I’ve realized how important endings are to me, thanks to Clannad. Regarding certain thoughts of mine, lelangir said:
…saying Clannad isn’t tragic does neglect those very instances of tragedy. Also – what if I dropped the show at ep. 21? That does not invalidate the show, it just means my personal meaning-construction of Clannad is not a 1:1 ratio to a generalized reception of the show in its entirety. In essence, paradoxically, incompleteness is completeness.
I did say Clannad isn’t tragic, which is the case as per Aristotle or Frye, without intending to invalidate the show’s tragic elements as character development and emotional invocation and whatnot. And while one could drop the show midway and derive from it a different text-image than others, one that probably couldn’t really be said to be incomplete because completeness is a difficult quality to attribute to it, there’s no going back to some midpoint state once the threshold of the ending is crossed, at least for me.
My final opinion of a story relies in large part upon my reception of its ending. The ending represents the final few textual cues (provided you read/watch the end last), the culmination of narrative time; it becomes a lens which will forever tint my thoughts on all events before it. In Clannad’s case, I’m mostly indifferent now to the deaths of Nagisa and Ushio, however upset they (mostly the former) made me when I first saw them; based on my experiences with other shows, I wouldn’t be able to muster nearly the same amount of emotion if I were to rewatch Clannad. In fact, to a point, the very ideas the aforementioned deaths signify to me have changed; where Nagisa’s death was an unfortunate fact of life, it’s now something more like an almost deliberate trial, a set of conditions Tomoya must endure and successfully navigate to reach a favorable end — it has a very game-like quality, which I suppose is appropriate. If Tomoya is a mythic hero, you could call the “erased” time period his descent into the underworld, though that’s a stretch — or maybe it’s his Odyssey, at the end of which he’s able to reclaim his wife and child. Whatever it is, I no longer think of it as the sort of (low-mimetic) trial any of us might face — in shape, it is, but it lacks finality.
Lest I convince myself otherwise, though, Clannad’s narrative time did not end in episode 22 — we might say that its chronological time reached a terminus, but its structural time carries on into 23. What effect does the recent retrospective episode have on me as an ending to ~After Story~, you might ask? Quite simply, it reminds me that the school-oriented first season satisfied me more consistently than the second, which had the potential to exceed its predecessor in my estimation.
As a side note, my brother mentioned getting the impression that Tomoya forgot most of the tragic events that befell him when he time-jumped. Did anyone else figure that to be the case? Am I the only one who thinks he might’ve remembered?
Based on Tomoya’s reaction when he first ‘awoke’ after his time jump, I’m inclined to think that he full well knows what happened. In fact, my reaction when he came back to Ushio’s birth was the same as his, “Are you seriously going to make me go through this again?!” When it turned out that, no, he wasn’t going to go through that again, but instead he was instead coming back to change something. Or rather, have something changed for him I guess. His reactions immediately afterward as well, proclaiming that Ushio will grow up strong in body and mind makes me think he has all the memories of his ‘other’ life.
And I agree with you about finding more satisfaction in the first season than in the second. It’s a shame really, but like you, I feel the ending is rather important to the whole story, so I just can’t really say that the second season was as good as the first. Although, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t love the 23rd episode.
Also, if one doesn’t complete a series, one’s reading is essentially invalid — if one didn’t like it and washed one’s hands, that’s fine, but to then argue it’s one thing or another without completing it doesn’t work.
I keep posting on your Clannad entries, even though I’ve never seen it (and there’s a very real possibility that it’ll fall into my eternal “to-watch” bin and never come out.
I was also thinking about Tomoya’s own perception of things, his memory, etc., but I dunno…
Ep 23 in the aspect of various time structures is interesting. I think that present events can indeed change your opinion of past events, but I’m not quite sure if past memories can really be changed, in a strict psychological sense. Not like that’s of much relevance here though…
I’d agree with Cuchlann’s point that an incomplete reading is an invalid reading, since you’re battling against a complete argument, the terms of the debate are unfair, so you’re being selfish, and also that the debate itself will be illogical, since the dropper must be arguing in completely subjective terms, yet the guy who stuck to it is at least trying to argue on a more objective basis (unless the two people dropped the show at the same time).
I like ep 23 though, it’s kind of lightened my mood on it. Even if it does take place “before” “the narrative” “began”, in my psychological time, ending the airing of the show on a nice note is…nice! Also, BATHING KYOU-SAMA IS SAIKOU
@Nazarielle
I know this is horrible, but I almost would’ve been more into Clannad if Nagisa had died again. The pitfalls of life are inevitable, mwahaha! Or, you know, something like that. But I suppose it would’ve been dissatisfying to see Tomoya “rewarded” for his bond-building efforts by getting the big shaft, and again no less. Once I’m done being bitter that Clannad wasn’t low mimetic tragedy, I’ll figure out how to appreciate it for what it was — perhaps I’ve already begun to, if I’m willing to equate Tomoya with heroes of old.
@Cuchlann, lelangir
Well, I’m conflicted over the issue of completeness/validity. It’s pretty clear that someone who hasn’t seen all of something can’t form an accurate opinion about the thing in its entirety, and doesn’t possess all the tools needed to engage in discourse about the thing, or at least not robust/fully-informed discourse. But I guess they still have a complete experience, in the sense that they could stop at any time and still have some kind of impression about the text, some foundation for further thought, and given that all things are subjective anyway…I don’t know, I’m confusing myself now, but I suppose I’d say that incompleteness hinders discourse but not experience. But if we say that discourse is experience…agh.
For my part, as I think the end impacts everything before it so significantly (possibly Ulysses has tied me up and kicked me until I felt that way), I’d tend to think that someone lacking the end lacks a good-sized chunk of input. But maybe there can be an objective end and many subjective ends? Something related to the way one-week gaps between episodes function as part of anime-viewing? It’s not something I’ve given a whole lot of thought to before now, so crazy conjectures as to my uncertainty on the topic are about all I have to offer.
@lelangir
THIS
I don’t think any memory alteration happens, but having been reduced to a miserable wreck over Nagisa’s death in the past isn’t going to influence my opinion of the whole thing nearly so much as all events viewed in light of the ending. In retrospect, once I’ve consumed the thing in as complete a form as possible, it ceases to be about moment-by-moment emotional response and turns into an intellectualized mess of structure, signs, consistent emotional threads, and such (at least until subsequent rewatches, and then the emotions will probably be quite different based on what mental cogs turned during the non-watching period). It’s as if I layer the episodes atop each other, losing some of my ability to look at episodes as distinct events, and gaining the ability to see overlaps and causation between the stacked layers. I’d imagine this is just a matter of personal priorities/habit.
Not sure if any of that is relevant at all, but, eh, who am I to defy the whimsical writing gods?
I’m can’t (or won’t) speak on Clannad, but I’m a big believer in the importance of endings, in most cases. Though I read one of Bakhtin’s essays recently and he suggested that certain kinds of story (epics, I think) can begin and end wherever, because we all know the whole cycle already. I’m not sure I was convinced by his argument, but then again there’s so much dialogue and repetition between different elements within the Gundam franchise that I suppose I’d be happy to stop or start watching any most parts of it halfway through. Or is that because Turn-A is already the ending of very Gundam series? Hmm . . .
I wonder if a similar line of thought could be applied to some of the anime formulas most of us have grown used to by now. Turn A being the only Gundam I’ve finished, I can’t say much about that franchise in particular, but there are plenty of perfectly predictable harem romances out there now, and I wonder if it’s really important that we see all the various inevitable goings-on (accidental awkward situations, slapstick by way of the offended young women, beach episodes, hot springs episodes, et al.) in strict chronological order. I don’t suppose “harem romance” as such is a tried and true blueprint by which masterpieces of world literature are modeled, but by now we should be used to comedies revolving around love triangles/squares/dodecahedra, thanks to hundreds of years of drama. On that note, maybe calling the formulas “anime formulas” just disregards their often much older origins.
Endings *do* shape everything that came before — that’s what they do. Neil Gaiman told his Clarion students, concerning titles, that they should mean one thing when the reader starts the story and another once they finish. So the ending should, in some way, re-color the entire story, so much so that the title effectively changes.
[...] stand by my final verdict on Clannad’s second season (mostly). Your mileage may very, obviously, but I found the ending downright annoying — it made the [...]
[...] Pontifus’ closing bracket: My final opinion of a story relies in large part upon my reception of its ending. The ending [...]
I’m over a year late to this post, but I want to see what you have to say to it? I think we share a similar while still different frustration with the manner in which Clannad After Story concluded. Upon the death of Nagisa and the subsequent episodes featuring Tomoya’s estranged relationship with Ushio and his father and his eventually re-establishing a familial bond with them I felt that after struggling through what I found to be hit or miss comedy that dominated much of the early episodes that I was able to finally find something to appreciate about the oft-praised Clannad After Story.
To me the arc represented the trials and tribulations of familial life as well as the moments of joy that it can bring as well. When Nagisa died Tomoya basically gave up on life and become locked in the past while also regretting that he had ever met her in the first place. In this period of self-loathing and regret he neglected his daughter, which was the one moment of the series that I felt truly captured the essence of tragedy (to me the death of Nagisa fell more into the realm of pathetic as opposed to tragic since it was painted initially as inevitable rather than brought about by any personal action). This was followed up by a set of episodes where through the intervention of the prior generation Tomoya would attempt to be a father to Ushio. At this moment I felt the series truly capitalized on it’s theme of family. In accepting his responsibility as a father her came to understand the true nature of his father, the torch was passed from the prior generation to him and the memory of Nagisa was honoured so that she could live on as represented by her offspring in Ushio. There was something poignant about this resolution that I feel many people appreciated as well.
Then Ushio got sick and died leaving Tomoya alone again. Unlike the death of Nagisa which served to launch the series into the culmination of it’s theme of family I could see no purpose that this arc served other than to inject one last moment of melodrama into a series that I felt had already reached it’s quota in the earlier episodes and previous season. Then suddenly Nagisa and Ushio were brought back to life through the magic of the other world and we have a happily ever after scenario.
This final arc to me served only to corrupt and supplant the message of the previous arc which seemed to imply, “There are times when family doesn’t seem to be worth it, but generations come and go and the ones that survive ought to sacrifice and cherish the good times with the next generation as a means to honour the sacrifice of their ancestors”. I believe this is a referred to as a legacy structure in some fields of study. Now I’m not sure what if any message the final arc was trying to imply beyond perhaps, “the main character must suffer and then they will attain true happiness in rebirth”. I’m going on a variation of Buddhist concept here because that’s the closet thing I can find to what is shown in this arc, but then wasn’t the theme of Clannad supposed to be family as opposed to tragedy?
This supplanting and corruption of the prior arcs message continues to be a tough pill to swallow to this day, and I keep getting told that it was done in the anime because that was the way it was done in the game when I try to discuss it with the average Clannad viewer. The implication seems to be that because the game did it in such a way that I should accept and appreciate it, but that seems like a fallacious proposition to me.
I’ll just say right now that after reflecting for a year I think the ending that would have struck the best chord with me is that Nagisa dies, but Ushio does not and the narrative continues from there with the lessons learned and family values built. I’ve proposed this alternate ending before but have never found anyone willing to accept that the ending could be anything but the way it was portrayed in the game and anime. Any thoughts?
Well, my thoughts are…that I pretty much entirely agree with you, actually, down to your proposed ending. I wanted the show’s tragic middle stretch to be followed by Tomoya’s coping with the fact that shit happens — and his realization that, if bad things happen in life, so do good things. Nagisa’s death would be the bad, the opportunity to be a decent father to Ushio (plus some Kyou-sensei on the side, if you know what I mean, wink nudge etc.) would be the good — this would’ve been satisfying not only in its foregoing of some of the more blatant emotion porn, but also because that’s life: bad things happen, and then we get over them and move on, and the ability to do so with a minimum of lingering damage is respectable. In fact, I hear this is pretty much the approach taken by that Clannad movie that predates the show, and I’m thinking that may be worth a watch.
I’m also with you in not buying that the anime absolutely must have been faithful to the plot of the game. As adaptations of a general story framework, the game and the show are more or less separate directorial interpretations; they aren’t Siamese twins.