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[Essay] Reasons Why I Dislike Kyouya/Haruhi As Much As I Do
So hey, today's exam turned out to be disappointingly easy, so I distracted myself by thinking about ouran. Which leads me to this.
See, Kyouya/Haruhi has always, always struck me as implausible and unrealistic and how it plain cannot happen. I kept thinking 'why' and, well, my thoughts can be summarised in just one sentence:
Kyouya and Haruhi are similar to each other, but they have nothing in common.
I'll get back to that later, but first. Objecting to the 'evidence' of the pairing.
All the Kyouya/Haruhi shippers I've seen kept harping on two scenes, in the manga and the anime as well. They all have an underlying theme that is there, always there, but is mostly ignored by most. I'll elaborate about the manga first.
The beach episode is considered the Kyouya/Haruhi scene by more shippers than I can count, quite possibly all of them, actually. In my opinion, the scene actually isn't Kyouya/Haruhi. Let me get the scans.
The seventh panel,
Haruhi: You were just defending Tamaki-senpai right now.
You made me realize it by playing the villain, didn't you?
Tamaki. The keyword here is Tamaki. Kyouya was defending Tamaki. He pretended to rape Haruhi not because of his sexual desire or his lust for her, but he pretended to be the villain to defend Tamaki and teach Haruhi a lesson. Haruhi told us it. This is canon. Also, this page:
I greatly believe that the sole reason that Kyouya even bothered to try to teach Haruhi was because Tamaki whined to him the whole time they were going back to their rooms. I can't, honestly, see any other reason for him to risk his reputation by pretending to want to rape Haruhi. This scene is not 'proof of his lust for her'. Really. So please stop trying to say that it is.
The next 'Kyouya/Haruhi scene' in the manga is the whole of chapter 28. I'll just upload the parts where they actually have some interaction (isn't it just so lucky that I actually have the scans? And that I downloaded them only three days ago?):
Where, pray tell, is the Kyouya/Haruhi? I can't see any evidence for it in a romantic sense. Even if I squint and tilt my head sideways, I can't.
This chapter is actually the chapter that completely convinced that Kyouya/Haruhi cannot work in anyway. I shall go back to my beginning summary: Kyouya and Haruhi are similar to each other, but they have nothing in common. No, this is not an oxymoron.
Kyouya and Haruhi are similar in that their personalities belong to the same side of the spectrum. Kyouya is calculating, Haruhi is apathetic. Kyouya and Haruhi both hide their emotions, unlike Tamaki, although Kyouya hides them far better than Haruhi does. That is all to it.
They have nothing in common, except Tamaki and perhaps the Host Club. This chapter convinced me of that. What did that talk about in the fast food restaurant? Tamaki. WHat is their topic of conversation in the beginning of the market scene? Tamaki.
Their family backgrounds have nothing in common: Haruhi is an commoner, Kyouya is a rich 'young master'. Kyouya even says so. Unlike Tamaki and Haruhi, they don't even have their missing-mother similarity - we don't even know if Kyouya's mother is alive or not. Or if she even exists. So nothing in common there.
And that is the crux of this essay, actually. I cannot see a way in which Kyouya and Haruhi can relate to each other or even talk to each other. Their topics of conversation were Tamaki, Tamaki, and more Tamaki with a few mentions of the Host Club sprinkled in. Oh, and Haruhi asked Kyouya about his family (page 20) and Kyouya... didn't tell her. In fact, when Haruhi said that 'Looks like things are hard on you', Kyouya told her that he actually thinks of it as a challenge.
Again, nothing in common here. Haruhi don't understand Kyouya, or, at least, she understands him the least compared to the other Host Club members. Which is why I get frustrated at most Kyouya/Haruhi fics, because they don't recognise this. I have never read a fic in which the author acknowledges that they basically have nothing except a few basic personality traits in common, and it frustrates me so much.
Now we come to the most 'important Kyouya/Haruhi part' of the chapter. Pages 24 to 33.
I see no basis for the Kyouya/Haruhi ship here either. What I see here is what Hatori-sensei has already told us, way back in Chapter 9: Kyouya is a decent person.
Kyouya/Haruhi shippers I know of (which is rather few, so forgive me if I generalise) think that this scene is a Kyouya/Haruhi one because of pages 29-30, where Haruhi said: 'Kyoya-senpai, what is your definition of benefit? ... Were you trying to stand up for me when you saw the shopkeeper being rude to me?'
But Kyouya said, in pages 30-32: 'Just now you said that I helped you because it gave me some sort of emotional benefit? Is that right? ... I find that theory very interesting.'
The keyword here is 'theory'. In my hardcover copy, the translation is 'interpretation'. The difference in meaning in this context is negligible. The fact remains that Kyouya did not back Haruhi's view up, he did not agree with what Haruhi said. He thought it to be 'interesting' (that word remains the same in both copies).
You can argue that Kyouya used the word because he didn't want Haruhi to know he did that for her sake. But I don't think Kyouya is the type of person to go out of his way to 'stand up' (or 'get back', which sounds rather petty) for Haruhi. He isn't an obvious a person as that. I admit that the shopkeeper being rude to Haruhi might have been a part of the reason why he did that, but in my opinion, Kyouya is just being a decent person and stopping the old lady from buying a bunch of fake goods.
Even if he did it for her, you can't say automatically that he is romantically interested in her. There is such a thing as friendship, you see.
I'm not going into the anime because it is completely the same, except for that the market episode didn't have the Haruhi-being-scolded-by-the-shopkeeper scene. Given the anime's message throughout the whole thing, I think they took it out for a pretty good reason. It would've looked... awkward, actually.
The next item is what I've seen a few Kyouya/Haruhi shippers talk about: Ranka. See, according to them, Kyouya went to get to know Ranka first because he 'wanted first dips on parental approval'.
Er, no.
Kyouya is a person who seeks to understand other people. This is one of the other ways that he is so very different from Haruhi - she learns about people by watching them and from what they tell her, he learns about people by deliberately going out of his way to understand them. I believe that one of Kyouya's mottos is 'knowledge is power', and how better to get to know someone than to ask their parent?
Haruhi is something new in the world of the Host Club. I don't think Kyouya understands her, not in the beginning anyway. He called upon Ranka to find out more information about her, to get to know her better, so he can figure out just who she is and how he could use her better.
Case in point: Haruhi's middle-school photos were used as bait to provide him entertainment during Hikaru and Kaoru's game of 'let's find out Haruhi's weakness! :D :D :D'.
Second case in point: Haruhi constantly said that she didn't mind being mistaken for a guy and she doesn't have very strict opinions about gender. This is a rather strange opinion, but Kyouya could know exactly why she felt this way when he found out that her father is an okama.
You can interprete all this as 'Kyouya wants to know Haruhi better because he likes her!', but no, sorry, this isn't it. Wanting to know about someone does not equate him liking a person. It equates to him wanting to understand how this person's mind work, and how he could manipulate them.
The more you know about someone, the better you can predict their actions, and the more likely you can counter said actions. This applies to war, and this applies here as well.
Kyouya is, I believe, a person who dislikes anything he doesn't understand. Haruhi was one of them. She is a new, interesting puzzle, a challenge for him to solve, and so he called her father for clues to know more about her. That was all there is to it, really. He did the same thing before he first met Tamaki. He already knew that Tamaki was the son of the Superintendant, the son of his mistress, without even having met Tamaki. And I can bet you that he researched as much as he could about Mori, Honey and the twins the moment Tamaki told him that he was planning to have them join his new club. He is just that kind of person.
Plus having information like that gives him a advantage over everyone else, and Kyouya is all for having advantages. So, no, he didn't call Ranka up to get 'parental approval' or anything. He did it so he can understand more about Haruhi, so he can manipulate her better. He's like a chess player, really; a new piece is introduced into the game that he doesn't know of, and so he researches as much as he could about it so he will know where and how to move it. It isn't because he was romantically interested in her.
These are all just my personal interpretations and so on, though. You are free to disagree with me, agree with me, add in points, whatever, in the comments. I'm making this entry public anyway.
18 September 2007: Addendum to this post, with regards with the most recent manga chapters -
http://www.krysyuy.net/forums/index.php?topic=2793.30
See, Kyouya/Haruhi has always, always struck me as implausible and unrealistic and how it plain cannot happen. I kept thinking 'why' and, well, my thoughts can be summarised in just one sentence:
Kyouya and Haruhi are similar to each other, but they have nothing in common.
I'll get back to that later, but first. Objecting to the 'evidence' of the pairing.
All the Kyouya/Haruhi shippers I've seen kept harping on two scenes, in the manga and the anime as well. They all have an underlying theme that is there, always there, but is mostly ignored by most. I'll elaborate about the manga first.
The beach episode is considered the Kyouya/Haruhi scene by more shippers than I can count, quite possibly all of them, actually. In my opinion, the scene actually isn't Kyouya/Haruhi. Let me get the scans.
The seventh panel,
Haruhi: You were just defending Tamaki-senpai right now.
You made me realize it by playing the villain, didn't you?
Tamaki. The keyword here is Tamaki. Kyouya was defending Tamaki. He pretended to rape Haruhi not because of his sexual desire or his lust for her, but he pretended to be the villain to defend Tamaki and teach Haruhi a lesson. Haruhi told us it. This is canon. Also, this page:
I greatly believe that the sole reason that Kyouya even bothered to try to teach Haruhi was because Tamaki whined to him the whole time they were going back to their rooms. I can't, honestly, see any other reason for him to risk his reputation by pretending to want to rape Haruhi. This scene is not 'proof of his lust for her'. Really. So please stop trying to say that it is.
The next 'Kyouya/Haruhi scene' in the manga is the whole of chapter 28. I'll just upload the parts where they actually have some interaction (isn't it just so lucky that I actually have the scans? And that I downloaded them only three days ago?):
Where, pray tell, is the Kyouya/Haruhi? I can't see any evidence for it in a romantic sense. Even if I squint and tilt my head sideways, I can't.
This chapter is actually the chapter that completely convinced that Kyouya/Haruhi cannot work in anyway. I shall go back to my beginning summary: Kyouya and Haruhi are similar to each other, but they have nothing in common. No, this is not an oxymoron.
Kyouya and Haruhi are similar in that their personalities belong to the same side of the spectrum. Kyouya is calculating, Haruhi is apathetic. Kyouya and Haruhi both hide their emotions, unlike Tamaki, although Kyouya hides them far better than Haruhi does. That is all to it.
They have nothing in common, except Tamaki and perhaps the Host Club. This chapter convinced me of that. What did that talk about in the fast food restaurant? Tamaki. WHat is their topic of conversation in the beginning of the market scene? Tamaki.
Their family backgrounds have nothing in common: Haruhi is an commoner, Kyouya is a rich 'young master'. Kyouya even says so. Unlike Tamaki and Haruhi, they don't even have their missing-mother similarity - we don't even know if Kyouya's mother is alive or not. Or if she even exists. So nothing in common there.
And that is the crux of this essay, actually. I cannot see a way in which Kyouya and Haruhi can relate to each other or even talk to each other. Their topics of conversation were Tamaki, Tamaki, and more Tamaki with a few mentions of the Host Club sprinkled in. Oh, and Haruhi asked Kyouya about his family (page 20) and Kyouya... didn't tell her. In fact, when Haruhi said that 'Looks like things are hard on you', Kyouya told her that he actually thinks of it as a challenge.
Again, nothing in common here. Haruhi don't understand Kyouya, or, at least, she understands him the least compared to the other Host Club members. Which is why I get frustrated at most Kyouya/Haruhi fics, because they don't recognise this. I have never read a fic in which the author acknowledges that they basically have nothing except a few basic personality traits in common, and it frustrates me so much.
Now we come to the most 'important Kyouya/Haruhi part' of the chapter. Pages 24 to 33.
I see no basis for the Kyouya/Haruhi ship here either. What I see here is what Hatori-sensei has already told us, way back in Chapter 9: Kyouya is a decent person.
Kyouya/Haruhi shippers I know of (which is rather few, so forgive me if I generalise) think that this scene is a Kyouya/Haruhi one because of pages 29-30, where Haruhi said: 'Kyoya-senpai, what is your definition of benefit? ... Were you trying to stand up for me when you saw the shopkeeper being rude to me?'
But Kyouya said, in pages 30-32: 'Just now you said that I helped you because it gave me some sort of emotional benefit? Is that right? ... I find that theory very interesting.'
The keyword here is 'theory'. In my hardcover copy, the translation is 'interpretation'. The difference in meaning in this context is negligible. The fact remains that Kyouya did not back Haruhi's view up, he did not agree with what Haruhi said. He thought it to be 'interesting' (that word remains the same in both copies).
You can argue that Kyouya used the word because he didn't want Haruhi to know he did that for her sake. But I don't think Kyouya is the type of person to go out of his way to 'stand up' (or 'get back', which sounds rather petty) for Haruhi. He isn't an obvious a person as that. I admit that the shopkeeper being rude to Haruhi might have been a part of the reason why he did that, but in my opinion, Kyouya is just being a decent person and stopping the old lady from buying a bunch of fake goods.
Even if he did it for her, you can't say automatically that he is romantically interested in her. There is such a thing as friendship, you see.
I'm not going into the anime because it is completely the same, except for that the market episode didn't have the Haruhi-being-scolded-by-the-shopkeeper scene. Given the anime's message throughout the whole thing, I think they took it out for a pretty good reason. It would've looked... awkward, actually.
The next item is what I've seen a few Kyouya/Haruhi shippers talk about: Ranka. See, according to them, Kyouya went to get to know Ranka first because he 'wanted first dips on parental approval'.
Er, no.
Kyouya is a person who seeks to understand other people. This is one of the other ways that he is so very different from Haruhi - she learns about people by watching them and from what they tell her, he learns about people by deliberately going out of his way to understand them. I believe that one of Kyouya's mottos is 'knowledge is power', and how better to get to know someone than to ask their parent?
Haruhi is something new in the world of the Host Club. I don't think Kyouya understands her, not in the beginning anyway. He called upon Ranka to find out more information about her, to get to know her better, so he can figure out just who she is and how he could use her better.
Case in point: Haruhi's middle-school photos were used as bait to provide him entertainment during Hikaru and Kaoru's game of 'let's find out Haruhi's weakness! :D :D :D'.
Second case in point: Haruhi constantly said that she didn't mind being mistaken for a guy and she doesn't have very strict opinions about gender. This is a rather strange opinion, but Kyouya could know exactly why she felt this way when he found out that her father is an okama.
You can interprete all this as 'Kyouya wants to know Haruhi better because he likes her!', but no, sorry, this isn't it. Wanting to know about someone does not equate him liking a person. It equates to him wanting to understand how this person's mind work, and how he could manipulate them.
The more you know about someone, the better you can predict their actions, and the more likely you can counter said actions. This applies to war, and this applies here as well.
Kyouya is, I believe, a person who dislikes anything he doesn't understand. Haruhi was one of them. She is a new, interesting puzzle, a challenge for him to solve, and so he called her father for clues to know more about her. That was all there is to it, really. He did the same thing before he first met Tamaki. He already knew that Tamaki was the son of the Superintendant, the son of his mistress, without even having met Tamaki. And I can bet you that he researched as much as he could about Mori, Honey and the twins the moment Tamaki told him that he was planning to have them join his new club. He is just that kind of person.
Plus having information like that gives him a advantage over everyone else, and Kyouya is all for having advantages. So, no, he didn't call Ranka up to get 'parental approval' or anything. He did it so he can understand more about Haruhi, so he can manipulate her better. He's like a chess player, really; a new piece is introduced into the game that he doesn't know of, and so he researches as much as he could about it so he will know where and how to move it. It isn't because he was romantically interested in her.
These are all just my personal interpretations and so on, though. You are free to disagree with me, agree with me, add in points, whatever, in the comments. I'm making this entry public anyway.
18 September 2007: Addendum to this post, with regards with the most recent manga chapters -
http://www.krysyuy.net/forums/index.php?topic=2793.30
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It's always been about Tamaki for the both of them. Not necessarily in a romantic sense either (but canon argues otherwise for one and we can dream for the other) but he's always the focal point between them. Always.
Ouran leaves no happy endings. Someone's going to get hurt. And if Emi's most recent post is anything to go by, us fangirls and Hikaru are the ones going to get hurt b/c of the pairing we knew from episode 1 finally got together. THAT'S OKAY WE LIVE IN DENIAL AND IT IS NICE HERE.
At least Mom/Dad has more canon support that Kyouya/Haruhi. :((
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Kyouya/Haruhi really doesn't work. Reading a fiction on it is like eating paper because I can't. see. the. pairing.
And I get upset whenever I see people go "squeekyouyaharuhiftw". It's not that I will disapprove of such a pairing but I can't seem to understand why people can even see it.
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no he did that because he's interested in ranka you silly fangirlsI know I'm the last person in the world to rubbish a pairing because it has no canon evidence - one only has to direct themselves to, er, most of my fics to see that - but when I don't LIKE a pairing because I just DON'T - which is the truth with Kyouya/Haruhi - I love to be able to go WELL THERE'S NO CANON EVIDENCE ANYWAY BITCHES.
Big fat WORD to this essay. This essay owns EVERYTHING. Seriously, what a thoughtful, well-written essay, doll :) ♥
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But here is what I think regardless: While I can see some plausible: he might be interested in her, evidence (not necessarily pertaining to, but not excluding, romantic interest)... I'm still saying that, if they were to go out (which is possible, I still think) it wouldn't last. That's just it. He wouldn't be interested, and she's not the type to make him interested.
So I don't really care either way, really. Because, as long as Tama's available, Kyouya can always end up with him in the long run.
Whoo.
The real problem, of course, is TamaHaru but yeah. Mhmmm.
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You are absolutely 100% dead on correct in my opinion. The only possible way that I can ever see such a pairing working out...(and I have wracked my brain trying to figure out why on earth this is so very prolific) is that Haruhi is an object of interest to him. As an anomaly...beccause, personally, I think that Haruhi smacks him around his complacent world just as much as Tamaki does.
But no one has ever in a fanfic (and if it exists, please let me know so I can gape) that has ever accounted for Tamaki adequately. They brush him off very easily and not with the rants of betrayal that he should, characteristically, have. It would be a betrayal of his best friend...and Kyouya just wouldn't. Also, he's not one to throw away his entire reputation on a girl.
No...Kyouya/Tamaki totally converted me to smut and slash. Tamaki's the only one that I would pair of Kyouya with.
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And I'm not sure about your point. I'm not discriminating against Kyouya/Haruhi here - I know that there are people who like shipping it and writing or drawing for it. I'm just explaining my own point of views, and how the current 'evidence' for the pairing does not, in my point of view, justify the pairing. It's more due to a few fanbrats screaming about how 'Kyouya/Haruhi is sooooo canon!!!' in my face than anything else, actually.
But there is the fact that Haruhi is going to end up with Tamaki eventually, because Ouran is a shoujo manga, after all. I don't think less of people whi like the pairing and, yes, there probably be more 'Kyouya/Haruhi' moments in the manga, whether romantic or not. But this is mainly my own point of view and why I dislike the pairing specifically. ^^
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So yeah, I get what you mean. I just don't think people should get this worked up about it.
But hey, thanks for the scans, I like Kyouya regardless of the context. ^^
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To tell the truth, I don't see canon Kyouya/Haruhi either. It works much better as an AU or a future!fic.
If you ignore the canon, they do work(ish). But meh, it's all academic as my OTP is Mori/Haruhi :D
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Mori/Haruhi is <3. Tamaki/Kyouya is still my OTP of all OTPs, though.
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i really don't like the idea of kyouya/haruhi.. i guess the only appeal that it would have is to see a jealous tamaki XP (but then who is he jealous of? haha..)
but the prospect of a jealous kyouya is much more appealing anyways..
either way, Bisco-san may develop more kyouya/haruhi as the plot goes on.. who knows~ ^^
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(Anonymous) 2007-05-12 05:55 pm (UTC)(link)as much as I'd like to believe that a kyoya/haruhi thing might work, there'd be a better reason for them not to be together.
I enjoyed reading this alot. Thanks for putting hatori-sensei's 'interpretation' into words. :)
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It was extremely fun to read, especially since most of the points you made are right. Kyouya's a passionate person, even if he doesn't show it so obviously. Despite the fact that he uses the host club, he does grow to care for them as his friends. At most that I could see his relationship with Haruhi, to the extreme, is 'older brother that knows.../little sister that somewhat knows...'-- nothing more; could definitely be less. Each person has their own 'interpretations', which makes a shojo manga a popular, fanon-pairing kind of manga. There are people that are convinced of Honey/Haruhi as well (no offense to those fans)!
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(Anonymous) 2008-02-05 07:40 pm (UTC)(link)no subject
My notion is simply because Haruhi is so suitable with Tamaki and with Tamaki 'might' be having feelings for her.
As for KyouyaTamaki, I really like their friendship, and how it is portrayed and how Kyoya is always looking after his best friend. Their friendship, although sometimes hillarious, touches me.
But..as I really like Kyouya...it saddens me that there's no female character for him to be paired up with and thus I satisfy myself with the idea of Kyouya and Renge. lol
Thanks for sharing this piece of writing with us!
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I had my reasons, of course. I never saw the beach scene as a good shipper scene, for the points you mentioned. The latter scene was a little better to work with, but mostly I thought it was just cute. In truth, all your points were pretty much true. It didn't take long for me to really realize that, for Kyouya/Haruhi to work, the fic would have to be pretty AU. I wrote a little, read a little, and moved on.
Looking back, I kind of think I was crazy. I can still like a really well-written fic about them because they are still my favorites, but I just see them in a totally different light now that I've re-watched the anime this summer. If anything, Kyouya simply finds her as an interesting person to analyze. I could actually see Haruhi being, in her own, apathetic way, vaguely interested in him. I think this because in several episodes, she'll notice a few things about him or be especially pleased by something he's said. I could interpret this as her simply respecting him as a person or perhaps taking it slightly further than that, but I couldn't imagine Kyouya ever reciprocating.
So, I do agree with you. Just a few more additional points to add.
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(Anonymous) 2012-11-30 07:49 pm (UTC)(link)no subject
I like Kyouya with Haruhi for one simple reason: Kyouya is the only person in the entire series who consistently treats Haruhi like a thinking human being, sees her as she is, and mostly accepts her as she is. He also talks WITH her, not AT her. Yes, he likes to tease and torment her sometimes, but, unlike everyone else, he doesn't treat her like she's a toy (ahem, the twins), or some "unnatural", strange and alien life form (her father, Tamaki, the twins). I also can't think of too many times when she came to him with a question, and Kyouya was too busy or impatient to answer, either. He's there for her, in his own quiet way. All of those things are a form of love, too, you know. Maybe it's not breathless and dramatic, but it's love, nevertheless.
Besides, if you think that all he found in her seeing through his facade at the expo was an intellectual interest, then you need to stop talking about what real love looks like. I've never known a man who didn't want someone to see the real man underneath his facade, and find him good and decent. The one who does that tends to captures his heart, and usually forever.
Finally, don't just read words and think that tells all of the story. Look more carefully for who's right by Haruhi, a lot of the time in the manga. It's often Kyouya. Did it ever occur to you to notice, much less wonder, why he's always there so much?
Just because a guy is quiet, subtle and proud doesn't mean he doesn't show his love, in his own way.
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(Anonymous) 2013-11-27 09:11 am (UTC)(link)