I think its funny that Maomao hated her bio father so much she shows no affection to the kid shes supposed to take care of because she found it overwhelming as a child so surly he will too. She turned out fine and so will he....
Ok but like imagine u just got rescued from being kidnapped, got fired from ur job, and now grieving ur (maybe) dead friend and loss of ur first genuine friendship.... and ur handed a half paralysed child with amnesia to take care of. Hes not just any children either, ur dead(?) friend cared for him a lot and fucking poisoned him. U thought he was dead for hours and were planning a secret burial for him and his friends.
U aren't prepared to take care of a child but how hard can it be? U dont show ur newly acquired child affection because u dont want to overwhelm the child. It ends up backfiring. u still insist on keeping ur distance though. U kinda fuck up his only friend's sister's life. He hates u now but oh well thats fine.....
Child Abuse in the Shi Clan & Why "Shisui" Matters
As someone who's both relatively new to the KnH scene and a survivor of a narcissistic parent, I found myself very quickly captured by the latter half of season 2. This will be far from my best analytical work, and certainly not my usual subject (this is a Danganronpa blog lol), but I found it too well-done and personally touching to me not to talk about it at least once. So here we are! Today I'm gonna talk about Shisui's character writing, the depictions of several unique results of abuse, how children suffer differently from the same abuser, and why and how the way survivors respond to it is so well-written in KnH season 2. Spoilers for KnH/The Apothecary Diaries seasons 1 and 2 below the cut.
*Edit turns out I was wrong about how the name Shisui is written in source! Please check the replies for further context 🙏 Turns out the Japanese characters I found are just a happy accident that translates well to their dynamic lol.
The Victims
There are three abused characters in the Shi Clan we as an audience become familiar with- Suirei, Loulan, and Kyou-u. Despite not being considered siblings by those around them, these three all have wildly different personalities and upbringings, and have developed a very strong siblinglike bond that feels organic regardless. When the three of them are together and/or removed from the people who've mistreated them, you could wholly believe they've had a relatively normal life and act like a family in their own right. In fact, we as an audience aren't aware that they were ever victims of abuse to begin with upon each character's introduction, and it's only when their abuser is introduced do we begin to learn of their abuse in the first place. Even when early signs of their abuse are present in their behavior and can retroactively be pointed out as learned behaviors from survival, they're all believable and realistic with what we already know of them as characters.
1. Suirei
Suirei is the oldest of the three, and was Shishou's firstborn before being cast out of the family alongside her mother. She was ostracized from her family name from birth, both symbolically and literally, and was denied her lineage from both sides of her family, as not only is she unrecognized by her father, but her mother was unrecognized by the royal family.
In the former emperor's attempt to remove his daughter safely and know where she was, he subjected her to a lifetime of ostracization, and doomed his granddaughter to that fate as well. Due solely to her perceived legitimacy, Suirei was subjected to isolation from an extremely young age, and we can see how, as a result, she's a very stoic and quiet person. We also see multiple times how she's punished for the crime of existence more than once, being nothing more than an occasionally useful punching bag for her abusers. She's meant to be alone, guilty of her existence and devoid of desire for more. She follows the orders she's given without question, and doesn't fight back or beg, because such acts of desperation would only serve as proof that she isn't broken yet.
Despite this, Suirei is not broken. She has family that loves her, and when she's not on duty, she's more comfortable, having a more relaxed posture when in the village and quickly becoming comfortable with Maomao. Most notably, despite her own suffering, she seems to be much more concerned with the position those she cares about fall into and protecting them from it. So long as she remains a perfect scapegoat of existence, she can shield the people she cares about from the torture she receives, and her failure in doing so at any given time comes from other people interfering in her abusers' affairs even when she tells them not to.
She ultimately fails to protect the others, as so many do. Yet despite that, her efforts weren't in vain, because it made way for the chance for her sister to be more empathetic then Lady Shenmei wanted, to break free of the doll. Her suffering was a gateway for so many others to escape before the invasion while Lady Shenmei was distracted by her own vanity and hatred. And her kindness towards the children of the clan and connection with her sister was what saved her life, because it convinced Jinshi to give her what she'd been denied almost her whole life- a safe home.
2. Loulan
Loulan is the chosen princess of the Shi Clan, and is treated as most valuable within the family. She's the only one biologically connected to Lady Shenmei, and is treated as an extension of her as a result.
If Suirei is the scapegoat, then Loulan certainly falls into the role of golden child, being viewed as a perfect doll who can do no wrong, ever. She's not a person to her greatest abuser, but rather as a toy, a tool with which to retain a legacy. When with their abuser, Suirei is beaten and Loulan is expected to watch. When bringing harm upon others, Loulan quietly suggests which method we should use today. When brought to her mother's chambers, Suirei is assigned to serve Loulan, and Loulan doesn't argue. Princess Loulan never argues.
Loulan doesn't like her situation. Similarly to her sister, she never argues or protests out of fear of making things worse. And, again, like her sister, her concern isn't for herself. Rather, her main priority is Suirei, as she fears throughout her childhood that doing anything to antagonize her mother will only being more consequences down upon Suirei. Because Loulan is their heir and is treated so well, she can only fathom the pain and torture she and the staff receive as being increased, and isn't too concerned with her own safety, particularly because she has felt her mother's cruelty- but only when in disguise. It makes her more empathetic towards the people her family is hurting, and leads her to break a cycle of the traumatized lashing out and becoming the monster they were once a victim of. That's exactly why her relationship with Lady Shenmei and its conclusion holds so much weight, letting Shenmei destroy herself instead of being the one to kill her directly. And when she escapes, she doesn't run and let princess Loulan escape. For all intents and purposes, she was ready to die, but was saved because humanity was seen in her by Maomao. The hairpin given to Shisui- not Loulan, Shisui- let Loulan die and Tamamo be born instead.
3. Kyou-u
Kyou-u isn't a member of the royal family, but he is incredibly intertwined with them, both narratively and literally speaking. He's a very excitable son of a courtesan that has a genuine bond with Loulan and Suirei, cheering when they return to the village and bringing a spark of joy and normalcy into the series' brief time in the village. While not once by blood, he acts as a bratty younger brother, and is initially shielded from the goings on at the compound. Although he knows Lady Shenmei is dangerous, he doesn't much care until consequences are right in front of him, having snuck out often enough to have a secret route and being very trusting of Maomao almost immediately. Once he has faced Lady Shenmei, however, and seen his mother, he sobers up. We watch the death of his innocence as an audience in real time as he comes to terms with the severity of the situation not only he, but Loulan, Suirei, and his mother are all in.
Whereas Suirei and Loulan are literal sisters and each embody a role that an abused child takes on within a dysfunctional family structure, Kyou-u embodies the death of innocence that abused children are inevitably hit with. As soon as they're able to comprehend the situation they're in, they're forever changed, because abuse does radical things to a child's development. And in symbolizing this, Kyou-u is the one child of the courtesans to knowingly take the resurrection medicine, doing so with a smile. The innocent, shielded Kyou-u has died, but with the help of an outside support system (Maomao), he can be reborn and survive- different, forever changed, now Chou-u, but still alive and still himself. Despite his memories being gone, as many young survivors will block out their memories of trauma, he still carries the physical scars of his escape with his partial paralysis. But he's alive and safe.
The Abusers
1. The Shi Family
Lady Shenmei is the most obvious abuser, with her being made into the very blatant and cruel torturer of the compound that rules with an iron fist and mistreats everyone that surrounds her. She's also the direct cause of both Suirei's and Loulan's worst traumas, and the indirect cause of Kyou-u's. She's introduced and parades herself onscreen in a way that is, on a surface level, indicative of a one-dimensional abuser, and immediately establishes herself as an enemy to take down without guilt or nuance in doing so.
Shishou is the much quieter but still effective abuser. Being the head of the Shi Clan and a silent enabler of Lady Shenmei's behavior, he's every bit as responsible for the abuse as she is, because he has the power to put a stop to it at a snap of his fingers and doesn't. We don't see very much of him with his family, and when we do, he does appear to care for Shenmei, but was willing to cast out Suirei without argument and all financial and political effort he exerts for Loulan is for the sake of successful infiltration. We never see any genuine effort from him for his kids, and his detachment from the abuse taking place in his own home is what characterizes him as a neglectful enabler.
What makes the two of them unique is that through the explanation of the Shi Clan's current family structure and how it came to be, it humanizes their position and their disdain for the former emperor, making them more than the one-dimensional villains built upon cruelty. KnH as a period anime is acutely aware of the way women were viewed as property in the time period, and consistently demonstrates female characters that found power within the circumstances they were forced into and controlled what they could to make things better for themselves. This is seen with characters like Meimei, Lady Gyoukuyou, and the Empress Dowager Anshi, to name a few. Despite being a villain, Lady Shenmei is no different.
While being Shishou's original fiancée, Shenmei was unceremoniously taken to the rear palace, and was gifted back years later to find out that she was replaced without another thought, and her husband now had a daughter with a different woman. Despite having been given the opportunity before then, she'd been shielded from her true reason for being in the palace, and refused to commit treason and put herself at risk. Despite this, she was eventually returned like a prize and found the home she was offered now taken by someone else, all without having received the emperor's attention once. It made Shenmei feel powerless. And so when she returned, it was easier to cave and let her do whatever she wanted with their home. And with every ounce of power she's allowed to retain, she exerts control through fear and abuse of everyone else in and surrounding their home in an attempt to make herself indisputably untouchable. She treats the people in her court without respect and makes them into toys for her pleasure, punishes guards and children alike with torture and execution to make them afraid to rebel, and disregards the personhood of even her own daughter, instead treating her like her own dress-up doll to retain a legacy that will not, cannot die.
While being in a position of power, Shishou is still bound to the emperor's whims, and lost his wife to the rear palace through no fault of his own. And while making a deal with the now dead emperor to get her back, he does so without regard for the woman and later child he becomes responsible for, and appears to hold no real love for either of them, merely being obligations to get his real love back. Then, when she comes back changed and bitter, he rolls over and allows her to get worse at the expense of his daughters.
There's one more noteworthy abuser here, though she falls to a much lesser degree due to both her political position- or rather, her lack thereof.
2. Kyou-u's Mother
Kyou-u's mother is critical to understanding the Shi Clan as a whole in that, while she's certainly neglecting her son, it's because she herself is undeniably a victim of sexual abuse, as she's yet another victim of Lady Shenmei. More specifically, she's regularly drugged up and made to participate in orgies for the sake of Lady Shenmei's entertainment, and has been separated from her family entirely as a result. Even when faced with her son, she's silent and unresponsive, either from guilt or a lack of recognition entirely. She's shown to us as an example of the control Lady Shenmei's exerted not just over her own family, but the Clan as a whole, and how that's negatively effecting the Clan itself by neglecting its future generation and demanding obedience from its people through degradation and the denial of their community when not on their superior's terms, and she's degraded to an object of pleasure for someone else. Despite that, part of that degradation comes from the acknowledgement that she's failing those which she's responsible for, namely Kyou-u. It shows both sides of her situation as both victim of her circumstances and the negative consequences of her inability to act.
"Shisui"
Up until now, despite preferring the name Shisui, I've referred to our golden child of the Shi family with her birth name, Loulan. That's primarily because she isn't the only person who can be referred to as Shisui, as Shisui was in fact Suirei's birth name before Lady Shenmei had it forcibly changed in an effort to remove her from the family. As such, "Shisui" is less of an individual and more a title symbolic of the bond that they have and what they go through.
Regardless of everything they've gone through, regardless of how dehumanized they were by their family, being viewed as an unwanted tool and a doll, they were human to each other, and that allowed them to survive. The name Shisui has a part of each of them within it- Shi, Loulan, and Sui, Suirei.
The name 'Shisui' has a rough translation to 'purple water' when translated to Japanese* (紫 水). Shi is also the name of the clan they come from, the Shi clan, and is their family name. This makes sense for a couple of reasons- purple is a recognized color for nobility, as it was once an extremely expensive color to dye fabric and was reserved for nobility as a result. In addition, purple is used to denote 'real' nobility hiding within KnH more than once, with both Jinshi secretly being the son of the emperor and "Shisui" being Loulan. This is also further expanding on the symbolism of 'Shi' being cut out of Suirei's name, as despite having blood of both the royal family and the Shi Clan, she's been rejected by both. Sui meaning water speaks to their connection with each other- 'sui' remains a part of Suirei's name, while Loulan's final chosen name, Tamamo, is a name of the sea.
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So, yeah, that about sums up my yapfest. I feel like not all of it makes perfect sense, but I really wanted to get these out of my head and onto 'paper' if you would lol.
