Template talk:Character

I noticed something - what exactly is "From" used for? Most characters have their place of birth there (I think), but then the country is almost always wrong. E.g., Kuromimi is born in the Scarlet Moon Empire, not the Toran Republic. Just like my grandfather was not born in the Federal Republic of Germany, but in the Deutsches Reich. It's only a small thing, but I just wanted t put it here for discussion - I think makng it feel like a real world would give a lot more authenticity to the character pages. --Antimatzist (talk) 03:44, 19 March 2015 (EDT)

From means... from. It's vague because the Japanese books tend to be vague on this and what it means. Hometown is about the nearest alternative term I can give you and even that's narrowing it down a lot. Sierra wasn't born in the Blue Moon Village but she's stated as being from there. Lucretia is Karayan but is stated as being merely from the "northern continent". Ayda's "from the forests near Greenhill", which is really vague.

Because of this vagueness, it becomes a matter of perspective and interpretation. It's true some will do as you say and will place a person as being "from" the country they were born in, so Kuromimi should be from the SME but others choose to do it with an eye on the present (SY 475), so that Kuromimi, still alive in the Toran Republic era, is from the Toran Republic whereas Ain Gide, who dies before the republic, was from the SME.

There's a little bit of inconsistency in this because depending on the time frame the guides are set in, they're written differently. The Suikoden Encyclopedia loves using the Toran Republic because it is explicitly written from the perspective of being after the events of the first game, all ages for Suikoden 1 characters in it have 3 years added on because its written from an SY 460 viewpoint for example, while the Suikoden 108 Stars Guide is written from an in-game perspective so there is no Toran Republic to reference. --Admin (talk) 04:22, 19 March 2015 (EDT)


 * Do you think it's worth seperating these to terms? So changinging the format for "birth" to (Birthyear), (city of birht), (state of birth) if we know it, and having "from" to say the place a certain character lives at? It's not important at the moment anyway, but I think sometimes it's important to seperate it. E.g., Qlon is originally from Antei (I suppose he was also born there), but his last known place of residence is Toran Castle. It also depends on the perspective the Gensopedia wants to have, as I see it, most biographies are written in past tense, even for Suikoden III characters' endings. So we write from a perspective some years later, right? It's a bit confusing to keep it all consistent, e.g. in his introduction, Borus IS one of the Six Knights of Zexen, whereas it would be correct if Lino En Kuldes WAS the ruler of the Kingdom of Obel (his introduction is currently in present tense), assuming he didn't gain immortality and is still reigning king of Obel. --Antimatzist (talk) 05:25, 19 March 2015 (EDT)


 * There's the problems. There's a lot of assumptions that will have to be made by splitting off the fields. I can tell you Qlon is from Antei. I can't tell you he was born there. I also can't tell you he never moves back there. I, personally, am not really wanting to split up the fields and taking our best guesses on these things. All the sources give us a field to use and it's not perfect, not by a long shot, but it's what we've got to work with. Regarding tenses: Generally speaking, introductions should be present tense as they are usually not written from an in-universe viewpoint. Biographies should be past tense as they generally are in-universe although they step back from that when necessary, like with branching plot lines and so on.--Admin (talk) 10:16, 19 March 2015 (EDT)