#Something about understanding each other on a deeper level due to a shared criminal past and understanding each others bullshit

[datingsimreviews]

Steam prison is genuinely a good game. Like the world and fantasy of the whole thing really immerses you, and each of the love interests are complex well written characters. Not only that but each of the endings adds more to the story and some of the “none good endings” can even be seen as better if you’re more interested in the world’s politics instead of smooching some guys.

Plot:

The plot is as follows. 400 years ago there was a big flood. All of the scientists made a tower in the sky to escape the flood. They left for their new country and didn’t allow the rest of the people to join them because they didn’t have enough room. The flood came and killed most of the people, their culture and animals, but they managed to rise up anyway and create steam punk land.

The main character Cyrus is from the heights (the tower), one of the descendants of those scientists that left. She’s a police officer and people only descend to the lower level nowadays if they’ve committed a crime. They’re exiled to the “depths”.

After checking out the depths on an observation mission after passing a police exam, (Because police are required to look at the sanctuary district in the depths if they move up in rank) Cyrus’s parents are murdered and she is charged with the crime of their murder. She’s immediately exiled with no formal investigation into the depths.

Each route focuses on her exile in a little different way uncovering a little bit more of why her parents were murdered and about this world.

  Ines:

Usually I firmly advocate for players to choose their first character to play and not get a set of guidelines or something. However in this case I really like playing Ines’s route first because he’s the only route that lets you truly punch your parent’s murders face (besides just uncovering who ordered it or why).

Ines is the second in command of the HOUNDS, the police who monitor the criminals in the sanctuary district. The HOUNDS are basically the definition of police brutality, killing and hunting their criminal victims as much as they want and beating people up. Ines follows the Head’s orders knowing it’s evil under hope that he can go back to the Heights someday and investigate the crime his partner was charged with.

The Hounds don’t come to the depths themselves out of choice, they’re moved dishonorabley there too, making most of them very very bitter. In the Heights Police work in pairs and if one police officer commits a crime and is exiled their pair isn’t reassigned they’re moved discharged and moved into the Hounds. But Ines never believed his partner committed a crime and thinks it was falsified charges sort of like what’s happening with you.

He’s lowered himself into a monster in hopes that he can get justice for the dead.

The romance in Ines’s route makes a fair bit of sense, given that Cyrus (the protagonist) becomes his teacher in the ways of nobility and is just given time to sit around all day thinking about him so her feelings develop. I don’t know why Ines loves her but the romance in this game isn’t as great as the story and that’s honestly okay.

Ines also has the added bonus of being the police officer who inspired Cyrus to become a police officer.

Also he’s one of the few good Fins paths (more on Fins later.)

 Adage:

Adage is another criminal in the depths, but he gets by a lot better than the rest because he’s a doctor so he has a lot of money and doesn’t starve as much as the rest of the criminals. He’s rather cold and cynical and Cyrus becomes his assistant because she needs a job to get money for food.

Adage has no bedside manner refusing to help patients he believes he can’t save, but he’s still a good person trying his best to save the ones he does think he can save. A lot of other reviewers said that his path was terrible romantic wise, but I think his path was honestly a lot cuter and fluffier when it came to romance. Adage’s a big fan of romance novels so even though most people who come from the heights don’t know what love is, Adage does (Despite romance novels being banned because love is a crime there and arranged marriages prevail)

His route focuses on why Cyrus was convicted of a crime she didn’t commit, his father the HOUNDS doctor saw her during her observation and wanted to use her in his experiments because of her rare blood type.

Adage and Cyrus have to confront his father together and take him out. Which his father rightfully deserves. He’s been killed and dismembering people to make a Frankenstein child.

I was shocked by Adage’s evil father because he was a good guy on the previous route except at the very end where he randomly went to jail. I always wondered what he did. It was cool to get more of the world.

 Ulrik:

Ulrik is the only character who’s actually Cyrus’s age so that’s a plus. (they’re both 18). However he’s also the only character that fits into a normal otome cliché personality of “the tsundere”

Ulrik isn’t from the Heights. He’s from deeper in the Depths and is not one of the criminals. Past the sanctuary district wall are the survivors of the original flood and steam punk town. He is one of those survivors.

It turns out that Ulrik’s father was one of the main people who built the Heights but decided to stay behind despite being offered the position because he didn’t want to abandon his family. Through the generations this story has been twisted over and over again to say that the heights abandoned him and Ulrik’s family now hates the heights and anyone who comes here, causing him to initially hate the protagonist.

Still he eventually comes to understand that the heights just has people in it just like the Depths and realizes the truth of his family.

The protagonist never learns about why she was sent to the depths instead focusing on just surviving in this route but it tells us more about the flood.

Eltwood:

The ruler of one of the districts in the depths. This guy is your classic rich playboy businessman, but he still had an air of eccentricness that made him fun. He’s enamored with the heights despite not being from there and immediately falls in love with Cyrus’s knight like ways and makes her his bodyguard. This route had a lot of knight/prince or bodyguard/person they’re guarding vibes.

Eltwood’s route focused more on the relationship the depths had with the sanctuary district with the criminals and the other districts. It had an epic conclusion and was genuinely very cool.

I didn’t like the romance in his route as much as the other routes though. Probably because he immediately convinced Cyrus to kiss him instead of hours of build up and although Cyrus consented she didn’t really know what kissing was due to the harsh censorship of the Heights and situational consent ain’t cool. I mean I was happy she consented but it felt off to me.

Still the only scene that made me cry in this dating sim happened in his route. It was in one of his not good ends, where he ends up talking about his backstory and how his father and him were invited to the heights to celebrate the saint’s 400th anniversary. His father was enamored with the heights just like him and was so excited. He finally got to the Heights and everybody made fun of him and pranked him into doing embarrassing things in front of the saint and spoke behind his back. On the way back down in the lift to the depths his father cried for the first time and through out all stuff about the heights after.

It was just such a sad scene.

 Yune:

I was really excited for Yune’s route because Yune had saved me a few times in the other routes reforming the government and exposing that Cyrus had been exiled due to false charges. Yune himself is a saint and is worshipped like a religion. He’s immortal and nobody can hurt him. Both the depths and the heights love him even though he’s only in the heights.

Yune’s route….I had some problems with the good ending maybe because I wanted Cyrus to stay in the heights. But the other endings were very good. Less a dating sim and more political intrigue in the other ends. But I love immortal characters.

Yune saves Cyrus from exile in his route to hire her as his personal attendant instead. Not because he believes she’s innocent unfortunately but because he wants her to figure out a way to kill him because he’s grown tired of immortality and nothing he does can harm him.

Over time because he’s able to be his true self with his hired assassin he grows to love her and soon realizes that the only thing that can stop his god like heart is love and when he’s close to her he grows closer to dying. Various endings do different things with this and in the good ending he’s able to take out the god rock from his chest (Because he’s like a mechanical doll it turns out and a magical rock has been put in him which requires a key to remove that’s in the depths) and restart his aging just enough so that he can live with Cyrus like a normal human.

I like the endings a lot more where Cyrus ends a relationship with him, he doesn’t die but he does reform the government to take out all the corruption that caused Cyrus to have a false crime. But if you want good things for Cyrus just wait until the Grand Ending.

 Grand Ending:

The grand ending is the route with no depths that is unlocked after you play the other five routes. I loved it despite the fact that it had no romance. Cyrus’s parents don’t die because she stops the person who tried to kill them with her fighter skills (who turns out to be her ex-fiance). Yune helps root out that he won’t be charged properly because his father is a rich noble and that he needs to reform the government so he sends Cyrus to the depths to bring back delegates so that the depths can be represented and so that the two communities can work with each other and share their various technology.

She brings back all four of the other love interests who all fight off the evil police force and reform the government.

And there is no Fins death unlike most of the other routes.

 And finally:

Fins:

Oh poor Fins. Fins is Cyrus’s partner in the police force who gets sent down to the depths to be a HOUND because she committed a crime.  He was a good boy before that.

I didn’t really understand all the love towards a side character who wasn’t romancable but…This game seriously should have just made him into a main character. He’s a romancable character in the Japanese exclusive psvita version but alas I can not speak Japanese.

The reason I think why Fins is so beloved is that during the common route after you beat one route it skips to Fins being tortured just at random moments. I just had to be like “poor buddy why am I in this POV?”

Because Fins was such a good boy he didn’t gel with the police brutality so the head of the hounds beat him up, didn’t let the doctor give him pain medicine as they healed him and then beat him up again until he was a loyal dog. And instead of just telling us that they show us that…Over and over again.

Luckily Fins believes in one thing! That Cyrus the protagonist will save him or that she’s still the only good light in his life that he’ll find someday and then he’ll be happy and whole again. Unfortunately he’s not romancable in English so that never happens.

There are a lot of bad endings that involves this guy going full yandere but in most of the canon love interest ends he dies. Brutally. Before confessing his love to Cyrus and then dying to protect her.

Fins you see was always in love with Cyrus. The game makes sure to remind you of that in all the routes he dies in brutally (Adage, Eltwood’s and Yune’s. He makes no appearance in Urrik and come in the very end of Ines’s to be Cyrus’s good friend) It continues to switch to his pov throughout other guys routes just to remind you “hey!!! Your friend is suffering and there’s nothing you can do about it!”

It was good writing but harsh. I think it would have felt a lot more whole if his route was included in the English version. And a lot of other people agree.

Luckily he never gets tortured in the Grand Ending and he and Cyrus remain police officers and he tries unsuccessfully to confess to her but she’s just too dense.

 This game had some great writing but I truly recommend playing it not for the characters but the world. The dystopian Heights doesn’t feel truly like a dystopia and I love the world about the clouds sort of thing. It’s a really cool game and the art, music and interface all make it just a lot more beautiful.

[silver-wedding]

Jon and Dany’s fates are tied together.

Jaime and Cersei seem to be the narrative foils of Jon and Dany.

They were together since childhood, forming a relationship that had been more about lust than love. They went incredibly far to conceal their affair from the realm, or otherwise see their children executed by Robert Baratheon. Throughout the entire relationship, Cersei would bring out the worst aspects of Jaime’s personality, and cause him to forsake any morality he may have held.

Many believe that just as they entered the world together, they will exit the world in a very violent end.

Jon and Dany only recently met within the narrative. They had held prejudices against one another before ever meeting due to the horrors inflicted between the Starks and Targaryens during Robert’s Rebellion. Upon meeting one another, they became frustrated with each other’s stubbornness and yet developed a level of respect for one another. Although there was a mutual attraction between them, Jon and Daenerys only accepted their love for one another after suffering through tragedy together.

This alliance will be one of the few hopes Westeros really has against the White Walkers, and for a future beyond the multiple wars the entire continent has suffered through.

I have little reason to doubt that Daenerys is the younger, more beautiful queen of Cersei’s nightmares. Keeping that in mind, Jon seems likely to obtain the reputation of a hero that Jaime pursued in his youth.

Jon and Jaime - Hero and Oathbreaker

In the single scene that Jon shares with Jaime, we see a jaded knight mock the fresh faced recruit that is about to sign his life away into a brotherhood that is long past its days of honor. Although in the beginning of the story the viewer might believe that Jaime is simply being pompous about Jon’s decision, we later learn that he only felt this way after facing nothing but disappointment in his career.

The Kingsguard was modeled after the Night’s Watch, and Jaime could not help but see a little of his younger self in Jon. He was once selected personally by King Aerys II, which was unheard of considering Jaime’s young age. Of course, the Mad King only did this out of spite towards Tywin Lannister and not because he saw Jaime as talented.

 Despite saving half a million lives by stopping the Mad King’s wildfire plot during the sack of King’s Landing, the realm would only see him as nothing more than a Kingslayer. He was not treated as a hero, but as a criminal that only escaped justice due to having a rich and powerful father.

Once Barristan Selmy was forced to leave, Jaime’s brothers no longer included men of renown but instead allowed scum like Meryn Trant to stand by the King.

Although Jon would face similar disappointments in the Night’s Watch and even death, his reputation grew far beyond anyone’s expectations. These events earned him the respect of the Freefolk, his brothers in black, and many Northerners as he fought to free his home from the Boltons.

They named a supposed bastard as a King, and practically revered him after all was said and done. Jon lost the woman he loved and was denied any romantic connection, and yet gained the the admiration of a kingdom. Jaime only had more to lose after his service to a mad man, a drunk, and now an insane former lover. He almost always had what he believed to be love, but could never find true happiness within his relationship.

On the other hand, Jon’s relationship with Dany has given him many opportunities that he once thought unlikely. Despite hearing of her infertility, Jon wants to build a home with Dany. Formalities aside, their relationship is a balanced one rather the clash based on morality that has often occurred between Jaime and Cersei.

In Season 8, there’s a good chance that Jon will be one of the main factors in saving Westeros and achieve renown that far exceeds Jaime’s wildest dreams.

Jaime’s reputation will possibly be redeemed in the eyes of the realm, but it seems clear to me that Jon’s journey runs parallel to the Lannister who had the look of a knight in shining armor.

Dany and Cersei - Strength, despite tragedy.

The two remaining queens of the series have been more directly compared, to the point of Dany’s Invasion aiming to remove Cersei from the Iron Throne. To truly realize just how much their characters contrast however, one must look at their journeys from the beginning to current events.

Cersei often had no control over the events of her life, or the unfortunate tragedies that faced her family. Despite how cruel and truly evil she is, there are many reasons as to why Cersei transformed into such a malicious person. She placed nearly all blame of her mother’s death on Tyrion, and from that point only saw him as a monster with little to no redeeming qualities.

Death may be the most common occurrence around Cersei, as the loss of all of her children seemed inevitable after she heard Maggy the Frog’s prophecy. She wanted to marry Rhaegar Targaryen, but he was instead married off to Elia Martell and later chose Lyanna Stark above all else. This extended to Robert Baratheon, who killed Rhaegar because he wanted to be with Lyanna.

Cersei had never been the first choice in anyone’s life, from childhood to adulthood.

Daenerys’ beginnings are similar in that she had no control over her own mother’s death, and was made someone’s queen not out of love but for power. One major difference is that Dany had to love her chains as a means of survival, and eventually managed to adopt a different culture as her own. Cersei’s time in King’s Landing pushed her survival instincts towards navigating around subtle political enemies rather than the vicious killers of Essos.

Dany’s relationship with Khal Drogo was terrifying for her at first, as he was not the loving husband that she truly deserved. However, this dynamic changed as they began to understand one another’s culture, language, and desires. This could not be said of Cersei and Robert, as Robert truly wanted Lyanna long after her death. He would often publicly humiliate Cersei by placing his lust towards whores.

Even with the deaths of Joffrey, Tommen, and Myrcella, Cersei still had the chance to raise them as their mother. Which is more than Dany can say about her stillborn baby, and the deep seeded emotional pain that followed her since then. If the situation were completely different, these two women might have found common ground and understanding in being forcibly separated from their children.

Once these queens see the end of the series, their fates will reflect the choices they made, and how they treated everyone around them.

Love, Lust, Balance, and Conflict

The connections between all four characters is far deeper than the superficial aspects that can be seen on the surface. Each one of them has faced the worst the world has had to offer, and yet became stronger emotionally and politically. This power has been used to either lash out at enemies in horrifying ways, or to unify people towards a far greater threat.

For Jon and Dany, despite being separated across the world and being ignorant of Jon’s true heritage, they found one another and fell in love. Against all odds, the last Targaryens came together as the White Walkers destroyed the Wall. At the same time, Jaime finally left Cersei as she threatened to have him executed by the Mountain.

When Jaime turned his back on her, it was not only a result of her refusal to commit to a cause that was bigger than the throne but because of Cersei’s constant hold of power over him. The relationship was not balanced, but instead a source of conflict that proved dangerous towards Westeros itself. This runs contrary to the dynamic that Jon and Dany have towards one another, and will likely be seen in Season 8.

I suppose that some will believe it unfair that Dany will be pregnant with a child, and the speculation that Cersei will suffer through a miscarriage. Jon will likely be known as a King, and it remains to be seen if Jaime will remain branded as a Kingslayer. To a certain degree, fairness is not something that is taken into consideration when it comes to the fate of characters within this series.

After all, Ned Stark was a wonderful father who did not deserve to be beheaded in King’s Landing, and Tywin Lannister remained powerful for a time despite being ruthless and cruel. Even with this consideration, one should see how the choices a character makes reflects the conclusion of their story.

During these conclusions will Jaime kill Cersei, and later die with her not long after? Will Jon give Dany the family she has always desired, and rule Westeros alongside her? No matter what the answers to these questions are, Jon and Dany’s fates have become tied together just as Cersei and Jaime’s were.

After everything is said and done, I believe their stories will reflect one another just as they had from the beginning.

[overdrivels]

The Hanzo-disliking anon here. I would have actually preferred discussing this w/ you privately but I prefer to be on anon for the whole "doesn't like a beloved popular character" thing. The reason I don't like Hanzo is how he seems to have the audacity to act like the offended party with Genji when he's the one who did wrong. It's not even that he doesn't realize he did wrong. He abandoned his clan due to guilt. I can't for the life of me understand what appears to be his victim complex. (1/2)

(2/2) He goes around calling Genji “trash” to his face in the Japanese version of OW for goodness’ sake. That Genji is dead to him and stuff. It could be that he feels Genji betrayed him by refusing to join the Shimada business or that he feels like his redemption quest has been for nothing, but those are terrible reasons and don’t excuse his shitty behavior. I’ve been trying to think of what the writers are trying to go for with him, but I just can’t imagine anything that justifies his attitude

(3/2 I miscalculated 2 asks aren’t enough) I hope I didn’t come off as a jerk. I have no issue with people who like Hanzo and I don’t want to disrespect or undermine them. I’m just irritated at how self-entitled the character seems to be. The reason I actually brought this up with you is bc I was hoping you’d have some insights on this that will help me understand why he’s the way he is.

You’ve been very respectful in the way you express your opinions and well articulated in your reasons, so I’m actually extremely happy that you’ve presented this to me and feel comfortable enough to share. (You have no fucking clue how pleased I am to have a discussion like this, really.)

This is rather long (very long), so I’m placing this under a cut. To everyone else, please be mindful of each other’s opinions, especially when it’s being conveyed so civilly. Understandably, if you are of the opposite opinion, you may feel angered, but I ask that you refrain from attacking anyone and if need be, present your opinion and thoughts in the same manner as this anon.

(I also ask that this doesn’t get reblogged because I don’t think I can handle my inbox getting wrecked by people who weren’t initially a part of the conversation or know the context of the entire discussion leading up to this.)

I’d be happy to discuss it with you on chat or something, but as it is, this’ll have to work. I’m going to preface this by saying that Hanzo doesn’t need to be (shouldn’t need to be?) justified as a character because sometimes, a character does shitty things and that shittiness (shittyness?) needs to be acknowledged and not justified for any reason because there’s no good enough explanation.

(I’m sure we’ve all experienced or done something like that in real life–did something so inexcusable without proper explanation, but there really isn’t one, and we have to accept it as is.)

I think it’s easy to look at the singular action of Hanzo killing Genji in a vacuum. Based on that singular event alone, and seeing how Hanzo acts afterward, it’s very easy to paint him as an asshole whose actions are inexcusable and he doesn’t deserve to claim that he’s the one who is hurt. In which case, absolutely. He should not act like he’s been wronged when he’s the one who started it.

But what if we start further?  

I want to look at the cause and what could’ve led up to it. Not to justify it, but to see where this could’ve come from. It’s my own opinion, but I think that people are very used to writers having their characters as is–no background unless it’s relevant to the plot, no thought of what sort of life they’ve lead up to this point, and is presented as a given. However, I see that the Overwatch team has put some effort into characters (the level of effort can be debatable, but I’m not interested in debating that), so I want to show some level of respect to the writers by trying to dig a little deeper into where, why, how–who is this character?

And I think a lot of it may have come from Hanzo’s circumstance, his relations with his brother, and his past. To understand it, we have to take a deeper look into Japanese culture (or Asian culture, in general). Now, I can’t claim that I have a complete understanding of anything, so a lot of this is just what I know (and perhaps experiences) and some speculation and logical deductions.

In life, Genji was given a freedom that Hanzo, as the eldest and the heir to a criminal syndicate, never truly enjoyed. That isn’t to say, however, that Genji didn’t have his own fair share of troubles. 「一族の恥」(ichizoku no haji)、the clan’s shame/the embarrassment of the clan is what they called him. We can leave the discussion about Genji for another day, but let’s look at how this affects Hanzo.

So from birth and even after his father’s death, he was held to a strict standard. Everyone was watching him. He was chosen by the dragons. He must not make a mistake lest he bring shame to his entire family.

In Japanese culture (and Asian culture), losing face is probably one of the worst things that could happen to you. In Western culture, it’s not that big of a deal if you embarrass yourself a little or you’re not as successful or you don’t have the respect of your subordinates. People will tease you about it, and move on.

In Asian culture, you’re pretty much fucked. No one will let you forget it, it becomes a part of you now. You will lose the respect of everyone around you, and depending on the level of face you lose, every piece of success you’ve built up can be lost in a second. It is an integral part of your identity and society. Losing face could make you a nobody, scorned, and an outcast. It can affect your job, your family, relations with neighbors, cost you that raise or promotion–it’s a big deal that cannot be contained to the words, ‘embarrassment’ or ‘shame’.

(For example: you’re at someone’s house and you’ve finished off your glass of juice, but you’re still thirsty, so you reach for more from the fridge. You’ve now made the host lose face because, by getting your own drink, you’ve shown your host that they suck at what they do and should be more attentive to you, their guest. You’ve made your host lose face. Now your host is embarrassed and that’s going to be a mark on them for a long, long time. If there were other people there, they would notice this, too, and give that person shit. This sounds absolutely silly because it’s a glass of juice, but it’s a big deal.)

Hanzo was losing face. He couldn’t control his brother. That’s a deep scar on his image, on everything he’s built up in his life. For Sojiro, his father, it was less of a deal–he let Genji do it and probably made it openly known that this was acceptable. And no one will go against Sojiro, the master of the clan and who could have them all killed in an instant.

But Hanzo?

He doesn’t have that rapport yet, so he’s subject to the scorn and nasty comments of his elders and the like. (I’m assuming there are elders and those in the clan who are of a high power that Hanzo cannot take action without consulting. It’s kind of like a Japanese company. While a President delivers the decision, the decision isn’t made it without consulting those who are affected and knowledgeable.) He can’t defend himself against them. 

Why? 

Because of the hierarchy. There’s a very specific type of hierarchy in Japan that’s difficult to explain because to understand it, you have to understand the intricacies of the culture and the dynamic of the clan, which we don’t particularly have.

(There’s a very good post about it by someone about Hanzo losing face on tumblr, but I can’t seem to find it at the moment.)

Regardless, that must’ve built up a lot of tension and repressed anger that he wasn’t allowed to express. Expressing your anger is not taken the same way as in the Western world. It’s…well, not to say it’s not acceptable, but it’s not taken the same way as it would be outside of Japan.

So, Hanzo has quite a bit on his plate. Why can’t Genji just do what he’s told? Why does he have to stand out? (As a side note, standing out in Japanese culture or disrupting the status quo is not looked kindly upon.There’s even a saying in Japanese: a nail that stands out gets hammered ( 出る杭は打たれる ).) So Genji’s defiance is another point of contention. Why does he have to keep disobeying his elders? Hanzo is Genji’s older brother. It’s his absolute responsibility to make sure his brother is kept in line. That’s the burden of being the eldest. If Genji isn’t in line, Hanzo has failed in his basic duties in being an older brother. (The implications are much more serious, and I’m not quite sure how to express it.)

He may be acing his studies, and listening to his father, but he can’t seem to exert the right amount of authority over those who should be listening to him. And his father isn’t helping by letting Genji do what he wants. He also has this constant pressure to do better because his best isn’t enough from both his family and the clan. Logically, they wouldn’t follow someone who is weak or doesn’t have his shit in order. But he doesn’t. There’s always something tripping him up, and that’s his brother. Not to blame Genji, because again, he has his own share of troubles, but from Hanzo’s point of view, he was likely the source of a lot of his resentment.

In short, Hanzo is a failure. His accomplishments, his perfectionism, none of it means anything if he’s constantly getting shit thrown back at his face.

I seriously believe that all the lines he says in-game to himself such as, “Never second best,” or “Unworthy,” or “You will never amount to anything!” were all just Hanzo projecting.

In the Japanese version, he refers to Genji as 「くず」 (trash). I don’t know what to make of this. I could take the angle that it’s Hanzo projecting onto Genji still, or I could speculate that he truly believes he’s superior, or take it a little more neutrally, he’s repeating what everyone else calls Genji. But if I had to guess, it’s a mixture of everything. This is something that stumps me a little bit, but the above is the best explanation I have for it.

When Hanzo becomes the master of the clan, he was probably told to put Genji in line. And Genji didn’t want anything to do with the clan. He wanted to live his life, enjoy it. But that sort of enjoyment came with certain responsibilities that he has shirked since the time of their father. But with Hanzo as the new leader of the clan, he had to put Genji in line or…do something about it.

It’s very likely that the rest of the clan saw this as an opportunity to make their name good, to get rid of those who stood out, to right everything. Their new leader is young and inexperienced without his father to protect him. So, Hanzo was presented with those two choices: straighten Genji out or kill him lest you bring more shame to the clan.

Now, Hanzo is given an opportunity to redeem himself and his image and the clan’s image. This goes beyond the redemption quest he set out for after Genji’s death. I think he was on one even before then. He can save face and fix everything if he listens to his elders (his betters in the hierarchy). He can fix everything if he can get rid of the problem–Genji.

He did it. He did not take an insult to his power passively, he rectified it by putting an end to it. He restored confidence in his clan as an assassin, as master of the clan, as his brother.

…but it wasn’t so.

After killing his brother, we all know he left the Shimada clan. We’re not sure if it was immediately after or some time after. The timing may be very significant, but as we do not readily know, we’ll skip over it for now. We can easily call his leaving an act of cowardice, or the result of his guilt, or that he wanted to do something he always wanted to do but never found an opportunity to do so. He wanted to leave. He wanted the freedom that Genji had, but couldn’t have because his immediate family still existed.

By leaving, he thought for himself for once.

Ah, not to mean that he was blindly following anyone’s orders or anything, but for once, he thought of himself. He was selfish. In Japanese culture, the collective comes first. The clan, the whole of Hanamura, the whole of society comes first.

But for once, Hanzo became selfish, and so, left everything behind. Here’s the funny thing though, by killing Genji, he found a way out for his freedom, but by killing Genji, he also managed to never fully express the envy and hate he may have had for his brother.

In many or most cultures, you’re supposed to revere the dead. It’s pretty much the same in Japanese culture.

Now he’s been mourning for ten years, still unable to express that hate that he has supposed buried when he killed his brother. And guess who shows up? Genji. Back to sling shit into his face again. Not only is he a failure as a brother for being unable to keep his brother in line, as the master of the clan by leaving, but also as a killer by having one of his most life-altering kills come back from the grave.

So, under such circumstances, I would absolutely be pissed beyond hell and vent in almost any way I can because pride is a fragile thing. Or at least, it is for Hanzo.

But here’s an interesting thought: I also wonder if he knew, deep down, that it would come to this. He didn’t seem entirely too surprised beyond the first few seconds. As a matter of fact, he seemed to have gone back to something more childish, acting almost immediately like a big brother–scolding his younger brother for something and telling him to get his life together. He slips into the role almost too easily.

We can chalk it up to shock, but couldn’t it be that he also knew he never actually dealt the finishing blow and that’s been nagging at him this whole time? Not that he gave his brother a chance to live, but that he let his brother suffer. If you’re going to kill someone you love, you’d make it quick and painless, right? We can argue that he never loved his brother, but we can also argue that he was warring with himself and couldn’t bring himself to do it.

I must sound like a broken record, but to me, it’s very interesting to speculate and think about. There are so many angles we can take on this and the possibilities are endless. But it could also be that his character could also be very simple broken down as an man who mistakenly thinks he is being wronged all the time.

But yes, your thoughts are valid and meaningful to me in a way that I can’t explain. They also gave me some perspective on why some people might not like him, and I really want to thank you for helping me expand my horizons. In light of that, I hope I’ve been able to articulate why he may be the way he is, whether he is justified in his behavior or not is a completely different story. I’m just interested in why.

(There was a lot more I would’ve love to elaborate on, but I think this would’ve actually turned into a research paper. I hope this has been helpful and sufficient in answering your questions even though it’s a little disorganized in its presentation. Again, it’s perfectly fine to dislike a character–not all characters are made to be liked, and not all people are expected to like all characters.)