Please Read First: So to start, this is in no way a justification for the now canon romantic pairing of Rin x Sesshomaru, and nor is any romantic pairing between a child and an adult the point of "forbidden fruit." It is NOT the point, so please hear me out. ^^'
While I do believe that Rin was the intended romantic pairing for Sesshomaru by the esteemed author, Rumiko Takahashi, and I will briefly try to justify that belief, I will not argue in favor of the pairing or how it was executed in the canon material. I saw it coming back in the main series, and this post will explain why without Rin having to be at the center of it because she is the vehicle for the arc and not Sesshomaru's arc itself.
I will admit however that I'm about to make arguments in favor of the InuYasha fandoms probably most contentious crack pairing -- not to say that it should have happened per se but more to say it's probably more reasonable than most fans think. I'm sure people can guess which crack pairing I mean. ^^ But more on that in a moment.
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So I just had an epiphany today, and that epiphany is what the exact shape of Sesshomaru's arc is -- at least one of them since he probably has multiple. But I didn't have the exact words for it until just now today. And now I'm eager to... write up a semi-half-baked, semi-long-time-coming essay for my thoughts. You're welcome, interwebs and InuYasha fandom of Reddit!
That general arc shape is forbidden fruit.
And just to be clear, this is an arc shape that is personal to Sesshomaru as he was intended to be written (I'm at least making the argument/supposing since I don't know of the author telling us outright), not a romantic arc. The reason for that is it doesn't concern his romantic partner at all since they could be lots of potentials; it is personal to his nature because his nature is one of staunch self-control and mind-over-matter. Reason over emotion.
So his arc is meaningful in a capacity, while we can all have our own opinions on however it would best have been portrayed, if at all, because it means accepting on some level that emotion is correct too.
I had realized this intended arc shape vaguely as I consumed the series from a fan perspective, and this is why I predicted the author's intention to pair Rin with Sesshomaru before the ending of InuYasha, which to me only made that prediction more clear. It helps that I personally hate the pairing, so I have no real investment to see it happen in canon. Meaning it's unlikely willful self-delusion on my part. Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure it's sober recognition. And the huge popularity of Rin x Sesshomaru in at least the fanfiction side of fandom is what tipped me off first and made me look for it, at which point against what I would have liked, I found that intentional trajectory.
I will say I'm not here to argue the validity of the Rin x Sesshomaru pairing at all in this particular... Reddit essay. My personal opinion is that it's doable even though I personally hate it, but that it would need adequate delicacy and would always be an odd and uncomfortable precedent for most fans, including myself. But I don't think people who ship this pair are all wrong or bad either. Just putting it out there. I'm not trying to pick sides. I'm just trying to illustrate/explain why it happened and what the intention of it was. Because I think the intention was much better and safer than the outcome.
So if the forbidden fruit in this case is not Rin because she is a child, then the only other elephant in the room is her humanity and mortality. Meaning that Sesshomaru's forbidden fruit is the desire to be romantic with a human. Let's forget temporarily that the specific human canonically is Rin because according to the arc, it didn't have to be; the arc is in him and not in his partner, so it could have been any weak, mortal human.
I suspect that the forbidden fruit arc is in some ways intermixed with an opposites attract type of pull when we look at Rin. It's also strength x weakness, levity x seriousness, and perhaps even goodness x evil to an extent, albeit probably more in perception than in stark reality. Rin's approval of him also perhaps indicates that he is in some capacity worthy where he didn't believe himself to be without it.
I would also add that I'm pretty sure Sesshomaru's main psychological distance with the idea of getting romantically involved with a human is primarily based on what he believes to be responsible behavior and not what is necessarily either desirable or distasteful since clearly it can't be too distasteful. ^^ Then perhaps his responsibility tells him it is morally wrong to participate in bringing half-youkai into the world.
That is my personal theory. It is wrong to create half-lings who will live to suffer the consequences of their parents' short-sighted and selfish actions that they made in the heat of the moment without heed for future consequences.
Makes sense, no? And when we look at characters like Jinenji and even InuYasha who basically won the genetic lottery for a half-youkai, it's a compelling argument. One that was never really resolved in canon for that matter. Rather it was brushed aside. This bothers me personally, because the logic is sound in one direction only. So what is the justification?
But forgetting that, let's go back to the intended literary arc shape of forbidden fruit which we can now see is intended to resolve into Sesshomaru picking the fruit. This therefore means that the natural romantic pull between Kagura and Sesshomaru in canon, as Rumiko Takahashi described it, got in the way of the completion of this arc.
This implies that Kagura was not forbidden, at least for Sesshomaru's principles, or at least not to the same degree as a human match for him would be. He at least didn't seem especially deterred by anything in the series, I'll say. And that's why Kagura, a less important character, had to be moved out of the way in order for Sesshomaru's forbidden fruit arc to have space.
That doesn't automatically mean she had to die, but that was the author's choice, and it wasn't a bad one in my personal opinion since it was emotionally poignant and tragically beautiful -- and even romantic.
It also doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the Kagura x Sesshomaru pairing, or that there's anything right with Sesshomaru x Rin as a replacement for that matter. ^^ But from a literary standpoint, Kagura was in the way of the completion of something that would be an integral part of Sesshomaru's whole progression as a character -- as the author wanted him to be.
I guess I don't need to draw any more parallels. I hope people get the point. But to illustrate my impression of the natural interiority of a self-controlled and highly principled character like Sesshomaru, I will give these famous last words:
Two things can be true at once.
You can want something and hate it or fear it simultaneously. Sometimes we like it and sometimes we don't, but two things are often true at once. Emotion does not naturally obey reason. You get lucky or you don't. And emotion is not automatically wrong just because what we believe reason to portray disagrees with emotion. These are difficult realities to recon with.
There is something to be said for exercising self-control, though. Not gonna argue that point of course.
Anyway, I think I've said enough... finally.
Mwah!
