Reflections in Mirrors without Glass The following contains spoilers.

For all the flack she takes, Yui is probably the most realistic character in 
Fushigi Yuugi. What that means to any single person varies. Realism is not, in 
and of itself, a commendable trait in fiction. Just ask any fan of E.M. Escher's 
illustrations. Realism can, however, emphasize not a character's vulnerability 
to circumstance, but the readership's vulnerability to the same circumstances.

So, when Yui has her breakdown, I think it's safe to say, with all else I've 
taken the liberty of saying, that Yui was doing exactly what any other fifteen-year-old 
would do in a comparable position. But we've gone over that, haven't we? To wit, 
I think I've lavished in Yui's humanity too much attention, making her the Every 
Girl; making her someone - or many someones - she might not be. Yui is a common 
young lady, to some extent, but on another level, she is an individual, and that 
is her strength and weakness, her adominable sanctity of private mania. That is 
her realism.

Let's give Yui the benefit of the doubt and, if momentarily, not assimilate her 
with teenage girls or rape victims or jealous hussies or whatever we fancy. Let's 
ask ourselves a question in which Yui's fandom is anchored: Why would any single 
person like Yui?

For some of us, the answer is as straightforward as Yui herself isn't: We 
identify with her. We've gone through something she's gone through. We don't 
calculate her worth based on how we might be in the same scenario, or evaluate 
her person based on potential for what could be or may have been. We judge Yui 
based on the simple, ugly, numbing fact we've been through something she's been 
through, and we understand why she did what she did, not from a distant, 
admiring plane, but from a very personal, outrageous plane of recognition.

Details notwithstanding, I can and do see what Yui has been through because I 
know what Yui has been through. My acute awareness of the character isn't 
detached or flimsy or morbid. It's just the truth. I don't like Yui for a 
superficial reason, but because Yui is a sort of avatar, if you will. Not a 
nondescript smidgen of human nature, but something more potent, refined, and 
terrible. Something honest. Something that has nothing to do with Every Girl or 
reality or generalizations, but with a very specific dread and gut-wrenching 
notion I've been there, done there, and survived, and with no better, no 
smoother results than Yui.

None of that "I felt sorry for her" or "I think she's really a good person deep 
down inside." My inner-existentialist wants to choke anyone who pulls that. I 
like Yui - or don't - for some of the same reasons I like myself - or don't - 
and not because I think I could like Yui on a different day, in a different 
place, with different troubles harping on her. Fiction is gratious with 
resolution, and Yui had resolution. As beautiful as a fictional character may be, 
she is two-dimensional until reborn inside the mind of the audience. There, she 
takes shape, develops, and acquires the traits of the viewer. And my inner-existentialist 
warns, This isn't necessarily a good thing. Screw my inner-existentialist. For a 
second, think about it. When a character is so sublimely wrong as to fuse with 
her audience's members, so they "know" her the way they "know" themselves, she's 
sublimely right. Through Yui, there is a glimpse into crime, investigation, 
trial, and resolution--all belonging to the particle of audience who comes to 
accept Yui as an extension of itself.

That's why I like Yui. And if it isn't clear by now, it probably never will be.

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