There is a thin yet sub­stan­tial line between the roman­ti­za­tion of a war­rior and the glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of war.

Death and car­nage, atroc­i­ties and destruc­tion, wars are never desir­able, and fic­tional heroes are always seek­ing to end wars and bring peace. Yet at the same time, the tra­di­tional roman­ti­za­tion of a war­rior, from Sen­goku to Three King­doms, from Val­halla to Camelot, will always paint them as eager for com­bat. As Rein­hardt and Ruen­thal real­izes in Leg­end of the Galac­tic Heroes, true sol­diers by nature are drawn to the call of bat­tle, that they would never feel sat­is­fac­tion within an era of peace. But there is a huge dif­fer­ence between that and war­mon­ger­ing. It may seem like a minor dis­tinc­tion, but eager­ness to fight and will­ing­ness to kill are com­pletely dif­fer­ent things, and our Sen­goku heroes are any­thing but blood-seeking war-addicts. Read the rest of this entry »