here’s a PSA

PERHAPS EVEN MORE THAN A ‘ FATHER ’  ( multi-faced, paradoxically omnipotent and absent )  hiiro  ( or nora )  represents the past that he sought to leave behind.  most of my thoughts on their relationship come from when he revokes her name ; it’s an abrupt action that, to me at least, felt largely symbolic rather than having ties to any interpersonal hostilities.  that’s not a revolutionary thought.

i think the sentiment / dynamic that lay just beyond the action are a lot more multi-faceted.  i’ve always believed that yato would, more than anything, empathize when hiiro.  he doesn’t hate her.  how could he ?  they were raised as siblings.  i think the love there was real, especially on yato’s end, as a child whom had little other contact with people.  perhaps it would be a little stockholm syndrome-y, but i don’t think that discounts it at all, especially considering the circumstances.

hiyori and yukine point out that in the moment of revoking the name yato was trembling.  it’s not something that was easy for him  ( and honestly, that’s the only moment that i was mad at the pair, but that’s a whole other thing entirely )  .  yato knows the punishments that are levied on her when he’d misbehave, and more than anything, i think he knows what it’s like to live with father, and has seen the effects that it has on them  ( hiiro especially, whom is presumed to have been with father for longer, probably much longer )  .

i don’t think yato places them on two separate planes of existence when it comes down to that relationship in particular, i think that he sees it more as a line, a single plane of progress in father twisting them, simplified in my mind to being wrong and right. himself pulling back to the ‘ right ’ polarity, having been able to escape, and hiiro on the ‘ wrong ’ end of the spectrum.

i think this because hiiro has little discernable personality from what we’re seen of her.  i think this lack of anything to form her in yato’s mind, yato would inherently project his own emotions onto her, especially as a child.  in this manner, i think that perhaps even more than himself, he’d want to save hiiro.  ( that’s also seen in the flashback / sakura chapters ; yato shows visible guilt and actively moves to help her. i don’t see him blaming her for sakura’s death, i doubt to be mad at hiiro for that had even crossed his mind. )

so i think the trembling, and further, the fear that comes when he revokes her name is a mixture of both the fear of completely severing the ties to a past, and a guilt of leaving hiiro to be with father.  i think that in his idealistic goal to be someone who ‘ helps people ‘, i don’t think it wouldn’t be too out of left field to think that hiiro would be included in that.

further, i think that complete severance from the past is something that is further manifested in the coldness which he shows towards hiiro the entire time leading up to that, and afterwards.  there’s something that screams ‘ defense mechanism ‘ in those actions to me, a deflection of guilt which i don’t have any problem thinking that yato harbors for doing what he did.