Traveler of the Blue Road
Master Post
Part 1: The Mikado and the Crown Prince
Part 2: Sailing into a Trap
Part 3: Chagum and the Hawk
- Chapter 1 - The Talsh Rider
- Chapter 2 - A Grim Journey
- Chapter 3 - Rain in the Imperial Capital
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Chapter 4 - The Palace of the Poisonous Spider
- Chapter 5 - Voices Crying Out
- Chapter 6 - The World On the Wall
Cover:
I am looking forward to this book!
ReplyDeleteWho's your favorite version of Chagum? He seems to have a slightly different personality in the anime and the in the tv drama compared to the book.
Anime!Chagum is gentle-natured, and cries openly when feeling strong emotions which is understandable given his situation. He's not as timid as one would expect from a boy who is constantly in danger of being murdered by his own country, or killed by the hungry Earth spirits from Nayug. In fact, he seems a little bit over-confident. I'm thinking about the time he publicly exposed a group of scammers, and snuck off to a festival to have a showdown with a mean-spirted Rotan teenager who insulted his father the Mikado.
Drama!Chagum as a child is much angrier, and even comes off as a bit of a jerkass sometimes. He seems to mellow out a lot when he becomes a teenager. I'd say his personality more strongly resembles the anime incarnation in seasons 2 and 3.
Book!Chagum seems to be somewhere in between? He cries openly when he has to skin some rabbits in the first book, and he certainly demonstrates a heroic streak in Traveler of the Void but he is also prone to bursts of anger just like in the drama so I guess anime and tv drama wanted to emphasize different aspects of his character.
I can't believe I'm here. I made it! It's the hardest book in the series to translate! :)
ReplyDeleteI think book Chagum is essentially kind-hearted, too, though he has a wider mean streak (when threatened) and is definitely willing to stand up for what he believes. I find Chagum's characterization pretty consistent across mediums; the differences you mention are age-related, I think. Every kid throws tantrums; every teenager has an angst period. Chagum both shows his kindness and cries in front of the Mikado(!) very early on in this book, so I think it shows him at a transitional phase between the two poles of characterization that you mention.
As to my favorite version of Chagum? I just like Chagum. :) It's really hard to say if I like him better here than in Guardian of Heaven and Earth, but I give the edge to the book Chagum regardless (because we know him best). Between the anime and the drama, I like anime Chagum's characterization for Guardian of the Spirit and drama Chagum's characterization for the rest. I really liked the drama version of Chagum overall, but he didn't have nearly as much time to develop and grow.
This probbably will seem very out of the blue (no pun intended) but I want to write my own fantasy series and I want to give it that same kind of charm which Moribito has for both of us. I don’t want to shamelessly copy Nahoko Uehashi’s entire work, but I’d love to be able to replicate the spirit of Moribito.
DeleteI’ll just say what I like the most about this whole series (although a lot of my points have more to do with the first book).
I like how the religious beliefs and mythology of the people in this universe do not default to being a thinly disguised reskin of a real-world religion such as Buddhism or Christianity but instead seems to be mostly its own thing. I also find it fascinating how the spirit world Nayug seems to interact with Sagu. Nayug’s sun appearing as a second moon at nighttime is a cool touch, but I am curious about the physics of two worlds that appear to exist in separate planes of reality seemingly being gravitationally bound. Is this a binary star system?
I do not usually like the “damsel in distress” trope in fiction because it feels a little degrading to the “damsel” but its more forgivable when said “damsel” is a child who is untrained in the art of combat and might not fully grasp just how much danger they are in. What I like about Moribito is that it also flips the usual genders of “damsel” and “hero” so instead of a tough guy protecting a tiny girl we get an athletic woman with a spear aggressively protecting a docile boy from all kinds of danger.
Lastly, I like how the franchise seems to touch upon issues of colonialism, cultural appropriation/culture erasure, historical revisionism, imperialism, and ethnic conflict between the settlers and the indigenous peoples. The author seems to avoid many clichés associated with indigenous people, with one unavoidable exception: the magical native" trope.
The egg being inside Chagum’s belly in the anime is slightly creepy though. I mean, isn't this essentially a boy experiencing pregnancy? Maybe if I borrow the plot point of a person with a spirit’s egg inside them I should place the egg near their heart like what the drama seems to do?
Most European fantasies are set in what looks like an analogue of Great Britain or possibly Scandinavia. I'd probbably set my story in a fantasy version of Reniassance Italy since I don't think many authors use Romance countries like Spain as inspiration very often.
Wow, that's so cool! Good luck with writing! I wrote a novel ages and ages ago but (of course) it's not published, so it takes a lot (lot, lot) of work.
DeleteI'm not an allegorical writer (that is, I don't write with a specific world philosophy in mind) so our experiences of Moribito are quite different. Both the scientific (i.e. two moons) and fantasy (Nayug/Sagu) elements of the series rest pretty lightly on its shoulders; there is no hard magic system and there are no defined physics beyond "earthlike." I don't equate peril or action with a damsel in distress plot (all fiction needs conflict); the essential plot of Moribito is much more like a buildingsroman (story of growing up, for both Balsa *and* Chagum). Characters not being bound to gender roles is refreshing and makes perfect sense given that this is an entirely different world--but it would also be hard to have an entire society where all the men are like Tanda and all the women are like Balsa. The characters are people first; they're not there to push an idea like feminism or represent an ideology.
I think that only the first book in the series falls into the "magical native" trap, mostly because we're seeing the Yakoo as outsiders. As we get more familiar with them, we learn (1) most Yakoo can't do magic weaving, (2) some Yogoese people can, and (3) magic weaving is a process where everyone is constantly learning.
The egg inside Chagum is symbolic of maturity. It's tied to natural, inevitable cycles ("nature red in tooth and claw") and it chooses a child on the cusp of puberty because the child, also, is maturing. This is a story for children/young adults, primarily, and it's very uncomfortable to grow up.
Don Quixote is the only common/popular adventure work I can think of set in Spain (and some versions of Zorro have legends set there, though that's mostly Spain-occupied Mexico, which was called New Spain at the time). I'd like to read a Spanish-tinged fantasy; the colors, the heat, and the food already seem a little magical to me, since Spain's on the other side of the world from where I am. Italy is probably more familiar to audiences (given the slew of historical/action-adventure dramas over the past decade like "Rome" and "Spartacus") but it's also tied to a specific (rather religious) culture and history. I think Uehashi is messing around with Roman imperialism with the Talsh, but other elements of their culture don't strike me as Roman at all.
Good luck with your fantasy story!
El Cid takes place in Spain. But the movie for that came out like 60 years ago so I don't think we could call it "popular" anymore.
ReplyDeleteMaybe it's a testament to Uehashi's creativity that all us kids in the peanut gallery are itching to copy her? She's like a Tolkien, and Great Seishin and I are like Terry Brooks and George R.R. Martin. XD
I've got a spirit incubating in a human, too - but it's a nasty-looking parasite and the person dies when it matures, sooooooooo 8D
What *is* interesting to me is that us thieves have zeroed in on totally different aspects of the books. Great Seishin is talking about emulating the feel and the folklore focus and having a Balsa-type central character, but in a Spanish setting. I am shamelessly ripping off as many plot points and characters as possible, while changing the time, not the place, and switching the focus of the story 180 degrees. It's fascinating to me how writing borrow and adapt elements from other writers, and the organic ways in which a story grows. I'll be quite curious to see what Great Seishin comes up with, if they ever bring this idea of theirs to fruition. It'll probably be nothing like my discohunter story - yet clearly tied back to Moribito. Kind of like how a museum that does an art show based on, oh, Star Wars or Back to the Future - essentially a fanart exhibit - will end up with a wild variety of products because each artist is seeing the original work through a totally different lens.
Can you believe I actually thought I could wait til I got to this point to reveal the existence of the disco story? ROFL ROFL ROFL ROFL
Every writer has different preoccupations. :) I imagine Uehashi would be flattered if she knew. I'd be interested, too, when all these creative works are complete, if the original story is still identifiable or if it's mutated and twisted so much that it's unrecognizable. Really, every story is a copy of another in some sense (there are only seven basic plots...), so authorial spin *is* the story.
DeleteI wonder if Nahoko knows about these fan translations. I hope she'd be happy that people are inspired by her to write similar stories!
DeleteI think I will try to deconstruct Moribito but not in a mean-spirted way! I just like deconstructing things. I will keep the "spirit's egg in the belly" plot point since I think it has horror potential if interpreted realistically, although I could just as easily play it for laughs, like “Oh no, our prince is experiencing a supernatural pregnancy (even though we’re 99% sure he’s a boy), and now he’s got cravings for snake skins and bear bones”.
I liked the dramatic implications of Chagum, a prince of a colonial nation, being possessed by a spirit, a benevolent creature of water, worshipped by that nation's indigenous people. Imagine if instead of a rain deity, that was some native culture's chief god that was now in egg form inside a child of their greatest enemy? I mean, the Yaku don't seem to care too much that their water spirit placed its egg inside a Yogoese prince instead of a Yaku child but I guess they don’t really care about the exact race of the Nyunga Ro Chaga when the whole continent is being threatened by a mega-drought that could destroy civilization. Then again, the Yogoese weren’t quite as cruel to the Yaku as the Rotans were to the Tal so maybe they don’t feel nearly as protective of their culture? I’m not really sure ...
I don't know when I will be able to start this WIP; this summer I am extremely busy, and even then, I already have an unrelated WIP on the barbeque which I started about a year ago. Its a Japanese-inspired Paranormal that will have an Onryo as the protagonist: I imagined he was once a prince just like Chagum but then was corrupted in a dark ritual conducted by the villain who is an Onmyoji (basically a wizard that uses YinYang-based magic). Theoretically I could probably fuse the two WIPs but I feel like that would be a little messy …
I think I want to set my story in a kingdom inspired by Renaissance Italy but acting more like Imperial Spain. I imagined my version of Balsa to be a person from a country at war with this kingdom, and she would be protecting a child from his own familiy who are xenophobic nobles, but also protecting them from her own country's government because they either want to turn the prince against his own family or they want to reclaim their god who has possessed him or something like that (I am still working out the details). I think my version of Chagum will be more of a jerkass but still a good person (people like that can be hilarious as long as they aren’t targeting you). I’m thinking he will become kinder as the story progresses but there is no guarantee I will let him survive to the end of the story since my aim is not to file off Nahoko’s serial numbers and replace them with my own, but to write something that would feel spiritually similar to what she wrote.
And, I’m not sure what you mean by discohunter?
Ah, sorry, it's a portmanteau I'm using for my Moribito ripoff, which Ainikki is familiar with because I talked about it with her elsewhere. My story takes place in a fantasy version of the 1970s, complete with discos and bellbottoms, and stars the Imperial Hunters (Mon, Jin, Yun, etc. under different names). Hence: discohunter. XDX
DeleteI think that having the god of one culture incubating in the son of their greatest enemy is a wonderful premise for conflict. And everyone likes it when a character goes from amusing jerkass to actually decent individual. It sounds to me as if your story already has good bones. ^_^
Maybe the Yaku didn't mind the Nyunga Ro Chaga being a Yogoese because they knew the kid was going to get ripped to pieces by Rarunga. XDDDDDDD
Your discohunter premise sounds exciting. I wonder how exactly one makes a fantasy version of the 1970s though. Weren't there primitive computers already by then? Is it set in New Yogo inspired place but hundreds of years into the future?
DeleteUnfortunately, my Moribito-inspired WIP is still in the conceptual stage (although the setting is set, pardon the pun, in stone). A challenge I am having is creating place names that sound believably Italian. And figuring out what to call my characters (a lot of European names are Biblical and/or too common for me to give to a fictional character in a fantasy world so I've thought about using medieval names.
The Yaku wouldn't really feel schadenfreude towards a boy about to be ripped apart by monsters JUST because he is a Yogoese. They aren't vindictive like that.
I use this site a lot for trying to come up with names that sound like they belong to a certain language group: https://www.behindthename.com/random/. You can select specific languages to draw from (in your case romance languages) and return lists of names to borrow or to modify into names for your story. I often don't use the exact names it comes up with, but I find it inspiring and helpful. *shrug*
DeleteYou're right that (most of) the Yaku don't resent the Yogo people... but it's very funny to imagine them laughing about it behind Chagum's back. (To me, anyhow. XD)
There were definitely computers in the 1970s! (Electronic computers were invented in the 1940s, if I recall. Mainframe computers/supercomputers came about in the 1950s but were exceptionally primitive by modern standards.) And there are (some) in my discohunter story, too! As well as tazers, MRI machines, cars, machine guns, public transit, cassette tapes... etc. I did decide not to include TV or powered flight, but otherwise the technology is about the same as in the real world. There are also spirits and a spirit world (Nayug, essentially) and the spirits interact with the material world, just like in Moribito.
So yeah, it's basically New Yogo many hundreds of years later. You've got your Emperor and his three wives and two sons, and you've got your star readers - but it's been 600 years since the country was settled, rather than 200, so they no longer do divination and instead are basically intelligence analysts. XD And then, of course, you've got the Hunters, except each is host to a spirit parasite that gives them superpowers, and they're taken from their families to become secret assassins when the superpowers emerge. Then when the parasite completes its larval stage, it rips free and the host dies, horribly. Oh and there are tons of drugs, too. Cuz... the 70s. XD
Hmm, my short description became long. Oh well.
Also, regarding Italian names for places and characters - another idea which I'm going to suggest, and something I frequently do, is to just give a purely descriptive name - like, for instance, Standing Water for a neighborhood that floods, or Birdsong River, or Grey Stone Mountain - and translate it into the appropriate language. And for people names, you can pick words. Like, last night I was trying to name a character and I just looked up the word "firm" in Japanese, because he's a stern fellow. The word - kyoukou - sounded too much like a female name to me, plus it looks weird - but the Chinese pronunciation - qianying - was closer. So he became Chanyu. You could do something similar, but in Italian.
DeleteI also use that website, too. I found a name I really liked which came from the Turkish language and so I decided to use it as the name of my Italy-analogue, but I was not sure how to modify a foreign word to sound more "Romance" so an Italian lady on Facebook helped me go through the sound and spelling changes that would likely need to occur for that name to be a place name. I have also been doing what you suggested with descriptive names. The capital of that Italy-analogue is literally just Blessed Capital in Italian although I did toy with the idea of naming that city after “strawberries” but I find the Italian word for “strawberry” which is “fragola” doesn’t really translate into a place name nearly as well as I hoped.
DeleteOn one hand, I like your idea of New Yogo set in the 1970s. On the other hand, my unsolicited recommendation would be to try to make your world and characters distinct enough on their own that people would enjoy the story even if they did not know what Moribito was. I think most readers will not mind that what you wrote was influenced by a pre-existing work, but at the risk of being patronizing, you also don’t want people to think this is a thinly disguised fanfiction or they might decide “You know what? I might as well read the original by Uehashi, instead”. Regardless of how different from the original your work is, once its public knowledge that you were inspired by Moribito you are likely to get comments either from trolls or from people who don’t understand the concept of “imitation is flattery” who will be accusing you of plagiarism so be prepared for that, too.
Yeah, I'm glossing over most of the details and differences but despite my (extensive) efforts to make it distinct and total disregard with keeping it in line with the Moribito world - because, after all, it's not a fanfic (and I stole a great deal from Mushishi and other sources as well) - I'm sure that anyone familiar with Moribito would be able to figure out where I got my ideas. But, I figure, most High Fantasy is just Lord of the Rings ripoffs, and they do all right. XD I'm not *too* worried. But, no one wants to get sued, so you can bet I've thought about all the ways this is its own original story. (I tend to be a bit tongue-in-cheek about things in these comments, too...)
DeleteI'm so glad you knew about that website already. It's very useful. I also love the idea of naming a city after strawberries. "Campi d'Fragole" ^_^ Are the other countries also Mediterranean in inspiration? Like Spain, Greece, Sicily, France maybe? Turkey?
I haven't really put too much thought into who the neighboring cultures/tribes/empires/etc. will be inspired by, although I did consider basing the indigenous people in the main setting on the Celtic and Germanic tribes that lived north of the Roman empire.
DeleteI think I will try to make the neighboring countries their own thing rather than making them directly based on real world places. If I was going to base them on real world places they would probably be more Slavic, Middle-Eastern, or South Asian inspired. I am tempted to throw in some pieces of ancient China because it is my favorite historic civilization, but I don't know if it would make sense there so maybe the China-analogue is on a neighboring continent?
Pfft it's a fantasy world there's no reason you couldn't have an ancient China next door to a medieval Italy. Just say the borders are strictly controlled or their super xenophobic and that will explain the large differences in culture and language. Easy peasy. :)
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