Talk:Ashi/@comment-30089338-20170521092826

If they were going for a tragic ending, they certainly succeeded, but personally I am extremely displeased with the way they ended it. The entire final season was excellent- right up to the final third of the last episode.

1) If the writers were going to bring up the technicality of Ashi not existing due to Aku's death, they should have made her vanish the instant Aku died.  Spinning out a possible future for her and Jack, only to wipe it away days after the event that caused her erasure from Jack's past, is cruel and pointless.  Also, Jack technically should have been erased from time when Aku first threw him into the portal- since it was his past body that traveled forward- and yet, he didn't.  If they weren't going to use that technicality on Jack, they certainly shouldn't have with Ashi, especially since she was able to manipulate time anyway.  If she inherited Aku's abilities, she ought to be able to keep herself within a certain time.

2)  A major theme over the course of the original four-season run and the final season has been Jack resigning himself to the fact that, even if he does destroy Aku, he will likely never get back to his home.  The fact is, whether Jack destroys Aku in the past or the future, he makes a sacrifice- losing his parents and all his mentor figures from his childhood if he defeats Aku in the past, or losing the many more friends he made in the future.  In the episodes with the Shaolin monks and the archers, he chose to stay and save them rather than return to his time, despite the fact that they would probably be saved anyway if he returned to his time.

Granted, his friends at least wouldn't be made to suffer and would most likely live happy lives without the influence of Aku, while his family will be saved- but Jack would lose all the comrades that he'd made over the years in the future. Again, Jack's over-arcing theme is about making himself a new life, not going back to what he's already lost. If Jack defeated Aku in the future rather than the past, he would grieve over the deaths of his family and mentors- whom he can now never bring back- but he would move forward, as he has already resigned himself to never seeing them again, and he would have a new life with Ashi and his friends. Losing Ashi- and returning to the past- has made both options an impossibility, ending the series on a pessimistic and pointless note, and Jack's attempt to console his grief in his memories of his time with Ashi seems unrealistic, given that in the previous episode he sadly told Ashi "the only way I will ever see home again is through my memories".

Finally, it deprives the series of their only strong leading female character and makes all her efforts and sacrifices seem pointless. I was a huge fan of Ashi and wanted to see her interactions with characters such as the Scotsman. If they had made the final season 13 episodes like the previous four, they could have strung the plot out a bit longer towards the end and made those options more possible. As it was, while the fifth series was extremely well-done up until that last part, it did feel a bit rushed, and that may have contributed to the poor quality of the final episode, but I feel that the writers could have come up with an ending that gave more of a sense of closure- either with the past, or with the future. Oh, well. So sorry, Ashi and Jack...:(