This Might Be A Stupid Question, But Might As Well Ask It....

So this has been a burning question of mine. I guess I totally missed it when I played the games, but why exactly does Shion not like her brother? Did he do something to her? Did he mistreat her off-screen? I've always wondered...

Hmmm...that is a really interesting question, actually! I...don't know the answer to that. I always just kinda gleaned that Shion thought he was a wastrel, or that he kinda abandoned her when he went into the military (or at least that he wasn't there when all the bad stuff happened on Miltia).

My stupid question is, if Jin had a huge rivalry with Margulis stemming back years, and Margulis and Pellegri both trained with Jin and Shion's grandfather, why doesn't Shion seem to remember or really acknowledge Margulis and Pellegri?

That makes sense if she was really close to him before. Did they ever say when he left to start his military career? Now that I think about it, depending on when that occurred, she must have been left on her own a lot. You look back when she's a child and find that her mother is bedridden and her father seems to constantly be working in that facility. Something tells me she would have been pretty busy herself with higher education--later on, at least. I mean, you'd definitely need a lot of schooling to be in the position she was on Woglinde.

Seems like Jin was already in the military prior to their parents death, but I could be wrong. The timelines were always hard to grasp.

Even better question. I always thought when Jin, Margulis, and Pellegri were training it was separate from Shion. They were all older than her. There was an age difference so perhaps there was a skill difference as well. By some stroke of luck, she never ran into either of them. The chances seem rather slim, but possible. Or it could be a plot hole...

This is gonna be my wholly IMO answer, based purely on my own impressions, recollections and mulling over of the games themselves, with no looking it up, no manga continuity (can't read japanese and the translation - and maybe manga itself for all I know - didn't get that far last I checked), no nothing. So, be advised.

XXX

First and most important, in my opinion, was that Jin wasn't there when it mattered. It may just be that running problem with not having enough scenes for all nuances of all the plotlines Xenosaga has going in all its installments, but Jin (as far as I remember) appears in neither of Shion's flashbacks in regards to the deaths of her loved ones.

Considering that (as we discover during the timey-wimey sequence in episode 3, if I remember right) Jin was something like a Federation resident and was running an intelligence operation in concert with their father at the time, he wouldn't have been able to explain even in the vaguest of terms what he was doing during all this besides 'military' - that's just how state secrets work.

(Not that it would've made any resentment his absence has nurtured in Shion any weaker, but there is a difference in making a conscious effort in not letting feelings you intellectually realise are unfounded ruin your life and just letting them run wild because you can't bring yourself to care anymore.)

XXX

Jin himself, I imagine, was not in the best of shapes right after all this stuff went down.

Resident Jin/Margulis/Pellegri experts will correct me if I'm wrong, but before it all escalated they were quite close-knit together. Or at least I choose to believe that Margulis' hate-filled hammy yell of 'UZUUUUUKI!' wasn't there just for the rule of cool and fostering a meme; that it was an indication of how deeply betrayed Margulis felt over Jin's choice to come to their side of the barricades. So, a deeply personal loss for Jin there, in circumstances which could be not unreasonably claimed to be a result of the intelligence operation he was a part of failing to work quick enough.

This clinically called 'Miltia incident' was, if I understand it right, basically a war between several star systems on the border between the Federation and that other Migrant Fleet (which wasn't named anything else, I think) with the central goverment of said Federation (and/or the Migrant Fleet; can't imagine they didn't participate in such situation).

Which were mainly worlds settled by a mix of people from both sides of human civilization, granted semi-autonomous rule under collective oversight from both sides to facilitate an experiment of both long separated cultures co-existing in a productive manner and serve as trade routes, channels of cultural and technological exchange and a neutral territory for further political talks.

XXX

From what I understand, it was supposed to be covered in Ziggy's own character arc because he was alive and present - if a more regular fleshy human - during some of the more important events of how this whole thingamajig they had going led to the 'Miltia conflict', but it really wasn't because the actual details either got cut or shoved into a mobile phone game.

Screw mobile phone games.

XXX

The mess that happened on Miltia itself was mainly about U-DO, Song of Nephelim and all that other world-breaking/saving stuff, but outside of a very limited number of people that knew (partially or otherwise) what really happened, vast majority of other people only saw the news reports - like the one episode 2 starts off with. You know, the one with the real close-up view of military model realians wrecking cars in a street riot.

Which quite possibly was what lead to those couple of lines in the database that could be summed up as 'the trouble that was brewing in the region since way back when Ziggy had a family had finally caught fire and involved an untold amount of human lives in what must've been quite a shitstorm if Federation hurried to push through legislation ratifying realian civil rights so quickly after that'. Which could be conceivably pointed to be a fault of the intelligence operation Jin was a part of by the virtue of not succeeding in time.

XXX

So, after all of the above, Jin is left with a younger sister of maybe twelve years old or so he didn't see in some years that got traumatized for life, two dead parents he probably didn't even get to bury before the evacuation order went into effect, no home, no personal effects beyond what he was carrying on himself at the time, no nothing. And he somehow had to pick up the pieces and figure out how to continue living.

I have no trouble seeing him dropping his previous career forever and failing to settle on a job after that. I am surprised that he is still alive, to be honest.

XXX

Personally, I'd love to see a chapter showing some of what they were going through at the time. Remember, all those people shuttled off Miltia had nowhere to go and they had to terraform the closest suitable planet available in order to accomodate the insane number of refugees this whole mess resulted in.

(Even if you take into account the baffling technologies humanity has at their disposal if they can terraform planets quickly enough for the people to start living normally even if only in a single region within a single human generation, the planet started off in need of said terraforming - i.e. likely one couldn't walk outside without enviromental protection equipment.)

Would be more interesting than, say, Wilhelm's goon squad digging up the remains of a dead body of some supposed saint amongst floating chunks of France's real estate, in my opinion.

XXX

Closer to the 'present day', there are about only two places that shed light on Shion's relationship with her brother I can remember off the top of my head.

First is at the start of episode 1 when Shion gets a call from Jin right about before the interesting stuff starts happening in earnest. He asks about her attending what passes for yearly commemoration of the deceased by the next of kin in shinto-buddist tradition ~4000 thousand years into the future. She doesn't care for it because she considers it a useless superstition which doesn't have any reason to happen because the graves are empty anyway. The talk ends before Jin can get much in edgewise about the presence or lack thereof of actual remains matters not one whit.

(There is another reason she doesn't state that has to do with refusing to accept death after that whole thing with Kevin dying in front of her which fueled her obsessive focus on the KOS-MOS project and a number of other things in her life since.)

Second is around the beginning of episode 2 when we are given a slice of life between Shion and Jin. Namely, she tries quite hard to avoid him and is seriously mortified when she can't manage to; Jin for his part engages in what appears to be lighthearted teasing. The only problem is, Shion isn't laughing.

I don't recall much besides that.

XXX

Gnosis are involved a bunch of times along the road, mostly because some individuals seek to make use of them for their own goals, sometimes of their own tormented space ghosts' volition.

Personally, I don't really like the story trying to tie them and U-DO in even if a simultaneous conflict of interest on both purely human and supernatural levels is considered an essential part of a number of classical tragedies (example: Iliad) and all that literary jazz. Not to say it can't intertwine in interesting ways, but I simply find the characters in Xenosaga interesting enough to carry the story from start to end on their own merit.

XXX

Shion's apparent total lack of knowledge of both Margulis and Pellegri does seem strange now that you mention it. There may even be mention of Shion starting off her physical training because of / with the help of her grandfather, if I'm not imagining things. Good catch!

And now I'll proceed to brood on the matter until a satisfactorily wacky headcanon presents itself in my mind.

XXX

As I've said earlier, this is just what comes to my mind right now. I think I should go and check the canon to see how much of the above is actual information how much is my own thoughts seeping in.

EDIT:

Funfact: 'Margulis' is an actual IRL surname some folks over here have. I don't have any idea from where it comes though.

About her relationship with Jin. I don't think Shion hate him. is just that they had their ups and downs.
For first after their parents die Jin take role of parent for Shion, she was little kid so no surprise.
Shion more treat Jin like annoying parent that keep telling her what she should do, she act a little like teenager here. There is nice scene on Drama CD when Shion was still living with him when she was in school.
So when one of siblings has to take parent role it's never simple relationship.

I made script from all lines of Missing year, both flash animation and novel. Missing year show those up and downs, most time on MY they are ok, just after end of MY Shion distance more from Jin.
Reasons are two, her family past and death of Almadel.
Problems and questions about her father were hit into Jin side too. Did Jin know about all of it? What was his role? Why didn't he protect their mother? At start of ep3 Shion was full of questions and doubts, even when she learn true about her father double-agent side she was already messed up with more things, like her soon death/coma because of UDO, coming back of Kevin, all things that happend around (universe, KOS-MOS, etc).
Jin too didn't know how act towards her, be her brother? Parent? Do nothing? He couldn't get his private things right, like with Pellegri, more less he knew how to help Shion.

Shion felt he was responsible for her parents deaths, and was in general an irresponsible person (the things he did that made her feel this way were because he was covering for her, to keep her from remembering the details of those traumatic things that happened to her, and that she was the one who summoned the gnosis during the first militia incident. These were things that she didnt remember as a mental defense mechanism).

I think it was covered more in depth in the anime and maybe the ds rewrite than in the original games.

In my fanfic for the series, I always explain Shion's attitude the following way.

1. Jin and Shion actually have different mothers. As a result, Jin has been somewhat cold to her prior to his Father's and her mother's death, as she is only a half-sister to him.

2. The deaths of the Uzuki parents forced Jin to raise Shion by himself - he became very overprotective of Shion as a result and largely tried to control her in her teen years, which became a source of strain between them as Shion grew up and became more independent.

Neosmith wrote:In my fanfic for the series, I always explain Shion's attitude the following way.

1. Jin and Shion actually have different mothers. As a result, Jin has been somewhat cold to her prior to his Father's and her mother's death, as she is only a half-sister to him.

2. The deaths of the Uzuki parents forced Jin to raise Shion by himself - he became very overprotective of Shion as a result and largely tried to control her in her teen years, which became a source of strain between them as Shion grew up and became more independent.

I think the second explanation is more canon and makes more sense. The first one sounds like an interesting fanfic...

XenoForever07 wrote:

Neosmith wrote:In my fanfic for the series, I always explain Shion's attitude the following way.

1. Jin and Shion actually have different mothers. As a result, Jin has been somewhat cold to her prior to his Father's and her mother's death, as she is only a half-sister to him.

2. The deaths of the Uzuki parents forced Jin to raise Shion by himself - he became very overprotective of Shion as a result and largely tried to control her in her teen years, which became a source of strain between them as Shion grew up and became more independent.

I think the second explanation is more canon and makes more sense. The first one sounds like an interesting fanfic...

Oh, thanks.

I don't view these points as necessarily mutually exclusive. The question of Shion's true parentage has come up before, I believe, especially given the whole Vwud Uzuki stuff, which suggests Shion's mother's identity was reworked behind-the-scenes. It'd be interesting to explore for sure, especially as a means of explaining why Shion has God-like powers and Jin doesn't.

Regarding Point 2 - I don't believe it's canon in any way. They never really delved into Shion's upbringing, following the death of her parents.

But it is the most logical explanation that occurred to me. I tried to imagine how someone would grow up with such a huge trauma and how Jin would have to act as her guardian.

That led to some interesting plot ideas. For example, I think Shion would probably need to spend a few years in therapy before she was released to Jin's care. Jin and Shion then would move in with Grandpa Ouga. At a certain point, however, Ouga died in a mysterious fire, which Jin secretly suspected was caused by Margulis. This made him grow ever more concerned for Shion's safety, to the point where he would (for a short while anyhow) refuse to let her go out anywhere without his supervision. Jin then rigorously trained her in martial arts to make sure she could defend herself in a fight.

They probably also had a pretty big spat over where Shion would attend College. Shion would want to go to Bormeo, while Jin would want her to attend campus closer to home, so they could stay connected. Eventually, she'd go to Bormeo against his wishes. And he probably wasn't too fond of Kevin, going so far as to look into his personal records out of suspicion.

Anyway, a lot of stuff like that had gradually caused a rift between the two.