Idiot? Oh, revision, set me free. Yeah, baby.

I think I only realized how badly I needed to update this rant once a 
disconcerting quotient of my domain's hits were for "suboshi dumb." On the one 
hand, better my propaganda than that of the Shunkaku-hating hosebeasts. On the 
other hand... who the hell does a search for "suboshi dumb"? "Miaka dumb" I can 
see, but, really, have you nothing better to do, than measure the intellect of 
fictions?

Well, neither do I. I'm not afraid to admit it, either; I've given up turning a 
bashful eye to the possible inquiries into my spare time and how I use it (not 
well, I confess). This aside, I am perplexed by the fascination with Suboshi's 
aptitudes, likely because I suspect Suboshi's intelligence was fairly average, 
as was Suboshi himself, in a general and I-know-better kind of way.

Suboshi wasn't stupid. Suboshi was crazed, impassioned, disordered, driven - but 
he wasn't stupid. Stupidity doesn't question its merits. Suboshi did. He 
analyzed them, he weighed them, he juggled them, and he eventually caved in to 
them.

Rather than representing stupidity, Suboshi represents the rash, neurotic 
behavior of somebody who knows well that what he is doing is wrong, but is past 
the point of caring. One thread strung throughout the twins' story is that of 
desperation. Though not insane, I think it's fair to say that they were maddened 
by the pursuit of goals they felt just, even if they knew their actions 
contradicted their ideologue.

This isn't to say Suboshi's brilliance blows my mind. He isn't a sterling 
example of human ingenuity. He's a common thinker, I'd say. He acts on what he 
knows, or thinks he knows. Keep in mind that so far as Suboshi was concerned, 
Nakago's proclamation of the circumstances of Amiboshi's death were absolutely 
true. Suboshi had no reason to feel affection or pity for the Suzaku 
Shichiseishi. He did have reason to believe they killed his brother.

Thereafter Suboshi exhibits symptons of social retardation, but what teenaged 
boy doesn't? (With all due respect to teenaged boys.) More pointedly, what 
isolated, emotional wreck of a teenaged boy wouldn't act on the sort of 
clinginess and pathetic aspirations Suboshi did? Again, this isn't stupidity. It's 
only a tangible result of Suboshi's lifestyle, which was violent and forthright. 
That this carried over to his interactions with Yui should surprise nobody.

I've tossed in my two cents about his failure to react to the ryuuseisui 
Tamahome dodged. I don't think his death is anything but closure. Certainly it 
isn't the final insult.

There is one side to this argument that is especially regretable, and that is 
the side which argues that Suboshi was too simpleminded to be held accountable 
for his crimes. This reeks of its own simplicity. It also begs the question, why 
do people insist on reducing everything controversial or unusual to the most 
degenerative form? Why must they brush aside all factors, mitigating or damning, 
and elect to support the omnipresence of simplicity in complicated areas? That 
discussion is, I think, more compelling that its effect on Fushigi Yuugi's 
fandom.

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