This is going to be a pictoral walk through of the scenes in question with an explanation of why I say Nakago would not do it- did not in fact plan to go through with it at all. There are quite a few graphics below so this page may take a while to load. Please be patient. My argument was confirmed at the July 1998 AX convention where Watase Yuu herself said it was all Tomo's idea and he was rather unhappy about it.
Ritz has written a short fic (Forgiveness) from Nakago's perspective exploring his feelings during this scene. Be warned that it contains flashbacks which are graphic.
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First shot. ^.~ I've always thought he looked like he was thinking about something far away in this picture. It reminds me of a little boy who's been hanging around with the wrong crowd and feels guilty but does it anyhow, and then he get's caught and he's looking up at his mom like, "Aww.. you aren't mad are you? I swear I'm innocent!" I wonder if he thinks his mother is watching? He's got his smirk, but it looks more gentle than arrogant. He just doesn't look like a guy standing with the girl he's about to rape.
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Look at this! The man was there all alone waiting for her and he made her all that food himself. Who else was gonna cook it? And we all know he's good at everything, so why not cooking too. He was nice enough to take the time to make it for her and then sit back and let her enjoy it without being bothered. If he was really such a nasty scum he would have grabbed her as soon as her little nose peeked under the tent-flap and he would have pulled her inside and raped her then.
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He's being awfully gentle with her in my opinion, and if you'll follow his gaze - he's looking at her FACE not at her body. He looks actually (gasp) concerned. And once again, at any point in this scene he was quite capable of taking advantage of her, and even if he didnt' do that he could have badly injured her. All he promised Yui is that he wouldn't kill her.
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He's gently touching her face... again.. not her body. I think the guy was more mortified by the thought of raping her than Miaka was of being raped. This is the same man who watched his mother brutally abused and raped at the hands of men, and throughout the series he is remarkably gentle with women (when Soi fails in her mission he doesn't even mention it to her let alone punish her) - both Yui & Soi. It would be out of character for him to suddenly be this vicious rapist just for one episode. So... he's stalling, and he's not gonna do it. ^.~
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Awww... he looks so sad again. ;.; And look carefully what he's doing. He's supporting her head and his other hand is supporting him. He's not even touching her. Heck, she's still dressed. If he's planning to do something he's going pretty darn slow about it. He looks like he's remembering his mom. Even if he was thinking he could go through with it up to this point, I'd say the look on his face in this one scene shows the truth. He couldn't do it, and he realized it then.
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This picture is weird. What happened to her uniform? Screen shot before: uniform is intact. Screen shot after: uniform is intact. o.0 The animators do it to us again. It's kind of like that scene with Miaka and the robe when Hotohori is watching over her. Again, what I'd like to point out is that his hands never go below her collar bone the whole time. He touches her face, he puts his hands on her shoulders. When he ripped her uniform initially, he did it from across the room. He NEVER put his hands on that part of her body.
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Sure Mr. "the red light was too strong for me." It really looks like you tried to get past it. No symbol shows up... he's not even attempting to fight it. And I still say the chi was Miaka's latent ability. I SERIOUSLY doubt any latent ability of hers would be stronger than Nakago if he decided to fight her, and i *love* the look on his face. There aren't many pictures of him showing emotion or not smirking, but this is one of them. You can just see the wheels in his mind turning. He now has an excuse for not raping her, and she's unconcious, so she'll never know it didn't happen. He no longer has to do it (like he was gonna. RIGHT.)
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Miaka's uniform is still perfectly in place. He never undressed her, never even looked like he was going to. Her legs are still closed. Nakago looks both relieved and ashamed standing there. And later on at the pond with Tamahome when Miaka is frantically scrubbing because she thinks she's been raped and feels dirty, you'll notice she isn't injured. At the most she has like 2 minor scratches. She does more damage to herself with the twig than Nakago does to her with all his power.
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Tamahome picked a bad time to be ticked and mess with Nakago. Bad for Nakago - not for Tamahome. He wasn't in a terribly good mood, he was very distracted and probably sick with himself, and here comes Tamahome all ready to kick his butt. It should say something about Nakago's emotional state that he doesn't fight back. In fact, it's when he turns to leave that Tamahome succeeds in injuring him. He didn't even have a chi-field up. It's the only time, with the exception of the end when Nakago's powers are sealed with Seiryuu, that any of the Suzaku seishi actually injure him in any way.
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