...Inuyasha

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Commentary

Brotherly Love?

    Okay, I'm going to psychoanalyze a cartoon character... kinda... this is just ridiculous -_-"  But I'm still gonna do it...

    The subject of this commentary is the relationship between Inuyasha and Sesshoumaru - or, more accurately, how Sesshoumaru feels about Inuyasha.  On fansites and in fanfiction people always play up this whole 'Sesshy hates Inu' thing.  But I think they're wrong.  Sesshoumaru doesn't hate Inuyasha at all.  You need evidence?  Okay.  Sesshoumaru could probably kill Inuyasha, he even truly seemed to try when he was first introduced, but that was because he wanted something. Since then their fights have never seemed too serious.  I know that sounds ridiculous, but Sess has never used that kind of power against Inuyasha again.  And then there's the fact that he keeps Inu from going on the rampage in his demon form.  And during the Panther demon episodes they actually work together and they don't fight at all.  Sess even lets Inu have the kill.  And it is here that I get the impression that he has never hated Inuyasha.  There's this flashback of the first time the Panther demons attacked, and Jaken says that he went to get Inuyasha.  Sesshoumaru doesn't seem upset, it's like he's hoping his brother will come, but knows he probably won't.

    So, I think that Sesshoumaru is actually disgusted with Inuyasha, not because of his birth, but because of his life.  Here's my impression, until Inuyasha got stuck to the Goshinboku Sesshoumaru didn't think about him much one way or the other. Inuyasha was there, and possibly beneath him because he was half human, but Sess didn't waste energy thinking about him unless he had to.  However, when Inuyasha fell in love with a human and allowed (Sesshy's line of thinking remember...) her to betray him by pinning him to a tree...  Then Inuyasha had proven himself weak in Sesshoumaru's eyes.  That made him a disgrace to demons, and their father, and consequently to Sesshoumaru. He really thought his brother, half human though he was, was stronger than that.  To find that he wasn't...

   So when Inuyasha turned out to be alive and awake again Sess felt the need to dispose of him, or test him, or whatever.  At first he tries to kill him in order to get what he wants.  It isn't hatred, it's a lack of feeling at all.  Since Inuyasha is weak it's okay to kill him if he's in the way.  Get it?  When Inuyasha proves a formidable opponent then Sess doesn't need to kill him because he isn't weak...  But he still has to protect the family name and keep Inu from further embarrassing him. That's why they keep fighting.  And as the show progresses Sesshoumaru's disdain for Inuyasha lessens.  Not saying that they'll ever have a decent relationship (because I'm pretty certain they never do).  I'm just saying the hate isn't there - never has been.