  Taiora lovers were painfully aware of how close they had come to having their favourite pairing officiated.  Yamato fangirls immediately went nuts because their beloved bishounen wasn't single anymore.  Some Taichi fans supposedly were mad at Sora for 'dumping him' and 'breaking Tai's heart' but I've yet to see any Tai fans other than my dear friend Kaz-chan saying this, so I suspect that might be a vicious rumour.  If not, I apologize in advance.
Anyway, various people in these angry parties blamed Sora and bashed her senseless.  I find this bashing absolutely pointless and think character bashers are just as bad as the flamers they're often bagging and THEY SHOULD ALL BURN IN HELL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1111111

But you'll hear all about that in the rants.

There are other things too, like when Sora and Taichi were tracing the movements of Noriko a few episodes before the end, Koushiro says to Yamato, "Matt, aren't you worried that Sora's with Tai and not you?"
"Nah, Tai's my best friend, and I completely trust Sora."
And for quite a while after the World Tour they were holding hand and standing together at every opportunity - although I try never to use 'they stand together' as a hint.
Then, of course, there's the epilogue.  Sora's daughter, the Matt clone.  Matt's son, the Sora clone.  They marry, they have two kids, it's about as official as they come.

And what do I think of all this?  Well, when I found out Sorato had become official I was EXTREMELY happy.  It was the first digimon couple I ever liked, one that I picked up on before anything else.  After a while, even though I loved Sorato and wanted so badly for it to be true I started to accept that it would probably never happen and I grew to like Taiora and Taito instead.  When I first heard that there was Sorato in the epilogue I was on a bit of a Taiora high and I was, quite frankly, shocked.  But then I became all happy and stuff.
I honestly don't believe that it is any reason to bash Sora.  To the Taitoists and Taiorans out there, there are 25 years in between and many more after that that we don't know about.  Use your imaginations!  To those who are offended on Tai's behalf (if there are any other than Kaz-chan) he's still a great character and I think that he's a big boy and he can cope.  To Yamato fangirls whinging because he isn't single anymore - grow up!

I won't continue along those lines anymore because it will end up being a rant and I'm making a separate section for those.  I also need to put a twenty-foot-high firewall around my mailbox and guestbook before Kaz comes along to destroy them.  This couple page has probably ended up longer than the other two put together but I think you'll understand that I had a lot I wanted to say.  Sorato has had fans since before it became official and just because it is now official it doesn't mean anyone who likes another Sora or Matt pairing should give up on that.  During series 01 Sorato fans had generally accepted the fact that there was more proof for Taiora or Taito than there was for their chosen couple, but they didn't give up and neither should you.  The truth is that as hard as you try to ignore it, this is what happened and we're going to have to get used to it, whether we like it or not.