However, a novelist Michiko NAGAI made a completely different explanation that Sugen-in was not so beautiful as her mother and sisters and not quick-witted, but she could calmly take any fate in stride and added charms to herself each time she got over it.
が、作家永井路子は彼女を母や姉達ほど美人でもなく機転が利く訳でもないが、どんな運命に巻き込まれても平然と受け流し、その度に魅力を増していく女性という、全く別の解釈をしている。