In many of the reviews of Grave of the fireflies that I've read/heard the reviewer seems to think that it's Seita's fault that little Setsuko dies. In my Ghibli book the authors even write that Seita killed his little sister. I have a really hard time grasping this concept. For me, the message of the movie seems to be that in war, it's always the weakest who suffer most. Seita is no hero (there are no heroes in Takahata's movies) but he's not a villain either. He's just a young boy trying to make the best of an impossible situation. Sure, he makes some unwise choices, but hey, he's like 12-14 years old. I've always understood the movie so that Seita is as much a victim as Setsuko. What do you think about this common conception of Setsuko's death being Seita's fault?

Seita is responsible for his sister and he tries his best with the knowledge that he has as a young teenager and unfortunately, that isn't enough...

Other than that, I see no blame attaching to him at all, just an unfortunate set of circumstances. If anything, I tend to put blame on his Aunt... It wasn't the children's fault that they were in the predicament that they were in.

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I do not think it is the fault of seita only

as most of the people[who say it was seita's fault] are not from asia they do not know the feel of the bad behavior of their aunt. As seita's father was a big officer. So he was not poor. So he had that pride inside him. Deprivation of people[relatives] in Asia is something i am ashamed of. It is present in all asian country where there is micro family. Actually if anything could be blamed it should be the war and the micro family system

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It's not so much of him literally killing his sister, it's that he feels responsible for her death. It's more along the line of, "It's my fault that she died; I killed her," implying that his negligence was the cause of her death.

It's not exactly an uncommon situation, really. You see in the news how a mother blames herself when her child turns into a serial killer, even though she had no idea.

The idea that Seita is at fault lies in the fact that his pride led him to run away from a safe home, no matter how badly he was treated (not very bad actually, considering the situation), and Setsuko was simply dragged into the continually worsening situation, which caused her death. Even one of the characters he met in the story told him to suck up his pride and go home to his aunt's house for Setsuko's sake, but he never did. Presumably, his pride simply did not allow him to do so.

We have to remember that the Japanese at that time were pretty much brainwashed to have Samurai-level pride; pride in their country's strength, pride in their social standing. Seita's pride was simply that.

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Originally posted by fenkashi
Screw your opinions, they are not relevant ^^.

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I agree that it is partly the aunts fault because of the way she treated them it lead to pushing them away from there family but you could blame seita for the fact that he left the aunts house taking setsuko with him without proper preperation I always understood it that he couldn't swallow his pride and therefore left!! In the long run leading to the death of setsuko!!

But it's yet not confirm, we have to watch out more. We couldn't blame Seita for everything...

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livres neufs

Though he did attempt to take them out alone, out of pride, and he did seem to delay in trying to get help, he did try. Well before she got really serious. Where he went was useless. They did nothing but push him on out the door. It's questionable whether there was any other option possible to him in that situation. Give her to an orphanage that might send him elsewhere because he was so much older? Maybe his only other choice, if it was even available.

I haven't heard anything more specific on the original story, other than the author's little sister died on malnourishment and lack of care during that time. No clue if it was such an extreme situation, of two kids alone.

While watching the final scenes, I felt it was his reluctance to seek help, but he never even discussed of looked for anything he could have done, besides try on his own. At the very end, I no longer felt it was his fault; rather the situation.

What annoyed me was how it took him so long to guy buy the food. I know he had to conserve money but his sister was sick and food was the only way to help.

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Originally posted by Heidi80
In many of the reviews of Grave of the fireflies that I've read/heard the reviewer seems to think that it's Seita's fault that little Setsuko dies. In my Ghibli book the authors even write that Seita killed his little sister. I have a really hard time grasping this concept. For me, the message of the movie seems to be that in war, it's always the weakest who suffer most. Seita is no hero (there are no heroes in Takahata's movies) but he's not a villain either. He's just a young boy trying to make the best of an impossible situation. Sure, he makes some unwise choices, but hey, he's like 12-14 years old. I've always understood the movie so that Seita is as much a victim as Setsuko. What do you think about this common conception of Setsuko's death being Seita's fault?

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