#also i am a romechu shipper lol and i guess i am here for the

[stirringwinds]

When it comes to personifications, what do you think are the factors that cause a nation to have a “modern” form derived from an “ancient” personification (i.e. Greece and Ancient Greece, Egypt and ancient Egypt)? I mean, I get that it may be an inconsistentency or creative choice done by Himaruya, but how is it possible for other older nations to manage to live for so long without producing a “modern heir” to replace them in the present day (i.e. China, Japan, Korea, India, Mongolia, etc.)?

interesting question! i definitely agree this is something inherently subjective.  there isn’t really a singular way of interpreting the complexity of history, let alone how we’d transpose that history onto the helltalias and their lifespan. at least for me, i rationalise some of it in relation to historiography and dynamics of political-cultural contiguity, such as with how Himaruya takes opposing approaches for China and Rome (whom i will focus on in this ask). 

for China (aka my great-grandpa): in terms of history, i want to first emphasise that all cultures change; it isn’t a perfectly continuous, unbroken 4,000 year old civilisation, even if we often like to trace Chinese history right back to the ostensible Xia dynasty. there are some elements that have endured for a very long time (like the writing system)—but there were also periods of political disruption very similar to the fall of Rome (and one can argue Rome endured in many ways). however, in terms of melding it to hetalia canon—Yao being old as balls fits quite nicely with the ‘dynastic cycle’ historiography of China—that Chinese history is an unbroken succession of dynasties. Which is flawed actually, but which has tended to dominate perceptions of Chinese history all the same. ergo—‘the empire long divided must unite’, or the thought of the first emperor ‘uniting China’ (as opposed to ‘conquering a vast empire stretching from the north all the way down South to Vietnam and other non-Han ‘Baiyue’ tribes, and Sinicising dozens of different nations that had some similarities with how conquered European and Middle Eastern/North African regions ‘became Roman’). 

to me, Yao being extremely old also fits with the way Chinese cultural influence has dominated in the region in terms of influence on material culture, philosophy and language. Like, in the Confucian hierarchy, age = prestige. He sees himself as the great empire and well spring of civilisation (humble? nah, he’s rather arrogant). He’s older than Kiku and Yong-soo, and likes to assert he is older than Lien (Vietnam) which she contests lol. With Kiku especially, I see a very long-running mentor/protege dynamic between them that has at times turned into an ‘ambitious apprentice backstabs his master’ relationship even before the modern era (i.e Toyotomi Hideyoshi’s attempted invasion of Ming China). There are also certain cyclical elements in Chinese culture; like China was historically influenced by Buddhism that came via India and its concepts of reincarnation. So, he dies but he comes back all the same, no matter if it’s in a different form (kingdom to empire to republic). as i headcanon him, there’s a mix of calm (i will endure and wait for spring to come again) but also sometimes spitefulness lol (i’m not dead yet, fuckers). 

for Rome: i do headcanon that the Italybros are his sons not grandsons. when it comes to the historiography and cultural perceptions of it, there’s a lot of thought about ‘the fall of the (western) roman empire’ and in terms of political continuity, yes it is fairly clear that the roman empire is no more. historiographically, there’s a sort of linearity to how people have perceived it too: a dramatic rise and fall, beginning and ends. you have people like Petrarch calling the medieval period the “dark ages”, in contrast to the “light” of Rome and the rest of classical antiquity. this is something that most medieval historians today won’t agree with (incl my old professor haha who was a specialist in women’s medieval history)—the parts of Europe (and MENA) that made up the old Roman Empire sure as hell didn’t stand still for a thousand years until the Renaissance; it was a period of cultural developments and not simply darkness and ignorance. but, in terms of transposing it to hetalia—i kind of think Roma being dead fits nicely with 1) the way people have perceived the history of Rome (rise and fall) 2) the medieval developments— all the new European states (and some older ones) emerging from the shattered remnants of the empire, all of them changed by Rome in some ways (Latin --> different Romance languages.) in contrast to China, i guess reincarnation is less of a concept in the Roman pantheon or in Christianity. 

i think there’s also a sort of ironic poetry to it, when the fall of Rome is put in context of larger imperial and global history. Rome becomes this mythical figure who haunts the imagination of the European personifications precisely because he’s dead— the towering patriarch who is the model of a grand maritime empire that all of them that used to be Roman colonies/provinces strive for in the 15th century onwards. Like, the Spanish empire had a motto of “further beyond” (plus ultra). In the Aeneid, Jupiter is said to grant the Romans “empire without limit” (imperium sine fine). Even England, where there was this duelling narrative of lionising Boudica (the Iceni queen who fought the Roman conquerors and burned Roman London the ground) and longing to be as great as Rome (there’s a caption on a Victorian-era statue of Boudica in London saying “regions Caesar never knew / thy posterity shall sway”. “Britannia” itself as a name for the UK is ofc from Roman rule. so when it comes down to it, i guess it really is a creative choice by Himaruya (and ourselves). and for me, it’s not just about Rome and China (or any other nation’s) own history but also thinking about historiography (i.e how that history is understood, in terms of dynastic cycles or rise and fall) + relationship with other characters. 

#hetalia #hetalia headcanons #hws china #hws rome #aph china #aph rome #hetalia meta #also i am a romechu shipper lol and i guess i am here for the #vibes of Yao remembering a world long gone