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About Yoshitsugu's sickness!
Jul. 11th, 2017 11:59 pmThis here fictional Yoshitsugu does not have leprosy. In fact the main games so far outright avoid mentioning he has any kind of sickness at all, leaving the only possible hints in that direction in side media. Those hints are themselves vague, never specifying a kind of illness. The most direct comment you can find is in a drama CD set towards the end of Toyotomi Hideyoshi's life in which he says 'my body isn’t going to last much longer, I probably only have a few years left.'
His canon appearance and abilities limit headcanon in this direction as well, but it doesn't feel right to spare him entirely. With that in mind, I tend to play Yoshitsugu as having an incredibly poor immune system and being very prone to getting sick and sick badly at that. This can accommodate his drama CD comment as well, along with his tendancy to stay indoors for most of his spare time.
It's relevant to mention here that the historical Yoshitsugu wasn't proven to have leprosy either! This is an incredibly common misconception but in truth nobody knows what kind of illness the guy had; the list of known or assumed symptoms leaves a lot of room for guesswork but leprosy is not even considered one of the most likely answers. What is generally considered most likely? Syphilis, a much harder to 'romanticise' sickness in lore and media.
(Altogether, historical Yoshitsugu is almost a complete mystery and the amount of known facts about him can be counted on one finger; probably why KOEI pretty much did what they wanted with him. That bit with him serving the Azai? 100% fictional. It's not like anyone even knows a thing about Yoshitsugu's actual childhood... or even which Ootani family he came from...)
His canon appearance and abilities limit headcanon in this direction as well, but it doesn't feel right to spare him entirely. With that in mind, I tend to play Yoshitsugu as having an incredibly poor immune system and being very prone to getting sick and sick badly at that. This can accommodate his drama CD comment as well, along with his tendancy to stay indoors for most of his spare time.
It's relevant to mention here that the historical Yoshitsugu wasn't proven to have leprosy either! This is an incredibly common misconception but in truth nobody knows what kind of illness the guy had; the list of known or assumed symptoms leaves a lot of room for guesswork but leprosy is not even considered one of the most likely answers. What is generally considered most likely? Syphilis, a much harder to 'romanticise' sickness in lore and media.
(Altogether, historical Yoshitsugu is almost a complete mystery and the amount of known facts about him can be counted on one finger; probably why KOEI pretty much did what they wanted with him. That bit with him serving the Azai? 100% fictional. It's not like anyone even knows a thing about Yoshitsugu's actual childhood... or even which Ootani family he came from...)
