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Post by hanyounomiko on Sept 10, 2009 0:51:10 GMT -5
Okay, so maybe somebody can shed some light on this for me because it's really driving me crazy.
So some of you may know that I'm in apparel design; which means I know a lot about/think about clothes a lot. Now, here's my malfunction; Izayoi's clothing.
Okay, so if we are to take the third movie as canon, that would put Inu-Yasha's birth in 1294; which would be nearing the end of the Kamakura period. However, in the Kamakura period, the samurai class was mostly in-charge, and lavish, impractical clothes were embarrassingly out-of-vogue. Women still wore kosode and hakama, but they'd wear maybe one kimono over that, and generally just on special occasions.
Meanwhile, LOOK at Izayoi. The character guide explicitly says she wears a twelve-layer kimono (but that only five layers are drawn for convenience). That seems pretty clearly Heian, putting her 110 years before the date implied by the movie, at the bare minimum. Even in the movie itself, the attendants at the castle are dressed in Heian-style clothing. Izayoi could be from almost any time within that 400-year period.
Now, if we take that to be true, based just on her clothes and ignoring the movie, that makes Inu-Yasha more than three hundred years old at the very least. Three hundred (which, by the way, comes to about 4.6 years in human form). Which means (if you expect that he ages like a human on his human nights) he either aged one year every thirty or so years since birth (unlikely given his age when Izayoi died) OR, if say, he aged normally until maybe puberty, then he hasn't aged AT ALL in hanyou form since then.
Argh. My brain hurts. Anybody else have any thoughts?
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Post by Patches on Sept 10, 2009 10:25:15 GMT -5
Okay, so maybe somebody can shed some light on this for me because it's really driving me crazy. So some of you may know that I'm in apparel design; which means I know a lot about/think about clothes a lot. Now, here's my malfunction; Izayoi's clothing. Okay, so if we are to take the third movie as canon, that would put Inu-Yasha's birth in 1294; which would be nearing the end of the Kamakura period. However, in the Kamakura period, the samurai class was mostly in-charge, and lavish, impractical clothes were embarrassingly out-of-vogue. Women still wore kosode and hakama, but they'd wear maybe one kimono over that, and generally just on special occasions. Meanwhile, LOOK at Izayoi. The character guide explicitly says she wears a twelve-layer kimono (but that only five layers are drawn for convenience). That seems pretty clearly Heian, putting her 110 years before the date implied by the movie, at the bare minimum. Even in the movie itself, the attendants at the castle are dressed in Heian-style clothing. Izayoi could be from almost any time within that 400-year period. Now, if we take that to be true, based just on her clothes and ignoring the movie, that makes Inu-Yasha more than three hundred years old at the very least. Three hundred (which, by the way, comes to about 4.6 years in human form). Which means (if you expect that he ages like a human on his human nights) he either aged one year every thirty or so years since birth (unlikely given his age when Izayoi died) OR, if say, he aged normally until maybe puberty, then he hasn't aged AT ALL in hanyou form since then. Argh. My brain hurts. Anybody else have any thoughts? Yeeeah, trying to put together a timeline is nearly impossible. With Inuyasha, though, my thoughts are that he's not much older than he looks (plus the 50 years on the tree). This mostly has to do with his attitude, in that he does not at all act like he has 300 years experience under his belt. Also, in the little arc with the nunnery and the bake-neko, the bake-neko mentioned that it was 300 years old and that this was considered significantly old by its standards. Since the only real anomaly is Izayoi's choice of clothing, we can wave that away in a number of ways. The profile guide states that she was from a noble family that fell into ruin, so it could simply be that the 12-layer kimono was all she had left. Sort of like how Rinne always wears his tracksuit despite it being inappropriate for his setting, and it's because he's so poor he can only wear what's available.
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Post by hanyounomiko on Sept 10, 2009 12:01:57 GMT -5
Okay, so maybe somebody can shed some light on this for me because it's really driving me crazy. So some of you may know that I'm in apparel design; which means I know a lot about/think about clothes a lot. Now, here's my malfunction; Izayoi's clothing. Okay, so if we are to take the third movie as canon, that would put Inu-Yasha's birth in 1294; which would be nearing the end of the Kamakura period. However, in the Kamakura period, the samurai class was mostly in-charge, and lavish, impractical clothes were embarrassingly out-of-vogue. Women still wore kosode and hakama, but they'd wear maybe one kimono over that, and generally just on special occasions. Meanwhile, LOOK at Izayoi. The character guide explicitly says she wears a twelve-layer kimono (but that only five layers are drawn for convenience). That seems pretty clearly Heian, putting her 110 years before the date implied by the movie, at the bare minimum. Even in the movie itself, the attendants at the castle are dressed in Heian-style clothing. Izayoi could be from almost any time within that 400-year period. Now, if we take that to be true, based just on her clothes and ignoring the movie, that makes Inu-Yasha more than three hundred years old at the very least. Three hundred (which, by the way, comes to about 4.6 years in human form). Which means (if you expect that he ages like a human on his human nights) he either aged one year every thirty or so years since birth (unlikely given his age when Izayoi died) OR, if say, he aged normally until maybe puberty, then he hasn't aged AT ALL in hanyou form since then. Argh. My brain hurts. Anybody else have any thoughts? Yeeeah, trying to put together a timeline is nearly impossible. With Inuyasha, though, my thoughts are that he's not much older than he looks (plus the 50 years on the tree). This mostly has to do with his attitude, in that he does not at all act like he has 300 years experience under his belt. Also, in the little arc with the nunnery and the bake-neko, the bake-neko mentioned that it was 300 years old and that this was considered significantly old by its standards. Since the only real anomaly is Izayoi's choice of clothing, we can wave that away in a number of ways. The profile guide states that she was from a noble family that fell into ruin, so it could simply be that the 12-layer kimono was all she had left. Sort of like how Rinne always wears his tracksuit despite it being inappropriate for his setting, and it's because he's so poor he can only wear what's available. Well, with Inu-Yasha, I can buy that he's much older than he looks because, experience or none, it doesn't matter that much if the physical paths in his brain haven't developed beyond fifteen or so (which the profile book says he is, physically). With the brain of a fifteen-year-old, he'd still be immature regardless of experience. Plus, he was socially isolated for most of that time, and studies on children in orphanages and who've been lost in the forest and things like that show that social isolation is correlated with a marked drop in IQ. For kids alone in jungles, children who could formerly speak and behave normally before getting lost become totally feral within a few years. Plus, his 300 years of experience would be with fighting and surviving, not interpersonal relationships. So his attitude and behavior actually seems more well-adjusted to me than somebody who was off on his own in a forest at a young age. As for Izayoi, the thing that bothers me is that, even if she only had the 12-layer kimono left, if she was from the Kamakura there's no reason she'd wear them all at once, you see? If she wore just her blue kosode and red hakama she'd be perfectly chronistic. It's like saying "Oh, my family was really rich, but now all we have left is my great-great-grandmother's dress from the 1890's so I'm going to wear that all the time" while the rest of the world is wearing jeans and t-shirts. (Sorry if my over analyzing is annoying to anybody; I find it really fun so...)
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Post by Patches on Sept 10, 2009 13:18:11 GMT -5
As for Izayoi, the thing that bothers me is that, even if she only had the 12-layer kimono left, if she was from the Kamakura there's no reason she'd wear them all at once, you see? If she wore just her blue kosode and red hakama she'd be perfectly chronistic. It's like saying "Oh, my family was really rich, but now all we have left is my great-great-grandmother's dress from the 1890's so I'm going to wear that all the time" while the rest of the world is wearing jeans and t-shirts. Maybe she's Japanese-Amish. Oh, oh, or maybe Izayoi... fell through the well to 500 years in the future. The Inuyasha/Kikyou thing took place around 1496 or so, so maybe she popped up in 1481 after travelling from 981. (the "500 years" thing only makes sense if the 500 years counts to pre-sealed Inuyasha because of the use of firearms in the manga, which weren't introduced in Japan until the 1500's, and the first chapter specifically states that the present era is 1996. So "500 years" only works if we assume that the sealing is what took place in 1496, and the rest of the series takes place in 1546).
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Post by milareppa on Sept 10, 2009 16:36:35 GMT -5
Well, didn't the third film say Inuyasha was 200 years old? Since the third film only gives us the Sengoku Jidai as the basis of the setting for Inuyasha's storyline, then he's set somewhere between 1467-1573 (give or take, depending on which sources you read). That would put Inuyasha's birth at anywhere between 1267-1373. The manga pins it down better with references to Oda Nobunaga (although references to Takeda Nobunaga could throw that off), and the anime helps with the references to how the introduction of the arquebus to Japan relates to the death of the Band of Seven. However, we don't know if the third film takes that into account (if it didn, then Inuyasha would likely have been born somewhere around 1349-1355). Well, Izayoi didn't look like a member of the samurai class to me. If she was Heian aristocracy, then the reminants of that in later centuries weren't really where the samurai class came from - although high-ranking warriors did often marry daughters of courtiers. I don't think Izayoi came from a samurai family, I think she came from a courtier family. One interesting thing I learned, was that the name given to the multi-layered clothing style famous during the Heian era would translate into "twelve-layered" no matter how many layers of kimono were actually worn. I have no idea what the intention of the profiles books were when written and translated, but if you wanted to play around with that for your own benefit, it might be worth considering. I've thought about it in the past, and I don't think it's possible to set any kind of sensible timeline on things. It's my understanding that the highest-ranked courtier fashions changed more slowly than other classes, although I don't know if it changed slowly enough to justify a Heian appearance in a C14th century aristocrat. Either way, the manga gives imagery of the Muonna impersonating Inuyasha's mother, and I've always assumed that was accurate because Inuyasha was fooled by her appearance. However, the manga never tells us how old Inuyasha is, so for all we know he could be five hundred years old or more. The makers of the third film clearly felt they could get away with placing Inuyasha at 200 years and have Izayoi's appearance make sense, but we don't really know what year they envisage the Inuyasha story taking place in - which could make all the difference. After all, 1267AD would have been a very different place to 1373AD. I really don't think Rumiko Takahashi has drawn historically accurate clothing for her characters anyway, so I really don't think we can use them to date characters. Look at Inuyasha's own clothing - he's wearing clothing that would be more at home in a Heian court as well, yet he's running around in both the C16th and C20th. I agree with Patches on ages, however. It's not only the nunnery experience - the toad lord that Inuyasha fights just after first obtaining Tessaiga states that he's 300 years old, and Myouga says that this great age means that the toad lord is a formidable foe. Later on, we hear that Bokusenou is 2000 years old, and there's a sense in the scene that this is a truly great age for even a youkai to achieve. Ultimately, we have no real idea when in the Sengoku the story is actually set (after all, while fans use the Oda Nobunaga reference to pin down a date, the truth is that Kagome might simply have got her dates wrong - just because she knew when Oda lived, doesn't mean she accurately knew which year she was actually time-travelling to), so that alone makes things confusing. I really can't see Inuyasha as being centuries and centuries old. To be honest, I struggled with the third film's decision to make him 200 years old. After all, the other problem is that whatever age we set Inuyasha at, we've got to make Sesshoumaru even older. And Sesshoumaru *also* doesn't behave like someone who's many centuries old. He may have more experience than Inuyasha, and we know that he knows a lot of trivia about the world he lives in, but he's also got the typical teenager blindspot when it comes to true wisdom and experience - which means he can't be mammothly ancient either. He's young too. It also works if we don't assume a nice round number, and that "five hundred years in the past" is simply a rounded figure. My personal preference is to set the story between 1549-1555, and to place the sealing of Inuyasha as 50 years before that, which would take us back to 1499-1505. That would make the actual amount of time between start and finish (Kikyou's death and Kagome's 15th birthday) as 491-497 years. It's close enough to 500 for me to be happy.
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Post by hanyounomiko on Sept 10, 2009 17:18:16 GMT -5
Well, didn't the third film say Inuyasha was 200 years old? Since the third film only gives us the Sengoku Jidai as the basis of the setting for Inuyasha's storyline, then he's set somewhere between 1467-1573 (give or take, depending on which sources you read). That would put Inuyasha's birth at anywhere between 1267-1373. If you take the third movie as canon, Inu-Yasha's birthday is Dec 4, 1294, because that was the date of the only full lunar eclipse visible from Japan in the winter around the right period. Well, Izayoi didn't look like a member of the samurai class to me. I'm not saying that she was from the samurai class; I'm just saying that the samurai class basically overthrew the Heian aristocracy to become the ruling class, and so by the end of the Kamakura, pretty much everyone had adopted their mode of dress. That being the case, Izayoi's clothes seem too extravagant, especially if her family's hit on hard times. One interesting thing I learned, was that the name given to the multi-layered clothing style famous during the Heian era would translate into "twelve-layered" no matter how many layers of kimono were actually worn. I'm aware of that, but the exact wording (from the production notes in the art book, not from the profiles book) is "It's supposed to be a twelve-layer kimono, but five layers are drawn." Although I suppose that's still ambiguous enough to be a translation thing. I really don't think Rumiko Takahashi has drawn historically accurate clothing for her characters anyway, so I really don't think we can use them to date characters. Look at Inuyasha's own clothing - he's wearing clothing that would be more at home in a Heian court as well, yet he's running around in both the C16th and C20th. I chalked that up to Inu-Yasha not caring about fashion/not having access to more clothes/being comfortable in his own clothes and not feeling the need to update them. Takahashi draws the peasants and the contemporary feudal human nobility in pretty much accurate dress, while people in the modern era just assume Inu-Yasha is a cosplayer or something. People are going to look at him funny no matter what; I think the appearance of his clothing is kind of the least of his concerns. Plus keeping the protective fire-rat is just good sense. I agree with Patches on ages, however. It's not only the nunnery experience - the toad lord that Inuyasha fights just after first obtaining Tessaiga states that he's 300 years old, and Myouga says that this great age means that the toad lord is a formidable foe. My only quibble with that is that Inu-Yasha is descended from a daiyoukai whereas the toad and the cat seemed to be regular old mononoke; plus, Inu-Yasha was perfectly capable of handling the toad without difficulty if Kagome had allowed him to. I've mentioned before that I don't really have any difficulty with the idea of Inu-Yasha being centuries old so long as his brain physically develops as slowly as his body does. Neural pathways really dictate maturity more than anything else, so it would be impossible for him to not act like a kid no matter how much experience he had if his brain wasn't done wiring up. Same with Sesshoumaru; he's older, physically 19 or so, so he'd be more mature than Inu-Yasha, but he'd still be mentally wired as an upper-adolescent. Personally, I think for my own purposes I have Inu-Yasha's birth set somewhere at the very tail end of the Heian, when their society was crumbing. To me, that accounts for Izayoi and Inu-Yasha's clothes as well as her family falling into ruin. I'm also in the "Hanyou age like humans until puberty" camp so....I mean, it just makes sense to me. Hanyou are vulnerable, so it would be really adaptive for them to grow to a stage where they can take care of themselves within a relatively brief time frame. In fact, that kind of makes sense for youkai in general, so "aging quickly until adolescence" tends to be the tack I take with them, as well. I know it's impossible to make an actual timeline since SO many details conflict with each other, but I think it's a fun mental exercise trying to work it out.
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ladyjanegrey
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"I GOTTA keep it together!"
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Post by ladyjanegrey on Sept 10, 2009 19:34:42 GMT -5
I must say, this thread is almost as interesting as the "Is Sesshoumaru Chinese?" one! Heehee! I won't argue dates, since I know very little about Japanese history. I did go and check the dialog in the manga. I won't fully quote, but Kagome mistakes the young man for Oda Nobunaga, and reads some info about him from her book. The young man corrects her, saying he is not that Oda person. He then says he's from Takeda, and "not to be mistaken with that fool of Owari." Now the statements leaves some vagueness, but if he knew nothing about Oda Nobunaga, I would think he would have left it at his statement that he wasn't that Oda person. But then he says not to mistake him with the "fool of Owari," which indicates to me that he must have heard of him, as recent "news," and is not flattered. He doesn't make any reference to the rest of Kagome's history text, so I would guess it hasn't happened yet, and is probably just gibberish to him. So this would probably put this chapter, and the dating of the story, somewhere near the beginning of Oda Nobunaga's career, but before his rise to power. (Put your dates here. ) So, now that I have revealed my ignorance, tell me what you think. ;D
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Post by hanyounomiko on Sept 10, 2009 21:04:26 GMT -5
So this would probably put this chapter, and the dating of the story, somewhere near the beginning of Oda Nobunaga's career, but before his rise to power. (Put your dates here. ) Oda Nobunaga was born in 1534 and started doing shit in the 1550's, so it seems like Patches' presumed time frame for the series (i.e. mid-1500's) is probably the most accurate.
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Post by milareppa on Sept 11, 2009 11:25:56 GMT -5
Well, didn't the third film say Inuyasha was 200 years old? Since the third film only gives us the Sengoku Jidai as the basis of the setting for Inuyasha's storyline, then he's set somewhere between 1467-1573 (give or take, depending on which sources you read). That would put Inuyasha's birth at anywhere between 1267-1373. If you take the third movie as canon, Inu-Yasha's birthday is Dec 4, 1294, because that was the date of the only full lunar eclipse visible from Japan in the winter around the right period. You have more faith in the research behind the film than I do. The third film contradicted both the anime and the manga (and the anime and manga were hardly consistent with each other). As a result, I don't think the real life timing of a lunar eclipse would be a good way of ageing Inu Yasha, if they can't even create consistency with the manga the film is based off. Although I'm hardly going to object to seeing someone do it (it's the sort of thing I do too). I tend to view it as the fact it's armour. It's got a very practical use for him, so why change it? I don't think Inuyasha's heritage or power is important in these examples. It's the reputation that's attached to youkai of such age that's more important. Because of their age, they're reputed to be powerful. That means 300 years old is a good age for a youkai to reach, a powerful age. I don't think it matters that there are some youkai that are even more powerful again. All that would really say is "three hundred years is a good, powerful age for a youkai to reach and these youkai should be respected... but god help you if you run into an even stronger or older one!" If that makes sense. Yes and no. If you're going to go solely by neural pathways, then experience helps define neural pathways, so experience would definitely mature him, regardless of age. Real life shows perfectly good examples of 6 year olds who are mature beyond their years. They may not be adult in the sense of a 30 year old, but given how immature some 30 year olds behave, being an adult of mature years doesn't guarantee mature behaviour either. One of the big problems for teenagers isn't how their brains are wired, or even their life experiences. Their hormones are playing a part too. And even a normally mature child can still be a slave to other biological factors. That said, I don't tend to apply much real-life science to Inu Yasha. It's a fantasy, so I make a deliberate choice to have science and the rules of real life take a backseat. I say this as someone who's predominant fandom preferences lie with science-fiction. Inu Yasha has always felt to me like the spiritual world is what dictates the flavour of the piece - so what would define a youkai most to me would be the supernatural "rules" he's governed by, not the biological ones. This we agree on. I also work in a similar manner - although, admittedly, I tend to set the "special age" at 11 years (it's the typical (not exclusive, I know) "coming of age" and suits my supernatural approach to the manga), rather than it being based on a biological puberty. In fact, I tend to do this for youkai a lot as well (depends on the needs of my plots, however). For example, Shiori and Jinenji definitely give the impression that they've aged as much as they have within a normal human lifespan, given the fact Shiori's about 7-10 years old with a young mother, and Jinenji's a full-blown adult (physically anyway) with a very ancient mother. However, Shippou, I suspect, has been maturing at a much slower pace. So, whether I have youkai age at a human-esque rate until their special age, or whether I have them age slowly over time, depends on my mood. It's got a lot to do with how I envisage the infant years. I can't stomach the idea of a youkai being in "six month old baby" mode for years on end before they age enough to be considered the equivalent of a year old human infant. I just feel it makes more sense for even a youkai to age swiftly for the first couple of years of its life, before settling into a more youkai aging pattern. On the subject of hanyou aging, however. I should observe that I'm flexible depending on plot and mood as well. Although I default to this human-aging-until-"puberty" theory, I actually tend to view it as being more likely to be based on individualism. As Jinenji's mother observed - what the end result of a human/youkai pairing can be fairly unpredictable, in the grand scheme of things. I know she was talking about appearance, but I think that can be applied to everything regarding a hanyou - including agespan and speed of aging. It is fun. I never see many people wanting to discuss it, so I'm glad you do! There are two ways to go on the discussion between Kagome and Takeda. The first is that Takeda's reaction is confirmation that the manga is set during the years Oda is regarded as the "Fool of Owari". Everything I've read on the subject, suggests he possessed this title between the ages of 15-21. Since he was born in 1534, that would set the manga at 1549-1555 (assuming modern English counting methods, that is). The other way of reading the conversation, however, is that Takeda did not know who Kagome was on about. He'd never heard of Oda, not even as the "Fool of Owari", but he did recognise the word "fool" and it's hardly going to be nice being mistaken for a person with a nickname like that! In other words, his reaction is more along the lines of "don't compare me to someone with a nickname that has "fool" in the title!" As a result, while it's certainly convenient to use that conversation to date the manga's setting, we don't have to trust it, if we don't want to. There was apparently an historical Takeda Nobunaga as well. I think he lived around 1417-ish and founded a Takeda subclan within the relevant area for the Inu Yasha setting. Oda eventually destroyed their power in the region and took control of the area. Since the setting is supposed to be within the Sengoku period, I really doubt Takeda is based on his historical namesake, but given the Takeda/Oda clash in the area, I can imagine this fellow would have been very put out to be mistaken for an Oda. (Although I bet he was just called Nobunaga so that RT could set up the joke of Kagome wanting his autograph. *s*) I tend to fall into the camp of using the Oda conversation to date the series, so I always set the story somewhere between 1549-1555... usually around 1550, because I like having Kikyou's death being a nice round 1500. Daft reason, I know. But there you go.
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Post by Patches on Sept 11, 2009 14:21:18 GMT -5
I don't think Inuyasha's heritage or power is important in these examples. It's the reputation that's attached to youkai of such age that's more important. Because of their age, they're reputed to be powerful. That means 300 years old is a good age for a youkai to reach, a powerful age. I don't think it matters that there are some youkai that are even more powerful again. All that would really say is "three hundred years is a good, powerful age for a youkai to reach and these youkai should be respected... but god help you if you run into an even stronger or older one!" I agree with this point. I don't think anyone is "born" a daiyoukai, they become one through power and reputation. Therefore, there's no reason for them to age any differently up until that point, and I don't really think there's a "moment" where they hit "your power must be this much and you're a daiyoukai". Sesshoumaru didn't start out as one, but he seems to have pretty much become one as the series went on. So I see it more as 300 years being an impressive age for any youkai to reach, and the difference between a daiyoukai and a regular youkai is simply how much power they've accumulated in that time. There's also the problem that, if Inuyasha's mind really matured as slowly as his body, then it would have been impossible for him to change so much in the single year that the series spanned. He wouldn't have been able to form new bonds or learn new techniques like he did because his mind just wouldn't be able to create those new connections so quickly.
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Post by hanyounomiko on Sept 11, 2009 14:55:22 GMT -5
Yes and no. If you're going to go solely by neural pathways, then experience helps define neural pathways...One of the big problems for teenagers isn't how their brains are wired, or even their life experiences. Their hormones are playing a part too. And even a normally mature child can still be a slave to other biological factors. This is part of what I meant, but I guess I wasn't quite clear (i.e. that he's stuck in "teenager" stage, with all that implies). To speak to Patches' point about mental development, I think the process by which people form memories and bonds is different from the process by which the mind matures to adulthood, so I don't think extended mental adolescence would affect learning. My point on social isolation still stands, though. It doesn't seem unreasonable to me for someone in Inu-Yasha's position to have a serious attitude problem and some major social issues, selfishness and impatience in particular. If the only person someone'd ever had to deal with was themself, anybody would get frustrated when presented with someone who doesn't agree with them or can't keep up with them. Still, good points on all the above (including the power thing). That said, I don't tend to apply much real-life science to Inu Yasha. It's a fantasy, so I make a deliberate choice to have science and the rules of real life take a backseat. I say this as someone who's predominant fandom preferences lie with science-fiction. Inu Yasha has always felt to me like the spiritual world is what dictates the flavour of the piece - so what would define a youkai most to me would be the supernatural "rules" he's governed by, not the biological ones. Even with supernatural series (granted that they're set in a somewhat real setting as opposed to say, One Piece), I tend to think "Science, except when superceded by magic." In other words, I tend to look at things as being a mix of biology and magic, and I have the compulsion to try and make some sort of sense where I can, to the point that I've even, for the purposes of my own roleplays and things, tried to hammer out rules for things like trait inheritance and periods of vulnerability for hanyou that are consistent within those roleplays. So for example, I'd say that hanyou of the same type are likely to have the same vulnerable period, as are related hanyou. That way, someone couldn't sell out their brother without selling out themselves, etc. With full youkai, I'd be more willing to handwave something than for hanyou, since they're half-human and theoretically should be subject to more natural laws than a full youkai. I tend to fall into the camp of using the Oda conversation to date the series, so I always set the story somewhere between 1549-1555... usually around 1550, because I like having Kikyou's death being a nice round 1500. Daft reason, I know. But there you go. Haha, no worries. I know the feeling. For no logical reason whatever, 200 just seemed like a nice age for Inu-Yasha to me, and it feels strange to me to think of him being any other age. But the costume historian in me gets twitchy with Izayoi's outfit. This has even led to frustrations within my own fanworks, in which most original characters wear modified Kamakura-period clothing, while Izayoi and a related OC wear Heian. I designed the outfits long before I knew anything about costume history and I was mostly using the Inu-Yasha manga to inform my design choices. Now I could kick myself.
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ladyjanegrey
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"I GOTTA keep it together!"
Posts: 171
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Post by ladyjanegrey on Sept 11, 2009 17:18:03 GMT -5
Even with supernatural series (granted that they're set in a somewhat real setting as opposed to say, One Piece), I tend to think "Science, except when superseded by magic." In other words, I tend to look at things as being a mix of biology and magic, and I have the compulsion to try and make some sort of sense where I can, to the point that I've even, for the purposes of my own roleplays and things, tried to hammer out rules for things like trait inheritance and periods of vulnerability for hanyou that are consistent within those roleplays. So for example, I'd say that hanyou of the same type are likely to have the same vulnerable period, as are related hanyou. That way, someone couldn't sell out their brother without selling out themselves, etc. With full youkai, I'd be more willing to handwave something than for hanyou, since they're half-human and theoretically should be subject to more natural laws than a full youkai. "One person's magic, is another person's science." And visa versa.
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Post by milareppa on Sept 12, 2009 12:26:53 GMT -5
I don't think Inuyasha's heritage or power is important in these examples. It's the reputation that's attached to youkai of such age that's more important. Because of their age, they're reputed to be powerful. That means 300 years old is a good age for a youkai to reach, a powerful age. I don't think it matters that there are some youkai that are even more powerful again. All that would really say is "three hundred years is a good, powerful age for a youkai to reach and these youkai should be respected... but god help you if you run into an even stronger or older one!" I agree with this point. I don't think anyone is "born" a daiyoukai, they become one through power and reputation. Therefore, there's no reason for them to age any differently up until that point, and I don't really think there's a "moment" where they hit "your power must be this much and you're a daiyoukai". Sesshoumaru didn't start out as one, but he seems to have pretty much become one as the series went on. So I see it more as 300 years being an impressive age for any youkai to reach, and the difference between a daiyoukai and a regular youkai is simply how much power they've accumulated in that time. Right. Throughout the manga, I wasn't sure if a youkai was born a daiyoukai or became one. At the end of the Bakusaiga arc, Toutousai's lecture to Sesshoumaru didn't entirely clear that up - what it seemed to be say to me is that a youkai can be born with the *potential* to become a daiyoukai - but it's up to them to earn it. At that point, I was thinking that that some youkai are born with the potential to become daiyoukai (and it's up to them whether or not they make it that far), whereas other youkai are not born with such potential (so they'd never become a daiyoukai no matter how much they tried). It's something I view as the difference between Sesshoumaru and his father, and a youkai such as Kouga. I don't believe Kouga has the ability or potential to become a daiyoukai - he's a powerful, higher youkai, but he's not daiyoukai material. Sesshoumaru had his coming of age, so we saw the moment he became a "true daiyoukai" (rather than a daiyoukai-in-waiting which how I regard him as being previously). Then, at the end, when they were heading off to the final battle with Naraku, Inuyasha told Shippou to stay behind so that if they all died, he could grow up into a daiyoukai and then avenge them. I'd already believed that Shippou was daiyoukai material because of the kitsune examination arc - he obviously had unique talent compared to his peers, and even older kitsune children. I'm sure a large part of that is the past year he's had - orphaned, constantly in danger, hanging around with companions that the kitsune examination regards as excellent targets for really good marks, etc. So he's had experience a lot of his peers probably have never had - that's bound to have helped him. But I think it's probably talent as well. Nevertheless, to me, Inuyasha's comment was the moment when I stopped faffing around about the subject and decided that my belief is that a youkai is never born a daiyoukai, but some (not all) can be born with the potential to become a daiyoukai. That's the way I look at it these days, anyway. Which I think is more or less what you were saying. However, my view of ageing (which is flexible depending on my mood, to be honest) is that since I can't stomache the idea of a baby being a baby for years on end, that they age at a human rate (for want of a better comparison) until they reach a ceremonial age - such as 3-5 years old for a youkai and 11-15 for a hanyou, where their ageing changes to a youkai adult. Is this completely arbitrary? The idea behind it is, although I chose the ages purely for the various age ceremonies that have existed in Japan - so my age choices do have some rationale behind them. but as to a change in speed of aging, there's no other better reason than my shameless confession that it's solely because I can't stomache the idea of a youkai taking something like ten years just reach an age when it can start cooing or crawling. I'm quite sure that - logically speaking (if we can apply logic to Inu Yasha) - a youkai will age consistently from the moment it's born, as will a hanyou. However, because I personally can't stand the idea of the eternal baby (I can think of exceptions to this, however), this is my answer to my personal hang-up. I'm prone to doing this to a point as well (which is why I twitched during the Band of Seven arc, when Sesshoumaru lost Rin's scent simply because she'd been swept away by the river. It was a clear day - he would have been able to follow her scent, because it's a misconception that running water stops a dog's nose, unless other prevailing weather conditions interfere, such as very heavy rain). While I find it useful (like you) to assume that hanyou of the same type would adhere to the same rules, I don't stick to that rigidly. Because there are indications in the manga that the outcome of a youkai/human mating cannot really be predicted, then I find it easy to not assume that Inuyasha (for example) is a typical example of a dog-hanyou. For example, another dog-hanyou might have a tail instead of dog-ears (sorry, InuPapa!), or paw-feet instead of human feet, etc. After all, if we go strictly by biology, then we have far too much of a headache trying to work out how on earth Jinenji was ever born in the first place - or why his mother survived it. That includes considerations over what Inuyasha's claws could have done to the insides of his mother's body before birth. Plus, we get into very sticky territory with how on earth could a human mother provide the required prenatal and breastfeeding nutrition to meet the needs of a half-human offspring. My guidelines on how much to worry about science depends on the author itself. If the author is writing a story that clearly doesn't care about science, and magic and fantasy is the rule of the day, then I don't care about science either. Now, if Kagome's brother had been a science whizz-kid and was sitting in the shrine trying to work out how in the name of Einstein that well could function, then I'd be giving myself a migraine trying to work all the discrepencies out (but then, I'd hope the author would be paying more attention herself). I don't ignore science (I can't, I'm not that kind of person), but where science and fantasy clash, I choose the side the story itself feels like it's chosen. So, in the case of Inu Yasha, magic wins. I feel very primitive saying that!
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ladyjanegrey
Full Member
"I GOTTA keep it together!"
Posts: 171
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Post by ladyjanegrey on Sept 16, 2009 19:23:17 GMT -5
I was reading a favorite fanfic of mine the other day (yes, I know, I know), and I suddenly had an "Ah Ha!" moment. Yasha and Fluffy-sama were actually having a civilized conversation, and InuYasha was grousing about the shape of his ears. Sesshoumaru makes the comment that pure Youkai are born in their "true form." He goes on to say that is why Shippou looked the way he did, when InuYasha and Kagome found him. With foxy hind paws and tail. Ah Ha! It's logical that "Inu" youkai would be born in the shape of a dog puppy, kitsne as a fox kit, etc. The implication is that a youkai "infant" slowly morphs into "human" form between birth and a certain age. Maybe puberty? It would explain why Shippou had trouble with his shape shifting; he wasn't physically ready yet for a full transformation. Oh course, practice makes perfect! Haha. Perhaps hanyous are mostly "human" because a) their mother is human, and that's a dominant trait, b) their father was probably in human form when they mated their mother (leaving out the "Zeus" thing here, heh) and that overrode the youkai traits, or c) both of the above. Whatever it was, the youkai traits were still powerful enough to "imprint" some traits on the infant, but just a few. Perhaps that's why the traits seem random. As for the development of a "fetus," with "human" sized parents, I would guess the infant would be human-sized too. The size of human babies at birth varies somewhat, but not radially (Of course, there are some exceptions!). The claws or nails of baby mammals are somewhat soft before they are born, and they are born with no teeth, so no harm should come to the mother, and she could breastfeed if she wanted to. I do enjoy fantasy, and don't let the discrepancies bug me (I wouldn't like the Oz stories, otherwise!) But I do get a kick out of trying to make some of them fit into the "Real Universe." ("Tell me! How does Sesshoumaru fly? !!!)
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Post by milareppa on Sept 16, 2009 19:50:23 GMT -5
I've been at a birthday party, so I'm not sober enough to go in depth at the moment, but I just wanted to repsond to one comment:
This isn't entirely true. Although it's most common for babies to be born toothless, it's also not uncommon for babies to be born with teeth in their head. It's also a fact that in most of the world, breastfeeding does not stop with the appearance of teeth in the baby's gums.
Babies can be, and are, trained to safely breastfeed without damaging the mother's breast, whether they have teeth or not (and as plenty of breastfeeding mothers can observe, lack of teeth does not guarantee painless breastfeeding, just as presence of teeth does not guarantee painful breastfeeding - it's the quality of training the infant that matters (not the presence or absence of teeth), and that generally depends on the self-confidence and awareness of the breastfeeding mother with regards to what she is doing).
As much as I get a kick out of investigsating dicrepencies between real-life and fantasy, if one issue is unresolvable in any realistic manner, my soltuion then depends on whether the story is sci-fi or fantasy in primary orientation.
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