Sit down bitches, I’m gonna talk at you about my girl.
Kagome has no supernatural strength or powers, no helpful curse. She wasn’t trained for battle her whole life. She doesn’t know how to fight, handle weapons, or cast spells. She possesses great spiritual energy, and that’s about it. She was raised with modern day conveniences, a loving family, and a sheltered life.
Offucking course she stays on the sidelines. Kagome is smart. When Inuyasha tells her to stay back, she very rarely ever complains, because she knows she stands no chance out there. She would only be in the way, she understands that. It’s perfectly rational for the others to have to protect her, and it’s perfectly logical for her to be targeted as ‘the damsel in distress.’ Battlewise she’s their weakest link.
But you also have to take into consideration her strengths. Kagome is an archer, not the best in the world, but she gets the job done. As a long range fighter, she needs to be at the back of the ‘formation.’ She needs the others to cover her so she can hit the mark when it really counts. Another argument that I see often is that she just stands there the entire battle, but think, she only has a limited number of arrows. They’re traveling around, never knowing when they could come across another village and the opportunity to restock. She can’t afford to waste her arrows, so she waits until the perfectmoment to strike.
All that being said, you have to give her major props. If most people complaining about her were thrown into the middle ages, given a stick and some string, and told to go kill a dragon, they’d shit their pants and high tail it out of there. Kagome still manages to keep up with the others. She provides her assets, her spiritual powers and ability to find the jewel, and then gets the fuck out of the way when she needs to.
Just because she isn’t physically strong doesn’t make her a weak and useless cheerleader of a character. Don’t you go talkin’ shit about my precious girl.
