This is going to be a long rant about Yumi and the emotional impact of the characters
Okay, now that I have finished the episode I want to talk about why Yumi doesn’t deserve all the bad things that happen to her but the reasons that I think led the writers to make everything bad happen to her.
First of all, she doesn’t deserve any of this because she is my child and I love her and I hate seeing her suffer, and with this sentence you can already tell that I am not very objective
The thing is, her character is a very easy way to affect everyone. Jeremy, Odd and Ulrich have different personalities, and I am not gonna get into that, but they also share a lot of things that they don’t do with Yumi. For starters, Yumi is a girl, she is strong and a great part of the team, but she is a girl and if you think that doesn’t matter, believe me, it does. But also, she doesn’t live with them, yes, she lives close, but she doesn’t spend 24/7 with the others. And lastly, she was the last one to get in the group. She is already different just by this alone.
The other thing to take into account is her relationship with the others. Every time she gets hurt, she is not the only one who suffers, because we have Ulrich’s reaction and that in itself is very interesting to the viewer. You could say that the same happens if Ulrich gets hurt, but it’s not the same. Because Ulrich and Odd have such a great bond, when Yumi gets hurt, Ulrich turns to Odd and he tries to comfort him; Yumi doesn’t have someone to turn to in that case except maybe Jeremy, but Jeremy and Aelita (as of where I am in the show) have their own world. What is more likely, If Ulrich had gotten lost/fallen into the sea/anything bad that has happened to Yumi lately or that will happen to her in the near future, there probably would have been a conflict on whether to show Yumi or Odd, as he means a lot to both of them, but it wouldn’t have had the same impact, I think.
Now, I’ve talked about what could have happened if Ulrich got hurt, but let’s try it with the other characters. I’m gonna do it in general, not with specific events, because I don’t wanna be all afternoon writing this.
-Aelita: She probably can’t get worse than she is and if she falls to the sea, the show ends, so there isn’t a lot to be done. However, if she didn’t have that “handicap” she would be in the same position, because we would get a very stressed Jeremy and he would become the Ulrich of the situation.
-Odd: Honesty, he is more of a goofy character, I believe that if he got hurt, they would all be worried, but not in the same way. Also because he doesn’t have a “romantic interest”, it wouldn’t have as much impact.
-Jeremy: First of all, he doesn’t go to Lyoko so he doesn’t have like half the problems they would have. He actually gets hurt, or is close to getting hurt in the real world, but he isn’t the focus, because Aelita is in Lyoko and she would be worried but wouldn’t be able to do anything about it (like saving him, in the way Ulrich and Yumi keep doing with each other). Also, even if he has a good relationship with everyone he is, as I’ve said before) included in another bubble with Aelita
So in conclusion, the other’s pain is not as impactful as Yumi’s but she deserves better than this because she is amazing
Edit, even if it hasn’t been published yet: I’ve made some charts to try and explain myself better
So, this would be the importance of the characters in the group, taking into account the emotional impact their suffering would have:
And then I’ve made what characters they tend to prioritise, although I haven’t made one of Aelita because I feel like she hasn’t had enough interaction with others and she wouldn’t be able to interfere in a hypothetical situation in which Jeremy was in danger.
And finally, to try and exemplify what I mean with Aelita and Jeremy being in their own bubble, I’ve made this
Okay that’s it. Again, this is just my opinion and my will to procrastinate