There are a lot of misconceptions about Cana's character, but the most common is that she's 'a drunk'. In the series she is frequently seen with a barrel and almost every character has mentioned her drinking at one point or another. I won't say that her drinking isn't a defining point in her character development but it certainly isn't the only one. She's got lots of qualities, and a whole lot of depth that I believe people sometimes forget or don't notice. |
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We'll go from big to small, and discuss the most impact her character had; the S-Class trials. We learn that Cana has participated three years in a row, and has yet to qualify, despite it being quite an accomplishment just to get chosen, she berates herself for her incapability. We see that Cana has a lot of self-hate and also a hatred of losing. She is briefly willing to put Lucy in danger in order to achieve S-Class. Later on, we discover the reason for her obsession with becoming S-Class. Her father is Gildarts Clive, one of the most powerful mages in history, and the most powerful in Fairy Tail.
This is where people tend to over look her character growth, in favor of the relationship with her father. See, it says a lot about her as a person that she strove to improve herself before she told Gildarts he was her father. Cana very clearly struggles with a lot of problems that happen to real people everyday, self-hatred, depression and a projection. Instead of dealing with her feelings of unworthiness, she projected them all onto to S-Class trials and passing them. Despite all of this plus her drinking, Cana is not an alcoholic. An alcoholic is someone who drinks out of compulsion and in attempts to forget. She doesn't do this, in fact it's almost the opposite. She can stop drinking any time she pleases, and also she doesn't do it to forget her problems, she does it out of fun. She likes drinking, has control over it, and the habit never negatively impacts her, or anyone else for that matter, life.
Now something slightly smaller, but still very impactful, is her crush on Macao. A man significantly older than her. This was before she admitted her parentage to anyone, and I believe that she was once again trying to project her problems with Gildarts onto Macao. Replacing the lack parental love with whatever she could get. A lot of women, and men, suffer from this type of mentality. The term coined would be 'daddy issues'.
All in all, Cana is a very deep character with a lot of real-world problems. Unlike many characters in fiction, her main conflict isn't with an enemy, it's with her own emotions. The conflict that she overcame was self-hatred and confessing to her father that she was his daughter. Even if she didn't feel worthy of it. And she actually overcame these problems and became a better person because of it. Something I think a lot of people in her situation can't see themselves doing. Cana's a bit of a role model in that regard, because she got to a place in her emotional state where she's working things out. Shes' not completely healed yet, but there is progress. |