countdown to Karin's bd; day 2
A Karin moment that pulls at my heartstrings
The thing with Karin is that since she keeps every emotion aside from anger and irritation pretty close to herself, whenever something gets to her to the extent where she actually shows it, it’s bound to basically crucify me with feelings. Even more so because said scenes are usually all about the details (IMO, at least), and I’m prone to be more emotionally affected by those rather than by over the top ones.
So I have to name not one not two but three different scenes;~; and it would be four, wasn’t it because I’m certain 482 will get the love it deserves haha
I no particular order:
- Chapter 484: Karin cries with Sakura.
- Chapter 483: Karin tries to stop Sasuke from killing Sakura.
- Chapter 466: Karin’s reaction when she thinks Sasuke died.
→ Chapter 484: Karin cries with Sakura
I’ll use the raw rather than the scanlations because I love to see the way Kishi writes Karin’s thought process. As we know, Karin tries to talk to Sakura, struggling with a “…Y…you…" that Sakura interrupts by reminding her that she shouldn’t be talking just yet.
So it is through Karin's own thoughts that we see just what she meant to say:
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敵の。。。お前の気もちなんか分かりたくもねえんだ。。。 Things like the feeling of the enemy... your feelings... I don't even want to understand them...
There is so much to love about that single line in my eyes. So much.
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The first thing that stood out to me was how Karin was instinctively still aligning herself with Sasuke, as evidenced by her lumping Sakura with "the enemy”. Aka, Konoha. Who was Karin’s enemy because Sasuke considered them as such?
The second thing is her “I don’t even want to understand them”. I couldn’t love this line more than I already do, because it’s 100% shinobi-code behavior. And beyond that: it’s the behavior of a survivor, as darling elleluvsl so accurately described Karin.
Unlike what some people think, it’s not that Karin is alien to the feelings, the cause, and the thought-process of those opposing the cause she has chosen to support; such a thing would be impossible for her as a sensor, I believe, considering she can even realize when people are lying. Moreover, she is keen. Such things should be hard for her to miss, I feel.
So it’s that being as pragmatic as she is, she chooses to keep sympathy at arm’s length because it, quite honestly, can get you killed.
In theory, in a world like theirs, nothing good ever comes from fraternizing with the enemy; and growing up in Oto, being experimented on and having been put to experiment on others, and being put in charge of a prison of all things taught Karin well. The way to endure and to survive is to stay on top of the game; and the way to stay on top of the game is to not have any weaknesses. And if you do have them: to not show them.
And feelings are the sharpest double-edged sword out of them all.
It’s no wonder Karin has got such an iron-hand rule over what she feels and doesn’t feel. And especially: over what she expresses and doesn’t express.
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だから。。。 So... だからウチの前で。。。 So, in front of me...
Look at the way she looks at Sakura from half-closed eyes. She is so lethargic and drained that can barely keep them open as it is;~;
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そんな悲しい顔で泣くんじゃねえよ。。。！Don't cry while making such a sad face...! 。。。。。ちくしょう。。。 ... Damn it...
This sequence is absolute perfection. Karin doesn’t want Sakura to cry in front of her because she has been enduring the same pain. No matter how bad she might not want to understand how Sakura feels - she does. And so at this moment, Karin is unable to keep herself from empathizing and sympathizing with Sakura, because Sakura is outwardly expressing the heartbreak Karin has been holding in.
I mean, picture how it must feel to have the person you trust the most in the whole world betray you like that; and said person also happens to be the person you love the most, too - and they're gone. Lost to their own darkness.
The Sasuke she had always known basically just vanished in front of her very eyes; the fuel to her drive - seeing him happy again - has gone wasted; the proverbial rug was just swapped from under her feet and there was nothing left for Karin to do.
So to me, beyond the lethargy brought by the blood loss, she couldn’t even shed any tears for herself not only because what good would that do, but also because - to me at least - Karin’s emotional pain was such that I’m willing to bet that once the initial shock wore off, she was actually feeling numb.
And then here comes Sakura and Karin damn the situation because she didn’t want to cry. Because she desperately wanted to keep the pain at bay. Because when worst comes to worst, her way of enduring and fighting the pain is to try and keep it in check; to try and dull it rather than to risk being overwhelmed by it.
But seeing Sakura let it all out is the straw that broke the camel’s back, and I find that Kishi handled this scene beautifully. I can’t think of a way in which he could have executed it any better.
He stayed true to Karin’s character all throughout, adapting the drama to her character rather than the other way around, like he has been prone to do in the past with other female characters. The scene was written in such a way that it only highlights even further Karin’s emotional strength; and that serves to make the moment of involuntary kinship even more poignant to me.
No, seriously, it’s been years and that moment still gets to be the exact same way it did when the spoilers for it first came out;~;
→ Chapter 483: Karin tries to stop Sasuke from killing Sakura
I don’t know about you guys, but examining Karin’s behavior during the chapters leading up to this only makes me love this moment even more. So I’m going to take a quick detour!
How does Karin react when Sasuke is preparing himself to finish her off and put her out of her misery?
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Sasuke has literally said goodbye to her, is standing above her readying his Chidori - and Karin doesn’t say a single word. All she does is close her eyes; obviously not wishing to die, but prepared to meet her fate nonetheless.
Karin never - not once - does beg for her own life. When does he ask Sakura to kill her?
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Personally, I believe Karin could tell that Sasuke was buffing and most likely planning to trick Sakura. But whether that was the case or not doesn’t matter, because what stands out to me here is her expression.
That isn’t the expression of someone who’s going to even attempt to ask to be spared; that is the expression (IMO) of someone who’s got barely any strength left (she had lost enough blood to be fairly lethargic by then) and who’s resigned herself to her fate.
Yet:
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When Karin asks Sasuke to “…Stop / Don’t, Sasuke…”, it is obvious that she is mustering all the strength she’s got left in order to try and talk some sense into Sasuke one last time.
If you ask me, the way I read this scene is: Karin won’t ask Sasuke to spare her own life, because the damage has already been done. But - and here comes yet another display of how selfless the love Karin harbors for Sasuke is - he doesn’t have to sink any lower; he doesn’t have to keep hurting innocent people, people who care about him, people whom he used to care about.
So Karin makes one last-ditch effort and tries to get him to stop; because this isn’t the Sasuke she knows, and despite what he did to her, Karin doesn’t want to see the guy she loves betray his morals and essence more than he already has by taking another innocent life.
She may be a goner. But Sakura doesn’t have to be; shouldn’t have to be.
And to prove just how much even talking took out of her, we see Karin finally lose consciousness immediately after:
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She literally spent the last ounces of strength she had not trying to be spared, no - but fighting for Sasuke and trying to save an innocent life. Touching doesn’t even begin to describe it, IMO.
→ Chapter 466
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The very first time we saw tears in Karin’s eyes! This moment is forever etched on my memory lol I remember when I first read it, it made me tear up right along with her.
I love how Kishi drew her dilated pupils in order to accentuate her shock. I love how even despite the shock she is feeling - or perhaps, because of it - all she can muster is a single tear. And the dear doesn’t even fall. I love how fitting such a thing is for her character.
The way this scene was handled is - yet another - testament to her emotional composure and to the strength and genuineness of her feelings for Sasuke.
Over and over, the only thing capable of getting through to her and making her outwardly express any emotional turmoil is Sasuke’s well-being being at stake.
And when it comes to characters like Karin, that really does say it all.
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