A Swift End

By HamHamJ2, in L5R LCG: Lore Discussion

33 minutes ago, codegnave said:

If your reaction to an oposing party's wish to renegotiate a treaty is to attack them, then you are being obstinate and jingoistic.

There is no such thing as a good war, especially with a famine going on.

The opposing party did not try to renegotiate a treaty. They just broke it and said bring it.

1 hour ago, Schmoozies said:

Yeah, those are for the most part actual true historical context things for feudal Japaneses society.

None of the things mentioned by Gunichi are true in historical context.

6 minutes ago, Suzume Chikahisa said:

The opposing party did not try to renegotiate a treaty. They just broke it and said bring it.

Actually the Lion said bring it when they seized Hisu Mori Torride as their due for the broken engagement. Unicorn simply responded to defend their territory.

46 minutes ago, codegnave said:

If your reaction to an oposing party's wish to renegotiate a treaty

It wasn't their wish to renegotiate. It was unilateral decision to end the freshly agreed deal by Unicorn, which besmirched Lion's honor

49 minutes ago, codegnave said:

jingoistic

...well, it's the Lion. What do you expect from them?

50 minutes ago, codegnave said:

There is no such thing as a good war

This is relatively modern concept which is NOT accepted in the Empire, definitely not by the Lion, and that in universe of Rokugan is objectively false because of the metaphysics stuff, Fu Leng, kamis, ancestors and all that jazz

What in the world is this charge that the new L5R continuity is gritty and edgy? It's a sweeping romance so far.

The exceptions being Crab horror tales.

Edited by Manchu
11 hours ago, Manchu said:

What in the world is this charge that the new L5R continuity is gritty and edgy? It's a sweeping romance so far.

I'll give that one to you, no real disagreements here. Tho I don't like how the escape route is shameless shipping. But hey, if it is going to be Shipping Wars instead of Clan Wars, I won't protest :lol: .

Also, this fic pushed the slider a little too far, as I said earlier. No honeymoon jokes from Mitsuko, no Matsu jokes from Shino, no "Do you still love me?" dying words at the end (unforgivable!), but anger, suffering, shouting, and even more suffering. This tonal equilibrium is pretty much what The Heart of the Garden got right: despite starting off as pretty grim and suffering-y, it still ended with a positive note.

I think Manchu is using the literary form of romance here haha

12 hours ago, Manchu said:

What in the world is this charge that the new L5R continuity is gritty and edgy? It's a sweeping romance so far.

The exceptions being Crab horror tales.

- Will Kakita Yoshi ever admit his tsundere love for Kachiko? How is Hotaru going to react? Will Shoujo and Kitsune-kun (Hotaru's husband) meet in a tavern to drink all night and complain on how difficult it is to keep wives faithful nowadays?

Find about this and more in the next installment of the award winning heart-throbbing series Rokugan: tainted love

Edited by mirrorcat
13 hours ago, Schmoozies said:

Actually the Lion said bring it when they seized Hisu Mori Torride as their due for the broken engagement. Unicorn simply responded to defend their territory.

Uuuuhh... no. The treaty was to prevent war. They broke the treaty. Hence war is not prevented.

Look, buying something is a treaty. “I’ll give you this money, and you’ll give me that thing” “Ok, take the thing. Now give me the money” “On second thought, I’m not gonna give you the money” “Well, then give me back the thing.” “No, the thing is mine now” “I’m gonna punch you in the face and take the thing. Also, I’m gonna take the money.” “HOW DARE YOU?! The thing and the money are mine!!! I’m gonna punch you back in the face!!!”

Essentially what happened with the Lion/Unicorn treaty.

19 minutes ago, Tabris2k said:

Uuuuhh... no. The treaty was to prevent war. They broke the treaty. Hence war is not prevented.

Look, buying something is a treaty. “I’ll give you this money, and you’ll give me that thing” “Ok, take the thing. Now give me the money” “On second thought, I’m not gonna give you the money” “Well, then give me back the thing.” “No, the thing is mine now” “I’m gonna punch you in the face and take the thing. Also, I’m gonna take the money.” “HOW DARE YOU?! The thing and the money are mine!!! I’m gonna punch you back in the face!!!”

Essentially what happened with the Lion/Unicorn treaty.

The two clans were not actively at war when the treaty was signed, the Lion were making grumblings of it and were eyeing certain Unicorn holdings that they felt they had a right too, but there was no active war when the treaty was signed. Hisu (as stated in previous fictions) was a Unicorn holding that was scheduled to be given to the Lion as part of the treaty but had not been done so (and the failed treaty was the pretext the Lion used to justify their attack) and ignores that the 'treaty " was essentially a full surrender by the Unicorn (here take our territory, and our horses and why not our champion as well and we get you stopping threatening to invade our territory) that honestly would have likely done very little to curb Lion aggression in the long term.

19 minutes ago, Schmoozies said:

The two clans were not actively at war when the treaty was signed, the Lion were making grumblings of it and were eyeing certain Unicorn holdings that they felt they had a right too, but there was no active war when the treaty was signed. Hisu (as stated in previous fictions) was a Unicorn holding that was scheduled to be given to the Lion as part of the treaty but had not been done so (and the failed treaty was the pretext the Lion used to justify their attack) and ignores that the 'treaty " was essentially a full surrender by the Unicorn (here take our territory, and our horses and why not our champion as well and we get you stopping threatening to invade our territory) that honestly would have likely done very little to curb Lion aggression in the long term.

Never said they were at war. It was to prevent war. Altansarnai words:

The Lion and the Unicorn are already agreed. If I do not marry him, the clan will suffer a great loss of honor. That failure may well lead to war.” [...] “The Lion offered this marriage as a means of finding peace. We give them a dowry of horses; they remove their claim from our southernmost lands .”

She knew the consequences of breaking the treaty, but did it nevertheless. The Lion just answered as expected by Bushido. That hardly makes them the villains.

Not villains, certainty jerks though. Y'all killin people cause of a reneged treaty? By all means claim bushido, you still fail the prime point of being a noble, protecting commoners.

15 minutes ago, Tabris2k said:

Never said they were at war. It was to prevent war. Altansarnai words:

The Lion and the Unicorn are already agreed. If I do not marry him, the clan will suffer a great loss of honor. That failure may well lead to war.” [...] “The Lion offered this marriage as a means of finding peace. We give them a dowry of horses; they remove their claim from our southernmost lands .”

She knew the consequences of breaking the treaty, but did it nevertheless. The Lion just answered as expected by Bushido. That hardly makes them the villains.

Sorry, but me screaming give me all your money or I'll punch you in your face and then when you decide not to do it I punch you does not make me the hero, it makes me a bully and the villain for setting the situation up in the first place. The Lion offer from the start has been on the extreme end of scummy (it was literally we get everything and give up nothing of consequential value since they were offsetting the loss of the Phoenix marriage with an even more high profile one). The Lion offer was them trying to demonstrate their superiority over the Unicorn to the rest of the Empire and using the excuse of Bushido as a mask for their own aggressive drives. Altansarnai does admit that since the Unicorn had agreed to the offer the Lion would use it as a pretext to escalate tensions which is why she made a point of sending word to the emperor and said that if he insisted that the marriage continue she would. The fact that the Emperor did not insist that the marriage continue (although in light of the new information about his health conditions one almost has to wonder if he was given the full story) shows that he understood the stance she was taking and why she felt the need to break the engagement. Lion may have had legitimate claim to the territory they seized as a result, but they should have first been petitioning the Emperor to enforce their right not just unilaterally marching an army into the territory.

At the end of the day the Unicorn were making a deal to avert a war, but it was not a war of their design, Lion were the ones making aggressive moves towards lands that the Emperor had designated as Unicorn holdings upon their return, now sure there may have been disputes as to the control given the extended period that Lion had stewardship over those lands, but lets not get started on the way Lion got that position and their treatment of what became the fox, but at the end of the day that should be something for the Emperor and the imperial court to decide not the Lion on their own.

Lion are currently an aggressor clan in the story and all signs point to the fact that there is a cross section of the clan that seems determined to push for military expansion (the maneuvering to get Toturi out of the way and the whole try and push Tsuko to escalate hostilities with the Crane) that seems centered in the Ikoma and likely around Ujiaki. It not necessarily a bad thing (just look at my Mon and it should tell you everything I feel about being an aggressor clan) as stories need villains as much as heroes to be interesting, and there is a very solid chance that there is a solid redemption story ark for the clan as it tries to purge those elements once they determine how much carp they are getting up to.

9 minutes ago, codegnave said:

Not villains, certainty jerks though. Y'all killin people cause of a reneged treaty? By all means claim bushido, you still fail the prime point of being a noble, protecting commoners.

By modern western Standards you are right… But this is Rokugan! Maybe the Unicorn don't understand that, and that's why that after 200 years they are still Gaijin.

2 minutes ago, Bayushi Nono said:

By modern western Standards you are right… But this is Rokugan! Maybe the Unicorn don't understand that, and that's why that after 200 years they are still Gaijin.

Doesnt make it wrong though! If someone takes advantage of your kindness or compassion it is they who are wrong!

Should they be prepared for people to do so? Yes. And they are, they have the second largest army in the country!

22 minutes ago, Bayushi Nono said:

By modern western Standards you are right… But this is Rokugan! Maybe the Unicorn don't understand that, and that's why that after 200 years they are still Gaijin.

Bushido is more than just an excuse to go full aggro. It is a code that comprises many different virtues and while they may be living up to the Honour and to a lesser extent the Honesty (more in punishing the Unicorn for failing in that virtue) and arguable Duty/Loyalty for the same reasons at Honesty. But they are also themselves failing in the areas of Righteousness, Benevolence/Compassion, Respect and Self-Control. So yes they are up 3 but down 4 so I'd call that a loss on the Bushido front.

44 minutes ago, Schmoozies said:

Bushido is more than just an excuse to go full aggro.

In Rokugan it kinda is. Or, to better say, it is an excuse to go full X, where X is some sort of unpleasant thing that requires an excuse else the initiating party will look bad. For example, suppressing your emotions goes against almost every virtue, but when a character has a big internal drama about he/she goes "Oh, the demands of Bushido!" rather than "Man, I'm one cowardly bootlicker!" - see the difference?

Tsundere is actually a perfect description of Kakita Yoshi.

3 hours ago, Schmoozies said:

Bushido is more than just an excuse to go full aggro. It is a code that comprises many different virtues and while they may be living up to the Honour and to a lesser extent the Honesty (more in punishing the Unicorn for failing in that virtue) and arguable Duty/Loyalty for the same reasons at Honesty. But they are also themselves failing in the areas of Righteousness, Benevolence/Compassion, Respect and Self-Control. So yes they are up 3 but down 4 so I'd call that a loss on the Bushido front.

i'm still waiting for Lion reasoning behind this
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3 hours ago, AtoMaki said:

For example, suppressing your emotions goes against almost every virtue

I've always thought Self-Control (which is one of the eight virtues of Bushido as outlined by Nitobe in real history) ought to have been made one of the seven, replacing Honor, which has always felt poorly defined within the framework. And that would provide a clear reasoning for why suppressing emotion is honorable: because you are demonstrating the virtue of Self-Control.

I would rather make this whole emotion showing deal more nuanced. Say, showing sincere and deep emotions in the appropriate context is honorable, like rewarding a good joke with a heartfelt laughter is a nice thing so is giving a harsh rebuke to another after they have messed up. Showing shallow emotions in the appropriate context is acceptable but considered a flaw of character, like displaying anger, personal grief, or shock. Insincere emotions and emotions in an inappropriate context are dishonorable. Keep that heartfelt laugh back if you are at a funeral. Then there are the "banned" emotions of regret, desire, and fear that you must keep under control all the time because they are super-dishonorable.

You can play around a lot with this, especially how the context can change or how one can slip with the sincerity... and of course how being essentially compelled to show one's deepest emotions can cause a lot of trouble.

5 minutes ago, AtoMaki said:

I would rather make this whole emotion showing deal more nuanced. Say, showing sincere and deep emotions in the appropriate context is honorable, like rewarding a good joke with a heartfelt laughter is a nice thing so is giving a harsh rebuke to another after they have messed up. Showing shallow emotions in the appropriate context is acceptable but considered a flaw of character, like displaying anger, personal grief, or shock. Insincere emotions and emotions in an inappropriate context are dishonorable. Keep that heartfelt laugh back if you are at a funeral. Then there are the "banned" emotions of regret, desire, and fear that you must keep under control all the time because they are super-dishonorable.

You can play around a lot with this, especially how the context can change or how one can slip with the sincerity... and of course how being essentially compelled to show one's deepest emotions can cause a lot of trouble.

But now you are talking about remaking the entire system which is a little late to be doing at this point. True Samurai were expected to put on a face of Stoicism and genuine displays of public emotion were frowned upon. Behind closed doors it was obviously different but there was a certain decorum you were expected to maintain for the image of your lord.

I just got the expansion and read the story.

So... we have the first death of a playable card? Am I wrong?

Anyway, I really like the story, and I am so sad for this lost, and now I feel like we have to change Champion (and after said that I think all Unicorn will count me as a ronin, lol)

No, Hida Tomonatsu died in Dark Hands of Heaven .

10 hours ago, shineyorkboy said:

No, Hida Tomonatsu died in Dark Hands of Heaven .

Which was before she was even released...