Making a separate post for discussing my analysis on Kinu as a child.
I notice most people seem fixated on the love of agriculture aspect of her and seem to come to the conclusion that that’s Kinu’s most natural state of being, I actually had thought that myself before I finally started getting events and additional dialogue (she gets a lot more insightful generic lines the more siblings she has). After careful reading
and talk spamming though, I realized that while Kinu’s starting personality is tilted more towards Young Inari at a score of +1, she actually shows a very good mix of both that and Kitsune Hime. There are many lines about beauty and guile for starters, and regardless of which personality dominates, Kinu is still a hyperactive ball of fluff who loves games of thought as much as she loves games of romp.
In other words, she starts with perfectly equal potential to go one way or another; she just initially is more adversarial as an only child without much responsibility. But as she gets more siblings, she gradually matures and comes to understand her mother better.
Also worthy of note is the fact that while both PC perspective and Kinu perspective events both have scenes where a choice could weigh very heavily, Kinu side tends to have
more of them. Which means that while PC can have a strong influence on how Kinu turns out, ultimately it is how Kinu chooses to handle things that weighs more on her adult personality.
This fits well with the theme of communication being a two-way street. It’s easy to pin all the blame on Kiyoko being too rigid of a traditionalist for her bad relationship with Young Inari. HOWEVER, Young Inari also contributed to this deterioration by refusing to compromise on her end as well. This is best shown in events like “The Prodigy” and “Flowers for Kiyoko”. In the former, she chose to cave to anger based on a strict view of “right and wrong” and rejects Kiyoko’s remorse, and in the latter, she basically deliberately chose “Screw Mom! Dandelions >>>>>> Lilies so I’m getting dandelions for her and if she can’t appreciate them, that’s her fault”.
While it’s perfectly as valid for her to think the way she does with those choices as it is for the Kitsune Hime counterparts, not surprisingly, it results in only further tension and breakdown in communication. Kinu’s stubbornness didn’t come from nowhere after all.
Even though Kitsune Hime strongly resembles Kiyoko in looks and mannerisms, Young Inari is ironically the one who is inflexible just like Kiyoko. Just in the completely opposite direction. Which is why Observer himself said that Young Inari is the one more likely to be stuck in her mother’s position with her own child one day. Because she’s so stubbornly convinced her own values are the “right” ones, she cannot and probably doesn’t even want to understand the views of other people. As a result, she has practically no friends besides the crops and beasts of the earth.
While it is tragic that Young Inari can’t get along with her mother, it is a tragedy partly of her own making (as many tragedies are). One way or another, Kinu will be like her mother in some way and Young Inari sadly got the one worst trait, making it impossible for them to reconcile. The burden is on the both of them.
Conversely, with Kitsune Hime, Kinu chose at key moments of her life to try to understand her mother and her siblings. Rather than obsess over what is “right” or “wrong”, she chooses to look at the “why”. The Hime choice of “The Prodigy” and “The Food Thief” both highlight that very well.
In “The Prodigy”, while Kinu isn’t happy, she also saw a positive to things and remembers how hard her mother works to take care of her and everyone else. She understands that it’s normal to feel jealous and that everyone has their worst moments. One bad day doesn’t make someone a horrible person and that’s why she can’t bring herself to hate her mother. If anything, Mother needs her more than ever to get through such a hard time and she wants to make sure she knows there are no hard feelings.
In “The Food Thief”, Kinu knows how terrifying her mother is when angered and while she is still not pleased about being the scapegoat, she decides to let Aya off with a warning on the condition that she doesn’t steal food again and instead asks when she wants or needs something.
Funny enough, this event apparently was originally supposed to have PC witnessing it and if the Young Inari route is chosen, PC has the option of teaching compassion to Kinu by getting Aya’s side of the story (which would have been that she never could reach the apples at dinnertime because she’s the smallest and the basket was always empty by the time it reached her, so she decided to try eating them where she doesn’t have to compete). This reveals that Kinu was partly at fault for this incident because it’s her job to make sure everyone gets a fair share of the food.
Of course, Aya still isn’t off the hook since she still stole the apples, but Kinu will also be getting a stern word. I don’t know if this would have negated the Inari score, but I’m still a little sad this didn’t make it in since it actually shows that Kiyoko is very fair when she has the full story communicated to her (and I always love being involved with my daughter’s life) but I understand it had to be because PC doesn’t exactly have a reason to be there so it’d be awkward.
I’m going to also mention “Flowers for Kiyoko” again because what struck me about the Hime option is that while Kinu still loves the dandelions (what with casting one last regretful glance at them), she also found herself starting to appreciate the lilies more and understand why it’d be favored. I personally interpret that as not so much suddenly thinking dandelions are ugly weeds so much as learning to see why something is traditionally favored and appreciating it as well.
And she can always mess with the dandelions later on her romps anyways.
ANYWAYS! I think I’ll conclude this wall of text by reiterating that ultimately Kinu’s choices are what matter most in what kind of person she’ll be. Will she stand strong for her opinions at all costs or is she willing to swallow her pride in order to understand people better?
Honestly, the nice thing about having all the choices having equally desirable and undesirable outcomes is that it feels more organic on how Kinu turns out, and things actually fit better when you go about it this way.
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@Angelus - Oh yes, late response since I missed it the first time while skimming your comment, but for the scene Kinu is ill, it doesn’t matter whether you help or not. It’s purely a roleplaying choice that depends on what you have (or don’t have) on you.
I incidentally had Winterstem so I used that. It provided a nice soothing menthol vapor in what is basically a ancient humidifier.
I also play on mobile and basically did the same as you in peeking at different routes, but instead of savescumming (it just feels weird for these random events), I stole looks into Observer’s doc on Kinu to save the trouble, lol. I actually already knew most of my answers just from the wiki list with no context, but there were a few I changed my mind on when they turned out to not be what I expected (“Beauty Advice” was the big one; it was not what I thought at all, so I changed from leaning Inari choice to Neutral choice).
I’ve just finally accepted that Kitsune Hime is my most natural route and am content with it for now, hehe.
Honestly, just roll with the option you like best and let things sort out themselves out. I think we’ll all love our own respective Kinus regardless of outcome.
