Making Sense of TRC
Jun. 2nd, 2011 01:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mikkenekoHip-deep in the TRC fandom as I am, I don't pretend that the manga is perfect. Parts of it, particularly the ending, are as confusing as hell. (See my handy-dandy Space-Timeline chronicling the events of TRC!) They're confusing partly because the events themselves are confusing -- there's clones, and time travel, and world-swapping -- but they're also confusing because let's be honest, the storytelling pretty much falls apart towards the end. There are a lot of things that are never explained, or explained in a way that makes no sense, or explained in a way that is ultimately unsatisfying.
I won't address all the loose ends and plot holes of the TRC manga here, partly because it would be way too long for a single post. Instead, I'm going to address a couple of the more confusing issues surrounding Sakura and Syaoran's family tree, time loops, and recursive paternity, and present my thoughts on what was really going on to make that sequence of events make sense.
Please don't comment to tell me my interpretation of events is wrong. You can debate and speculate, but I'm not interested in getting into an argument. These are the explanations that helped me make sense of the ending of TRC in a satisfying way; perhaps they can help you make sense of it too.
Notes: For the purpose of this essay, Sakura and Syaoran refers to the 'clone' versions of those characters, and male-Tsubasa and female-Tsubasa refer to the 'real' versions of those characters.
1) The nature of Sakura and Syaoran's sacrifice
The story:
After being killed in the main TRC storyline, Sakura and Syaoran meet again in a limbo dreamspace with the Time-Space Witch, Yuuko. She tells them that she has sacrificed herself so that, instead of perishing from the worlds entirely, their souls will be reborn in new lives together on another world.
We then see shots of a young Sakura in modern Japan-like clothing, meeting a young Li Syaoran in Hong Kong. They reunite, marry, and years later adult Sakura has a baby: the baby that will become, later, the Syaoran from which our Syaoran was cloned. The baby is "Tsubasa."
When Tsubasa is about seven years old, the adult Syaoran gives the boy the Li family sword, and tells him to take and use the name "Syaoran." They then send him off to Clow, there to meet female Tsubasa and kick off the events of the series.
After Tsubasa departs, Syaoran and Sakura discuss the past and the future. They worry over the fact that, unless they take action, the grievous disasters of the past two hundred chapters will replay themselves over and over. They finally decide that they have to take action to break the time loop, or else they will never be able to move forward. Wishing to protect their son and the others that they love, Sakura and Syaoran seal themselves away in a glass jar which is stored in Yuuko's shop, to remain trapped and suspended in time until the final confrontation with Fei Wong Reed.
Which is all very well and good, except for one thing. Their sacrifice is doing nothing to break out of the time loop.
The time loop started when female-Tsubasa was about to die, when male-Tsubasa made his wish to freeze and rewind time so that he would have the chance to save her. His wish rewinds time, and the events of the last seven years replay themselves, causing Syaoran, Sakura and Watanuki to be created and kicking off the journey that makes up most of Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle. It ends when male-Tsubasa returns to the 'scene of the crime,' and this time successfully takes female-Tsubasa's hand and pulls her to safety.
That's the end of the time loop. Both Tsubasa and Fei Wong Reed have gotten what they wanted out of it; Tsubasa got to save his girlfriend, and Fei Wong Reed got the power he needed to accomplish his final goal. At that point, neither of them had either the need nor the capability to rewind time and restart the time loop a second time. Instead, Fei Wong Reed plans to use his new powers to fulfill his goal: to break down the structure of the universes, negate the fundamental law (that death is irreversible,) and bring Yuuko back to life.
Sakura and Syaoran don't show up until the time loop is already over and done with. Instead, they arrive just as Fei Wong Reed is preparing to break down the universes, and use their own magics -- Syaoran using the magic of Clow, which was gifted to him through the Li bloodline, and Sakura using the power of Card Captor Sakura, which was gifted to her in a dream -- to thwart Fei Wong Reed's magic and restore the structure of the universe.
If what they had wanted was to short-circuit the time loop and negate the disaster and suffering that came with it, all they would have had to do was to keep Tsubasa home. If Tsubasa had never gone to Clow, then female-Tsubasa would have died on schedule on her fourteenth birthday,* and Tsubasa would never have made his world-shattering wish; neither Syaoran and Sakura would have ever been created, and all the suffering that came as a result of Tsubasa's wish would never have happened. Syaoran and Sakura would have ceased to exist, of course, and maybe even Tsubasa himself; but that seemed to be a sacrifice they were willing to accept.
*Well, maybe. Given that Fei Wong Reed only cursed her in the first place to force Tsubasa into making his wish, it's entirely possible that had Tsubasa never gone to Clow, she would never have been in danger in the first place.
Instead, they deliberately sent Tsubasa off to Clow, because they understood that his meeting female-Tsubasa was inevitable; it was destiny. The events of the time loop had to happen, because they already had happened, and their happening was inevitable. Instead of trying to avoid that fate, they willingly accepted it, then armed themselves with the most powerful magic they could get their hands on, and sealed themselves in magical stasis to await the final confrontation after the time loop concluded.
In other words, what they sacrificed their happy domestic life together in Hong Kong for had nothing to do with breaking the recurring time loop, and everything to do with thwarting Fei Wong Reed's plans to destroy the boundaries of the universe. That's what they sacrificed their life together for. That's what they endured twenty years of isolation and imprisonment for. So that when the time came, they would be both present and able to fight back against Fei Wong Reed, and protect the integrity of the universes. In doing so, they saved the worlds that they had passed through on their journey, and protected all the people they had met and befriended there; and so repaid their debt to those who had helped them along the way. And, incidentally, also saved the lives of Kurogane and Fai, their son, and female Tsubasa.
Saying that they sacrificed themselves to break the time loop makes no sense. For one, it's not necessary, since the time loop closed all on its own. For two, they didn't succeed at it; all the events of the time loop still happened. It makes their sacrifice look pointless and ineffectual. Instead, say what they really gave up their lives for: to defeat Fei Wong Reed, to protect the integrity of the multiple universes and to save the lives of all the people they loved.
Which is definitely something worth sacrificing for.
2) Sakura and Syaoran left their bodies behind
There are two things that occur in the above storyline that are rather mystifying. First of all, when the fully adult Sakura and Syaoran -- Tsubasa's parents -- make the decision to seal themselves in the Li family artifact, their adult appearance seems to dissolve, and they revert to their teenage selves. When they appear in Clow they look identical to the male and female Tsubasas, even down to the clothes.
Second, after the final battle is concluded, both Sakura and Syaoran seem to 'dissolve' into the form of a feather, which is promptly then absorbed into the bodies of their counterparts. Seriously, what the fuck.
Both of these events are easily explained if you suppose that Sakura and Syaoran left their adult, human bodies behind on the floor of the pagoda in Hong Kong. Only their souls were sealed into the glass jar. (And that must have been a fun scene for Touya to walk into, don't you think? His sister and brother-in-law dead on the floor, with a glass jar sitting next to them and a note telling him to take it to Yuuko.) When the jar was broken and they were unsealed, they were able to stay coherent long enough to do what they needed to do. But ultimately their existence was not sustainable without bodies, and so their souls and memories were absorbed into the handy host bodies of the Tsubasas, with whom their souls were compatible.
Of course, if this is true, then it means all Tsubasa really has to do is to travel back to his home world and find the comatose bodies of his parents in whatever hospital Touya has stuck them in, and find some way to restore their souls to their bodies. Then he can go back to Clow and hook up with female Tsubasa, Syaoran and Sakura can resume their happy life together in Hong Kong, and Fai and Kurogane can retire to Nihon and get busy making a hundred fanfics come true.
3) Syaoran is not actually his own grandfather
In some ways, the denouement of the above events actually puts a major cramp in anyone who ships Syaoran and Sakura. If Tsubasa is Syaoran's son, but Syaoran was cloned from Tsubasa, then that means Syaoran is his own grandfather; worse, he's genetically identical to his wife's son, which means he's essentially boning his own mother.
Fortunately, there's a fairly simple solution for this: Although Sakura and Syaoran were originally cloned from the Tsubasas, they were reborn on Earth to natural parents in unrelated families. Sakura seems to be born to yet another version of Fujitaka and Nadeshiko (at the very least, she refers to Touya being her brother) and Syaoran is born to the Li family in Hong Kong. He mentions that before he was reborn he had no magic, but afterwards, he had Clow's magic passed down to him through the Lis.
This means that even though their memories and personalities are the same, and despite the similarity in appearance, Sakura and Syaoran are reborn into bodies that are not genetically related to either of the Tsubasas. (Well, at least not until they give birth to him. Ow, brain.) So Tsubasa, whatever else happens with his genes, has four normal grandparents none of which were directly related to each other.
Tsubasa having an identical appearance to Syaoran seems to be more a result of magical hijinks/the interference of destiny than any actual physical factors. It's useful to compare him to Watanuki. Not only does Watanuki look like a young version of Clow -- whose bloodline was passed down through Li Syaoran -- but he also resembles Sakura's older brother Touya at that age. In creating the person of Watanuki, Tsubasa's "other self" who might have existed, CLAMP seems to be giving us a look of what Sakura and Syaoran's natural son should have looked like if destiny had not interfered.
Of course, none of this changes the extremely Oedipal connotations of male-Tsubasa's relation to female-Tsubasa; although she was not otherwise tangled in his family tree, she still has identical looks and personality to his mom, so his being in love with her is still kind of weird. It's also unclear whether alternate incarnations of people across the universes are genetically identical to each other or not; given that Tsubasa, like Sakura, was born to Fujitaka and Nadeshiko, it seems possible. In which case, female Tsubasa would be a genetic analog of male Tsubasa's mother Sakura.
In the very worst case scenario, male Tsubasa and female Tsubasa share 50% of their genes, which is worse than cousins but better than siblings. Contrary to stories of two-headed babies, major defects rarely appear in the first generation of inbreeding unless both of the parents were already carriers. So they'll probably be okay to hook up, although for everybody's sake it would probably be best to call it quits after the current generation.
Whew. That's enough for tonight, I hope...
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2011-06-02 08:43 am (UTC)However it ended, TRC's one of my all-time favorite series, so this clarification is much appreciated. ♥
no subject
Date: 2011-06-02 09:06 am (UTC)Yes, I agree. I will always think of the clones as the 'real' Syaoran and Sakura, and their personalities are the ones that will appear in all my stories. (Except for the ones which specifically feature the Fai/Kurogane/Tsubasa trio and take place during the post-series journey.)
no subject
Date: 2011-06-02 09:17 am (UTC)I was enjoying this whole convo, but this... this is great. Makes me so happy. I still want to re-read the ending soon, but I'll just be picturing this scenario the whole time so it won't depress me quite so much this time! ;)
no subject
Date: 2011-06-03 06:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-03 12:07 am (UTC)Your description of Sakura and Syaoran's sacrifice... that made so much sense, and is somehow much more intense and poignant than I originally thought. Wow.
And, like Faren, I totally agree with your prediction for how Tsubasa would bring back Syaoran and Sakura (especially the bit about Kurogane and Fai going back to Nihon and making fangirl dreams come true...<3)
I really like this; thanks for nutting it all out, Mikke!
no subject
Date: 2011-06-03 01:06 am (UTC)Yeah, there were a lot of things I didn't even get into, including: What relation was Fei Wong Reed to Clow Reed? What exactly where all those black ninja dudes he conjured? What happened to the others like Xing Hua, the 'poor imitations' of Yuuko? How the hell did Tsubasa and Watanuki get out of the limbo space where they were? What happened to the rewound version of Clow, where Yukito and Touya were waiting for Sakura to come back to them? Did they just sorta vanish, did they get absorbed into their real-Clow counterparts, or are they out there waiting forever?
And that's only the questions left by the finale; it doesn't even touch on vampires, vampire hunters, Fuuma, Fai's second curse, and what relationship Ashura had to Fei Wong Reed anyway.
"especially the bit about Kurogane and Fai going back to Nihon and making fangirl dreams come true...<3"
I admit that's what I'm really after, here. Tsubasa can chase dreams all over the universe as long as he likes, but I want my OTP to be able to go home, dammit!
no subject
Date: 2011-06-03 01:46 am (UTC)This. Yes.
Ugh, all of those mind-bending little shards of the broken plot, I just can't even think of them without a stiff drink and a dictionary of time and space, I tell you. And I don't even drink!
*shakes head* I guess this is what it means to have a CLAMP ending...
no subject
Date: 2011-06-03 06:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-03 09:09 am (UTC)My headcanon now states that the trio went almost directly to Hong Kong, did their business, and went home. Mikke, you rock.