But on the plus side, it's nice that instead we get to have someone so badly disfigured as someone we can romantically love, and that's so important to represent. Thanks for not dropping the idea of a burn victim completely and even improving on it by making said victim someone who will show up regularly (as opposed to Asagiri kinda falling back to the background in addition to being our daughter).
Rindo was born out of the wreckage of the vetoing of Asagiri — since it's been ruled that none of the champion's children can be permanently scarred, we gave her a few years and made her a waifu instead. Damaged girls are a pretty broad character concept with good appeal, and it's very easy to fall into the trap of using their disability as a crutch to let unappealing aspects of their character skate by given how the audience is predisposed to be sympathetic to them. I'd like to think that I'm a good enough writer to be able to avoid that kind of trap, but pride comes before a fall and all that. Of course, that doesn't preclude a few cheap tricks in order to produce some tear-jerkers, but I'll do my best to keep everything under control and not dunk all that salt onto my head.
What I want to do during the exploration of this character's story is the examination of kintsugi/kinsukuroi as it applies to people — the understanding that suffering and struggle are necessary for human development and meaning, and the long-suffering and fatalistic spirit of the Kitsune people when it comes to cruel twists of fate that are the Trickster's other face.
This flies in the face of common modern thought, where all kinds of adversity are to be avoided and hedonism is a goal to be pursued. And while it's easy and trite to dismiss the philosophies of those who came before us as "primitive" and "outdated", more often than not when looking back I end up considering that people in the past were far smarter and more grounded than we are. Maybe it's because the constant nipping of adversity at one's heels quickly culls the delusional.
But I've digressed enough. I think that given expectations of popular damaged girls in the genre like Hanako and Shima, I want to approach things from the other end — someone who has more or less accepted the nature of her scarring, is able to smile despite it, and able to lead a fairly normal life in the colonies with the understanding that almost everyone around her is damaged in some way as well instead of having to pretend that one's perfect. Having half your body burnt up and your left eye blinded gets put into perspective when the imperial governor is directly and personally cursed by the patron deity of their own people.
It's not that Rindo pretends her scars don't exist — they feel stiff when she tries to move or stretch, they ache from time to time, and the reality of their existence is unavoidable just by looking in a mirror. She knows that she's not beautiful and that she never will be again, and that's fine. The stoic, fatalistic acceptance of even the greatest cosmic injustice, especially by the lower to middle-lower social classes, of the Old Country races and the foxen in particular is legendary; a major earthquake will kill thousands, and as they're picking up the pieces morosely they'll just say to each other 「仕方がない」, and shrug. One supposes that it must be extremely infuriating for a Marcher to be confronted with such an attitude, but they seem happy in their personal lives without needing to get aggravated…
Basically I want Rindo to play into some damaged girls tropes and avoid others. The whole tsun "don't you pity me!" schtick that Hanako and Shima had going on is extremely unappealing and frankly childish to me; this goes doubly so because of the theme of kintsugi. In the nature of what was supposed to have happened to Asagiri, I want her to have grown as a result of her experience, not the other way around. I understand that helping another out of that emotional hole is part of the appeal of damaged girls, but on the other hand it's already been done before, there's ample space for emotional support without being unappealing, and I don't feel like writing something that's an open boner-killer for me.
I want Rindo to be able to smile, laugh, and live in the face of immense cosmic injustice, be nice and understand that people just mean well when they ask about her. She understands that she's broken, that she can't be like other people any more, and while it's a little sad at some point you just have to move on or else the biggest obstacle in your way is yourself. I think it'll be a nice and refreshing change from the mopey, schizophrenic, attention-seeking bitches that the damaged girls genre tend to fall into. Most VNs and so forth end at the acceptance phase — I want to explore what comes after the acceptance phase of things.
Oh, and that she's named after a particular type of flower (the Japanese Gentian) which she's holding in the second picture. And which was part of the Minamoto clan's crest. This concludes today's Random Trivia Hour.
Given that she's implied to be someone's by-blow, and that the Fujiwara are already represented in the game, I may as well consider pulling in more Heian period influences.
but one that bears pondering, I think.
