CLANNAD - Kyou Fujibayashi Route & Character Discussion

Key Discussion
#67

Oh, when I said “indulging in his romance with Ryou”, I meant scenes such as when he french kisses his in the midst of his internal conflict. I’ll concede a couple dirty jokes spiraling out of control was more Ryou than him anyways.

I believe Clannad establishes that in spite of his delinquency, Tomoya dives head first into his interactions with others as a way of distancing himself from his own life and problems. That’s why I believe he decides to give Nagisa a push forward in the prologue of the game. In most routes, Tomoya shows a strong sense of altruism and a firm desire to make other people happy.

Although this itself might be a subject of controversy, I’ve never seen Tomoya as much of a self-insert. I feel like most of his actions in the other routes are ultimately in-character to key traits he has as a person, namely his altruism, his trollishness, and his determined nature. When the route is composed in such a way that Tomoya acts so against what I believe his character is, I find that a pretty big problem.

I will also concede that Tomoya’s not the kind of guy to talk about his feelings. But as someone who’s rather conscientious of his emotional state in the amount of time he spends in internal monologue, I feel this would have been nipped in the bud much earlier.

A more minor nitpick, in the bad ends of this route, students can theoretically catch Kyou and Tomoya kissing in the park and assume their dating, even when they don’t. Ryou’s route sidesteps this by having no one see, with more people latching on to them kissing in the arcade. Since peer pressure is what sets the uncertain tone of the second half, I’m kind of surprised someone discovering them is rather fluid in that way.

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#68

That’s actually controversial? Most here agreed on him being very much his own character, up to and including any choices, myself included, so I just assumed that’s how it is seen by the majority. That is also the reason why some complained that Tomoya isn’t voiced in Clannad itself.

#69

True. My bad, then.

#70

All of what you say, I feel, can be applied in very much the same way to his relationship with Ryou. He decides to try out a relationship with her as a way to distance himself and forget about his problems. He is also altruistic in a sense by sacrificing his own feelings to appease both Ryou and Kyou.

While my words might have been confusing, I don’t exactly consider him a self-insert either. I do push that the choices in the game are made by the player, I don’t see the player as a self-insert to Tomoya… I see the player more as an arbitrary being, (post-CLANNAD spoilers) existing in the illusionary world. This player views the daily life of Tomoya and subtly controls Tomoya’s direction in the main game, as a means to help obtain light orbs. I’m sorry, I have a very weird way of looking at the lore of Clannad, but I feel like it fits everything else in the game.

So while, yes, you are right in that:

I feel like there are those rare cases, maybe once every other route, where he does something strange… I told you I feel like him giving Nagisa that push was out of character, but I answered your thoughts on that above.

Man, there are just soooo many stories that deal with this, and I personally think that it’s much much easier said than done. And even if it was easier done, then we wouldn’t have much of a story, then would we? :stuck_out_tongue:

Heeeey congrats, you’ve found the one thing I dislike about this route! Since I put big importance into the choice mechanism of all VNs, having this change-of-events be something not directly related to your choices does kinda tick me off :komue:

#71

I’m not sure, though. Considering his actions in Tomoyo’s route, I’m inclined to say that Tomoya is generally a more long-term thinker who’s empathetic of the people around him. I’m basically repeating myself here, but I think he would realize that appeasing both girls in the way he does is, in reality, a cruel and manipulative thing to do. Ultimately, I’ll have to agree to disagree, because I just feel Tomoya wouldn’t treat something like romance so flippantly. I think it’s him buying into Kyou’s wishful thinking in a way I don’t think he would. I mean, he’s rather assertive with Kyou when she meddles in other’s business in Kappei’s route, so why would he kind of let her win here?

#72

I definitely can’t agree with that… In Tomoyo’s route he just decides to break up with Tomoyo because of the social pressure of their situation. If he really thought about the long term, then he’d realize that that wouldn’t be the right solution to her long-term issues.

Everything that Tomoya does in the early parts of CLANNAD he does because he is weak. He is insecure about his own emotions and finds an escape through the different routes. Even in Nagisa’s route he chooses to move out of his own home instead of confronting his own father.

So when you say:

He would not realize it because, again, he is very weak. His entire thought process during the route is that he does not want to end up hurting Ryou, and even if he manages to break up with Ryou, he fears that Kyou would not accept him. His entire thought process is driven by his fear to hurt other people and fear to not be accepted. And I think that fear and insecurity fits Tomoya to a T. He is not a long-term thinker, and neither is he very smart about his relationships. I personally think you give him too much credit.

Sure, he also does that. When you choose not to pursue Ryou, he tells her off. A lot of it is anchored in the choice mechanic, again. And because you do not have this choice in the Kappei route, it fails to become more believable. But analyzing his own insecurities makes me believe that he might not even have been assertive to Kyou in kappei’s route. We just don’t see that because we do not go down that timeline.

#73

I will agree that Tomoya is quite emotionally unstable(Big After Story spoilers) Even after spending a long time with Nagisa, he ultimately isn’t a strong enough person and hasn’t matured enough to take care of his daughter on his own.

I do see your points, but I’m just not convinced. Call it stubbornness if you’d like, but I find it hard to stomach that Tomoya would be this indecisive and cruel, even with his insecurities. It doesn’t help that he’s quite slow to take the romance route in other stories and doesn’t broach that possiblity until he starts having feelings for the girl.

I appreciate this discussion, though, it’s been very enlightening. :slight_smile:

#74

Well I can see how it would be hard to stomach at least. Just one last thing I want to point out is that Tomoyo is in no way, as you put it,

He does not wish anything ill on Kyou nor Ryou. He simply wants the best outcome for everyone but is too afraid to take the step in the right direction. At least, until Sunohara gives him some perspective

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#75

I will concede he’s not malicious by any means. But I still believe that Tomoya is simply too conscientious to let this situation stand by as long as it did. Sympathizing with him and Kyou was extremely difficult at various times in this route, even with the revelation later on that Kyou was somewhat exploited into helping Ryou get together with Tomoya.

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#76

Maaaaaaaaaaaan I don’t think any other route in Key (barring a certain route in Rewrite) made me feel so frustrated and uncomfortable going through it like Kyou route did. I feel so bad choosing to do things against Ryou. And I feel so bad for Kyou sacrificing herself like that.

Which basically means I like this route a lot.

And which is why I’ll begin with the stuff I don’t like about this: reading it can get tedious as heck. Maybe standard galge routines aren’t my thing haha. Also, Ryou’s stutter-y lines gives me a secondhand sore throat. Not like I dislike it much. And the voice acting for Kyou in the rain scene is so dry. She’s supposed to be crying, but her voice don’t seem to reflect it well enough. It’s supposed to be hard to speak while crying. It really dampened my enjoyment of that scene. :((

The rest? Damn perfect; I love it. The characters have so much depth to them. Their emotions are so well conveyed by the writing.

And man do I really like stories good at bringing out the worst of the main characters: Tomoya didn’t want to cause pain to others, so much that he ended up hurting people unintentionally (funny enough, one of the stories I’m planning to write took inspiration from this - I watched the OVA btw). Kyou would rather sacrifice her happiness for the sake of others, but because she can’t keep doing that for long (sh’s just human), she caused things to get complicated. Ryou’s feelings made her do selfish things, and at the same time, led her to sacrificing her identity. The result: a deconstruction of high school romance, dragging it out of the rose-colored lens it’s often viewed on.

The story really stands on solid writing and realism. The awful stuff that the characters did? Happens in real life too often. Society should begin accepting consensual polygamy tbh

Lastly, I quite like both of them, but I think I like Kyou a bit more. Kyou’s now among my best gril candidates; she’s too savage to not like. Ryou’s pretty close, at least for now.

4.25/5 for me. Had more flaws than the previous routes I’ve read in this VN, but had a very compelling drama to it.

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#77

FINALLY someone else who gets it!

But yeah, amazing route, and glad you liked it too :kyouevil:

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#78

I’m conflicted in this route. On one hand, I’ve heard people argue that Ryou’s actions are douchy(?) - even when she knows her sister likes Tomoya, she still asks her to help them get together, ignoring her feelings, as well as Tomoya’s. Heck, even at the end, she tries to be act like Kyou just to be with Tomoya, even if it’s clear he doesn’t share the same feelings towards her.

But on the other, I empathize with the reason why she does it - she’s desperate. This relationship isn’t something she can get. Like, at the moment, she really can’t imagine them being together, no matter how much she tried. So, what does she do? She asks help from her sister, even if it hurts, she’ll bear with the guilt, just to get what she really wanted, Tomoya’s love/attention(?).

Cause of this, I really don’t know what to feel for Ryou.

For Kyou, I just think it’s sad that she’s willing to go through this much for her sister - just cause she was not confident in herself and the answer Tomoya would give. I guess she underestimated the pain she would have to bear by helping her sister.

For this route, I really love it. It feels the most…human out of all the routes I’ve read (Fuko, Misae, and Tomoyo), which makes for interesting discussions especially on the matter of emotions and rationality. Thus, I really really love this route.

The biggest thing I hate is that I had to kiss Ryou to progress. I didn’t know that so I had to retry the route multiple times before resorting to a guide. I guess it’s important to the story of the route, but still, it’s Kyou’s route!

So, now I’m confused…who’s in the wrong here?

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#79

There has been quite a lot of study, because identical twins as we can expect are ideal subjects for the Nature vs Nurture argument.

E.G. The Mystery of How Identical Twins Develop Different Personalities

I take your point that this is pushing the envelope here though!

Same here, but the Clannad Side Story #4 - while being average quality, does look at the Ryou vs Kyou situation before the events of Clannad which could veer the reader wither way! ( won’t say more : spoilers )

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#80

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I seem to be missing a CG, anyone help?

#81

It’s from a different route, don’t worry.

#82

Thanks, I was confused, but now I’m good.

#83

I finished the Kyou route recently, and it was very different from what I expected. On the one hand it’s a great route, I think the struggles of the 3 main characters (Kyou, Ryou and Tomoya) are portrayed really well and their flaws made them very human. The inner monologues of Tomoya were very interesting and it highlighted how emotionally unstable he actually is. It’s definitely one of my favourite routes, but as a Kyou fanboy I also was slightly disappointed I didn’t get to see her as much as I would have liked to. The other routes generally have a strong focus on a single girl, and I feel like Kyou had less of that, but I suppose it’s not that surprising considering that the route is about both twins after all. But I will surely read the route again in the future, and this time I won’t have these specific expectations (and will probably like the route even more for that reason as well). I’m just kinda sad there’s no Kyou After or something. Ah well, that’s just my inner Kyou fanboy speaking again, sorry for rambling on lol.

I know this is a comment from a year ago, but I just wanted to reply to it anyway. I listened to her voice acting during the rain scene for a second time and I agree it’s too dry, though it didn’t bother me to the point where I enjoyed the scene less. Interestingly I think she did a much better job on the same scene in the OVA, where she sounds far more emotional. Not sure if they didn’t coach her properly on the scene in the VN or something, but yeah… In the end I’m okay with the scene regardless.

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#84

Let me say one thing before i begin I generally hate love triangles in stories. The reason? cause it often depends on character behaving like idiots. The character starts off with oh i love both of them and ends with ah i didn’t really love girl A instead i was in love with girl B all along.

Clannad breaks this norm but not in a good way and still makes me want to shit on it.Tomoya starts to go out with Ryou as a test to see if he would come to like her in the future, okay that’s fine, then shit gets flipped. He practices kissing with Kyou and even fucking picks up her fav.stone (azmanite or whatever the fuck it was) still the guy has so much problem with even considering a tiny possibility that he might like Kyou and not Ryou until later. Ok maybe i can’t blame this as being conflicted or ignorant of your feelings is a main part of these kind of routes.

I’ll say what i like about this route now. 1. The romance - i love high school romances and the fortune telling scene is easily one of my favorites from this route.
2. Drama - you ever get that feeling where you feel so emotional even though the story is unlikable for you? i felt it the atmosphere created was strong enough to make me feel emotional,

Now the bad points.1. Ryou’s transformation - while i like it very much,it’s so sudden. It’s hard to believe she changed so much in one day. 2 The drama - why am i bringing this up again? cause it’s both a strong and weak point of the route. While it successfully creates a good atmosphere the story is still unpolished in my opinion with characters making unnecessary mistakes. especially tomoya being a pathetic shit.
Let’s get back to Tomoya, so when he does realize that Kyou has feelings for him he still goes and kisses Ryou, cause he want’s someone to be there for him, cause he wants someone to need them, cause he feels happy with Ryou by his side. Now before this i mentioned trying to date for a short period to see if they can like each other, that type of thing can’t cause much harm to the feelings of the girl but kissing, goddamm there’s a line that you shouldn’t cross if you aren’t sure you’re in love, purely pathetic! even sunohara knows what’s better then him (don’t tell me in the end he still worked up to fix his mistake he had wasted far too much time and hesitated one too many time before finally doing it).
Kyou is also an idiot, while tomoya clearly tells him to think about his feelings she pushes him towards Ryou and then gets her feelings hurt, this self harming thing is not something i like.
Ryou is also in both their league ,she’s so stubborn and shit but at the end she gains her senses before the other two so she’s somewhat high for me then them.
All characters beside sunohara are unnecessarily stupid in this route.

#85

And that’s exactly what makes this route so good. Because people make unnecessary mistakes, all because of a petty thing called emotions. Despite that, these unnecessary mistakes in this route still remain believable, which in turn makes the characters feel like real people! And i love that

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#86

Yeah they were pretty stupid in the route. But iirc a lot of what transpired in the route happened because Kyou and Tomoya didn’t want everyone around them to get hurt.

The two were sacrificing themselves by suppressing their true feelings because they didn’t want people around them to get hurt. But they didn’t quite realize that their own sacrifices are causing these exact people to get hurt, and even when they are already made aware of it, they couldn’t assert their feelings because they really are afraid of the pain it can cause to people around them. It’s a very real situation, actually, and it’s hard to escape from it because not too many people want to actively inflict pain on others.

(BTW, Sunohara is in a perfect position to be in his particular role in this route – he’s an outsider who happens to be close to Tomoya, so he’s able to observe and assess the situation as a whole with a clear mind.

Ryou, meanwhile, was in a rather weird position. It was easy for her to act selfishly at first because their self-sacrificing is easily giving her the opportunity to be, but she was mature enough to realize that she’s going to get hurt either way anyway. :uee: That’s why she was able to give Kyou the push she needed near the end.)

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