Done Looking for some help with a phrase

[yukihito]

I'm confused about the meaning of 「外堀が埋まる」, on this page:

Spoiler

Here's the previous page, if it's necessary:

Spoiler

I've tried looking at several sentences using that phrase, but I don't have any idea of what it could mean. The literal meaning doesn't seem to fit here either.

Thanks a lot for your time!

 

[cmertb]

http://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q147332274 Well, based on the discussion here, the meaning of the idiom to "fill in the outer moat [presumably, before storming the castle]" is "remove the surrounding obstacles in order to reach the objective". I don't know how it fits the context. Maybe the point is that the character misused the expression.

 

[yukihito]

I've already come across the phrase 「外堀を埋める」, but I got the impression it had a different meaning from 「外堀が埋まる」. Then the meaning of 「外堀を埋める」 doesn't really seem to fit with the context either. Even if the character is misusing it, I still don't exactly understand.

 

[cmertb]

I think the phrase is the same, it's just a change in the subject to fit the grammatical structure.

Anyway, a larger context would help here, but the meaning might be "all defenses are coming down one by one" (like someone is trying to get through to her and she's ambivalent about it).

 

[yukihito]

Okay, I'll try to give some context. In the earlier chapters, the main character and his sister ended up moving in with her (Hibino, the woman in those two pages) after his apartment got destroyed (by the antagonist of the series, who's chasing the main character). So when the scene in those two pages occurred, the main character and his sister had already been at her house for a while.

I don't know if this works, but could she be implying that she's having trouble adapting to her situation (like having to live her own life and help out the main character too)? Sorry if I'm really far off the mark, but that's all I could think of right now.

 

[cmertb]

Yeah, I think this could work. Depends on her attitude to them moving in. Maybe she's talking about them dismantling parts of her life that she's gotten used to one by one. Anyway, I think this has moved beyond Japanese and more into interpretation of literary works.

For the specifically Japanese part (i.e. the meaning of the expression), probably a third (and a fourth, and a fifth) opinion would be helpful here.

 

[yukihito]

I'll go with that then. Thanks a lot, cmertb!

Yeah, hopefully someone will be able to give a detailed explanation of it later on.