To me, Sui-Feng (or Soi Fon) vs Yoruichi Shihoin remains one of the best fights in Bleach's Soul Society arc. Young me was so fascinated by the fight's cool characters, cool choreography, and heartbreaking "Why didn't you take me with you?" line at the end. Now, older me has one more thing to add to the list: How the fight reveals Sui-Feng's complex character. I know that Sui-Feng is one of the most hated characters in the series, and though I don't hate her that much, I understand why. Sui-Feng is harsh, arrogant, and unhealthily obsessed with Yoruichi. I'd like to show you that there is a reason why she developed these traits (particularly arrogance) through analyzing Sui-Feng and Yoruichi's battle. I argue that these negative traits are related to Sui-Feng's poor sense of self-worth, resulting in a need to always prove herself.
Note: Sui-Feng vs Yoruichi Shihoin is scattered across chapters 153, 154, 157, 158, and 159 of the Bleach manga.
Strength and Worth
Chapter 159 gives us a glimpse of Sui-Feng's past and what she was taught to believe as a child. This is important because Sui-Feng believes in and follows that teaching. It becomes the foundation of her character and also the source of her problems.
Since the Feng family is a family of soldiers, Sui-Feng was taught that her self-worth is determined by her strength. Sui-Feng was also told to serve Yoruichi with her life, which may have resulted in Sui-Feng equating success in serving Yoruichi to her own self-worth. There is a close link between her identity as a soldier and her identity as a family member: she wouldn't be considered family if she failed to join the militia. This harshness from her family contributes to Sui-Feng's own harshness. Also, the seeds of her obsession with Yoruichi may have been planted here.
We also find out that all of Sui-Feng's brothers died in the line of duty, and guess how she reacted?
The teaching Sui-Feng received was ingrained so deep that instead of grieving or crying, she felt ashamed of their incompetence. If I'm not mistaken, a Tumblr user pointed out that Sui-Feng didn't have the chance to cultivate and learn to deal with her emotions properly. This is why she can have naive emotional outbursts like those in the Thousand Year Blood War arc (during the captain's meeting after the first invasion and during the Zero Division's brief visit) despite her cold facade. Like what many have said, this is also reflected in her bankai, which is a literal rocket launcher, as opposed to her stealthy shikai. Sui-Feng's dislike of her own bankai may suggest that she dislikes this emotional part of herself.
So Sui-Feng defines herself through her strength. If she's not strong, she's worthless. If she's not useful, she's worthless. If she fails in her duty as Yoruichi's guard, she's worthless. Then came Yoruichi's disappearance. I think it's very likely that this kind of thought crossed Sui-Feng's mind: "Was I not taken along because of my incompetence?". This destroys her sense of worth. Of course, I'm not saying that this is all there is. Sui-Feng must have felt hurt as a person as well, since it looks like Yoruichi gave Sui-Feng that love and affection not present in the Feng family. More on this later.
Being Stronger
With a destroyed sense of self-worth and all the hurt from Yoruichi's disappearance, Sui-Feng's obsession with Yoruichi continues, but this time on a quest for "revenge". She finally encounters Yoruichi again, and in their battle, Sui-Feng is so fixated on the supposed fact that she is now stronger than Yoruichi. (Side note: In the beginning of their fight, Sui-Feng discarded her captain's haori. I like how MrTommo2304 on YouTube interpreted this to mean that Sui-Feng is now making the fight personal. She's not fighting as a captain, but as a person.)
Sui-Feng needed to convince and to prove to both herself and Yoruichi that she was not worthless, and the only thing she knew about not being worthless is to be strong. That's why she's so arrogant in the battle in Yoruichi. That's why she needs to reaffirm over and over again that she is the stronger one. (A constant need to reaffirm something suggests that the thing is not stable, no?) That's why she took over Yoruichi's past titles, and that's why she wants to take the Shunshin title for herself. Those titles are a tangible manifestation that Sui-Feng's strength. That's why when Yoruichi reveals that she knows shunko, Sui-Feng becomes so distraught. Those titles aren't enough. They do show that Sui-Feng is (somewhat) at the same level Yoruichi was. However, Sui-Feng wanted to be not just as strong as Yoruichi, but stronger than Yoruichi. There has to be a difference. Something Sui-Feng has or can do, but Yoruichi doesn't have or cannot do. And Sui-Feng thought that was shunko.
Proven wrong, Sui-Feng loses her cool, unlike how she initially was before this moment. And finally, she reverts back to that little girl who so ardently worshipped her goddess. The original Japanese version makes this even more apparent. Sui-Feng returns to addressing Yoruichi using honorific speech/humble language (kenjyougo) after she had been speaking roughly throughout the whole fight.
This question, then, is not just a statement - "I would've gone anywhere with you" - but also a question of worth. Sui-Feng is asking, "Am I worthless?". I think this question makes it clear that Sui-Feng's real goal is to prove her worth (whether she realizes it or not). By reinforcing her sense of worth and identity through the things I have mentioned above, Sui-Feng thought that she would have been able to prove Yoruichi wrong, to show that Yoruichi should have taken Sui-Feng along with her. This helps us understand why she didn't just kill her former mentor by slitting her throat when she clearly had the moment to. She needs to show Yoruichi her strength, and she needs Yoruichi to validate her self-worth.
This is in line with what Sui-Feng said when she was first introduced in chapter 138. She doesn't care about right or wrong. She doesn't care that Yoruichi had broken the rules by disappearing. She wouldn't care either if Yoruichi taking her along would mean breaking Soul Society's laws. She would be with Yoruichi, her worth validated, and that is all that mattered to Sui-Feng.
Internally Known vs Externally Instilled Values
I briefly mentioned earlier that I will be returning to the idea that this whole ordeal is not only about Sui-Feng's self worth, but also the hurt she experienced as a person regardless of status. I will discuss that here. I think there is a tension between what Sui-Feng internally knows she deserves as a person (respect, acknowledgement, etc.) and the values instilled in herself by external forces.
If Sui-Feng was only occupied with her worth as Yoruichi's servant, I think she would have simply blamed herself for not being strong enough. With such audacity in the outburst above ("I will never forgive you! You betrayed my respect and trust!"), Sui-Feng sounds like she were someone of great status that Yoruichi had wronged. It is tempting to attribute this to her arrogance, and I won't deny that her arrogance may have made a contribution as well. The human experience is complex, after all, and a lot of things are not clear-cut. However, it makes more sense to me to see this largely as Sui-Feng speaking as a person who is hurt (and that hurt might have been needlessly amplified by her unhealthy obsession.) She knows deep down that as a person, she deserved better treatment. She deserved a goodbye, at least*. This is in conflict with the external values that reduce her to a nobody, to someone else's hands and feet, to someone whose life is meant to be thrown away for another person. The fact that Sui-Feng didn't mention her hurt from the beginning seems to show that the external values have a tight grip on her. Perhaps Sui-Feng found it shameful to admit she is hurt (since she was supposed to be a nobody), and only spills the beans when pushed to the brink.
*This doesn't mean I'm pinning all the blame on Yoruichi. It's important to note that Sui-Feng didn't know the circumstances that forced Yoruichi to flee without saying goodbye. Had she known, perhaps she wouldn't have hated Yoruichi.
On a related note, there was an interesting comment on YouTube that tried to explain why Sui-Feng is so harsh to Omaeda. The commenter proposed that the hurt Sui-Feng experienced might make her want to prevent the same thing from happening again, which leads her to push her subordinates away. She avoids forging a bond with others because she thinks it may one day backfire again.
Conclusion
Sui-Feng is a complex character. There are reasons behind her negative traits, but that doesn't mean they can be justified. Sui-Feng's main problem lies with her own self-worth. A part of her knows that she has worth as a person, and she needs to work on that instead of continuously making her own worth hinge on how useful she is to Yoruichi Shihoin. In universe, maybe a reason we can give as to why these two are (unfortunately) not seen interacting again is because Yoruichi knows of this problem and hopes that her absence may lessen the obsession. It's also unfortunate that Sui-Feng is not given a major development in the story. Although it's quite understandable since she's a side character, her immediately reverting back to her obsession with Yoruichi makes her look like she learned nothing, which is...quite odd. Anyway, this topic deserves its own separate post - let's stop here before I go off on a tangent.
Well then! That concludes this lengthy analysis of Sui-Feng through her fight with Yoruichi Shihoin. I hope it was understandable and enjoyable :)
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