5350


Oreki is a usually lazy and energy-saving kind of guy. After meeting Chitanda,
Oreki is unable to refuse her requests. Why can't he refuse it? Is this
because he is in love with her or is it a form of hypnosis?

![](https://i.stack.imgur.com/t9jNL.jpg)


CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-09-28T00:27:15.153
5340
2014-08-09T17:21:29.447
2014-08-09T16:52:41.423
191
1458
question
hyouka
Why can't Oreki refuse Chitanda?


First things first - no, it is not a form of hypnosis. Hyouka is entirely
devoid of supernatural elements. The notion is absurd on its face.

Anyway, why can't Houtarou refuse Chitanda? There are a few reasons for this,
and they change over the course of the show.

* * *

## Chitanda's force of personality

Let's take a look at episode **1**. When Chitanda asks Houtarou to help her
find out why she got locked in the room, we get that scene where Chitanda's
hair captures Houtarou. This is, of course, a representation of how Houtarou
views the situation at hand, and suggests that there was something very
persuasive about the way Chitanda asked him. If we turn to the novel's version
of this scene, we find that:

> 千反田のその眼差《まなざ》しには、いい加減な返事は許さないというような一種異様な力があった。それに圧倒されて、俺の声は間抜けになった。
>
> Chitanda's eyes held some sort of strange power, one that forbade me from
> giving her an offhand response. Her gaze overwhelmed me, and left me
> sounding like a fool.

As this suggests, at the very beginning of the story, Houtarou is spurred to
action not out of love for Chitanda or anything, but rather by Chitanda's
immense force of personality.

In episode **15** , we see that Chitanda has more or less the same effect on
Masashi Tohgaito when she's trying to get him to include the Classics Club in
the next issue of the wall newspaper. (Irisu suggested that she use her
feminine wiles, but Chitanda didn't really manage to pull that off.)

## Houtarou is a pragmatic person

In the second half of episode **1** , Houtarou has Satoshi help him fabricate
the story of the secret club. Why? Because, as he himself notes, if he hadn't,
Chitanda would have dragged him off to the music room to investigate the so-
called ghost that supposedly appeared there. In a sense, he chose the better
of two bad options.

While they wait for the librarian in episode **2** , Chitanda becomes curious
about why the school history book gets loaned out every day. At first, he
tries to get Chitanda to stop pestering him, but soon realizes that refusing
her any more would actually be _more costly_ than just acceding to her
demands.

Houtarou, being a very pragmatic sort of person, will sometimes do a small
amount of work in order to avoid having to do even more work.

## Chitanda is pretty pushy

In episode **2** , Chitanda actually grabs Houtarou and drags him to the
library to search for the club's archived anthologies, thus justifying his
fear in the second half of episode **1** of being forced to go all the way to
the music room. Later in the episode, with the mystery of the frequently-
returned book, Chitanda shoves the book in Houtarou's face until he finally
gives in.

Point here is, Chitanda can be a pushy kind of person.

## Sometimes, Houtarou just doesn't have anything better to do

As his sister notes in her letter from Varanasi, Houtarou should join the
Classics Club because (if for no other reason) he isn't doing anything better
with his time. In episode **3** , when Houtarou agrees to help Chitanda out
(to a certain degree) with the matter of her uncle, he thinks back to his
sister's letter and figures that indeed, there's not really any good reason
for him to say no - as long as it doesn't involve going too far out of his
way.

In episode **20** , when Chitanda invites Houtarou to visit the Arekusu shrine
on New Years', he again agrees, mostly because he doesn't have anything better
to do. (His thought process is elucidated upon a bit more in the novels,
making it clear that this was mostly why he agreed to go.)

* * *

These are more or less the reasons why Houtarou does anything towards the
beginning of the show. As Houtarou develops, though, he starts developing
other motivations.

* * *

## Houtarou actually starts wanting to do things

In episode **18** , Houtarou decides he wants to look into Mr. Ogi and why he
was struck by lightning thrice, and hence goes out of his way (all the way to
the public library) to learn more about the matter.

This is presumably a result of Chitanda's influence on him over the preceding
months (not that Satoshi, Ibara, and others didn't play a part either). He's
different now than he was at the beginning, when he was wholly devoted to his
tenets of energy conservation.

## Houtarou probably develops feelings for Chitanda

In episode **21** , we see Houtarou flustered when when Chitanda tells him
that, in her family, it is customary not to give gifts to people who they are
truly close to. Later in the same episode, Houtarou's anger with Satoshi over
the stolen chocolate incident by and large is due to the fact that Chitanda
was hurt by the incident.

And, of course, in episode **22** , Houtarou imagines telling Chitanda that
he'd be willing to take on the business side of things to help her out. He
then realizes that the way he felt as he thought about that might have been
how Satoshi felt when he chose to break Ibara's chocolate in the previous
episode. This can be interpreted in various ways; one possible (and common)
interpretation is that he realizes he's fallen for Chitanda.

* * *

So yes, towards the end of the story, it's possible that Houtarou is motivated
by love for Chitanda, but towards the beginning, he's more pragmatically-
motivated than anything.


CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-09-28T15:17:54.273
5350
2013-09-28T15:17:54.273
2020-06-17T09:17:53.303
-1
1908
5340
answer


Chitanda possesses a pure and almost childlike curiosity which helps to unlock
Oreki's, which he suppresses.


CC BY-SA 3.0
2013-10-29T05:45:19.833
5635
2013-10-29T05:45:19.833
2631
5340
answer


Senshin's answer is great and covers all the basics very well, but I think
there is a more subtle element in Oreki's mind that doesn't allow him to
refuse Chitanda's adventurous nature.

_Note: I haven't read the novel, and my point of view is based solely on the
anime adaptation._

Throughout the series we see how Oreki starts out as a passive chill guy who
seemingly doesn't waste his talents on anything bothersome, although he
actually often does some things that are evidence to the opposite.

Whenever Chitanda says she's interested in something, it looks like she is
voicing Oreki's own thoughts. She does it so avidly, in fact, that he is
unable to resist his own will boosted by Chitanda's personality.

At the beginning, Oreki doesn't try to do anything, and suppresses his inner
voice calling out for him to go on an interesting investigation. But as the
series progresses, he learns to listen to that voice (or rather through
listening to Chitanda's voice, he learns to listen to his own).

In my opinion, Oreki never was that much opposed to interesting things. Look
at him read stuff all the time. And he's pretty knowledgeable, too. How could
a person disinterested in everything know that much? And with Chitanda's help
he could finally unshackle from his chains of passivity, become who he was
truly meant to be − a detective. Of course he couldn't resist Chitanda after
she helped him through all that.


CC BY-SA 3.0
2014-08-09T17:21:29.447
13331
2014-08-09T17:21:29.447
191
5340
answer