(The following post contains major spoilers for CLAMP works including xxxHolic, and Tsubasa. Proceed with caution!)
(Link back to Part One)
xxxHolic
Doumeki
and Watanuki:
Though the scenes of bodily harm mentioned in Part One
entered into disturbing and graphic territory at points, the
exchanges in xxxHolic
take
place on a tamer, though equally consequential scale. Doumeki
initially loses the use of his eye in a commonplace incident when he
destroys a spider's web Watanuki is tangled in and earns the spider's
grudge in the form of his eye being sealed with a web. Yuuko explains
that the destruction of a spider's home is traumatic to it, and that
to compensate for its pain, it deals “proportionate” retribution
upon the offending party. Doumeki's condition is not permanent, but
Yuuko is vague on the matter of how long it will take, and since
spirits' lifespans are much longer than humans', there is the
possibility that Doumeki will have to put up with the curse his
entire life.
However, Doumeki is pragmatic when it comes to these matters. He
destroyed the web, and thus is the deserved target of the curse.
Since the world operates on balanced exchange, it is his obligation
to suffer the consequences of his actions, no matter how innocently
meant they were. He is also more cautious in how he sacrifices
himself as opposed to Watanuki, who is more than willing to upset
balanced exchange by sacrificing himself with little provocation.
Based on Doumeki's attitude towards Watanuki, it is probably safe to
assume he is satisfied that he was the target of the curse rather
than Watanuki, who has sacrificed quite a bit at this point with
needing to add yet another spiritual problem to his list.
Watanuki has a markedly different attitude towards Doumeki, treating
him as an unwelcome intrusion and rival, but nonetheless cannot stand
the sight of anyone suffering on his behalf, particularly when he is
indirectly responsible (i.e. getting tangled in the spider web). With
this in mind, he asks Yuuko how to transfer the spider's grudge to
him, and gives Doumeki back his sight at the cost of the potentially
permanent loss of his own eye.
 |
| Doumeki's expressions following Watanuki's reversal of the curse show just how shocked and hurt he is |
The interesting trait to the interactions between Doumeki and
Watanuki is that, unlike most CLAMP characters with such persistent
homoerotic subtext, they never have a culminating moment which
implies they have become a couple or even mutual lovers in the
traditional sense. While the latter half of the manga shows them in a
verging on married couple type role, both Watanuki's obligation to
freeze his lifespan to remain in the shop and his desire to see Yuuko
once again put limiters on whatever conflicting feelings he has
towards Doumeki. In the case of Doumeki, most of the sexually-laden
subtext remains on his side, with the text giving evidence to
indicate that though he eventually goes on to marry Kohane, both of
them are still deeply in love with Watanuki and want to fulfill their
desire of keeping him from dying alone.
However, the primary eye exchange between Doumeki and Watanuki is
devoid of the turbulent emotions which marked Subaru and Seishirou's.
The loss for Doumeki resulted due to an instinctive action, and
Watanuki's own reaction can also be viewed as instinctive and very
much in line with his inherent, self-erasing nature.
It is when Doumeki learns of Watanuki's sacrifice that things at last
become heated, and the exchange increases in significance. Doumeki
places great importance in choosing for oneself and satisfying
personal desires without the help of supernatural specialists such as
Yuuko, so for Watanuki to reverse an action Doumeki himself chose to
do is deeply insulting to him. The loss of Watanuki's eye is so
upsetting, in fact, that he abruptly breaks his deliberate avoidance
of asking Yuuko for favors, and demands for her to tell him a way to
return the curse to its natural state. But since Doumeki and
Watanuki's wishes are equal and opposite, she only agrees to accept
the first wish brought to her to avoid endless back and forth between
them.
It
becomes increasingly clear that Doumeki's fixation on canceling out
Watanuki's actions is much more emotionally rooted than Watanuki's
initial reversal. He throws himself into investigating
possible cures in his grandfather's extensive library, and
experiences a moment evocative of his first meeting with Watanuki
when he see him examining his missing eye in a mirror saying, “It's
not coming back, is it?” These actions are motivated by his desire
to keep Watanuki from needlessly sacrificing himself, and follow
Yuuko's advice to him following the loss of Watanuki's eye: “It's
okay to be angry with him. If a person sacrifices himself to save
another, that person should know just what kind of scars that action
leaves on the rescued person. If Watanuki has any importance to you
at all, he should learn that! Get angry and teach him! That way,
little by little, he'll change.”
Sadly,
Watanuki is unable to immediately change his ways, and when a spirit
with romantic feelings for him, the vestal Zashiki-Warashi, confronts
the spider demon who possesses Watanuki's eye and is captured as a
consequence, Watanuki expresses a willingness to hand over his other
eye and any other part of him necessary to appease the demon
threatening her. It's not until the spider demon chides him by
saying, “You're throwing away your well being just like that? Do
you think that something you can throw out easily can be exchanged
for something important?” that Watanuki at last begins to consider
the consequences of his constant self-erasing on his companions. When
Doumeki requests to give part of the sight in his eye to fill the
absence in Watanuki's, Watanuki has the dignity to for the first time
quietly accept someone taking sacrificial actions on his behalf.
 |
| Through the rest of the series, Watanuki has dual colored eyes: the golden one is from Doumeki, the blue is his own. |
The
presence of Doumkei's sight within Watanuki is symbolic in the same
way the shared eye of Seishirou and Subaru is. On several occasions,
both characters are able to share a mutual vision through Watanuki's
eyes, which generally occurs when spirits are nearby or Watanuki's
emotions are excited. The flashes Doumeki receives from Watanuki
allow him to witness the presence of spirits, which he had previously
been unable to do, though he does possess powers of exorcism.
Watanuki's personality also seems to undergo a subtle shift following
his symbolic joining with Doumeki, and he eventually comes to the
conclusion that he shouldn't erase himself from the world at the cost
of hurting his friends. He even becomes much more willing to
acknowledge the occasions when Doumeki extends himself on his behalf,
particularly after the incident when Watanuki steps in between Kohane
and her mother during a violent conflict.
The unfulfilled nature of Doumeki and Watanuki's relationship may
have something to do with CLAMP's somewhat abrupt conclusion to the
series which renders the egg Yuuko imparted to Doumeki before her
death meaningless considering the sacrifice Sakura went through to
retrieve it, and also leaves Watanuki oddly in the position of
waiting for Yuuko, though deaths are irreversible in the CLAMP-verse,
and even should she reincarnate, it is doubtful Yuuko would be
pleased that Watanuki was never fully able to move forward
independently in the way she wished him to. However, the physical
exchange between Doumeki and Watanuki is still poignant in the sense
that it influences the shift in Watanuki's perception and willingness
to engage in self-erasure, and confirms Doumeki's central motivation
in assuring Watanuki is happy and healthy in both heart and body.
Though the two characters are left without an established emotional
union, the back-and-forth they endure together with their eyes does
its part to establish a bond that even Watanuki cannot satisfactorily
deflect.
Tsubasa
Syaoran and Tsubasa Syaoran:
(For the sake of clarity, I will be referring to the Syaoran from the
first half of the manga as 'Syaoran,' and the one who is with group
following the events of Acid Tokyo as 'Tsubasa,' his true name)
Though
bodily harm to the eye has thus far been used as a homoerotic
exchange in previous CLAMP manga, Tsubasa
presented
a unique example with the exchange between Syaoran and Tsubasa, a boy
who is both his son and the human being he was cloned from. In the
past, Tsubasa gouged out his eye before submitting to his price of
losing time in order to pay for his wish to rewind time and save
'his' Princess Sakura. Tsubasa takes the eye, which contains his
“heart,” and implants it into Syaoran, hoping that possessing a
heart will gave him access to enough emotions and memories to make
him able to give birth to his own heart when Tsubasa takes his back.
However, when the seal breaks on the implanted heart, Syaoran loses
control of his memories and soul, and in essence transforms into a
thoughtless, single-mindedly brutal puppet of Fei Wang Reed,
possessing little understanding of who Tsubasa is other than the fact
that he poses a threat.
 |
| For Syaoran, his blind eye is the first link he has to the soul and pure intentions of his original copy |
Though Tsubasa is aware when he initially sacrifices his eye that
Syaoran may still very well succumb to Fei Wang's influence, his
actions show a willingness to validate Syaoran's existence in the
universe, in a similar way to how he constantly tells Watanuki not to
vanish simply because he's the copy of an original human life. By
sharing his heart in the form of his eye, Tsubasa not only has a way
to glimpse upon the actions of his clone and the traveling party, but
also a method of preventing Syaoran from spending his life as a tool
of manipulation when he is just as worthy of happiness, despite being
a clone.
This
action on Tsubasa's part has a major impact on the final chapters,
when Syaoran is able to escape from Fei Wang Reed's control, build a
life with 'his' Sakura, and eventually give life to Tsubasa, setting
up the eventually destroyed time loop of Tsubasa
in
motion. But more importantly, this physical exchange represents
Tsubasa's faith, not only in the potential for life formed by
unnatural means to find individual happiness, but also in the very
concept of the soul itself. The “heart,” he gives is not the
blood pumping organ we are familiar with, after all, but rather the
essence of Tsubasa. The soul is not the mirror reflection of his
personality and life experiences, but rather the foundation he built
upon to become who he is, which is inclined and disinclined to
certain things, but still able to be influenced by outside factors.
The
soul plays a large role in CLAMP manga, particularly in their
sweeping multi-verse where the same soul exists in several
locations. For example, we see the couple “Arashi” and “Sorata”
in several different dimensions, and while they were raised in
different conditions and have different life stories, each appearance
of their souls has them falling in love and desiring to be together.
Since Syaoran is filled with Tsubasa's soul, it's only natural that
he would be drawn to Sakura, and display some of the traits inherent
to Tsubasa as well as the Syaoran we met in Cardcaptor
Sakura.
There are, however, marked differences between them, or else it would
be odd for them to have a father-and-son relationship. As Tsubasa
says to the Fei Wang Reed controlled Syaoran, “I've been watching
all this time through your right eye. The things you've seen, the
people you've met. The one for whom 'that' Sakura was most precious
wasn't my soul! It was you, wasn't it?” Knowing what he knows about
the nature of clones, Tsubasa is aware that the young girl he fell in
love with is different from the Sakura whom Syaoran harbored feelings
for. His exchange was not meant to give Syaoran the very same feeling
and personality that he himself possesses, but for him to build
individual relationships with Sakura, Fai, and Kurogane that belong
solely to him, and would thus convince him to create a heart of his
own with which to treasure these interactions.
 |
| Though Syaoran and Tsubasa come from the same being, they are formed by two different bodies of experience. |
Though the subtext evoked by this trade-off is different from
previously mentioned exchanges, it is still an incredibly loving
gesture on Tsubasa's part, born not of his desire to protect himself
from Syaoran when the seal on his heart broke, but to give Syaoran a
happy future and unique life of his own.
Syaoran and Fai (and Kurogane):
Though the case of the eye Fai sacrifices for Syaoran is not
homoerotic (but rather quite motherly), the influence it has over
Kurogane is so laden with passionate emotion that this example still
follows the trend set by the example of Seishirou and Subaru. In the
horrifying moment when the seal on Syaoran's eye and “heart”
collapses and he begins to awake as the puppet of Fei Wang Reed, Fai
chooses to help him keep the heart belonging to Tsubasa since it is
engraved with precious memories he sees as belonging to Syaoran. As a
mage, Fai is probably well aware that this effort is futile, but
chooses to make the attempt out of an almost parental love for
Syaoran, as well as a persisting indifference to his own survival.
In a scene hidden from the eyes of the reader, the newly awakened
Syaoran gouges out Fai's eye to steal the magical power encased
within it, power he will need to collect Sakura's memory feathers for
Fei Wang Reed. We do not see the two again until Kurogane arrives on
the scene, and Syaoran drags out Fai's bleeding body for him to
witness.
Though Fai sacrificed his eye in an attempt to save Syaoran,
Kurogane, as mentioned earlier, is the one who has the strongest
reaction to its loss. Of course, Syaoran is transformed into an
emotionless tool at this point, but Kurogane is not sympathetic to
this as an excuse for Syaoran's physical cruelty to someone who loved
him in spite of his own internal pain. “This guy,” he yells in a
rare moment of willingness to defend Fai's self-destructive actions,
“changed who he was because of the princess and because of you. You
even managed to make him smile for real a little! Don't you hear me,
kid?!”
Although Syaoran does not hear in the way Kurogane means him to, the
realization summed up in these lines are almost more important for
Kurogane himself to understand than Syaoran. By understanding and to
a degree respecting what Fai tried to do for Syaoran, Kurogane proves
just how close of an eye he's been keeping on Fai through the mage's
many veils and behavioral disguises. In comparison to Syaoran and
Sakura, he is more aware of the “true” Fai, and how important it
is that Fai would let down his iron defenses for the sake of the two
he looks upon tenderly. He understands the value of Fai's sacrifice
and is infuriated that Syaoran is so far gone that he cannot
understand the magnitude of the loss Fai suffered for him.
Naturally, Kurogane's understanding only extends to the unconscious
and vulnerable body of Fai. As soon as Fai awakes and insists he
should be allowed to die from the shock of his wounds so that his
magical power will also die within Syaoran, Kurogane puts a halt to
any further physical exchanges from the suicidal Fai. Like with
Watanuki, Fai's indifference to physical loss and bodily harm is
evident of his desire to erase himself due to his guilt over the
death of his brother. Though Kurogane is yet unaware of these
motivations, he recognizes that, if given the chance, Fai would
willingly gamble away his life for the sake of someone or something
else. And just as Doumeki did with Watanuki, he decides to enter into
his own physical exchange to keep Fai from taking it entirely upon
himself.
 |
| Kurogane reacts violently to Fai's self-erasure and fights to keep him alive. |
Kurogane's exchange of blood in order to transform Fai into a vampire
dependent on him for sustenance is equally of note, since he enters
into it with the knowledge that Fai does not consent to his decision
and will most likely resent him for it as long as he assigns little
value to his life. However, Fai's life holds enough value to him to
make the sacrifice worthwhile, though he does spend his time in
Infinity engaged in intense psychological warfare with Fai in regards
to the latter's tendency to wallow in his misery without ever
explaining it to the people who would try to understand him. While
CLAMP utilizes exchange of sight and increased vulnerability through
the loss of an eye, Kurogane's bodily sacrifices of blood and
eventually his arm demonstrate a purging of that which he perceives
makes him strong for the sake of “true strength,” or the
knowledge that the are things physical strength alone cannot protect,
such as Fai's collapsing mental state and the complex natures of
Syaoran, Sakura, and Tsubasa.
Fai and Kurogane:
Even with one eye torn from him in a highly violent fashion, Fai is
still willing to enter into physical sacrifice at any occasion when
the opportunity arises. After his first curse activates and he
attacks Princess Sakura, severing her soul and her body, Fai's
suicidal desires reach a new high. Though he still claims that he
“can't die yet,” since he has vowed to live long enough to
resurrect his deceased brother, in order to retrieve Sakura's body he
attempts to give his remaining eye, or at least everything it sees,
as the price to return to his home world. Though this will not kill
him, he will go blind, rendering him useless as a fighter and member
of their traveling company, which makes it clear that he doesn't
intend to survive with them much longer.
Kurogane, as astute as he is, picks up on this immediately, and after
several cold-eyed glares, eventually smacks Fai in the head and tells
him, “Up to now, I've pretty much let you and the Princess do as
you've liked. So now I'm going to do as I like.” Later, when Fai
once again tries to sacrifice himself in Celes, Kurogane is also the
one to point out the discrepancies in Ashura's story and to drive Fai
once again to fight for the survival of those he cares about, even if
he is not ready to fully fight in his own defense.
Fai's attempted uses of physical exchange are shown as grossly
disproportionate and offensive to balanced exchange. To rescue
Sakura, he alone tries to pay the price through harming his body and
devaluing it, even though Tsubasa, Kurogane, and Mokona equally
desire to assure Sakura's safety. In Celes, his attempted sacrifice
provides him a half-hearted method of trying to kill himself and
Ashura at the same time, making it so he will escape the aftermath
and consequences of having his history exposed to Tsubasa and
Kurogane, as well as avoiding his awareness of the futility of
returning life to a dead body. The other members of the party would
gladly assist him with his burdens, but Fai tries to take the 'easy'
way where only he suffers and risks himself at the price of using
everyone's ignorance of his situation to keep himself distant from
them.
When Kurogane kills Ashura and cuts off his arm so Fai can make it
safely out of Celes, Fai at last realizes the pain he caused Kurogane
and the others for playing so lightly with his life. The tears he
sheds while watching over Kurogane's bleeding body in Nihon show a
true understanding of despair at what the loss of life does to the
heart of a loved one. With this epiphany, he is able to forgive
Kurogane when he awakens again and interact with him using a more friendly
and genuine attitude.
And when the chance for yet another physical exchange arises, Fai for
the first time takes a self-preserving stance. To pay for Kurogane's
prosthetic arm, he once again offers his eye, but not the entire
organ or its sight. Rather, he simply gives the scant remains of the
magic contained within, since he no longer needs it survive since he
can feed upon Kurogane's blood as a vampire. As he proudly tells
Kurogane, “I won't give anything that amounts to giving my life
away. Not anymore.”
 |
| Considering Fai's earlier offer to lose his sight, the color of his eye is a much smaller price to pay |
In a sense, the evolution of Fai and Kurogane's relationship from
“measuring and delimiting one another” to a fully realized
partnership is told within their physical exchanges. Fai's lost sight
and damaged, vulnerable body motivates him to place barriers between
himself and Kurogane, but Kurogane's more acceptable sacrifices of
his physical strength and reforming his old wish with a new one to
keep Fai safe work to provide Fai the realization that the pain he
feels in injuring and losing Kurogane is the very pain Kurogane feels
in seeing him lost and injured. Through their physical dialogue with
one another, they are able to communicate their separate desires and
reach a conclusion that luckily leads to happiness for them both.
To make a long story short...
Overall, CLAMP has a fascinating take on how bodily harm, physical
exchange, and loss functions in homoerotic relationships as a
stand-in for direct emotional communication. The “hardness” of
masculine bodies, particularly those of Seishirou, Doumeki, and
Kurogane, do not hold room for as many vulnerabilities as the soft
feminine body, so it is through what they do and do not sacrifice and
where they choose to be vulnerable that their feelings are shown in
subtext without making the heartfelt confessions and sensitive
interactions of shounen-ai and yaoi necessary. As for Subaru,
Watanuki, and Fai, their predisposition to loss and self-erasing
shows an unfortunate devaluing of their physical bodies, and it is
only through a strengthening physical exchange from their lovers that
they are able to appreciate their own continued existence.
And why the eye? Beside being a vulnerable point on the male body, it
is an organ associated with seeing, perceiving, interpreting, and
understanding. It is the gateway through which the world is
witnessed, visual memories are formed, and input is sent into to the
body to be considered. The eyes are also the means with which humans
are able to view each other and begin to make judgments on who a
person is, first on the surface, and then within their soul. When
harm comes to the eye, each of these things can become damaged, but
they can also undergo a transformation and lead to a new perception
or worldview. It is only through their eyes being lost, injured, or
exchanged that Seishirou, Subaru, Watanuki, Doumeki, and Fai are able
to go through internal transformations in perception, and
consequently better appreciate and confront the feelings they hold
for their partners.
