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Yet more dragons. Sorry.
I see that the reason my Goujun always feels vaguely OOC to me is that I've never written him seen from the standpoint of an admiring inferior. Goukou and Goushou are older brothers and see him as their junior. Gouen loves and appreciates him, but Gouen has such a good conceit of himself, and their basic characters are too different, for him to want to model himself on Goujun. Tenpou in some part of his soul reserves judgment on both Goujun and, I think, everybody: or rather, as both the Gaiden and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
lebateleur's fic suggest, Tenpou doesn't give priority to his personal attachments even when they exist.
Yet I feel the manga presents Goujun from exactly the standpoint that no particular character expresses. For five years we've seen him only in his dealings with Kenren, who can't stand him. Yet we have the idea that he's an honourable man, an efficient soldier, and a good commander: someone fundamentally trustworthy (where I, at least, wouldn't trust Tenpou as far as I could throw him) and basically admirable.
That doesn't come entirely from ironic juxtaposition with the only too-human (if I may use that word) Kenren. It comes I suppose from the fact that he springs Kenren from jail, and that he seems at least partly in sympathy with Kenren's views. It's not 'Next time think twice before meddling in things that don't concern you;' it's 'Why the hell didn't you go through channels? We could have gotten Nataku relieved of the next mission if *I*'d been the one suggesting it.'
Military mentality, is Goujun. And military mentality is foreign territory in the kind of manga I read. It's also the most insidious kind of cultural trap. You may argue that soldiers are soldiers the world over and in all ages, but I'm just not sure. I know there's a significant difference between the American and British ways of leading armies, and if cultures as close as that can differ, what will we do between east and west?
In any case, my own default for armies is British, and when I write military types I have to fight not to do it in David Niven's voice. (We never went to films when I was growing up. Never. There were four of us and my mother wouldn't let us go alone, but taking four kids to the movies- and us whinging rotten spoiled brat kids at that- was an exercise in masochism she rarely undertook. Nonetheless and don't ask me why, we all went to see The Guns of Navarone. I remember nothing about it but I think it must have been a kind of primal scene.) But I rather doubt Goujun is Niven in any of his roles. I should be thinking Three Kingdoms stuff, I suppose (observe the illustration on the top of that page) but Goujun seems even less Three Kingdoms than he does David Niven.
I see that the reason my Goujun always feels vaguely OOC to me is that I've never written him seen from the standpoint of an admiring inferior. Goukou and Goushou are older brothers and see him as their junior. Gouen loves and appreciates him, but Gouen has such a good conceit of himself, and their basic characters are too different, for him to want to model himself on Goujun. Tenpou in some part of his soul reserves judgment on both Goujun and, I think, everybody: or rather, as both the Gaiden and
lebateleur's fic suggest, Tenpou doesn't give priority to his personal attachments even when they exist. Yet I feel the manga presents Goujun from exactly the standpoint that no particular character expresses. For five years we've seen him only in his dealings with Kenren, who can't stand him. Yet we have the idea that he's an honourable man, an efficient soldier, and a good commander: someone fundamentally trustworthy (where I, at least, wouldn't trust Tenpou as far as I could throw him) and basically admirable.
That doesn't come entirely from ironic juxtaposition with the only too-human (if I may use that word) Kenren. It comes I suppose from the fact that he springs Kenren from jail, and that he seems at least partly in sympathy with Kenren's views. It's not 'Next time think twice before meddling in things that don't concern you;' it's 'Why the hell didn't you go through channels? We could have gotten Nataku relieved of the next mission if *I*'d been the one suggesting it.'
Military mentality, is Goujun. And military mentality is foreign territory in the kind of manga I read. It's also the most insidious kind of cultural trap. You may argue that soldiers are soldiers the world over and in all ages, but I'm just not sure. I know there's a significant difference between the American and British ways of leading armies, and if cultures as close as that can differ, what will we do between east and west?
In any case, my own default for armies is British, and when I write military types I have to fight not to do it in David Niven's voice. (We never went to films when I was growing up. Never. There were four of us and my mother wouldn't let us go alone, but taking four kids to the movies- and us whinging rotten spoiled brat kids at that- was an exercise in masochism she rarely undertook. Nonetheless and don't ask me why, we all went to see The Guns of Navarone. I remember nothing about it but I think it must have been a kind of primal scene.) But I rather doubt Goujun is Niven in any of his roles. I should be thinking Three Kingdoms stuff, I suppose (observe the illustration on the top of that page) but Goujun seems even less Three Kingdoms than he does David Niven.
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And yes, Nobunaga and Ieyasu were capital s-shites. Unfortunately it usually takes someone more ruthless than anyone else to end a century of fragmentation and jockeying for power.
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I see your point, though. Despite all the position-jockeying, backstabbing, and bitterness going on in the levels below him, Goujun can manage to be undisputedly virtuous and righteous.
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My brain has just informed me that its source for this bit of trivia is Hughart's Bridge of Birds. But I don't know where your brain got it. :D
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From a useful article here (http://www.answers.com/topic/jade-emperor).
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The sympathies with Kenren- which are actually sympathies with Nataku- could well be practical: don't wear out your main fighter too fast. But they could as easily be sentimental, as they are with Kenren himself- a kid shouldn't have to do all that.
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Well, not so much sympathies with Kenren as what you were saying about the "You're doing it all wrong" attitude he took with Kenren. Very practical, and in no wise a tradition Chinese warrior mentality which would demand fairly head-on conflict much in the same way as Kenren.
Actually, most of the Saiyuki characters are fairly modern western/Japanese types. Their names are as about the most Chinese thing about them. =)
Some of the Water Margin/Outlaws of the Marsh people, if you've read that, would sound Three Kingdoms too. They're all crazy.
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'Why the hell didn't you go through channels? We could have gotten Nataku relieved of the next mission if *I*'d been the one suggesting it.
Perhaps he does sympathise with Nataku, but he certainly wasn't doing anything about it, either. Surely he knew what was going on before Kenren forced him to state his opinion on matters. It wasn't as if Nataku's exploits were any secret in Heaven.
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That's it precisely, isn't it? Goujun's odd non-reaction to things being very clearly wrong in Heaven, that makes one wonder just how much in collusion he is with the system. Well, collusion might be too strong a word. He's part of the system and sees no more reason to question its unfortunate aspects (like the attitude that toushin taishi are disposable weapons) than Konzen was before Tenpou and Gokuu got to work on him.
Of course, one might mention that Tenpou comments on Heaven's attitude to Nataku without trying to do anything about it either. Tenpou is after Litouten and, for all his impetuous hijinks in the field, seems content at the moment just to watch and wait. Kenren is the only one who acts.
Second thoughts
I've assumed it's because Litouten ordered his imprisonment, and Litouten *isn't* part of the time-out-of-mind system. He's a new addition and he's encroaching on Goujun's military domain. For better or for worse, Kenren is one of /Goujun's/ men, and Goujun has responsibility for him. So there's a certain point after which Goujun is willing to take action.
I got the sense that military and bureaucracy don't talk to each other very much in the ordinary way of things, but Li has extended his powers from the bureaucracy into the military, right?
Didn't see this until I'd replied.
That's pretty much how I'm reading it too. People bitch and gripe about how the system sucks, but they aren't going to change it, lest their own comfortable existence be shaken up as well. After all, it's not Goujun or Tempou or Konzen being forced to go and slay youkai kings.
Litouten, however, is shaking things up, which means other people's positions are in danger. Tempou and Kenren garner the same response in the beginning - "I don't like them; they're too smart and they don't tread the tried and true path." But then again, if Goujun's aware of what Li's doing, why not take him down through official channels?
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That's what interests me about his reaction to Kenren. Have his eyes been opened, or is he essentially saying, "I would have acted to keep you from doing stupid and causing trouble for me/my branch of the army." I don't have the book to hand, but I also remember him seeming more annoyed at the trouble Kenren's caused than worried about the repercussions.
Tempou's attitude on the whole raises a lot of questions. "I hate this place, but I'm only out for Litouten. Oh, you caught me? Oh well, guess I'll have to go into exile Below." Is there some master plan here, or is he just bored and screwing around with everyone?
How to topple a colossus
But then again, if Goujun's aware of what Li's doing, why not take him down through official channels?
My conclusion, after wrestling with settei for various stories, is that we don't have enough information on how Heaven works to make certain decisions.
First off, we don't know how much bureaucracy and military interact. Li started as bureaucracy and I'm assuming did much of his machination as a bureaucrat. Providing Nataku was the coup that got him into the Emperor's favour. Nataku's continued string of triumphs has settled him there to the point where the Emperor has now given his father jurisdiction over the army as well. But we don't know when that happened or how official it was, because it seems to be news to various people.
Like Tenpou when he goes to see Li about Kenren. He may have forgotten it in his anger but that doesn't seem too likely. A major upheaval like that should have had the army buzzing. I see no reason for Tenpou saying Since when have you been in a position to offer *me* a chair?? if he's really unaware that Li now outranks him *in military terms as well*.
Equally, Goujun may know that Li has provided a toushin taishi and possibly infers that Li is angling for greater favours on that basis but doesn't realize that Li is after a position where he can interfere so directly in Goujun's army as to imprison his men reduce them to the ranks.
The other problem is what exactly channels are? How do you get rid of an Emperor's favourite when the favourite has provided an essential service like the toushin? In the end it may be that everything depends on the Emperor himself. Goujun's position is high enough and near enough to Li's that if Goujun had made the suggestion, the Emperor would have listened to him and Li wouldn't have been able to refuse so flatly. But actually to get rid of Litouten must involve getting rid of Nataku somehow, or discrediting him in the Emperor's eyes, and at the very least providing an alternative toushin, none of which Goujun is in a position to do.
I don't see a problem with Tenpou either. I think you're assuming he's done more masterminding than he has. He has suspicions of Li- quite rightly. He has an hypothesis of what happened to catapult him into power, but as he tells Konzen it's only an hypothesis. If provable it might discredit Litouten, but it has to come from an unimpeachable source. I assume he takes Konzen into his confidence because Konzen is the highest place bureaucrat that he knows and has connections to a separate source of power, Kanzeon, that *might* help him in a confrontation: and perhaps because he senses in him another possibly disaffected soul. But he doesn't have enough power or information to act against Li himself: he only confronts Li when he's on the edge of losing it.
The ultimate crisis is precipitated by Gokuu and Tenpou gets swept up in it, by laudably choosing to side with his friends and not Heaven. I don't see him screwing with anybody, myself.