Jin... (and Shion, and Margulis, and Pellegri) (SPOILERS.)

[Xel]

rofl, I've been working on this post on and off all day. Know that when I started this, there was no Jin fanclub yet. XD;; I'm still not putting it there, though, because it covers a lot more than just Jin, and it's not necessarily in a fanclubby kinda way, I guess. Hurr.

I've been thinking a lot about him lately. What follows is probably just a bunch of nonsensical rambling, but that's what discussion is for. ;D I got on this tangent because I realized that I have never understood why there are so many issues between Jin and Shion in the series. I had a hard time understanding just what the problem was, and why she had so much trouble forgiving and not being so uncomfortable around him. Because you have to admit, the Jin we actually SEE (as opposed to the one we hear about from her) is one cool customer in the series. He's really portrayed as being calm and strong and likable--and by the end of XSIII, a true hero.

So I was just like... "what is your deal with him, Shion? Where is all this tension coming from?" But I think I have a better idea about it now. So this is all my interpretation and speculation about to come out here--maybe you guys have different ideas. I think I have all my facts straight in terms of canon events and whatnot, but I guess we'll see. XD

Jin is thirteen years Shion's senior. It's kind of an unusually large age gap for two siblings*, being more than a decade apart. I'm not saying it never happens, but it still seems a bit unusual compared to siblings who are less than ten years apart in age. At any rate, that still creates quite the emotional gap--by the time Shion was three or four, we can assume that Jin was probably in the process of leading his own life, training under Ouga, buddying it up with Margulis, etc., etc. I was reading the database a couple days ago, and it looks like while Jin and Shion's home planet was Miltia, Ouga Uzuki actually lived on Second Miltia even before it was known as Second Miltia. Before the Federation finished terraforming it, even. So it's entirely possible that Jin wasn't even home for a fair bit of Shion's childhood. Second Miltia's not too far away from Miltia, mind you--it's the closest neighboring planet at about 30 light years, I think--but it's like if you had a sibling away in boarding school all the time.

* Actually, my personal belief is that Shion and Jin might not be full siblings at all--I think they could actually be half-siblings, with different mothers. In XSIII, Jin has this really odd habit of referring to Aoi as "Shion's mother/her mother/your mother" as opposed to "our mother" or "my mother." He does this constantly, again and again, pretty much every time he talks about her. It's true that Jin is very much his father's son, but it's still a pretty strange thing to say if Aoi gave birth to him as well. He has no problem talking about Suou as "my father/our father." It might also help explain the age disparity if Jin was the product of a previous relationship his father had before marrying Aoi and having Shion.

The age gap alone would be enough to skew Shion's perception of Jin, though. To her, he's a grown-up. He always has been. Although Jin has genuine affection and love for her, I have a hard time imagining that he really doted on her or anything, for the reasons I mentioned. Or... well, who knows. Maybe she adored him and thought he was the coolest person ever, as really little kids often do with their older siblings/cousins/whatever. That would make her subsequent disappointment in him all the more devastating for everyone involved, I bet.

Recall that Jin was supposed to check in on Shion and their parents during the Miltian Conflict--that was his destination when he told chaos and Canaan "sorry, can't stay with you, I've got somewhere I have to be." But because fighting Margulis slowed him up, he didn't make it in time to save anyone but Shion. Watching your parents die in front of you as a little kid is a lot. A LOT a lot. So I think Shion can't necessarily be blamed for holding onto the childlike hurt that makes her believe, "if only you'd gotten there sooner, our parents wouldn't have died." Is it rational or fair? Maybe not. But I can kinda understand how she might think that from time to time. And hearing that probably hurts Jin just as much, since there's a grain of truth to it.

That I understand. But there really seems to be more to it than that. And that I'm just starting to really think about.

What happens after their parents' death? Jin, who probably never had much to do with Shion's upbringing up to that point, is suddenly her primary caregiver. Jin was only 21 during the Miltian Conflict, after which he left the military in order to raise his sister. That's... young. The guy's ostensibly spent his whole life under a lot of discipline, whether from his sword training or from the military--I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he kind of expected Shion to operate according to that same kind of discipline. I also wouldn't be surprised to find that she rebelled a bit as she got older. It's pretty obvious that he's always viewed her as a child--maybe even one that he feels he has to protect because of what she's been through. But so it seems like although he genuinely loves her, he maybe had kind of a funny way of showing it to her sometimes. It seems that he was quite critical of her, like in the example given in the database of how Jin's curry preferences led to conflict at the dinner table because he criticized her cooking. It seems like he's always got something condescending to say to or about her, and it often demonstrates a real lack of confidence in her that I think I would find very disheartening and hurtful if I were in Shion's position. He really wants what's best for her, but he thinks he knows what's best for her better than she does and he's not shy about letting her know it, whether it's telling her that she should cook better curry or opposing her recruitment into Vector after she's recognized for writing this brilliant paper on Realian maintenance. She really took off from that household as soon as she graduated high school.

I think it also speaks volumes that he's shit-scared of her getting fed up and cutting him out of her life, but he doesn't ever let her know that--he just carries on as usual. But he doesn't want to show her that kind of vulnerability for whatever reason, so she just thinks he's being an arrogant jerk who belittles all her accomplishments.

So I guess what I'm saying is that... although in the beginning it looked to me like their strained relationship was mostly Shion's problem, I see now that in spite of his intentions, Jin was kind of an asshole sometimes.

I was going to ramble about Jin and his own issues, as well as his history with Margulis and Pellegri, but it's late and will have to save itself for my next post. :'D

[chaos and Order]

I think Shion's resentment probably formed more when she was older, when she started to become independant. Even after what she'd been through, young Shion is shown as being a kind child, and I can't imagine that just vanished. I think Jin realizes more about Shion than she herself realizes, such as her obsession with Realians. She seems to love them and wants to know more about them and hopes to join the Third Devision, and yet, as Virgil points out, she leaves in the control codes and self-destruct devices, using company protocol as an excuse. The guidebook for the game suggests something interesting-that Shion subconsciously feared Realians because of all that happened during the Conflict and wanted them to be controlled to a certain extent. As long as the code and self-destruct mechanism were in place, she didn't have anything to be afraid of. If something like the Conflict ever happened again, she could kill them all with the push of a few buttons, just as Virgil did. Jin might have realized stuff like this. And just in general, he was trying to protect her, and she resented him for it.

[Xel]

Oh, yeah, I didn't mean to imply that Shion resented him right from childhood. I think it definitely formed as she started to grow up and become more independent, like you say, in a gradual way. It's why her regard for him seems so surprising, because she was such a kind child--but she's also a very headstrong person, and I might even guess that living under Jin's apparently strict care helped foster that. Shion especially doesn't take well to being told what to do.

The guidebook for the game suggests something interesting-that Shion subconsciously feared Realians because of all that happened during the Conflict and wanted them to be controlled to a certain extent. As long as the code and self-destruct mechanism were in place, she didn't have anything to be afraid of.

Oh, that's really interesting and makes a lot of sense. I think I never paid that much mind--previously I just wrote it off as her kind of... unquestioningly following protocol because she's just a cog in the Vector machine and she doesn't make the rules. That's the excuse she gives to Virgil, anyway. But when I think about it, that doesn't fall in line with her character at all, does it? Shion has a strong sense of right and wrong, so her indifference in that situation is pretty unusual, isn't it? Shion herself, to the best of my recollection, actually convinced herself that her parents were killed by Gnosis rather than Realians. But this just goes to show that the truth is something she's always known, deep down.

I hadn't considered that Jin was trying to keep her out of Vector so she wouldn't come into contact with Realians/maybe even the type of Realians that killed her parents. That seems plausible, actually, and more understandable than him simply writing off her obvious talent and intelligence because... well, just because. Nevertheless, I have an easier time understanding now why Shion resents him that much, because his behavior toward her really is assy a fair bit of the time, because he seems to have a hard time expressing how he feels sincerely.

She expresses a great deal of frustration for how he can't hold a job down for more than about six months, which she attributes to him just being flighty and losing interest in whatever he's doing in favor of something else. And Jin certainly does nothing to dispel that notion. But while that might really be the reason, I think it could be more than that, too. The guy was a soldier in one of the bloodiest and most profoundly messed up conflicts in recent history, and witnessed the immediate aftermath of his own family being slaughtered in an unimaginably brutal way (which I'm guessing he's never really gotten to talk about, since he's got no desire whatsoever to remind Shion). People don't just rebound from that when peacetime rolls around, and I think Jin is actually quite remarkable for being as adjusted as he is, given the circumstances. But one of the big themes I see in Xenosaga is how individuals cope with tragedy in their own ways, and particularly how soldiers struggle to reintegrate into society when the fighting is over--that's what Margulis was trying to tell Jin when he said that people like them would never have a place in the world unless they were fighting. And I think Jin's inability to keep a job for very long could be a symptom of that. It's kind of a sad story, really, though he manages to make peace with it at the end.

But he really doesn't want Shion to see that side of him, that he's got a lot more issues than meets the eye, because it's his job to be strong and protect her no matter what. He has no business showing her that kind of vulnerability, and he does a really good job keeping it hidden from her. It's chaos that he opens up to about things like his fear and his sadness, and... well, it's chaos, so of course he would. XD I really think he just had no idea how to relate to her from the beginning of his time raising her. Shion's pretty compassionate when things actually register with her, though, so I think their relationship could've been different if Jin, as she got older, had actually been more honest with her about how he felt. Who knows...

[chaos and Order]

I don't think it was that he was trying to keep her away from the Realians. The type that killed their parents aren't really mass-produced. They were made during the Conflict only. And I do not think he neccesarily knew about Feb being killed in front of her by the combat models, as it seems she herself doesn't even recall that until Episode III. And generally, Realians of any model are kind of...everywhere. I think he was afraid of how she was obsessing over them. He probably saw it as unhealthy and feared what it would lead to. That seems to be it when he talks to her just before she reveals she's leaving to join Vector.

[Xel]

Not Feb, no, but he'd know that the Asuras took out their parents. You raise a point about their development being restricted, though. But I suppose we can't deny in general that general-use mass-produced combat Realians, which had a large part in the total carnage of the Miltian Conflict, are everywhere within Vector--perhaps the association was close enough to concern him. We can only speculate...

But I can imagine how frustrating it was for Shion, who probably couldn't even conceive of why he was discouraging her so much from joining when she was personally scouted by Vector fresh out of high school, which is a pretty big deal.

[katimus_prime]

Shion growing up away from Ouga, Jin and Margulis would explain in general why Shion and Margulis didn't seem to recognize each other. I would have thought they'd have more to say to each other considering Jin.

Tell me about Pellegri, Xel! :D

[Xel]

Shion growing up away from Ouga, Jin and Margulis would explain in general why Shion and Margulis didn't seem to recognize each other. I would have thought they'd have more to say to each other considering Jin.

Tell me about Pellegri, Xel!

Still, though, I really want young!Margulis + wee!Shion fic. D:

I WILL when I'm sober again. D8

[katimus_prime]

Still, though, I really want young!Margulis + wee!Shion fic. D:

Something like Jin gives the keys to her stroller or something and they go for a walk in the park? XD That would be adorable. |3

I'm also starting to feel the itch for 44!Margulisx22/Ormus convert!Shion AU nonsense. Does that make me a bad person?

[stitchedmoon]

Something like Jin gives the keys to her stroller or something and they go for a walk in the park? XD That would be adorable. |3

IT WOULD. :D

I'm also starting to feel the itch for 44!Margulisx22/Ormus convert!Shion AU nonsense. Does that make me a bad person?

Naw, I think that would be really interesting too! I liked that fanart you did a while back. :3

[katimus_prime]

I'm also starting to feel the itch for 44!Margulisx22/Ormus convert!Shion AU nonsense. Does that make me a bad person?

Naw, I think that would be really interesting too! I liked that fanart you did a while back. :3

I need to actually go back and make it not-suck. That piece was so unforgivably quick...and done before I learned how to really draw Shion. (God, early Awake Again Shion looks so awful. XD)