Ghost Hunt Headcanon: Mai’s abilities are tied to her empathy.
We all know that Mai has a great deal of sympathy for others, and empathy at times, but I believe her abilities are tied to that latter part of her personality. Now empathy usually arises from ones own experience in a situation, thus allowing them to commiserate with someone who is going through something similar, and I think it is this aspect of Mai that allows her to connect with people and spirits.
Naru describes it as an instinctual ability to distinguish friend from foe, but what if it goes deeper than that? Perhaps Mai is actually subconsciously picking up on a beings deepest feelings and thus that is what allows her to make that judgement. My prime examples for this would be the Kasai case (The After School Hexer), the Urado case (The Bloodstained Labyrinth) and the Yoshimi case (The Cursed House).
In the Kasai case, from the beginning, Mai claimed not to believe that Kasai was the cause behind the curses being thrown around. Now initially she cannot offer any legitimate reason for this, but her argument to Kasai towards the end of the case I think highlights it well.
Mai: Kasai you know you’re not the type of person who would cast curses and hurt people; so why won’t you say it?!
At one time during the case, Mai feels Kasai’s fear, even if she doesn’t understand it. Coupled with the above statement, I think Mai was picking up on Kasai’s fear and sadness regarding the whole incident and her mind was putting together the clues. After all, if Kasai were behind it, and making these things happen, why would she be afraid of it? That manifested as this gut feeling that Kasai wasn’t behind the curses, a feeling that was later proven to be correct.
Now in the Urado case, I think it was the desperate and malicious intent of Urado that Mai initially came across. She sensed something early on during their time there, but she brushed it off. Later we see Mai all but witness the disappearance of Atsuki and the body drowned in blood in their bathtub. Mai told Atsuki not to ‘go over there’ because she knew something bad would happen, because whatever was waiting for him there had the malicious intent that she’d sensed. Obviously there were many more spirits in that house than just Urado, but his will and feeling had been there far longer and was probably more potent. Eventually Mai was drawn into the first ‘death-dream’ she ever experienced, and I don’t think those dreams would be possible if Mai did not posses a large amount of empathy. Her sympathy and ability to feel bad for others manifests in her dreams as empathy and that’s why she experiences dreams from the perspectives of others.
Which then leads me into the Yoshimi case. During this case Mai witnessed two different stories, that of the Princess and Fisherman and the five Revolt leaders execution. Now we know the Okobu was actually the driving force behind those spirits involvement, but Mai didn’t see that part. What she saw was those spirits personal experiences, the actions and events that gave them the personal grudges and such that the Okobu exploited. An argument could even be made that Mai has experienced the feelings of those spirits and thus that it why she was able to connect with them in her dreams. The Princess and Fisherman represented love and a desire to be with someone despite the obstacles presented against it; and the Revolt leaders experienced abandonment and desertion by those they were close to. Betrayal even (which is interesting in its own right if we consider her relationship with Naru, Gene and their secrets).
And then we get to Gene who still fits nicely into this theory. Gene was obviously looking for Oliver, looking to try and contact him, and we can only imagine what he was feeling regarding his twin. Sadness, fear, love, desperation. He needed to help Oliver find him so that they could both find some peace. So what if it was less of Gene finding Mai and more of Mai sensing those emotions and being drawn to them?
Overall I like this theory and, for me at least, it helps to fill in some of the obvious gaps regarding Mai’s abilities. Now it’s not entirely inclusive (though it could be said that she found Masako in the Bloodstained Labyrinth by sensing her fear) as it doesn’t account for her astral projection, but it isn’t designed to explain everything.
It is also a little of a headcanon that Mai might be able to be trained with this ability, though not in the sense of say psychometry or P.K. She might be able to be taught how to identify the meaning of what she’s seeing. If she’s aware that its emotion that pulls her into dreams, if she can pay attention and identify the emotion that did so by the dreams contents, she could help bring the spirits motives to light. In retrospect, if we look at the Urado case, if Mai had been able to tell them that she discerned maliciousness and desperation, perhaps it would have helped identify the cause sooner and helped prevent the deaths of Suzuki and Atsuki.
Anyways, just a thought that has been rolling around in my head for a little while.
