Comments | ellamequiere: Headcanon Comparison Times

ellamequiere

Headcanon Comparison Times

Sep 19, 2010 16:07

Let's move headcanon/hetalia!speculation here! That way anybody who's hanging around can play too.

Ok, so when do nation-tans come into existence? When do they die? How and why? What IS sara_rojo's Europe headcanon? Ready... set... go!

other, hetalia

Comments 24

moyakite September 20 2010, 00:02:44 UTC

Um, hmm, I'm new to this fandom, generally spreading, so I don't have a huge head canon built up, but... I guess I have a couple of things?

...Except that I can't bring myself to start listing them. Too embarrassing. What if something turns out to be canon that I haven't turned up yet...?

What about you?

ellamequiere September 20 2010, 05:20:00 UTC

Aww. You've got a little bit of an inhibitions situation going there, honey, don't you ( ... )

moyakite September 20 2010, 05:39:34 UTC

Okay! I'll give it a go! (And I know that I'm a bit, um, inhibited in some ways. Once you get to know me better, I'll probably be, uh, less so...? If this weren't a public kinda thing, it'd be easier ( ... )

ellamequiere October 8 2010, 22:26:42 UTC

(I get that. If you ever want to talk, totally PM me, ok ( ... )

Thread 7

meridianvase September 20 2010, 00:29:33 UTC

I've read enough of your (awesome) fics to come out of my lurker corner.

OK, I've been confused about Prussia for a while now. In my head, I feel like he should have died in 1947. I like the idea of him hanging around and being Germany's brother, but technically he doesn't exist. But then again, I also picture him as East Germany. SO CONFUSING. Someone please explain their theory so I can stop breaking my mind.

ellamequiere September 20 2010, 05:03:16 UTC

Thanks for coming out of the lurker corner! Yay!

I tend to think that nation-tans stay around for as long as there are people who find them important to their national identity... kind of like an "I do believe in fairies!" thing. Thus Rome still occasionally making cameos, even though he hasn't existed as a country in centuries. And Prussia... it would take longer than sixty years for people to forget about him, right? (This explanation appeals to me because of the potential for "oh shit, I'm meeeelting" angst. Like, as a nation gets closer and closer to disappearing [which I think they all do eventually. I mean, Etrusca isn't around anymore, is she?], they start losing time? Forgetting things? Thus allowing us to tackle mortality, woo!)

On the other hand, chibi's version allows for the dears to potentially live a normal life for a while someday, which also sounds like a fun fic premise.

meridianvase September 20 2010, 17:25:32 UTC

I like the idea that nations become human-ish when their actual country is dissolved! I think they'd stay around for as long as people remember them, like you said about national identity, because they thrive on nationality. I picture them withering away without it, not ever dying physically, but just not being there mentally. Living like a hermit in a cave or something. God, that's depressing.

So that would explain, I think, why Gilbert would stick around with Ludwig in my mind. Because if he didn't, he'd run off to a remote mountain and be emo. I don't know. Is it sad that I now want to know EVERYTHING about European history just so I can have super accurate Hetalia head canon? Yes, yes it is sad.

(On another note, I like how you connect war to sexual domination. It makes sense. And it's hot.)

ellamequiere October 8 2010, 22:53:24 UTC

Hmm. In what way do nations become more humanish? You mean, because they have less nation-y stuff to keep them busy?

I do think that eventually nations have to disappear. Otherwise, there have been so many of them, they'd be everywhere!

And no, it's not sad xD. This is the redeeming value of the hetalia fandom, that it makes us all want to go off and learn EVERYTHING about XXX history.

(Yeah. In all honesty, I try to MAKE it make sense BECAUSE it's hot. Might as well admit it. But yeah, I don't think they're always connected? I think it has to do with the context, the people involved, etc.)

Thread 12

nakedfiction September 20 2010, 15:35:36 UTC

I agree with the nation-tans being inextricably linked to a national identity. I learned a lot about the differences between "nations" and "states" in one of my global politics classes which helped me to understand that former countries like Prussia and Scotland and such would still have personifications in Hetalia until they had no one who identified as "Prussian" or "Scottish", regardless of whether they have sovereign governments.

It's always been my head-canon that Turkey, for instance, has been around a lot longer than anyone thinks as the tribes of Anatolia (which have been in that same spot since the Hittites). I'm still unsure as to how a "modern" nation takes over for an "ancient" one (like Egypt and Greece), but I imagine it's something along the lines of the mother culture no longer being practiced or something like that.

I really enjoy the idea of sex being used for politics and that concept changing in accordance with modernity. But who doesn't use sex as a leveraging tool, even today? XD

ellamequiere October 8 2010, 23:10:59 UTC

I learned a lot about the differences between "nations" and "states" in one of my global politics classes

They do like to go on about that, don't they? Funfact: The first reading assignment I ever did in college was on that theme.

It's always been my head-canon that Turkey, for instance, has been around a lot longer than anyone thinks as the tribes of Anatolia

Hmm... I know nothing about this, but the S on the end of tribes makes me wonder-- was there a cohesive national identity yet? If not, do you think he existed anyway, as Sara's "omen of things to come"?

Egypt and Greece-- before I go off and read a whole bunch about this (I CAN FEEL MY WIKI FINGERS ITCHING), what does the canon say about them? I don't remember very clearly, and I never read the comics anyway.

Who doesn't use sex as a leveraging tool, even today?Fair enough. But you can't argue that it's not more subtle-- I'm not going to be married to some rich merchant by my father for financial reasons, for example. Even if we still use sex to manipulate each ( ... )

nakedfiction October 9 2010, 07:02:50 UTC

My global economics class actually made me start thinking about your crazy Coalition!Verse and what could have happened in the 1970s if the "Global South" or G77 rose up against the IMF, WTO, and World Bank in order to create war economies. While difficult to do, it's plausible. I might send you an e-mail if you're interested in hearing more, although it's super complicated and I'm not sure how much more you wanted to write with that one ( ... )

sara_rojo September 20 2010, 20:11:17 UTC

While I find ellamequiere's headcanon about the birth of nations fascinating, the thought of the Chibieuropeans running around Rome's backyard playing tag amuses me too much not to stick to the belief that they're the same guys that centuries after would be knocking each other's teeth off, in true sibling fashionXD. So yeah, I believe nations appear as a consequence of people settling and becoming familair with some land, but also as an omen of things to come (America was around before the white man had even landed on the North Americas, for example). That's why France was probably already a sophisticated gorgeous child even while his people were brute savagesXD

I believe they die when people stop identifying with what they represented. This is tricky and cheaty, because I designed it ambiguous to justify Prussia's existence apart from the fact that he's too awesome to die: since it depends on their people's feelings, some nations can evolve into something else, something new that their people can identify with. That's why, I believe ( ... )

ellamequiere October 9 2010, 03:01:45 UTC

Yeah... I'm conflicted. On the one hand, adorable. On the other hand... I want Gallia and Britannia and everybody to be grownups, so they can go around being pretty and having sex with each other (and Germania's all grown up, right?) But I guess by my own estimation, since all those ~ia countries were invented by Rome, their people's sense of national identity was probably pretty weak, so maybe they were kiddies after all, and the grownups were embodiments of the tribes that lived in each area. Frickin' hetalia, and its lack of internal consistency!

also as an omen of things to come (America was around before the white man had even landed on the North Americas, for example)Yeah... that actually is something about Hetalia fandom that I like to pretend never happened. There's something that really bothers me about that sequence, where England shows up to this vast empty land, the only inhabitant of which is a little white boy who's going to become his colony... so I guess partly because of that, I'm not sold on this preemptive ( ... )