Notes on Tombstone

Also inspired by one of Alonia's challenges. The challenge was to write a graveyard scene, and I decided I would do a fic on how someone who disliked Seifer would react if he died. I decided no one disliked him as much as Xu, so I made her the protagonist. To make her emotional reaction stronger I made her a kind of silent accomplice to his death, with moral implications but not legal ones.

In this sense, she is a representative of those who stood by and let him die, rather than a killer by herself. How many people do most of us actively kill in our lives? Very few, if any. How many do we leave to death by looking the other way? Far too many. That was part of what I wanted to say in this story.

I had Squall come down and talk to Xu because it seemed fitting--in a way, he is the single character most wronged, and directly so, by Seifer. (Though Selphie, Rinoa, and perhaps Irvine come close.) Squall was not only tortured by his rival, but the Garden he was forced to take charge of and the girl he loved were all hurt by Seifer's actions.

Yet, strangely enough, I couldn't visualize Squall as hating Seifer. Sure, the anger was there, though tempered by time and healing, but it wasn't directed at Seifer as a person. It seemed to me Squall was angriest at what Seifer had done to Seifer himself, rather than what he'd done to anybody else. Maybe it was possible because Seifer had died, but anyway I looked at it, it was a surprising reaction. Maybe Squall is more interesting than I gave him credit for...

In the end, though Xu chooses to work for justice on Seifer's part and redemption on hers, she doesn't come to magically like Seifer, of which I'm glad. That would have made the whole things pointless, because I believe we are truly moral beings not when we like everyone we come across, but when we apply the same moral standard to those we care about and those we cannot stand. Easier said then done, huh.

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