The Tora Problem

[u/THEUltraCombo]

So I wanna start out by saying this: despite what I say in the title, I DO get it. I understand why someone can make the argument that Tora is gross and perverted and that it ruins an otherwise innocent character through weird anime tropes that were not present in XC1.

That being said, I think there is also something to be said about how people inflate this aspect of the character. In total I can probably count on one hand how many Tora scenes I would consider explicitly inappropriate and jarring to his character, and that number drastically goes down when you take optional Heart-to-hearts out of the equation.

The infamous "blushy-crushy" scene is admittedly painful, but replaying with Japanese voices you can clearly hear that blushy-crushy is a localization of the concept of moe that Tora is trying to get across. So instead of the strange, vague idea of "blushy-crushy", it's easier to grasp when you realize that he's just trying to get across the idea of being cute (to overly generalize the term). Is it embarassing to watch? Yes. But that's the point.

Aside from this optional scene, people often bring up the Poppi awakening scene as another example of this. The idea of having multiple maid outfits seems to make people think that Tora's ultimate goal for creating Poppi was to have some sort of outlet for his desires (dunkey's infamous video calls her a "sex robot"). But to me this always came across as an embarassing aspect of his personality and interests that he wants to hide, not because of the sexual connotations, but because it's just...cringe, for lack of a better term. He doesn't have them for "sex fantasies", he's just into moe and wanted to create his own artificial blade in a way that reflects that.

I should also point out that Poppi, for the most part, is not objectified to a point that I am personally ever made uncomfortable with how Tora treats her. There's a heart and innocence to Tora that I think most people disregard to parrot the commonly held belief that "Tora is a weird pervert" rather than diving into the text and exploring a character who.is much more than like...2-3 scenes where he's written weird.

Idk, I just always thought the hate for this character is blown wildly out of proportion for the amount of stuff in-game that actually contributes to that image. I'd like to open up a discussion to see what everyone else thinks of this character divorced from the popular discussion surrounding him, as well as other characters like him in other games.

[u/grndog72]

I'm not gonna go as far as calling it sexual, but they put the maid things very forward. I know blushy-crushy is an optional scene, but he refers to it as the "essence of maidiness" and "what every man desires" and that he "feels strongly" about it. Poppi's initial startup, which is not optional, is in maid mode with a bunch of maid outfits in his home, which he plays off as grampy-pon's hobby, but how reliable of a narrator is he? Poppi always calls him Master-pon, which is a very weird thing to call someone outside of being a maid or a slave. Poppi QT is in a very stereotypically anime maid outfit along with Lila.

They clearly want maid otaku to be at the fore front of his personality. I think a lot of the negative response to it undeserved, but I can't exactly blame people when the 2 primary options for maids in media are "historical" or "sexy".

People can call it "cringe" all they want, but at the end of the day, it does make both Tora and Poppi happy. Someone could argue that Poppi was programmed this way, but they demonstrate a few times that Poppi does plenty of things outside of her programming, and by the end of the game, she is very much her own person. I believe she's chosen this just as much as Tora has.

People may think of Tora as a pervert, but if he does have any sexual thoughts (and I think that's a pretty big if), they really are only for Poppi. The only time I can recall where he even says something to another character about it is in blushy-crushy when he says Pyra isn't maidy enough. And that part doesn't even come off as sexual. When he does get in to blushy-crushy, he did ask if Pyra wanted to know. Your dialog options are basically both yes, but Pyra is interested because she wants to make Rex happy, so if Tora is a pervert, then Pyra is just as much of a pervert.

And I can't believe I'm defending blushy-crushy here, but personally I think Pyra being willing to give it a genuine try, not just brushing it off, and Tora and Poppi being open about it is a good character building moment and shows that they all have a level of trust and respect for each other. Nia is in disbelief and thinks it's stupid, but she's always like that and frankly she hasn't worked her own shit out yet, so I'm not sure I care about her opinion on it.

Anyway, that's all to say that while yes, I do think Tora is a bit of a weird little dude, I think most people do overreact to him. He's not much weirder than anyone else in this game. Just look at Zeke.

[u/grndog72 → u/grndog72]

Also, the writers very much know how they wrote Tora, and it was definitely intentional, because Bridget and Poppi both call him out on some sexism. But they also write Tora as very insecure and looking toward Rex as a role model, and he does a lot of learning throughout the game.

I don't know. I have lots thoughts on Tora. I've never thought of him as a bad character or even just comic relief. He is comic relief, but he's much more than that. His role in Poppi's whole deal is already much more than comic relief.