Abilities: Hanzo is, for all intents and purposes, a squishy human. Aside from the bullshit dragon powers that he has, all of his physical prowess boils down to mastery achieved through training and meditation. Here are some of his most notable talents:
↣ Real Life Ninja Skills: What it says on the tin. Hanzo can perform a myriad of physical acrobatics that you see in movies about guys who parkour in the night, including wallclimbing, backflipping, and dodgerolling. He's probably one of the few people in Japan that can enter one of those sadistic game shows aimed to lowkey murder their contestants and come out of it without breaking a sweat. Speaking of murder, though—
↣ Skilled assassin: —Hanzo is also really good at killing people. Being groomed from birth by a yakuza clan with a shady history will do that to you, not to mention being trained with the expectation that people will want your head. Hanzo is good enough of a fighter that he fended off ten years of people actively trying to get rid of him after he broke from his clan— suffice it to say that he knows a thing or two about stealth and all manners of lethal combat.
↣ Archery: Also what it says on the tin! Hanzo is a master archer, deeming himself to be peerless in the craft.
↣ Various martial arts experience: While Blizzard hasn't been explicit with regard to Hanzo's scope of expertise, it's been confirmed that he's extremely skilled with a blade (his weapon of choice when he 'killed' his brother, and incidentally the weapon that he abandoned after Genji's 'death'). His close-range fighting style also hints at a proficiency in judo (basic throws).
↣ Strategic/tactical knowledge: Hanzo's been trained in classical Japanese heihou, which is just a fancy way to refer to military strategies that can be applied to all facets of life.
And, well. Finally, let's not forget the...
↣ Bullshit Dragon Powers: Succinctly, the ability to summon incredibly destructive twin spirit dragons that consume anything in the linear path that Hanzo casts his arrow in. Here is a handy visual of what it looks like.
As discussed in the brainstorming meme, the dragons in-game will just be an aesthetic projection via technology in Hanzo's bow! How the mighty have fallen.
Personality:
First and foremost, let's get this out of the way: Hanzo Shimada is the product of a reverse Cinderella story. It's one of those horrendously cliche narratives about a rich boy who suddenly finds himself in Not So Great circumstances, but this isn't the history section of this app— it's the personality section, so let's begin unpacking who Hanzo is in light of his very traditional, very straightforward narrative.
Hanzo is prideful. This is no surprise given his background as an ostensible monarch within his underground kingdom. Born into yakuza royalty, Hanzo was raised on the principle that he would be the eventual successor to the entirety of his family's wealth and influence. As the formerly rightful heir to an empire that survived centuries of dominance (longer than some countries remain countries), Hanzo carries himself with an imperiousness that can only be a product of upbringing— straight-backed, neck craned, eagle-eyed. He speaks with the gravitas and sparseness of a man taught to measure his ideas in importance ("from one thing, know ten thousand things"), and with the sharpness of a man accustomed to intimidation ("unworthy"). Domineering and uncompromising, Hanzo is the textbook definition of a feudal lord from an archaic time period when honor was synonymous with moral currency. God knows he mentions the word often enough.
As much as these traits seem unpalatable to anyone looking for someone to pal around with, all of these traits served Hanzo well when he was the Shimada clan's future leader, when the preeminence of his birthright supposedly wasn't always enough to earn the respect of men who were two, three times Hanzo's age. It's not difficult to imagine why Hanzo's perfectionism and consistent need to assert his superiority persists even after his descent into disgrace; his worth has always been measured in his capability to prove himself to opportunistic third parties. A mindset like this isn't easily corrected ("never second best"), especially if it's been a guiding principle for most of one's childhood and adult life. It also easily extends to Hanzo's appraisal of others, often resulting in condescension and criticisms that verge just on the side of being obnoxious. (He is, however, capable of sincerity when he believes others to have earned his respect.)
With that said, it's when the uncontrollable factors of his life start to catch up with him that Hanzo's inflexibility starts becoming a bane instead of a boon. The thing about being raised on a rigid set of principles with a specific endgoal in mind is that it often leaves people ill-equipped to deal with anything that doesn't fit within their purview— Hanzo, while extremely intelligent in the field of practical knowledge, is fairly stunted when it comes to the subject of interpersonal relationships.
Exhibit A: meet Genji Shimada, Hanzo's younger brother. The id to Hanzo's ego, the wind to Hanzo's earth. If Hanzo had the grace to navigate his relationship with his brother on terms that didn't end in binaries, he probably wouldn't have 'killed' Genji for the sake of his clan. But his ultimate choice was to adhere to obligation instead of his heart, resulting in the breaking of the latter and the persistence of his inability to engage in emotional compromise thereinafter. Long story short, Hanzo sucks at communication— if the kinslaying aspect doesn't speak for itself. His obstinacy is wildly damaging, both to others and himself.
None of this really paints a great portrait of Hanzo Shimada at all, but here's where some of his redeeming qualities come into play. Take, for example, how his poor decisions profoundly hurt him. As prideful, unpalatable, stubborn, demanding, esoteric, and uncompromising as Hanzo can be, at the core of his carefully-preserved exterior is a man who harbors an unspeakable amount of pain for his own cowardice. In choosing his perceived duty as a clan leader over his fundamental human obligations to his brother, Hanzo comes to realize the fragility of his own pre-established self and concludes that he cannot bear to live with himself any longer. He ostensibly follows Genji into the afterlife by 'killing' his identity as the Shimada heir, breaking from the very organization that he destroyed Genji to uphold. Wounded and unable to forgive himself, he decides to live the rest of his life as a 21st-century ronin.
(So, yes— Hanzo might also be a little melodramatic.)
And really, in the barest of terms, Hanzo is someone who is treading water. Someone who is suspended in a place that's neither the past nor the future, and not entirely the present. Someone who still behaves with the haughtiness of a royal upbringing but wears that crown with no small amount of self-disdain; someone who still adheres to ridiculous standards if only because that's the only way he knows how to live. Someone who lives day to day as penance to the brother he murdered while waiting for the day that someone finally puts and end to him. Someone who fancied himself to know everything and found, one day, that he understood nothing.
Hanzo is lost, essentially. Even when he finds that Genji has miraculously survived his slaughtering, he remains steadfastly grounded in his belief that he is beyond redemption and sticks to it with the sort of rage that implies that he would rather the entire world scorn him than believe he could be forgiven. He lashes out and self-sabotages with his refusal to move on, but consider: paradigm shifts have never been easy for him. He was never supposed to have them, after all.
no subject
Hanzo is, for all intents and purposes, a squishy human. Aside from the bullshit dragon powers that he has, all of his physical prowess boils down to mastery achieved through training and meditation. Here are some of his most notable talents:
↣ Real Life Ninja Skills: What it says on the tin. Hanzo can perform a myriad of physical acrobatics that you see in movies about guys who parkour in the night, including wallclimbing, backflipping, and dodgerolling. He's probably one of the few people in Japan that can enter one of those sadistic game shows aimed to lowkey murder their contestants and come out of it without breaking a sweat. Speaking of murder, though—
↣ Skilled assassin: —Hanzo is also really good at killing people. Being groomed from birth by a yakuza clan with a shady history will do that to you, not to mention being trained with the expectation that people will want your head. Hanzo is good enough of a fighter that he fended off ten years of people actively trying to get rid of him after he broke from his clan— suffice it to say that he knows a thing or two about stealth and all manners of lethal combat.
↣ Archery: Also what it says on the tin! Hanzo is a master archer, deeming himself to be peerless in the craft.
↣ Various martial arts experience: While Blizzard hasn't been explicit with regard to Hanzo's scope of expertise, it's been confirmed that he's extremely skilled with a blade (his weapon of choice when he 'killed' his brother, and incidentally the weapon that he abandoned after Genji's 'death'). His close-range fighting style also hints at a proficiency in judo (basic throws).
↣ Strategic/tactical knowledge: Hanzo's been trained in classical Japanese heihou, which is just a fancy way to refer to military strategies that can be applied to all facets of life.
And, well. Finally, let's not forget the...
↣ Bullshit Dragon Powers: Succinctly, the ability to summon incredibly destructive twin spirit dragons that consume anything in the linear path that Hanzo casts his arrow in. Here is a handy visual of what it looks like.
As discussed in the brainstorming meme, the dragons in-game will just be an aesthetic projection via technology in Hanzo's bow! How the mighty have fallen.
Personality:
First and foremost, let's get this out of the way: Hanzo Shimada is the product of a reverse Cinderella story. It's one of those horrendously cliche narratives about a rich boy who suddenly finds himself in Not So Great circumstances, but this isn't the history section of this app— it's the personality section, so let's begin unpacking who Hanzo is in light of his very traditional, very straightforward narrative.
Hanzo is prideful. This is no surprise given his background as an ostensible monarch within his underground kingdom. Born into yakuza royalty, Hanzo was raised on the principle that he would be the eventual successor to the entirety of his family's wealth and influence. As the formerly rightful heir to an empire that survived centuries of dominance (longer than some countries remain countries), Hanzo carries himself with an imperiousness that can only be a product of upbringing— straight-backed, neck craned, eagle-eyed. He speaks with the gravitas and sparseness of a man taught to measure his ideas in importance ("from one thing, know ten thousand things"), and with the sharpness of a man accustomed to intimidation ("unworthy"). Domineering and uncompromising, Hanzo is the textbook definition of a feudal lord from an archaic time period when honor was synonymous with moral currency. God knows he mentions the word often enough.
As much as these traits seem unpalatable to anyone looking for someone to pal around with, all of these traits served Hanzo well when he was the Shimada clan's future leader, when the preeminence of his birthright supposedly wasn't always enough to earn the respect of men who were two, three times Hanzo's age. It's not difficult to imagine why Hanzo's perfectionism and consistent need to assert his superiority persists even after his descent into disgrace; his worth has always been measured in his capability to prove himself to opportunistic third parties. A mindset like this isn't easily corrected ("never second best"), especially if it's been a guiding principle for most of one's childhood and adult life. It also easily extends to Hanzo's appraisal of others, often resulting in condescension and criticisms that verge just on the side of being obnoxious. (He is, however, capable of sincerity when he believes others to have earned his respect.)
With that said, it's when the uncontrollable factors of his life start to catch up with him that Hanzo's inflexibility starts becoming a bane instead of a boon. The thing about being raised on a rigid set of principles with a specific endgoal in mind is that it often leaves people ill-equipped to deal with anything that doesn't fit within their purview— Hanzo, while extremely intelligent in the field of practical knowledge, is fairly stunted when it comes to the subject of interpersonal relationships.
Exhibit A: meet Genji Shimada, Hanzo's younger brother. The id to Hanzo's ego, the wind to Hanzo's earth. If Hanzo had the grace to navigate his relationship with his brother on terms that didn't end in binaries, he probably wouldn't have 'killed' Genji for the sake of his clan. But his ultimate choice was to adhere to obligation instead of his heart, resulting in the breaking of the latter and the persistence of his inability to engage in emotional compromise thereinafter. Long story short, Hanzo sucks at communication— if the kinslaying aspect doesn't speak for itself. His obstinacy is wildly damaging, both to others and himself.
None of this really paints a great portrait of Hanzo Shimada at all, but here's where some of his redeeming qualities come into play. Take, for example, how his poor decisions profoundly hurt him. As prideful, unpalatable, stubborn, demanding, esoteric, and uncompromising as Hanzo can be, at the core of his carefully-preserved exterior is a man who harbors an unspeakable amount of pain for his own cowardice. In choosing his perceived duty as a clan leader over his fundamental human obligations to his brother, Hanzo comes to realize the fragility of his own pre-established self and concludes that he cannot bear to live with himself any longer. He ostensibly follows Genji into the afterlife by 'killing' his identity as the Shimada heir, breaking from the very organization that he destroyed Genji to uphold. Wounded and unable to forgive himself, he decides to live the rest of his life as a 21st-century ronin.
(So, yes— Hanzo might also be a little melodramatic.)
And really, in the barest of terms, Hanzo is someone who is treading water. Someone who is suspended in a place that's neither the past nor the future, and not entirely the present. Someone who still behaves with the haughtiness of a royal upbringing but wears that crown with no small amount of self-disdain; someone who still adheres to ridiculous standards if only because that's the only way he knows how to live. Someone who lives day to day as penance to the brother he murdered while waiting for the day that someone finally puts and end to him. Someone who fancied himself to know everything and found, one day, that he understood nothing.
Hanzo is lost, essentially. Even when he finds that Genji has miraculously survived his slaughtering, he remains steadfastly grounded in his belief that he is beyond redemption and sticks to it with the sort of rage that implies that he would rather the entire world scorn him than believe he could be forgiven. He lashes out and self-sabotages with his refusal to move on, but consider: paradigm shifts have never been easy for him. He was never supposed to have them, after all.