The Complexity of Hanzo Shimada’s Character

feverentmaim:

I have been doing a significant amount of character research of Hanzo Shimada from Overwatch, something I preform frequently when I am interested in a character. Much of my research includes accordances among fans about his behavoir and personality, since Blizzard has not fleshed out tremedously such in canon.

This is what I found so far:

• Hanzo, as well as his brother Genji, have been raised in an environment that has emphasized cultural values that today many modern Japanese, as well as other members of the developed world, recognize as unhealthy and inevitably counter-productive standards of morals. I suspect Sojiro Shimada had become aware to some level that the rules running the Shimada clan’s world were at the very best amoral, and thus tried haphazardly to shield his sons, especially Genji, from such ideals; I say haphazardly, because it more or less came across as a game of favoritism to Hanzo.
• Hanzo in particular bared the brunt of his environment’s expectations; whether this was because he had a much more open ear at the sound of ‘the heir to the clan’, or because being the first son had him entirely susceptible and exposed, I am unsure. He nevertheless endured the pressure through coerced sense of pride, though in reality surviving with a suppressed emotional conscious and constantly mismatching moral convictions.
• Hanzo is arrogant, a text-book perfectionist, a callous opportunist, and thus has placed himself on a very high pedestal- a nominally predictable way to cope with fear and feelings of inferiority. However, despite his large ego, Hanzo is by no means a narcissist in the technical sense. If this were the case, he would not hold such affection towards his ‘dishonored’ brother, nor his deceased father who had his own flaws. He is also an unconscious hypocrite.
• Hanzo is capable of love. Hanzo is capable of sympathy, if not empathy, but driven to take both human traits as weakness, Hanzo is unable to express well nor evenly his emotional capacity for others.
• Hanzo likely has a history of alcohol abuse, as well as vunerablity to sucidal idealization, depressive-onset ennui, sudden and violent emotional outbursts that are fettered by day to day agitation.
• Hanzo’s perception of himself is a tower upon festered personal needs left long unmet and ignored; as such, he may be found by most anyone else but Genji as extremely uncooperative and intolerable outside of a common goal. For a love interest, he will be amiable-avoidant: he will certainly be less harsh. He may even seek intimacy – but he will inevitably reject his own attachment, leading subsequently to a sensible other dismissing his devotion, questioning his love and humanity, and invoking resentment later on down the line.
• Hanzo is an extremely intelligent logisist and a talented strategist. I imagine math is his other favorite subject.
• In the event of life and death, Hanzo would choose for those he cared over himself, regardless of his ego and regardless of his ‘honor’ complex.

Edit 11/26/2017, because apparently I can’t keep all of my notes together:

• Hanzo’s allure to wealth and power puts him on a dubious see-saw of integrity; painfully aware of his own definition of purpose, his brother’s supposed death unsurfacing the dismissed merits of compassion and mercy deep within his person. Yet juxtaposing his individual morality is the very virtues of his upbringing, that though he has turned away from the old, intensive rights of his clan, he remains impounded by their foundations. Should he, or rather were he, be tempted to satisfy the fabricated entitlements of his blood and tradition, Hanzo may not necessarily find himself succumbing, but indeed embattled between his humanity and his self-impeached crown.
• Hanzo is a practical man. Given the situation, he will not kill or injure lest it is necessary, and like wise he will lend his aid to others if politics requires it. However, outside of those he has grown close to, rarely will he act out of charity, finding it wasteful for not only himself but also for the person in need, and if it doesn’t align with his own endeavors and or benefits him in some way. In this same light, Hanzo’s practical-mindedness, along with his experience as a crime leader, makes him an excellent negotiator, off-cuff interrogator, and able to maintain his composure under significant pressure

In essence, Hanzo is an incredibly flawed character of ambiguity on all fronts, and suffers from a fair amount of internal turmoil. However, how he presents himself outwardly serves as a shell for what he is within, which exists even as he refuses to acknowledge it. Given time, pleasant relationships and plenty of shattering wake up calls, Hanzo may yet come towards his truer self.