Hey, CLAMP fandom, newsflash

[taotrooper]

Or they were nine years ago. Durrrrrr.

Do you remember the part in Cardcaptor Sakura where Clow Reed dies and reincarnates as other people? They only repeat it, oh, through the whole last arc.

So, when Yuuko dies, she's not going to rejoin Clow in the afterlife and un-live together happily ever after, you know? He's not there! He's in Japan, being Fujitaka Kinomoto and Eriol Hiiragizawa. And even if they meet each other in a next life, he's only going to be half Clow, thus a completely different person. Unless Ohkawa retcons the whole argument to Yue, that is.

In short, they don't get a "happy ending".

Well, not quite; at least not a romantic, shippy one: Yuuko finally isn't lingering through life and death and can rest in peace, and Clow finally isn't mortified by his powers and their repercutions. They got what they wanted, as characters, and the kids they loved and protected will (probably) live well; that's their happy ending. But no, no fairy tale romance ending for them, dumbasses. Then again, that's a logical conclusion since Clow has been truly dead from years now.

And even if I'm disenchanted with TRC and HOLiC from a while ago, I'm glad they will get to rest from all that shit and move on. They're free now. I'm fine with the way Clow/Yuuko turned out. I didn't need the kind of ending the fans are imagining now.

...All this unless CLAMP retcons something again, that is.

And I want to pretend Yuuko said that line because either she's hallucinating from her state, or the translation in English is vague.

Comments

[outou.livejournal.com]

I'm not saying that I want the "fairy tale romance ending," but couldn't CLAMP use Clow's appearance to Sakura after the end of the Final Judgement as a pretext for having his soul exist in the afterlife?

[rainmage.livejournal.com]

I wonder. I've always wondered what's up with that, or if it's part of the magic of the Moon Bell kicking in with a recorded message.

[outou.livejournal.com]

"(click) (da-da-da!) Hello, you've reached Clow Reed. After the tone, please leave your name, phone number, and a message. Also, congratulations on capturing the Cards, Sakura! (beeeep beeeep beeeep)"

[outou.livejournal.com]

...I realized that I should clarify my own feelings on this.

There seems to be something wrong about Clow simply not existing at all--neither in the living world nor in the afterlife. (And I don't think he has a continued existence as Fujitaka and Eriol. They're each their own person.) Granted, he lived for such a long time that he likely didn't want to have his soul continue existing, but...to go through the life he lived, to sacrifice what he had to sacrifice, only to cease existing completely, seems like a poor end. There's no rest or freedom--just nothing.

[rainmage.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it is strange and sad. I guess it might be open to interpretation (and retcon, of course), but that's the way I understood it from CCS. That it was tragic and even unfair that Clow would cease to exist, especially for Yue and Kero and the cards -since Yuuko and the Mokonas weren't part of the canon yet-, but it's a sort of fact I've assumed from the time they started introducing us to Clow Reed in the story. The whole flashback episode in the anime is also a big part of my mental image of Clow, a man who wished from change and conclusion. Oh, and now I figured I never even thought the appearance at the Final Judgment could be his dead spirit, not even before meeting Eriol, so... granted, it might be just me.

I still stand that they can't be together and that the Clow from that dimension is gone for good until TRC/HOLiC says something against it, even if it's unfair.