Wish

Her Heart's Desire

Many of the characters in X have a particular wish—often a wish that means giving their lives for someone or something else. Dark Kamui, formerly known as Fuuma, can see a person's true wish and seeks to grant it, usually by killing or maiming that person. If a person wants to die to protect someone, like Daisuke hoped to die protecting Princess Hinoto, he will give them the chance to do so. Anyone with a death wish is in particular danger, meaning that Karen will probably die before the end of the story. Her wish, in specific terms, is to find someone will cry for her when she is dead.

Karen's wish, like much about Karen, goes back to her relationship with her mother. When she was young, her mother prayed to God and wished Karen was dead so she would no longer be burdened with protecting a demon child. Despite her mother's harsh words, she still believes that her mother would be sad if she were to die, so when her mother was killed, she thought she lost the only person who would care if she was dead. Her mother left her so isolated and emotionally bruised that she did not believe that anyone else would ever love her enough to care that she was dead, let alone give his or her life for her sake.

It's a lonely feeling—believing that you life has so little impact, so little meaning to others, that no one would be sad if you were no longer around. Karen chooses to live a lifestyle that keeps her safe, but also isolated from deep relationships, meaning that her desire to have someone care enough about her to cry when she is gone cannot be met, which intensifies the desire. Still, the cost of trying to fill a desire, particularly an emotional desire, is the possibility of rejection. This is hardly surprising, considering the way her mother emotionally abused Karen. What is surprising is the compassion she feels for others despite believing that they will not return her feelings.

Now that she is a member of the Dragons of Heaven, she has found people who will be deeply saddened if she were to die. Seiichirou scolded her for trying to throw her life away to keep the others from helping her and risking their lives, telling her that she should realize that he would be terribly upset if she were to die. Kamui and the other Dragons of Heaven have also come to care about Karen and would be sad if she were no longer around. They may not care about her as specifically and deeply as Seiichirou, but they are her comrades and, to a certain extent, her friends.

In a way, her wish has already been granted by finding these people, but now she wants to protect them, even if that means giving her life. Her new wish may be to die protecting them, but specifically Seiichirou, so that they will cry for her. This may seem rather silly—wanting to make other people sad—but the desires of the heart in X are rarely practical and often selfish. Dark Kamui indicates that Karen has a death wish in volume eighteen following their fight in which Kazuki (formerly Nataku) died protecting Karen. She is furious that he would kill one of his comrades and denies that dying for her could have been his wish, but Kamui replies, “What do you wish for above all else? You have one too... A wish you can't help but feel. Even if it would make someone sad, you want it just the same.” She wants to die to protect someone, but she feels great sorrow and pain because someone died to protect her. It is an interesting contradiction, which is something that Dark Kamui points out to her.

Because of her encounter with Kazuki and Dark Kamui, it is possible that she will change or modify her wish. It may be that instead of wanting to die, thereby protecting the person who matters most to her but making that person sad, that she will want to live for that person's sake, so they will not have to feel sorrow. Still, it seems pretty likely that her wish will remain the same and she will die in the end. That is, of course, if the manga is ever finished.

CLEAR