It’s interesting that Yin deals with water, as it is one of the general symbols for emotions and primal creativity. The cups in Tarot, for example, symbolize water and creative endeavors. The swords are air and intellect, by the way, and it strikes me that Li uses electricity and a knife.
Of course, neither of them actually fulfill the roles they appear to be symbolizing — together they would make a creative whole, order and emotion, Apollonian and Dionysian powers. Yin is emotionless and Li chugs along without thinking of much. This changes over the course of the series, though, so perhaps that’s what we’re meant to see, the beginning of a foundation to move forward from. This does leave us wondering where the cat figures in, of course…
Episodes 13 and 14 of Darker than Black feature Yin’s back story, and the return of our favorite detective, Kurosawa Gai. His name seemed to strike a familar chord with the man searching for Yin, so I wonder if it’s a reference to something other than general, noir-esque anonymity.
In fact, Gai ends up being our moral center, claiming that “no one on Earth should be treated like a doll.” Huang ends up, to some extent, siding with him (though obviously they don’t know each other). Indeed, the two of them seem very similar: earthy and rude, they strike me as the serious and humorous side of the same coin: regular people dealing with the events around them. In fact, with no agenda (and/or fear) driving him in the same way Huang has, Gai ends up being more personable, more humane: it takes him no time at all to empathize with Yin, whereas it takes a supposed impossibility to force Huang into it.
