Well, What Kind of Thinker *Am* I?

[chomiji]

A Saturday is a perfect time for a meme! This one is ganked from kispexi2:

Your Thinking is Abstract and Random

You are flexible, adaptable, and creative. There's many ways that you can learn - and you're up for any of them. You relate well to other people, and you do well working in groups. You can help people communicate together and work with each other's strengths. You don't work well with people who are competitive or adversarial. You prefer to work toward a common goal... not toward conflicting goals. What Kind of Thinker Are You?

Whoa, pretty good result there for only 4 questions!

Comments

[freeradical9.livejournal.com]

I identify much much more strongly with Gojyo in general...but he's something of an extrovert (tho'...I think he has a shy side....

I'd agree with that. Gojyo's interesting that way, actually. I'd certainly call him an extrovert, but he's a small-group extrovert. Definitely not the "always has to be the life of the party" type, and not the performance/grandstanding type. In a way, he might be only one step up from an introvert. ^^

Kenren, funnily enough, while I love him to pieces, I just can't identify with him the way I do Gojyo

This is really interesting--because I feel a very similar way about Tenpou. I *like* Tenpou and feel I understand him fairly well, but don't have the shameless fan appreciation for him that I have for Hakkai. I'd originally thought that might just be because there's so much less of Saiyuki Gaiden, and there hasn't been the time to really fully develop the characters. But I think you've really hit on something with the comment about a painful past, because trauma and the reactions to it have a strong impact on both Hakkai's and Gojyo's motivations. The crew up in heaven just never had that.

[chomiji]

I think a lot of Gojyo's loudness and sexually forward behavior comes from his longing to be loved and accepted. When you look at the company in which he's been living most of his older life, it's all hustlers, petty criminals, bar girls, gamblers: the sort of people who appreciate a bon vivant, a guy who lives big. That's what he had to do to get the attention and physical closeness he needs. It also gives him a wistful quality that Kenren never has. One presumes Kenren was born to privilege, loved for himself. You can certainly see it in the way the soldiers joke with him. But it does mean that he's entirely missing the little-boy-lost undercurrent that makes Gojyo so appealing.

I think also that a steady relationship with Hakkai will start toning down a lot of Gojyo's mouthiness, except when he wants to tease Goku and Sanzo.

[chomiji]

Agreed - his model for close peer or near-peer interactions is Jien and later (God help us) Banri ... (and I always take emungere's Banri from "Clean" as the definitive picture of what's inside his head). We actually see some of Jien coming through in this latest volume, when the little youkai kid gets pinned under the fallen cart.

I have a feeling that Hakkai teases Gojyo's story out of him bit by bit. As we were saying at lunch, Hakkai is spilling his guts (bad choice of phrase!), and Gojyo is thinking a lot about his own story, but he's no saying anything.

[chomiji]

> suppresses inappropriate jealousy that smilla is plotbunnying other people <

I'm wondering whether Minekura is going to bring it out somewhere along the line ... .

[chomiji]

Well, as I said, I knew it was inappropriate. And I haven't become bunny-infested from that one, so it's only fair that someone else write it if she has an idea!