#it's about forcibly stripping a character of the pride that keeps them from letting themselves be human | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

silyabeeodess · 5 years

Text

AHIT Headcanons: Subcon and Spirits

Since I’m hitting pause on “The Firelands” for just a bit and haven’t come up with enough plot ideas to dump a bunch more stories into “Tales of the Fire Spirits” at once, I’m doing this to organize my thoughts for the overarching stories I may cover in the future. I’ve been getting tons of questions on FFN on the way the world in these fanfics work, so I figured this would be a good way to try to tie off some things in a neat bow for me to reference later and in case I don’t get the chance to cover them in the future. With the inclusion of things such as Moonjumper’s character or the fire spirits, which were either cut content or we don’t have much background info on, I might make a few adjustments or more original expansions; however, I will try to do so keeping as close to canon as I can or with historical/folklore references in mind. I might not cover all that I do in the fics, but if you’re interested, please check it out below:

Spirits and the Spiritual Plane

The world of AHIT has multiple planes of reality, the two which merge/overlap the most being the physical and spiritual realms. The physical realm covers the world at large which mortals live in and engage with. For the spirits, it’s vice-versa. However, a lot of spirits live at points at which these two realms crossover and can even allow mortals to step over that line from these locations.

Spirits found at these points often have strong ties to the physical world as well, such as the elementals. They use their magic to bend the physical plane at these locations to create an ideal environment for them to thrive in (ex. The fire spirits have the Firelands). The forces used to manifest them create reality-bending whirlpools of spiritual magic that also keep them hidden from mortals. So, while a mortal may see indicators of where their borders start, they can’t actually tell where they’re going upon entry and will just loop back out. This also works in reverse if a spirit takes a mortal to their domain and doesn’t want them to leave. Only mortals “marked” by the spirits or those with special tools/abilities can freely pass through these barriers on their own.

There are several of these points scattered throughout the world and they’re all different depending on the spirits who reside in them. They can also shift if the spirits need to adjust their territories for any reason (rare, but not impossible when strong magic is involved). Subcon has the most out of any location on the planet thanks to the forest possessing an incredibly high concentration of magic, which attracts a lot of spirits--and only increases the area’s spiritual forces even more.

The Horizon is a unique place out of all of these points, existing closest to the actual spiritual realm, but still accessible in the physical world through magical waypoints/objects.

Overall, a mortal being can typically only fight back against them when they possess spiritual magic. This is common for ghosts, to varying degrees, but the people of Subcon in general were born with some concentration of it, the land itself infusing them with that power. Not to say that they always access it or even always can, but it’s there. This phenomena can also occur for individuals who face prolonged exposure (in years) to spiritual magic.

All spirits have their own ways of life, so no two species are alike and many rival with each other. All they really have in common is a stubbornness that their ways are the best. While some species are friendly to mortals and have good intentions, it doesn’t always mean that they’ll do the right thing--or even understand what the right thing is--either due to having a vastly different perspective on life and varying degrees of sentience.

Subcon History/Culture

Living alongside the spirits for as long as anyone can remember, much of Subcon’s ways are steeped in tradition and folklore. Long before Vanessa and her prince were even born, the people of Subcon worked together with the spirits to help the forest thrive and protect it from malevolent forces. As such, the spirits who resided there often openly travelled through the village(s) or lived with humans. The royal families not only led their people, but helped lead the spirits as well so that everyone could prosper. There was some feuds and rivalries always existed, but things were good. As generations passed and increased trade outside of Subcon opened up a new world for the humans, however, those ties began to slowly sever and traditions ebb away.

The masks the people of Subcon wore were a way of protecting children from the spirits. Based on the spirits themselves, it was believed that they could frighten them off or confuse them into thinking that the children were other spirits. They were also often imbued with a bit of spiritual power to help them see and interact with things they normally couldn’t in the physical world. Some other areas outside of Subcon had the same tradition, and many of the Dwellers still wear them as both a way to honor their past and against the chance of evil spirits still pursuing them in death. Masquerade balls and similar celebrations were also popular.

A mortal with a high spiritual power--be it from birth or from being affected by a spirit’s magic--stands at the risk of effectively becoming spirits themselves. Some might die prior to this process, but it’s more like a transformation. As such, those people remain trapped in the physical world until they either A.) move on, like a normal, lost soul, or B.) are killed in a fashion similar to the spirits. This process occurs when the spiritual power inside a person consumes them, be it by conscious choice, overusing their magic, or if more magic than their physical bodies could handle tore them apart from the inside out.

The people of Subcon were often raised with the idea to be kind, but wary around each of the spirits: To treat them well and remain polite, but never let themselves be taken advantage of or led into dangerous places. They were also quick to warn travelers of the same, those who failed to do so often having to deal with the spirits themselves according to the latter’s own view of propriety/justice.

Most of the powerful spirits are also prideful and hard in their ways. It was difficult for the royal families to work with them at times and ambassadors were needed. The ones they struggled with the most were the swamp spirits, who would at some point isolate a part of Subcon for themselves and take vengeance against anyone who trespassed there.

For a while, Subcon actually had multiple rulers as it covered a wide terrain that was often also cut apart by the spirits’ territories. Everyone was really hopeful when the prince and Vanessa got together, as they believed it meant that all of Subcon would unite and lead to a golden era. They loved them and how they truly would meet their subjects on-level, especially the prince, so they thought the two would bring some of Subcon’s glory days back in full-swing.

When Vanessa’s cursed ice storm hit, it devastated all of Subcon. Not only did it kill most of the Dwellers, it also ripped apart a lot of the spirits’ territories--immediately severing ties with pretty much all of them. The only thing that kept most of the spirits’ wrath at bay was her own people being killed in the process.

This, however, came with its own dangers. That large amount of devastation and death all at once, fueled further by the cursed magic, lingering souls, and all of the negative emotions they carry with them, created a dark miasma that blanketed over Subcon. This miasma constantly attracts wicked spirits who want that power for themselves--and to claim a few souls along the way. It’s caused a massive power struggle, with even some of the spirits who already lived in the forest eventually fighting to expand for the sake of their lost territories. Without Snatcher, most of the Dwellers would be at the mercy of those spirits.

Snatcher and Moonjumper

Rather than take the spirit vs. body route, I’d like to treat them as two halves of the same soul forcibly cleaved apart. (We see both Vanessa’s and her prince’s bodies alter in their storybook, so parts of their deaths and missing corpses I’m chalking up to the spiritual magic already present inside them messing with their physical selves.) In essence, after the prince--finally decided on a name for him, Alistair--died, his soul carved itself apart as a means of survival from his broken state of mind. Not only did he still carry the grief and confusion over what happened with Vanessa, but also a massive sense of guilt for what happened to the people of Subcon. One part of him fought to retain his own innocence and the person he was prior to these events: One part of him loathed himself and wanted to strip all of that away, cursing his choices and blaming himself for Subcon’s destruction. Thus, two beings were born from the prince, each getting their wish: Moonjumper forgot about Vanessa and what happened between them, disappearing into the Horizon, while Snatcher hardened himself and chose to become someone new, someone powerful and viscous enough to never let anything like that happen to him or his kingdom again.

While both of them are strong enough to manifest in a more human/humanoid form, they each gave up on it as a side effect of the split. Snatcher took the physical shape of the shadowy horror he wanted to be so people wouldn’t know he was the prince while Moonjumper actually kept some pieces of his old belongings: The monocle and mask. The mask was originally a normal, venetian half-moon mask that he would’ve worn for celebrations/traditions as the prince, but it’s now meshed with his ghost form. It doesn’t make expressions, but has basically taken over his whole head. While it can be removed, he’ll go into a full-blown rage if it’s taken without his consent. Removing it will force him to shapeshift his face back to normal. Snatcher is the better shapeshifter, but his current form is also dictated by his forced persona.

To the Dwellers and minions, Snatcher is just another spirit that showed up one day and took things over. Some of them might be suspicious, but no one would dare ask and he’s not going to tell them. There are different rumors (about the prince being killed and just not returning as a ghost, that Vanessa still has the prince somewhere in her manor, or that the prince fled Subcon like his parents did when the storm spread to their place), but a handful of them believe--and Snatcher thinks they all believe--that the prince abandoned them when they needed him most or that he wasn’t strong enough to stand against Vanessa, ice powers or no. It’s not a fair judgement, but it’s still there--especially for souls like the florist, who hold a personal grudge.

Snatcher doesn’t actually eat souls, but he can capture them. It’s more of a threat he just built around his reputation. The souls he captures are either forced to work for him or are imprisoned, sometimes used in experiments or for weapons like the cherry bombs. The contracts he makes people sign make it easier for him to bind others’ souls to him, but it also serves a double-purpose: It forces him to keep all relationships strictly to business, as just something on paper rather than anything meaningful.

By the point of the game and outside of his concern for his subjects, Snatcher’s bought his own line completely. He really is terrible and wholly devoted to the “evil spirit” charade he’s been putting on for years. Part of it too though is that, as a ghost, his sense of mortality has shifted. He and everyone around him is already dead, so killing people really doesn’t hold that much weight to him anymore because “hey, I can just take their soul, so it’s not like they’re gone for good.” He just knows it still matters to the living and he can lord that over them. Hat Kid’s gonna break him out of that a bit, but not by much at a time and he’ll always be a grump.

Can’t talk about Moonjumper without the Horizon, so here goes: The place still acts as a kind of limbo, but it’s fabricated as a place of spiritual healing. It’s a place for mortal souls to go to clear off whatever baggage they’re still carrying before moving on to the afterlife and spirits like it too. Some, in fact, never leave--by choice or otherwise. A goat found one of the entrances thanks to the Twilight Bell, and since then he and his descendants have taken the roles of healers and beings of spiritual enlightenment upon death, with a part of the realm “ruled” by themselves. Moonjumper’s still the main ruler though, able to exude the most power over the Horizon and distort its reality. Overall though, he’s isolated himself in his own section of it to fabricate an area that somewhat resembles past-Subcon. And his method of healing... isn’t the best. You know how some say “ignorance is bliss?” A part of him took that to heart, so one of the ways he uses his strings is to rewrite memories. This overwrite makes it so that a soul can’t move on, as whatever was actually affecting them never truly got healed and is just contained somewhere inside them, so he usually then takes them in as a content subject.

Early on, Moonjumper came back to the real Subcon a handful of times in secret, because there’s still a small part of him that does want to move forward and misses everything. Nevertheless, all this really did was attract a few dissenters from the Dwellers, ones that saw him and immediately believed he was “the prince” (even if they don’t know the full story). They followed him back to the Horizon, hoping to get answers or to convince him to stay in Subcon, but he wouldn’t listen. Having shut out the worst of his memories, he refuses to listen to anyone that tries to destroy the new “reality” he’s created. Anyone who pushes it to his breaking point end up facing the full-force of his strings, possessed so that they’re made to play a role in his delusion. In effect, those Dwellers who followed him had their memories of the real Subcon wiped and think that they’re home. Trying to break free from their part not only “physically” hurts them thanks to the strings, but amplifies the emotions tied to their repressed memories.

Sometimes he’ll also try to fill “gaps” among his subjects. If he feels like something’s missing and someone shows up to the Horizon who can fit that role, he’ll try to coerce or use his strings on them to get them to stay.

The goats know he’s messed up in the head, but they also don’t think he’s a bad person. Outside of his outbursts, he really does try to be a kind, just leader: They just know that his “good intentions” are also coming from a place of selfishness and are hurting people. And the one thing they don’t know is how to fix him when he’s constantly rejecting help. So they tend to keep back and focus their energy on looking after anyone else who enters the Horizon, hoping one day he’ll come to his senses enough to let himself heal.

Vanessa

Vanessa is still her old, insane self as in the game. The idea behind her past though is that--while the prince was actually raised to be a good, responsible ruler--Vanessa was raised by strict parents who expected her more to play a part and spoiled her rotten. They wanted her to be a perfect, little princess, so they gave her everything she wanted while simultaneously drilling this idea in her head of the life she was expected to have. It ended up taking things too far, as Vanessa’s ideas of what a princess should be ended up relying almost completely on stories and fairytales, and with her life pretty much getting handed to her at every stop, she fully accepted that those fairytales would be her reality. Anything that broke the illusion didn’t belong, and she had a habit of immediately lashing out when things didn’t go the way she wanted them to. When things were “perfect,” she was perfect--and it was what most of the villagers saw. When things didn’t go right, well...

When Vanessa’s magic took over her, she became something similar to a yuki-onna (snow woman). As such, she shares the strengths and weaknesses of them, such as freezing her victims and taking their lifeforce. The main, notable difference is that heat doesn’t affect her as much as it would a common yuki-onna, alluding to her incredibly strong magic and former humanity.

The servants and guards who catered to Vanessa were groomed specifically to follow her whims, loyalty to the crown always standing over loyalty to the people or their own ideals. These souls--even those killed by Vanessa’s storm--would later possess the statues in Subcon. Most of them are headless for two reasons: So they can’t spy on Snatcher and his minions and because his minions are pretty angry over how “mindless” those souls behave, so they lopped their heads off. They mostly get by with their hearing and a sixth sense that allows them to feel the environment around them. They continue to serve Vanessa, whether by still acting as guards/soldiers or obtaining anything she desires from the outside world.

The Florist

Because I brought her up once already and now I feel obligated. So, prior to the storybook events, she was just another, normal citizen. She supported the prince and princess and wanted to see the kingdom thrive under their care. However, after the prince was locked away, Vanessa also wanted to take revenge on the woman who “stole him from her.” That same evening, she sent guards to kill the florist in secret. They dragged her off to the swamp and drowned her, hoping to pin her death on the swamp spirits.

Unfortunately for the guards, the swamp spirits also have their own watchmen and they were killed immediately after for trespassing. When they found the woman’s body, they could tell her soul was still clinging on. She desperately wanted to know what happened and why. It’s not the first time something like that had happened, so they just waited for her soul to do whatever it would and imprisoned her (also as a trespasser), breaking the news that villagers had been slaughtered not long after her with the swamp spirits believing both royal families had abandoned their people. It left her a furious, vengeful spirit, hateful toward both the princess for the massacre and the prince for seemingly doing nothing to stop it.

For years, she’d remain the swamp spirit’s prisoner; however, she’d eventually fall on good enough terms with them to rise in their ranks and become something of a jailor herself. She hardly ever comes to the surface, staying in the depths of their realm, but often takes control over any other lost souls that find themselves there. She has to remain strict and judges fairly, but she’s also treats them better than the swamp spirits would without her around.

Common Spirits in Subcon

Fire Spirits:

These always take the form of a fox and are some of the more animalistic of the spirits, relying heavily on instinct. The older these spirits get, however, the more they learn human language and behaviors in order to interact with mortals. In past-Subcon, they freely roamed and engaged with the villagers, sometimes as tricksters and sometimes helping them out. (The background for them takes a combination of lore behind kitsune, phoenixes, will-o-wisps, and brownies.)

Throughout their lifespans, these spirits build up a constantly burning fire that makes up their core. When they’re effectively ready to burst, they conduct a ritual by building up a massive flame and dancing around it (possibly for days at a time) in hopes of combusting so they can revive anew. The barriers they create are there to protect them as the ritual takes place, the elders undergoing it unable to stop once it’s begun while the young find materials (hopefully, full of living energy) to burn. A successful ritual gives the spirits enough energy upon combustion to be reborn back in their own territory and possibly duplicate.

Older spirits have a strong magic and physical body, but the younger ones (especially newborns) are incredibly weak. They need constant sustenance to grow healthy and can be snuffed out easily. If they’re snuffed out in this weakened state, they won’t be reborn. However, if one is killed at an older stage, there’s still a chance for them to come back--albeit, they’ll be ever weaker than normal and struggle through rebirth.

Swamp Spirits:

Swamp spirits can appear graceful or even beautiful in their own domain, but look fairly grotesque on dry land. They’re a kind of fish-people and are the most humanlike out of the spirits in Subcon. They also have the longest running feud between the Dwellers and other spirits, keeping themselves isolated in their underwater realm and taking a long while to get used to outsiders.

After Vanessa’s storm hit they tried to expand their swamp, knowing that other spirits would soon prey upon Subcon anyway if they didn’t and wanting to strengthen their territories before that happened. They got fairly far until Snatcher pushed them back, almost to their original boundaries.

All surface-dwellers are just ‘Dwellers’ to them: It doesn’t matter if they’re from Subcon or not. It takes a lot for a dweller to earn their respect and most them are quick to judge. The best way to get on their good side quickly is to appeal to their ego without demeaning yourself in the process.

Spider Spirits:

(based on Tsuchigumos and Jorogumos) While the giant spiders in Subcon and the Alpine Skylines are just that, it can be assured that there’s at least one spirit commanding them, waiting back at their nests. These are particularly ruthless and wait for hapless victims to fall into hands, although they’re more interested in the living than mortal souls.

Giant Skeletons:

(based on Gashadokuros) These rare, but dangerous spirits were attracted to the dark miasma clinging to Subcon and cause havoc for every being wherever they go. While virtually brainless, they feed on negative forces left from the dead. Snatcher was strong enough to take out several, and their remains are scattered throughout the forest in a dormant state until all of that energy eventually burns out of them.

Lightning Sprites:

Sprites aren’t typically seen in the mortal realm, but these give off such a powerful glow that they can be found relatively easily--not in their own forms, but by the element they’re associated with. In the sky or in stormy weather, they can appear as the natural ‘sprite’ phenomena, but around land--specifically around areas that produce high amounts of electricity and/or have things such as powerlines--they have a yellow glow. You can’t really spot them in any way beyond an electric current and their high-pitched noises, and while harmless overall beyond the occasional bit of mischief, they can certainly give you quiet a shock.

(There are others, not to mention vengeful souls, but that’s all I got so far. Might update later as more comes to mind.)

#headcanons #ahit #a hat in time #snatcher #moonjumper #florist #queen vanessa #dwellers #fire spirits #subcon forest #headless statues #the prince #video games #the horizon #twilight bell #the firelands #tales of the fire spirits #clocks and spirits

18 notes · View notes

hellsparadiseessays · 5 years

Text

To trick or be tricked - How certain literary concepts tie into Chôbe’s story arc

Disclaimer : This is a Chôbe rant an opinion piece more than essay, though I still use the many elements provided by the source material to justify my points. It’s also pretty spoilery so make sure you’re properly caught up before reading.

This write-up will be about the literary concepts of the trickster and the tricked character, based on the theme of the Faustian Bargain, a certain Japanese tale and how they tie into Chôbe’s character arc.

I. Faustian Bargain

First thing first: what is a Faustian Bargain, and where does it come from? Well, it comes from European stories involving a character who decides to bargain with the Devil to obtain what he or she desires in life. In exchange, their soul would be taken to Hell for eternal damnation. Initially a cautionary tale of a religious nature, its moral aspects still has a universal tone: it is all about sacrificing one’s personal morals and spiritual values in order to gain wealth or other benefits. The most famous literature works about it are Christopher Marlowe’s The Tragical Story of Doctor Faustus (1592), Shakespeare’s Macbeth (1606) and Goethe’s Faust (1808), though more modern literary works use this trope in the story: Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray (1890), Ira Levin’s Rosemary’s Baby (1967), as well as comics, movies and video games, such as Hellblazer (1993), Death Note (2003), Sleepy Hollow (1999), The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus (2009), Skyrim DLC Dragonborn (2012/2013) or The Witcher 3 DLC Hearts of Stone (2015). In Europe, a lot of local legends about Devil’s Bridges are also tied into this idea: the architect asked the help of the Devil in exchange for the first soul to cross the bridge. The architect would then outsmart the Devil by sending a cat, and the Devil would refuse to add the last stone to the bridge in reaction.

And like I said, meddling with supernatural entities and getting punished for it as a form of cautionary tale isn’t a Europe-only thing, it’s a common form of storytelling at a universal level, and Japanese literature has both its own set of traditional tales in that matter (generally involving deities and people not paying their respects to shrines, as well as oni getting tricked by humans) and modern stories mixing various Western and Japanese writing concepts to end with a unique literary style.

Now how is this idea expressed with Chôbe’s story arc? Well, it’s played straight from the moment he gets taken to Hôrai, but there’s a major twist on it from the start. Indeed, as soon as we’re introduced to the Aza brothers and their past, in chapter 9, we learn something important: the path they end up following always starts by being forced onto them rather than willingly followed from the start. It all starts when they get stripped from their status as samurai because of their Lord’s mistake, then their life falls even more apart when they lose their mother to illness and their father to a failed revenge that only led to his execution. As we’re explained this, we also learn that Chôbe’s thing is to adapt and keeping his pride. The way Toma explains it is interesting because we can take it as Chôbe refusing to back down, but I also think there’s more than that. Chôbe had to deal with a lot of bad events and grow up very quickly in order to protect his little brother, so what better thing to stay a master of his own fate than taking what’s forced on them and lashing out at society in reaction? In other words, the Faustian Bargain starts as something forced on Chôbe, yet he decides to make full use of it as a reaction, because it’s the best way for him to maintain a form of control over what little he has left.

This pattern is further reinforced throughout Chôbe’s trip around the island: the Waitanhua growing in the Tan pit never asked for his opinion and simply invaded him like a parasite – he later realized he could make use of it and started teaching himself during the fight against the Doshi. Same thing with Lord Tensen: Chôbe is forcibly put down and taken to Hôrai against his will, even though his initial plan was to get back to his brother. He quickly understood he’d be powerless against Rien and the other Tensen, and thus decided to get along with their plans because it’s his best chance to both stay alive and keep his brother alive – that’s where his Faustian Bargain really start, when he negociates Toma’s life against everybody else’s. It’s terrible from our point of view, because as the readers we care about all the characters, but from Chôbe’s point of view that insane bargain makes sense, and he’s fully aware of the dangerous situation he’s in. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s planning to not only trick the other Asaemon and convicts to get rid of the competition for the Elixir of Life, but Lord Tensen as well. Why? Because of the only two nasty smiles he gave us while in Hôrai (when he decided on the path to follow with Rien and when he managed to block Ju Fa’s strike with a single hand – and didn’t miss the occasion to taunt him in the process because he’s a spiteful little shit), because he really dislikes the Tensen and told the readers so, because he’s openly been thinking about killing Rien himself – but not now, he needs more strength first and is fully aware of it, power is the key to be at the top. With that in mind, I wouldn’t surprised at all to see him backstabbing the (remaining?) Tensen left and right as soon as he can. Especially since the tricked bargainer can also become the trickster in a Faustian Bargain.

However, that image of the tricked/trickster can also be related to a certain story about a certain creature in Japanese folklore, whose fate isn’t the prettiest, yet gets an interesting interpretation.

II. The imagery of Shuten-dôji and the sad fate of an Oni

First thing first, who is Shuten-dôji? Well, he’s a famous oni (a demon) in Japanese folklore. Leader of a band of oni (one of them being named: Ibaraki-dôji, Shuten-dôji’s henchman) and acting during the reign of Emperor Ichijô (r. 986-1011), he would kidnap maidens from Kyoto with his band of oni and keep them as servants in his fortress – optionally slaughtering them to drink their blood and eat their flesh. Abe no Seimei, Onmyodô of the Imperial court, divined that the demon’s fortress was on Mount Ôe, and the Emperor sent a small party to save the women and put an end to the terror of the demon king. He sent Minamoto no Raikô and Fujiwara no Hôshô to exterminate the demon and his underlings. After Raikô’s party left Kyoto, they encountered three deities of transformation, after having paid homage to their shrine, that told them to disguise themselves as yamabushi priests to trick Shuten-dôji and gain his trust. The trick worked, Shuten-dôji offered them his hospitality and shared his sake as well as his personal story with them – he would do what he was doing near Kyoto because him and his people had been displaced from their mountains after the construction of a temple nearby. Raikô then offered some sake given by the deities in order to incapacitate Shuten-dôji and take his head. And that he did, once the oni was asleep, even though the head still tried to bit him and failed only because Raikô had taken the precaution to wear to helmets beforehand. The party returned to Kyoto and Shuten-dôji head was left in the Treasure House at Byôdô-in temple.

Now, without taking the entire story at face value, I’ve noticed a lot of curious patterns that paralleled with Chôbe’s own story. First, the most obvious, the likeness to an oni. For those of you who are on the Discord server [note: r/Jigokuraku’s server], remember how I’ve been joking about Chôbe and his most fitting oni axe? Boi, what an interesting coincidence. We even get to see him drink Soshin blood (because hydration is important for survival), even drink human blood once (to Toma’s horror, which seemed to amuse him) because liquid is liquid when you’re in a tough situation, we see him drink sake with the bandits in Toma’s flashback, we know he’s the leader of a gang of bandits and was causing enough problem to get the death penalty, Toma is clearly his right hand man, Chôbe has been described as wearing a monk outfit in the bonus pages of volume 2... And we even have some interesting things from a geographical point of view. As soon as I saw the names of the locations, I decided to google them out of curiosity. The Lord of Akô had his domain set in nowadays Hyôgo prefecture. Mount Ôe from Shuten-dôji’s story is located in Tanba province, nowadays an area that encompasses areas of both the central part of nowadays Kyoto prefecture and the east-central part of Hyôgo prefecture. Another funny thing is, Chôbe’s bandit village was set in Iyo Mountains, a group of peaks in nowadays Ehime prefecture, on Shikoku. He basically had his own fortress in the mountains, and originates from the place where it is said Shuten-dôji has been killed.

Interestingly enough, while oni have been feared, then mocked, they are now seen under another angle: one can feel sympathy towards them because they are tricked by humans, and they also make a perfect metaphor for the marginal who lives outside of a society that rejects them. And again, it fits with Chôbe’s life – though this part will be thoroughly explained in my next essay, so I’ll end this piece here so nobody will be spoiled. But let’s just say that society and its rules haven’t been kind to Chôbe, and he clearly decided to take it and throw it back as hard as he can in reaction – I get the thought process, having grown in a rather rough neighbourhood myself it’s the sort of thing I’ve personally witnessed. It doesn’t make his actions ok, but it explains them.

While I don’t necessarily expect him to meet the same fate as Shuten-dôji, I’m also not sure he’ll survive by the end of the story. Let’s just say I’m on the fence about that, because his story arc is about to move again now that Toma is in Hôrai, and I think his survival will depend on his future decisions. From a narrative point of view, he still has a possibility to live until the end. The question is, will he take it? Will he be able to set aside all of his hang-ups to save his skin from himself? I honestly hope he will, because he needs closure for himself. And I don’t want him to die, too.

Sources

Faustian Bargain: here, here, here (fun fact about this one : the picture of the Devil’s Bridge of Céret, in Southern France, is one I know *very well* because one of my grandmas lives there)

Shuten-dôji

Japanese Demon Lore: Oni from Ancient Times to the Present by Noriko T. Reider (2010)

#jigokuraku #hell's paradise #Aza Chôbe #aza chobe #murder bae #essay #my stuff

2 notes · View notes