Stop Bashing Me!

For many digimon fans the eventual epilogue to the famed Digimon Adventure series was a bitter disappointment.  It seemed that all the digidestined had managed to produce children, proving, to the yaoi/yuri crowd's sorrow, that they were all basically straight (except possibly Daisuke - it is rumoured that that wasn't actually his son, but his cousin or nephew).  Some of the careers that our favourite characters ended up in were completely unexpected (Mimi has a cooking show, Miyako is a housewife and Yamato is an ASTRONAUT?!).  And of course, we were all assailed with the terrible shock of seeing Taichi with short hair.  But none of these has sparked the same sort of discontent as one of the two official couples: Sorato. 

Sorato, for anyone new to the term (all three of you) means the romantic relationship between Sora Takenouchi and Yamato Ishida.  It was deemed the most horrible of all things that happened during season two and has led to the widespread bashing of Sora and denial that Sorato ever took place.  I find the whole thing both painful and ludicrous.  Sora, in my opinion, cannot truly be blamed for what happened between Yamato and herself.  Love is not always a matter of choice; if Sora had had a choice I'm sure she never would have gotten herself into this situation.  In this rant I'm going to attempt to tackle all the various reasons for Sora bashing and have my own little say about her at the end.  So, let us proceed:

One of the earliest reasons for hating Sora, which dates back to series one, was that she interferes with Taito.  The yaoi buffs were already erecting shrines and stuff to the WONDERFUL relationship between the two bishounen (don't take this too hard - I am a Taito fan, believe it or not).  They were, however, annoyed by the equally large and fast-growing Taiora fandom.  Sora seemed to interfere with the two lovers, drawing Taichi away from his one true love by appealing to the part of him that longed for a female... I think you get the idea.  This is most prominently seen in Taito fanfiction of the era as what I call the 'Homophobic Teenager' complex.  The story goes something like this: Tai 'n' Matt are in love but Sora loves both of them and is mad 'coz they're gay, and she insensitively goes and tries to sabotage their relationship.  Personally, I don't believe this would ever happen.  Sora, upon realising that the boys really love each other, is far more likely to try convincing them to get together, no matter what her feelings are.  If you are a Taito fan and you enjoy writing/drawing it then there's no reason to give Sora a negative role; just leave her out.  It's better than this senseless stuff.  In a fanworks you can ignore stuff that interferes and I think leaving Sora out is far better than portraying her as an insensitive homophobe.

A lot of people will argue that Sora is boring.  Excuse me?  This is a girl who rarely sees her father, has a rocky relationship with her mother and has no siblings to relate to.  In addition to this she has probably been teased at school for her tomboyishness which would tend to give her the impression that there's something wrong with her (that's what happens to me).  Sora often feels like nobody loves her and that she can never love anybody, a difficult position for just about anyone.  And above all this she covers it all up by caring so much about everyone else that it eventually causes her to break down (re: Sora's crest of Love).

You call that boring?  You must have a terrible and fascinating life indeed.

Then there are those who are of the opinion that Sora is useless.  I beg to differ; there are many cases when she's played an important part in keeping everyone together and affected the outcome of battles etc. on the whole.  Sora restored Jyou's confidence when they were in trouble with the Bakemon.  She helped Mimi to wake up to herself when she was playing Princess.  She took the Yamato key ring from Piedmon and gave it to Takeru.  Sora cares about people, keeps morale up when things are rough and helps to keep the team working as a team.  Sure, in 02 she doesn't do much but neither do any of the other older digidestined.  She is a mentor to Miyako at times, if you must have something.  Useless?  I'm sorry, you must be thinking of someone else...

I've heard one or two people saying that Sora has no fashion sense.  WTF is that supposed to mean?  Just because she dresses sensibly rather than trying to turn heads she has no fashion sense?  Last time I checked there was no law against denim so her jeans shouldn't be a problem.  Dunno what people wear in America or the UK or wherever else you come from, but here in Australia Sora's shoes would be perfectly acceptable.  Her shirt?  I see people wearing stuff like that every day.  And I know what you're going to say next: 'but what about her HAT?!'.  Mimi wears a pink cowgirl hat around like there's nothing weird about it.  I don't know what the hell TK's hat is supposed to be but it's nothing I've seen on earth before.  Sora's hat is not a helmet, I can tell you that, but I can't be stuffed explaining and I'm sure you can't be stuffed listening.  Sora wears very casual clothes.  Sure, there plain, but last time I checked there was nothing wrong with that.

One of the things that annoys me most is when people say that Sora is ugly.  You have GOT to be kidding, right?  I know nothing about matters of beauty, about what is fashionable and what is not.  I'll admit that while I'm not entirely straight (very few people are) there aren't too many girls or guys that I could honestly say I'm attracted to.  In fact, I'm totally incapable of telling a cute guy (or girl) from a plain one.
But really, people, how can you call this ugliness?

People will sometimes say Sora's 'too perfect'.  If she's so damn perfect then how come you can find so many faults in her?  If Sora was perfect then she would have dress sense which, according to many bashers, she lacks.  If she were perfect she would not be useless or boring or ugly.  I don't think she is any of these things, but I don't think she's perfect either.  She loses her temper sometimes and she has days when she gets depressed.  She's not perfect.  She's human.  And I don't see how anyone could hate her for that.

If Sorato stuffed up your favourite pairing than I wouldn't get too uptight about it.  Much as I hate fanfics that rewrite the ending, or at least alter the pairings after the set timeline, if that helps you to adjust to what happened then go ahead and do it.  And (as I'm constantly reminding people) there are 25 freaking years we don't know about!  Anything could have happened in that amount of time.  Get out there and write it.

If you're one of those Yamato fangirls lamenting over how Sora 'stole' your precious bishounen, may I remind you that he is a cartoon character?  I understand that many fans find anime characters highly attractive (and I damn well should - between the two of them my two (female) friends have a list of over 100 favourite bishounen including Blackwargreymon and Peter Pan).  I understand that in many cases this is why a character becomes someone's favourite and why they decide to make shrines/write fanfics/draw fanart/whatever.  What I don't understand is why this means that the bishounen in question needs his fangirls' permission to marry the girl of his choice.  The fangirls are never going to have him for themselves as he doesn't exist, so please stop complaining (you're giving me a headache) and get used to the fact that on many occasions things don't turn out the way you want.

As a variation on the Sorato thingy, some people will say that Yamato 'deserves better than that [insert favourite derogative comment here] Sora'.  What the hell do you mean by that?  What's wrong with Sora?  She's considerate and caring and would put up with Yamato's mood swings and sensitivity whereas his screaming fangirls (Jun) would probably not.  For the record, I really don't think Mimi could sustain a relationship with Matty-o.  She doesn't have the tolerance to cope with his sort of personality.  Mimato has definite visuals and I don't really have anything against it, but I really don't think that Mimi 'deserves' Yamato any more than Sora does.

And finally, the excuse - no, reason, for in many ways it's a plausible one - for Sora-bashing that annoys / exasperates / enrages me the most: the theory that, at Christmastime, Sora broke Tai's heart.
Tai loved Sora.  This has been confirmed.  In 'A Very Digi Christmas' he asked her to go with him to Yamato's concert and she said, looking uncomfortable and embarrassed, that she wanted to wait and see if Matt was free afterwards.  This is proof that Sora loved Matt.  Tai, although he seemed somewhat disappointed at not being able to snag Sora, encouraged her to go on and tell Matt how she felt.  And this, my friends (and enemies) is what turned so many people against Sora.  She hurt Tai, who did nothing worse than love her.

So now for my opinion: I don't think this is any reason to hate Sora, really.  Taichi may have loved Sora, but Sora didn't love Tai.  Sure, she could have gone with him for his sake, but eventually the relationship would have failed because she wouldn't have truly loved him.  No matter when it happened, Tai would not have been able to get out of this situation without getting hurt somewhere along the line.  I think it was just lucky for him that Sora was honest and told him straight out that she loved Matt, not him.  Tai could get over it and get on with his life, rather than being strung along and still hurt in the end.

People get hurt all the time in real life.  I know this and you probably do too, because this is one of those things that we all experience.  I have been let down before, once or twice to the point where I wanted to die, but fortunately (or, in some peoples opinions, unfortunately) I hung on.  Tai, fortunately for the rest of us fans, did not get to that point.  Digimon, in terms of the relationships between the characters, is realistic.  People have fights, there are tensions and people are hurt.  But all of us survive and Taichi did too.

Tai was obviously not moping over Sora for the rest of his life.  In fact, just hours after he supposedly had his heart ripped out and stomped upon he was kissing a little girl in France.  Is this the action of a heartbroken man?  And besides, he has a son so he must have found another girl he loved.

You know what I mentioned before about how Sora had no siblings to relate to?  Well, I think that in some ways Tai became like a brother to her; she could relate to him.  Tai might not have seen it the same way, as he already has a sister, but that's the way I see it.  You have to admit, it would be pretty weird dating your brother.

Sure, Sora caused Taichi some pain but she couldn't help it.  They are still great friends.  Taichi forgave her; he was never mad at her in the first place so there was really nothing to forgive.  He found another girl and they have a son.  He got over Sora.  And if Taichi can get over Sora then why can't you?

In parting, let me just say that I know ranting about all this is pointless.  A lot of people who bash Sora are those who don't think through and reason their arguments like I have in the essay-like rant above, and therefore this will have no effect on them.  I'm not trying to turn people around, though.  I respect the fact that people disagree with me, although Sora is my favourite of all the digimon characters (probably my favourite anime character of all time) and I will always defend her fiercely.  The only reason I'm writing this is because seeing Sora-bashing material is very painful for me and this is the one way I can justify that pain.  The one place I can say what I think without getting beaten down.  Everything I have said is stuff that I truly believe, though, and I'll always stick by it.

Just thought you'd like to know.

R&R

PS:    As a little ending to this rant, I thought I'd dispose of some of the dumber reasons for hating Sora that I've seen thrown about.  This is the only section where I'm going to be insulting, but I'm hoping after reading some of these you'll agree:

She has multiple personalities.
I think you must mean Ken.  If you think Sora looks like Ken you must have about the brain capacity of the spider hanging from the corner of my ceiling.  And that's an insult to the spider.

Pink is a really bad colour.
Sora can't help it if her digimon is pink.  If you really wanna bash pink then you should be aiming for the Tachikawa girl.

She stole the Sailor Soldiers uniform.
You have GOT to be kidding.  Those are Japanese girls' school uniforms.  Every female student in Japan wears one.  (FYI it's called a fuku.)

She's a depressed child who blames everything on her mother bla bla bla...
It's her mother's fault that she's depressed.  Didn't the writers make that clear enough?  Or was that concept a little too complex for you to comprehend?

Her digimon is annoying.
That's a matter of opinion.  Even so, it's not something she can help.

She is annoying.
Once again, that's a matter of opinion.  And besides, all the DD are annoying at times.

I got these from Tears of Love, a Sora shrine.  If you want to use one of them then link back to there.