Context: Girl B was in trouble and was also causing trouble. Girl A comes in and over a period of time fights with girl B trying to save her from her torubles and get her to stop. In the end girl A (あ) succeeds and B becomes her friend, standard Anime stuff.

Later B talks with A's mom (Mom A) expressing her gratitude to her for raising A to be someone who despite all persevered and saved her. Now Mom A is recounting this to B's mom (Mom B) and she then says the following:



友達になりたいと思った子が悲しい想いをしていたから 「まっすぐに向かっていっただけ」

Literally this would translate to as roughly:

Certainly my daughter (A) wanted to give aid to a troubled child

Such thoughts/intentions isn't

Because girl/child she wanted to become friends with was having sad thoughts so she just went straight for it/her.

While the first and last line fit together, the middle one feels out of place for Mom A to say there. Unless that's not te-form ない (well I also kinda wonder why use that form) but something else.

One interpretation that I have is that Mom A doesn't think her daughter is that high in noble goals. She thought that for her daughter things were much more simple. She just saw someone she wanted to be friends with being sad and went for it to fix it.

Soo, what's your opinion on this one? On what そんな気持ちはなくて means in this context?

Additional context as requested by Naruto.

Mother A is recounting the meeting she had with B, to Mother B.

Mom A said: "At that time B explained to me the story of the incident when she met A (her daughter) and how A wanted to become friends with her (B) and in order to make it happen she (A) gave it her all".

Then we get a short flashback to that time when Mom A and B spoke and B saying: "Because A persisted, because she saved me, I exist now...Such A was born by and brought up by you. I thought/felt/wanted (omou) to thank you for that."

As for A's character she is the person who would help if she can. Later she joins an organization specifically to save people and like. But in this specific case, the first time she ran into B she was in no position to do any saving since B kinda trashed her in combat. But also A saw that she felt sad and decided she wanted to become her friend.


きっと娘は困っている子を助けてあげたい in isolation is not a natural sentence because of this rule, so you should be able to notice something more complicated is happening. Here, the first two lines form one clause, like this:

Probably my daughter has no such feeling/intention as "I want to help someone in trouble" (, and ...)

I want some more context about A's character and how B praised her, but probably the mother is saying A helped B not because it's generally a good thing to help people in trouble, but simply because A liked B. A may not be a kind of person who is willing to help anyone in trouble. A may not be aware of the fact that she was doing something praiseworthy or "noble". Anyway, A innocently did what she wanted to do toward someone she cares for.

  • Context added. I wouldn't say that she, back when the incident happened, was someone who went around seeking people to help, but she would help if she could. In this case it was more that she saw someone she wanted to be friends with. She basically shortcircuited the higher noble goals via simpler ones. – 4th Dimension Aug 17 '18 at 12:49

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