LogFAQs > #889978631

In Hyouka, I can't help but feel bad for Hotaro realizing that Irisu was manipulating him from the start. I was thinking about why Hotaro gets so mad at the end when he finds out, particularly when he finds out she was just lying about thinking he was special (although later on she says maybe not everything she said was a lie). However, throughout the show, he insists he's as normal and average as it gets, and every deduction he gets right is just luck.

I think there's a part of him that doesn't want to be special. He seems to view the expectations and responsibilities that come with it as a burden. Ultimately, I think he's afraid he won't be able to meet those expectations or shoulder the responsibilities. That's why he was initially reluctant to help Eru solve the case with her uncle. He didn't want to be held responsible if he couldn't solve it since it was such a big deal to her.

I think there's also a part of him that feels like his sister set the bar so high that there's no way he'd ever be able to reach it, so it could only end in disappointment if he tried. Hotaro even tells Eru as much at one point. He says he could never hope to match Tomoe, but he's also never really wanted to either. He wants to keep his expectations low for whatever the reason, so even if he never really accomplishes anything special, it'll be okay because he wasn't special to begin with. It makes Hotaro a fascinating character in my eyes, and pretty relatable, to boot. I can understand being paralyzed by a fear of failure so much that you'd rather not try at all than try and fail.
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