[dragon] New Fiction

[Mister Stuff]

But isn't that the point?

    "Kokujin is awesome and deserves to rule the world and the Dragon 
Clan and he's the coolest character ever!" This opinion is bunk, 
because he's a fairly flat character. The first part of the fiction 
expanded on his personality (for the first time since HE), true. Even 
so, he remains quite a formulaic "villain" type. BUT ...

    He is an excellent generic bad-guy. He has style (although his Exp2 
art sucks), and he is a perfect nemesis because he is ridiculing and 
toying with some of the things we as Dragons hold most dear: our 
connection to our kami, our tattoos, our sohei/ise/kikage zumi style of 
mysterious mystic, our sense of shido. He calls into question our 
holier-than-thou attitude towards who Hitomi was (we now see a new side 
of her - an acceptance of a dark sort of madness, to a certain level of 
control), and more. That he can tug on our Dragon Clan heart-strings so 
well makes him a perfect bad guy to get mad about and kill.

    I love Kokujin for this reason. Without him, we would have seen 
Mitsu pass by the wayside. Wayan also would have quickly been cycled 
out of current story focus. We got a very personal mission and goal as 
a Clan because of this somewhat two-dimensional villain character. We 
are getting some of the coolest fiction ever written for the game out 
of him. We will be rewarded for our struggles by a satisfying 
resolution to this decades-long conflict. The mere thought of a band of 
Dragons going out to kick some ass Dragon-style stoutly reaffirms my 
choice of Clans. It is just too cool.

    So, having bad guys in our Clan or involved in our Clan is a good 
thing, for the purposes of watching our Clan at its best in the 
resolution of those bad guys. Losing Mitsu, losing Akuai, losing our 
Personalities is natural. Instead of holding our breaths for when Mitsu 
does his coolest thing ever in the fiction, and waiting, and waiting, 
because surely since he's still around he can still do something yet 
cooler, we can now say, "Mitsu kicked WAY TOO MUCH ASS because he did 
XYZ. That was AWESOME." Just as Hitomi passed out of the active story, 
we can now say, "Hitomi was so cool, because everyone thought she was 
evil - and maybe she danced on the knife's edge for a time - but she 
sacrificed so much, and put so much of herself on the line, and devoted 
so much of herself, to such a noble purpose. In the end, the riddle 
that she was became revealed, and she was a true Dragon." That is why 
Personalities die, and their history comes to a close. That is why the 
story can continue. That is the whole point: not what we have, but 
instead what we can do, and have done, and who will do it next.

    I mean, Ukira, yeah, we were totally robbed on that one. But, still. 
You see my point, I think. *bow*

On Friday, December 6, 2002, at 10:39 PM, Dan Burke wrote:

> we keep on losing our personalities with the most history it seems :( 
>
-T
Togashi Ashido
Dragon Clan Monk * Tattooed * Experienced The Wandering Monk * Unique