Retrospective time.
I was going to do this claim-by-claim, but there are two major mistakes I've made that I feel I should address first.
- I (vastly) underestimated how much initiative Inoue would take.
- Kagome can speak fluently?
To start, why did I expect Inoue to take less initiative, and why were those assumptions wrong?
The first thing that comes to mind is her response to Mori's outburst, which I consider the other major mishap relating to bad word choices. In that scenario, we saw Inoue take remarkably little initiative; Hazō was the one to say "We need to keep moving", but even Akane took hold of the situation faster than Inoue. In fact, one part I remember fairly clearly is this:
"Inoue-sensei, can I talk to you for a second?"
Inoue-sensei's expression was sardonic. "Already doing your rounds, Hazō? Checking in with your team and managing their psychological states is important for a leader, but you do need to learn to be more subtle about it. Acting like you care about people only works if it doesn't look forced."
Hazō flinched.
"Sorry, Hazō," she said wearily after a second. "That wasn't fair. You're doing a great job for a thirteen-year-old. Honestly, you're doing my job. I should be grateful."
I also remember some fairly awkward conversation from her around Keiko, as well as the flawed response of telling Keiko to go away for a day without consideration of how that would affect her as phrased. And then there was this lovely dialogue.
"It's true. But the fact is, it shouldn't matter to us whether she's with us or not."
She registered the uncomfortable stares from the rest of the group.
"Sorry," she said quickly, "that came out wrong. What I meant is that we as a group need to learn to function without Keiko."
The stares didn't get any less uncomfortable.
"Agh, bad choice of words. What I'm trying to say is that we have to accept that we don't need Keiko in the first place.
"…I'll shut up now."
Finally, we're privy to her being outmaneuvered in debates several times recently, and this is meant to be her strong point.
So, basically, I didn't expect her to handle this as well as she did because she's shown herself to be a lot less good at it than she did in this recent update.
So why is it different this time? There are two primary points I should make, most of which should have been far more obvious to me than they were before the update.
- Inoue did make several good calls about managing the party during this crisis, several in exactly this vein, after time. This is pertinent here because she has had three days to plan, rather than the immediate reactions of before that favour Hazou's hivemind and Akane's spur-of-the-moment approach to life.
- She was dealing with a personal and sensitive topic. This new situation does not have her as the focus, and is a lot more amiable to her traditional stock of strategies.
I would appreciate other people giving more input on this matter.
Second, Kagome's handling of this was
superb. We should remember to say such to him once this situation has blown over, because I am seriously proud right now.
Frankly, I think it's fairly obvious why I modelled him as I did. He has acted like a skittish, abandoned dog that grew attracted to a kind owner, and I feel justified in thinking that if he just got kicked it could go really badly.
That said, I have clearly underestimated quite how much his character has progressed. I don't even need to note this down as a learning experience; this is not something I'm going to forget any time soon. One thing I will note as a mistake, though, is me not predicting Kagome's paranoia would make him see our side wrt. our actions with the Leaf. I
think this was just an oversight, rather than a general cognitive bias, but I'll keep it in mind to see if I make this mistake again.
In retrospect, I still think being cautious with regards to him was the right call. Should we have had the conversation as per the plan, I doubt Kagome would have considered that prediction to have been unjustified.
Now here's a more point-by-point breakdown.
Before leaving Jiraiya, ask Jiraiya
Yeah... not sure that would have worked given Inoue's actions. However, there's not enough in the post for me to decide whether this was a reasonable model of the situation. The same holds for my comments on Akane.
I think my model of Inoue was pretty much correct, except that I didn't expect her to take initiative. She has shown exactly the kind of level headed response I thought she would, and I stick by my claim "you can very well expect any bitterness she's expressing to be purposefully designed to push you in the right direction".
I think my models of Keiko and Noburi were correct. Particularly, I feel vindicated in asking people to give the team more credit than they have, especially with Keiko recognizing parallels to her own mistakes exactly like I expected her to, and Noburi having the same complex as I expected.
Inoue's putting us on chores and letting the team vent how they wish is
exactly what I was trying to do with the conversation with Keiko and Noburi. I think this is a positive sign with regards to the actions there, even if I can't be assured that the specific methods I suggested would have worked.
I think it's too early to be assured of my comment "I don't get why people are terrified of the Leaf escort", but at the same time I think this update does at least suggest that I am correct there.
I think that roughly wraps up what I wanted to say. There are some big updates to my priors for Inoue and Kagome, both in positive directions. I don't think either course of action was outside of what was planned for, though; I did consider the posibility that Inoue would take charge (though to a less effective extent) and I tried not to suggest any course of action which would cause problems had I underestimated Kagome's levelheadedness.
However, my models of Keiko and Noburi seem pretty solid, at least in this light.
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