I saw other posts about Neko and I feel like everyone is acting like she's come college educated scholar capable of critical thinking? She's a 15/16 year old girl who's spent a good chunk of her life as a cat. She's impluse driven. She's not capable of social cues she hasn't been taught to understand. People are putting critical thinking into something that doesn't require it and ruining something for themselves in the process.
Hmmm, she has to be a bit older than 15/16 right? Because she’s depicted as being around 5-6 during the Kagutsu Incident and that was 14 years ago? Double-check my math on that. I think Kagutsu happened 14 years ago, but I can’t remember where I read it. But I take your larger point about her mentality -- she clearly doesn’t have the same sort of emotional/intellectual maturity as someone of her age should. She cares about Shiro and food and Kuro (after food, according to RoK). And so she did what she felt she had to in order to protect the things she cares about. I see what you mean.
For me, though, I am really troubled by the whole manipulating memories thing. Like, I feel like she *does* know it’s wrong because when Shiro and Kuro are out shopping for fireworks and stuff with her, and Shiro tries to call Kukuri because he forgot the list, Neko is absolutely adamant that he not use the phone. She doesn’t want him to reach out to Kukuri because she knows that he’ll find out that he’s not who he thinks he is. And when Shiro insists on using the phone anyway, Neko runs away. She also doesn’t reverse the memory manipulation immediately when he asks. The consent issue is difficult for me as well.
As I said, I get why she’d be attached to Shiro. And why she’d want to try to maintain and protect the only family she’s known. I would be just as fiercely possessive, I think. But I’m not okay with the method she employs.
And I don’t want to be rude or anything, but I don’t know that it’s fair to characterize not liking a character as “ruining something for themselves” -- we don’t really know if not liking a character is ruinous. Rather, it could be that hating a fictional character might be enriching because it prompts you to think about why you dislike this person and maybe thinking about these things is enjoyable for folks. We never know, right?
But I’m interested to hear how you would interpret that telephone scene, or other scenes with Neko in them!
