Colt FathomI Can't Believe Felix's Dad Is An American Named Colt Fathom

Colt Fathom I can't believe Felix's dad is an American named Colt Fathom

That is so unexpected One might even say Unfathomable

Something about this scene;

I know some people have naturally used this scene to argue Naruto is straight because of his reaction. But I think the scene is more nuanced than that. As we can see Sakura reacts with nosebleed to this jutsu, which symbolises arousal.

But Naruto doesn’t have a nosebleed towards the girl-girl jutsu, he’s just excited over Konohamaru’s new ability, as he explains this is a friendly competition between them. So he’s not excited in that way. Why not just make him react like Sakura? Because their reactions aren’t the same.

We do know Naruto finds Sasuke attractive even if he is hesitant to admit that (like he knows it might be inappropriate) and does the reverse harem jutsu later which he practiced more than rasengan. But somehow the Sai/Sasuke jutsu is too much in his opinion. In my opinion the obvious explanation is just that he doesn’t want to see Sasuke like that with someone else. I mean:

It’s not like he doesn’t dislike Suigetsu (and Taka) for no reason other than that they used to hang around Sasuke… and it’s not like he doesn’t react dramatically concerning Sasuke any other time…

I remember seeing even Japanese men who said Naruto sounded like a jealous boyfriend in that 4-tails moment. 😭

Near and L are not “basically the same character.”

So the opinion that Near is basically a cheap rip off of L has made me headtilt for years. As someone who adored both L and Near for different reasons, seeing people dismiss Near for apparently being “the same” just never sat well with me. While I do personally consider the criticism that Near’s story arc was weaker than L’s valid, I don’t think the criticism that Near is a “bad character” because he’s basically L is. As an anon asked me on my old blog what my opinions were on this, I decided to re-post my observations here for consideration. 

Outward Expressivity

Near is much more open about his sarcasm and taunting

L tends to be offensive in backhanded ways.

Near is also more visually expressive. Near often  looks disdainful, irritated, exasperated or smug.

L, while also expressive, tends to be more consistently deadpan and he talks more with his body language (clenched fists/grit teeth) than he does with his facial expressions

Near’s body language is distinctive and he tends to carry himself in defensive postures. This appears to be entirely genuine as we see his body language has not changed from when we see him at the Wammy’s house flashback

L’s characteristic slouched posture is entirely feigned as evidenced by his early appearances in the manga and his mannerisms tend to appear calibrated to prompt very specific responses.

Near often uses toys to help communicate his ideas

L does not use any props to communicate

Attitude towards Teamwork

L makes it quite clear as the most intelligent person in the room, what he says goes. He is authoritarian in his approach to teamwork. He issues orders and expects his team members to obey.

Near is team player. While he clearly wields ultimate authority, Near makes a point to seek out the opinions of his team before proceeding with his decisions.

L will belittle team members who are trying to help him. His response upon finding out Matsuda has chosen to infiltrate the Yotsuba Group on his own is to immediately belittle him in front of the entire team by calling him stupid.

Near, while blunt, does not belittle those who are on his team. Notably, he finds out Lidner undermines his plan to keep everything as normal as possible before Jan28th 2010 by allowing Mello to kidnap Kiyomi. He does not immediately belittle her for ineptitude.

Morality

L states in Chapter 109 that he does not care about morality and that the only thing that matters to him is winning by any means.

Near places greater value on a moral compass and stresses that he opposes Kira because he had determined for himself that it was the right thing to do.

L will take drastic actions that violate human rights in order to secure evidence. L will keep people in detention for as long as necessary to force them to confess if he believes they are guilty.

Near does not take drastic action until he has more evidence to back up his own theories.

(That said I will concede this could be due to the confounding effect of Near not having the same political power as L does by the time he rises to prominence in 2009).

L wishes to turn Kira over to the authorities and personally see to it that he is executed.

Near determines that he would rather have Kira imprisoned in a secret facility for life.

(Though the confounder here may be that the political climate of the world of DN in 2009 is more hostile to the idea of giving Kira a criminal trial than it was in 2004).

L wanted every Kira caught and convicted.

Near, despite having confirmation that Misa is the second Kira, does not press for her arrest at the conclusion of the series.

Self Reflection / Thought Processes

L will literally sulk for months over being wrong about his pet theories

Near is able to accept when he is wrong and will adjust accordingly without turning it into a personal tragedy.

L views the playing field like a dynamic chess board with an opponent who will react and respond to his actions.

Near views the field more like putting together a static puzzle

Kishimoto never meant for Hinata to be seen as Naruto's savior in Pein arc. However, he was also smart enough to be creative about it. By this time, he knew Hinata would be paired off with Naruto, he could have written Hinata with a bit of grace. But Kishi doesn't work like that. To choose to write her confession this way, he showed her to be a silly girl infatuated with the hero, not as a shinobi or someone who cares or thinks of her family or village or anything else. She has been almost invisible prior to this in Shippuden, hardly having any contribution to the narrative or a battle. So this chapter could have served to portray a more well rounded Hinata, but Kishimoto had different plans. Safe plans though. On a surface level, it seems Hinata is doing it out of the force of her love for Naruto, but we get to see how things unravel and it does not show Hinata in a good light.

So while Naruto is battling Pein, it is made clear that Naruto's message has reached the Konohabitants (people of Konoha), and they know what to do, not interfere.

This message has reached Hinata as well.

She is clearly worried, she is sitting there, under the protection of her branch family bodyguard.

We can see that Katsuyu is there with her and her injured slave.

So while Hinata is on this side, on the other side, Inoichi and team have located Pein and need to send teams with chakra sensing type shinobis to look for the exact location.

Well, Hinata is a chakra sensing type.

Right then, to stress on this, Kishi makes Gai's team enter Konoha, and Neji is shown to use Byakugan to recognise Jiraiya's frog, Gamabunta. So we get the impression that a chakra sensing shinobi would have been really able to help.

But then, before anything could happen, we see her doing this.

And then immediately, we see this happening to her.

Hehehe, idc what anyone says, Kishi did it this way for the chuckles, I just know it. You must have seen this happening in cartoons, some foolhardy loser who highly overestimates their abilities would unthinkingly rush in to fight the villian with all the swagger they could muster and get yeeted out in the atmosphere Right Away and then you hear - AAAaaahhhhh... which then slowly fades off into the distance. Always draws chuckles and sniggers, great comic timing. Heh.

Now, just the way Kishi wrote this chapter called 'Hinata's confession', is quite informative of Hinata's feelings for Naruto and Naruto's complete obliviousness of Hinata's existence. We understand that Inoichi has found Pein's location and needs 'chakra sensing type' shinobis in as many teams as possible and they are relaying that message through Katsuyu.

So if Hinata had waited two more seconds, she would have probably been able to contribute to the battle rather than falling on her face with strike one.

Hahaha. Kishi, you genius, you.

He established the whole scene where Shikamaru, Ino, Inoichi, Katsuyu, Shiho etc are planning a smart scheme and following up diligently, actually contributing to the battle. We have already seen Sakura doing her job, helping villagers and the injured (one of her good moments, there are so few and so far apart sigh..), we have seen Konohamaru blast one of the paths of Pein, we have seen Tsunade doing her best saving people, we have already seen Kakashi and team fight Pein intelligently and creatively, and then we see Hinata who is literally just sitting there. How exactly do we see her contribute to anything?

So as we see Kishi developing this battle arc, we have seen how various Konohabitants have contributed to the battle, and we have gotten a strong sense of how absolutely devastatingly strong Pein is, and then we see Hinata charging in like a lunatic, while the others are hatching plans and schemes and actually using their training to somehow defeat Pein.

Yes, Hinata is emotionally driven to protect Naruto and can't think logically but her short sightedness almost got Naruto killed. Some confession. Heh.

If only she had shown some patience and mental acuity, something shinobis are actually trained in. She would have been able to help Naruto and somehow contribute to the battle. But well, that has never been Hinata's strong suit.

Thing is, she admits she is being selfish. She Knows whatever she is doing won't help anyone. She knows she can't hope to defeat or even delay Pein. And she obviously isn't able to help Naruto. She went there to die, she knew she probably would die, so might as well confess to Naruto before either he died at the hands of Pein or her. If she really wanted to help Naruto, she would have used her abilities to hatch a plan of action. Or devised some creative trick. Or something that she knew would have at least a miniscule chance at succeeding. Not what she did.

But well, that's not how Kishi wrote her. Never intended to. He always meant to portray her as a wallflower, someone whose everything revolves around Naruto, who stalks him from a distance, who only shows courage and motivation to fight when Naruto is looking, who does nothing to make her presence felt.

What's even funnier is Kishi establishes this right away. How? With the panel cover of this chapter.

This is Hinata. In a chapter called her Confession.

Sitting there, nervously balled up while not even looking directly at Naruto. Naruto turned away from her, going about his business without even being aware of her existence. How the touch of his distinctly drawn mere passing shadow makes her curl her toes and blush uncontrollably. Like a shy little girl in throes of a high school crush. When Kishimoto said in one of his interviews that Hinata is someone who watches from the shadows, he didn't mean it only figuratively lol. 'Hinata - the shadow girl'. That man cracks me up, the joker.

The visual language says everything you need to know.

He couldn't even be bothered noticing her on his own, is it any wonder that Naruto doesn't respond to her confession?

So I'm not going to start like an Anti-Chiron tag because I don't find that enjoyable personally, but every so often people ask why I dislike him so here's essentially a "masterpost" of my thoughts on that situation for when anyone asks, just so I have it to explain some...

This isn't nearly a full list, and there's many more "incidents" that make me less than fond of Chiron, I don't hate the old man but he leaves a bad taste in my mouth and I'm not a fan of that. He's a very twisted character.

- The Lightning Thief

This quote is literally just after Percy's mom "dies", they're all sitting on the porch of the Big House right after he's finally woken up after days of sleeping, and that's the line Chiron pulls out on him.

That's straight up emotional manipulation which was entirely unnecessary in the context of what Chiron was trying to explain. There wasn't a single reason for that, in the slightest.

Immediately following that, and Percy, who canonically has anger issues, does his best to remain calm, he is immediately threatened by Dionysus, and Chiron doesn't even tell Dionysus off for doing that; Chiron just let's it happen. It's Grover who has to speak up to tell Dionysus off...

The only reason Chiron comes out looking like a old guy in this scene is because Dionysus was so much worse in his behavior, at one point intimidating Percy with his power over madness.

- The Titan's Curse

This is the aftermath of when Nico ran away upon confirmation of Bianca's death. When Percy is telling Chiron about the situation, Chiron wishes Nico had been eaten alive rather than recruited into an army.

He'd rather a child be dead than fight against him, and he openly tells this to other children he's in charge of. If Percy went missing would he have said "I hope he was eaten <3" as well?

I don't blame Perry for not delivering the truth here, it was done in an effort to protect Nico; which wasn't something Annabeth had planned on doing... I don't blame Annabeth for that though either, she's been beneath Chiron so long that she probably doesn't realize the shady stuff he does, and to her "going to tell" probably was the "right" move because she was a child...

But the fact that Chiron believes Nico truly would be better off eaten than alive :/

- Tower of Nero

This quote from Tower of Nero shows that Chiron lied to a bunch of young children (most of them were young because the older campers are largely dead because of the war or too old for camp now). It wasn't just a little white lie that adults sometimes tell kids either; they were walking into battle and he told them it was a field trip.

Did he even begin to explain the danger he was putting these kids in? Did the children understand their situation? And how dangerous it was?

Kayla has been blindsided over the years into thinking that telling children they're going on a field trip instead of fighting a battle is something to make a joke of and not be questioned... (Again, I don't blame her she's only like 12 in the book, but still)

Apollo also agrees, which isn't on Chiron but it's a whole mother reason why I can't stand Rick's interpretation of Apollo...

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This isn't me being like "oh Chiron is the worst most evil character ever" I just think that he has numerous flaws which are largely ignored in favor of the "perfect wise teacher" narrative when in fact Chiron and Dumbledore share a lot of.. Offputting qualities.

I do think that some of the situation is simply a result of Chiron having his hands tied behind his back by the gods some. And he even goes so far as to confirm this in a scene of TLT

However many of the scenes in which he exhibits behaviors like that in my first three screenshots are not related to anything the gods require and are, in fact, of Chiron's own free will.

Some things I would blame Zeus and the council for, such as how he withholds information from Percy to an excessive amount for long periods of time even when Percy straight up asks about things. I could easily see that being Zeus trying to prevent Percy from claiming the prophecy as his own, and I could see reasoning that maybe Chiron had sworn over the River Styx or something similar.

But those things don't apply to Chiron making such an unnecessary comment about Percy's mother so close to her "death". It doesn't explain why he would say he hoped Nico had been eaten out loud, and it doesn't cover the fact that he led children into a battlefield without telling them that's what was happening.

I think the context of Chiron's choices and comments would be different if the campers were older. If they were in their late teens or early twenties for the most part, I wouldn't really have much to say about how Chiron handled the situation.

But this man is in charge of children and extremely young teenagers, Percy is only 12 in TLT, maybe if he would have been 16 or 17 then I could give Chiron a pass, but he wasn't. Within the context of the comment he made in the Titan's Curse, Percy is only 14 and Nico is 10 at the beginning of the book... You don't wish a 10 year old had been eaten alive by a monster no matter how bad you think the alternative is, and if you do wish that you don't say it out loud to a group of other children. In the battle from Tower of Nero we get a quick look at the battlefield, and although Ben's age, and the age of another girl fighting alongside him are never confirmed they are implied to be fairly young, and we know Kayla is only 12 at the time too; yet Chiron told them it was a field trip instead of a battle, limiting the time they would have to mentally prepare themselves for what was coming.

On top of that, the nods the reader gets to the fact that Chiron can't act out against the gods depletes over the course of the series. After TLT the amount of times the situation involves the gods interfering with what Chiron is allowed to say lessens, and by the time the Heroes of Olympus series comes around, these limitations on his speech is almost entirely gone. Yet as seen in Tower of Nero he still does morally questionable things in regards to how he treats the campers.

Like I said, I recognize that in many scenes Chiron's hands are tied behind his back because of the gods.. But there are undeniably things he does of his own free will that are, in the nicest manner, very :/

This also isn't a full list of comparisons just a few notable scenes. I don't think Chiron is equally as bad as Dumbledore, but I think it undeniable that Chiron has some significant flaws built into his character design.

A good character has flaws, and there's nothing wrong with having a character that doesn't always conduct themselves properly or have good intentions- it's actually good writing, and I can appreciate that, but for some reason I find myself personally rubbed the wrong way by Chiron. This doesn't make Chiron badly written, or poorly designed, in fact I would say Rick's Chiron is very well designed in lots of ways, but I just don't like how it's never acknowledged by anyone in the series.

Like I said, I'm not starting an anti-Chiron situation, I just think little events like those mentioned, the way he's built a child army, and how he doesn't even try to plead with the gods over raising the ages on campers being allowed to battle is a little sus. But it more so bothers me that there's no attention payed to this problem anywhere in the books, not even by a side character or Luke, nowhere.

I don't actually care that much and this isn't that important to me, but sometimes people ask why I don't like Chiron and this is basically just my explanation to hand off to them... It's not even so much that I dislike Chiron entirely, he's well written and has his "good" moments, I just don't like the way other characters interact with him and his actions.

It's more a personal beef with him rather than an aspect of poor writing or him "being bad"... PJO in general (and HoO/ToA to a much lesser extent) shows that there's not such an inherent good vs bad in the world, and that sometimes people are victims of circumstances in some situations, or they're horribly misguided in their actions, but the series does a good job of showing those people as human still, and I applaud that.

I don't really know how to tie this up in its entirety, but there's nothing wrong with having a morally grey character who does questionable things and in many aspects it is good writing. I think Chiron is a result of Rick not thinking through the implications what he's doing in lots of situations, and I can see a fairly consistent drop in Chiron's characterization from PJO-ToA which is consistent with most other aspects of Rick's work.

I also want to clarify that if you like Chiron and disagree with me, that's absolutely 110% okay, I just personally dislike Chiron and that's on me. Like my problem with many of Rick's other immortal characters, I think he missed important aspects of them in some manner and slightly (or entirely in some cases) mischaracterized them in comparison to their original myths.. Some of these characters he came around on and fixed their character in many aspects to their more "correct" characterization (like Hera), while others (like Chiron and Apollo) he never quite figured them out. Which is a running complaint I have with Rick so I'm just adding this to his tab.

But yeah, I don't hate Chiron I just dislike him and those are different things, and I don't think it's a bad thing to have a morally questionable character, Chiron just personally rubs me the wrong way and I just wanted to explain that more fully because I've been asked about it multiple times.

Also I apologize for not adding a [read more] to this, it's a complaint of mine often when scrolling through the tags but I'm on mobile currently and don't have immediate access to a computer so~

Do you believe her now Alya lol