Question: What do you think of Susano-o siring (or adopting) a Caucasian or Caucasian-looking scion to piss off his sister and pantheon?
We think it's as valid a beginning for a PC as any! Scions are always embroiled in divine politics just thanks to existing, and unfortunately a lot of them have a lot of ancient prejudice - against their race, sex, habits and morals - to manage as they try to make their mark on a pantheon as a new young god. We had a mixed Caucasian Amatsukami Scion in one of our games, in fact - the ill-fated Sora Sato - who spent a lot of his time trying to overcome his halfbreed heritage to serve his people.
Susano-o is certainly a pain in the ass, and he has a long and glorious history of irritating Amaterasu whenever the opportunity arises; this is a lot lower-scale than his previous pranks, but he may be "behaving himself" thanks to the pressures of the war against the Titans. It's no stretch that he might sire a Scion with mixed blood to annoy her, knowing she wouldn't be able to turn down the help but would look down her nose at the kid, or that he might just not care about her rules and have children with anyone he feels like, making it even more likely that he has a lot of biracial children running around. Remember that it's not "racism against white people" the Japanese have going on, but an attitude of "superiority over all non-Japanese people", so they're just as likely to snub a child who's half black, half Native American, or even half Chinese (because believe you me, no Japanese god is going to think that the Chinese are remotely the same as their own chosen people). Anyone who isn't Japanese is fair game for discrimination here, though of course it will vary from god to god, with some less likely to care about a Scion's mortal parentage than others.
The PC, of course, will have a lot to handle growing up in such a hotbed of hierarchy, rules, expectations and politics... but then again, that's the life of every Scion of the Amatsukami.
I wonder how much modern Japanese children and teenagers buy into the whole nihonjinron/spiritual superiority thing, considering there as westernized as any American kid.
ReplyDeleteThat's a sociological question I can't answer for you. :) Keep in mind we're talking about gods and fantasy game settings, though - we're not talking about the way real-life Japanese people think of their racial and national identity, and we shouldn't be used as a source for that kind of thing.
DeleteAlso, Japanese children are "westernized" very differently from the way American children are, and most countries have a concept of superiority over other cultures thanks to nationalism even if they don't express it the same way - the concept, even subconscious, that Americans are superior is by no means uncommon in the States, for example.
point taken. I just thought that knowing it could help in role playing interactions. Every country has it's nationalist pride and superiority complex, that's true. I just thought Sora Sato was an example of a modern westernized Japanese person, which is one reason he is so looked down next to being a halfbreed.
ReplyDeleteSora's definitely a modern Japanese person, but he's no more "westernized" than any other - he grew up in Japan his entire life and never left it until the demands of Scionhood forced him to do a little globetrotting.
DeleteAll of us at this point are a little bit "citizens of the world", but that doesn't necessarily mean everything's been westernized (or easternized, really). Sure, most Japanese people don't run around in kimono anymore except on special occasions, but that doesn't mean that they fact that they're wearing pants means they must have taken on a western identity. They're their own culture which has evolved in its own way in part thanks to contact with other cultures, which is the same thing every place around the world has been doing for the entire span of human civilization.
From my own game, I had a mixed race child of Susano'o who grew up in America with white parents (there was some sort of confusion regarding her conception, as it was unclear whether Susano'o raped her mother or not).
ReplyDeleteShe was always trying to please her father, and live by the ideals of the Japanese, but in the end got thrown out of the pantheon upon reaching Godhood for taking her heroism all too seriously. Well, they blamed it on being tainted because she had allowed herself to become corrupted by a titan in order to save Huizilopochtli's life after she had been -ordered- to save his life because Amatsukami was getting tired of her shit in Japan. I think they may have taken offence at her getting a Heroes Geas as well. They were just jealous of her being better at Katana than any of them :p
Eventually, she became an Eastern dragon and set up a lair on the West Coast of the United States which she defended, what with not having a sanctum in the Japanese overworld. Luckily, she was badass enough and had enough God-friends to not be threatened too much by, just about anything.
Still, point being it's a fun and viable character concept :p
Ha ha ha, she sounds awesome. I love it.
DeleteYou can tell which Scions aren't trully japanese by the length of their intestines...
ReplyDelete