hetalia | [Question] Nations during battle

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ch: hong kong

[Question] Nations during battle

Hello there! I see a lot of fanfiction posted to this community, so I hope other fellow writers can offer their opinions on a few issues I've been turning over in my head.

I am planning and preparing a historical fic concerning the full history of Hong Kong. Recently my research has been mostly about WWII thanks to the book I'm reading, so the concept of nations during battle made me come up with a few questions:

1) The comics and anime clearly show that nations do participate in battle alongside their soldiers. I'm definitely showing this by having Japan and Canada fighting, but since I have Hong Kong "human aged" at roughly 10-12 years old at this point, do you consider it fair to have him participate in the troops as well? I thought about it, but it doesn't seem right for some reason. Right now I have him at the side of the governor and Commander of the HK Garrison, in the middle of all the orders and reports.

The next two questions are more about Hetalia fanfiction in general.

2) I do try to stick to nation-names instead of human-names when dealing with them in a historical or canon way, but trying to write war councils and military personnel discussing strategy makes it slightly awkward. When the name of a place could either mean the nation-person OR actual physical boundaries of the colony, it gets slightly confusing. What is your stance on this? Should the humans continue to refer to nations via nation-name? Speaking of which, Hong Kong doesn't even have an official one so I'm leaning towards the former right now...

3) ENGLAND, or BRITAIN?? Which one to use?? In my outlines, I've been using "Britain," though the main British battalion at Hong Kong were the Royal Scots.

I hope this is okay for me to post on this community. If not, I'll remove it. Thank you!

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1)Since we've never seen child nations in war in canon, any answers you get will be speculation, but I'll throw in my two cents. I always assumed that a nation's physical strength in battle was determined by the average strength of people of that gender in their nation.

For instance, we have seen that canonically the nation's heights are determined by the average height of their gender in their nation. It makes sense to me that strength would work similarly. It also seems to me that the strength of the military and state as a whole has a role in it.

2)Since the person is defined by the physical boundaries of the country and cities/natural landscape features correspond to places on the nation-person's body, it seems reasonable to use the country name for both. There is no distinction made in the canon in its original Japanese.

3) The actual translation of the nation's name as it is given in Japanese is UK/Great Britain, so I suppose Britain would be more accurate, but most people, me included, are more used to hearing the character referred to as England.

I hope that helps!

I like your idea about nation strength; that's really interesting to think about. Upon reading everyone else's posts, another issue I'm now facing is the fact that HK's military at the time were all from Britain - or when regiments from Canada and India arrived, the Commonwealth in general. There were Chinese people assisting in the fight, but mostly as volunteers. I do think that England would be far more busy dealing with the European front, so I decided to NOT depict him in this battle.

It did, thank you!

Hm, for the first question I think he could be involved, but perhaps some of the troops would be responsible for guarding him. It would be a little odd to have someone that young on the front line, but he could still be involved and present.

My personal stance on nation names/human names is that the nation names are their real names, but they'll often use human names around humans just to simplify things (or to keep their identity hidden at times when necessary.) But I see a lot of variety when it comes to how to deal with the names, so it's really whatever you want to do with it.

England is definitely used more often than Britain. I rarely see him called Britain in fanworks, but again, it's up to you.

That's just my two cents and I'm about to run out the door anyway, so forgive me if this is full of typos!

Yeah, that's my general idea of nation vs. human names too. I'm trying to portray my main character as "humanly" as possible (does that make sense?) by having him deal with things in the mindset of the "age" he is (determined by growth of the city). Thus I actually will create a few human civilian OCs for him to befriend (not many, three at most over the span of like, 200 years...) which I think would call him by a human name. But anyone of political and military status ought to refer to him by nation-name, because that's his "official" name.

Besides the obvious answer of "Do whatever works best for you", I'll try to answer your questions :)

Since (to my knowledge) it's never been addressed in any of the comics, most people tend to pick a headcanon that fits them best an go from there. On that, you have a few options. 1)Nations do not physically fight, instead remaining as advisers to their leaders. 2)They enter the fight as a nation 3)Nations enter the fight under the guise of a human (ie Captain Kirkland)

All of those options also depend on who knows about the nations - everyone, just the leaders, just the boss, etc.

For me, I usually use a mix of all 3, because I base it on the time-frame. The more modern we get, the less people actually know WHO their nation is. So before, England might ride into battle, but now he goes as Captain Kirkland.

As for the question of age, that goes back to who knows who HK is. If everyone knows he is a nation, it would make sense for him to fight. If most people think he is a child, then it would not. Also, it might depend just what a country was doing (being fought over/occupied/fighting on a definitive side/etc) as to what action the nation takes during the war.

Names - this answer also follows the same as above - who knows who the Nation is. You can always make up a human name (we all do it) and it could be less confusing when mentioning troop movements. However, if the Nation is walking around as a Nation, then they should be addressed as such.

I use England whenever I talk/write about him, because in my opinion, he is not Britain. Britain is made up of England, Scotland, Wales, etc, who each have personifications of their own, but England is the main face. I like to think of it like a class in school with a class president/representative. That person may speak for the group, but they are not the entire class.

I hope some of this ramble helps, or at least gives you things to think about!

Hehe, yeah...honestly, I do have a road I'm going down that's about 85% determined, but I always like to hear other ideas and advice that might possibly work better. It also helps me decide what to keep, throw away, or add in order to make my writing more clear. So I love varying opinions C:

When I decided to throw in the nations with their soldiers, I was actually thinking much along the lines of your 3rd option, with a tiny bit of #2 added. I feel that all the men would be vaguely aware of say, Canada's identity, but he would still be referred to Lieutenant Williams or something similar, for formalities and simplicity's sake. He'd never be decorated or perhaps even promoted, but something I gather from people in the army is that units do become very closely knit and comradeship is very important. And anyway, they're his people. He has to care about them and fight alongside with them. A LOT of historic military/political figures will be characters in this story.

Thanks! It gave me plenty C:

1) Well, considering the draft minimum age in (most) of the world during WWII was (at YOUNGEST) 17, having a 12 year old on the field of battle seems... odd. Hong Kong was still a British colony-ish then, right? So having him actually fighting seems not only weird, but who would want a 12-year-old fighting on their side? And the risk factor for his health is really great, too. Keeping him on the side is probably a waaaaaay better idea.

2) As for nation/human names, I tend to flip-flop between them depending on the tone of the story I'm writing. For fics that have a more personal, human feel, I use human names between nations, but for more historical things, I tend to use country names, at least from the perspective of the omniscient third-person narrator. I've found, however, when it comes to dealing with human-nation relations, it all depends on what your headcanon is. Do the people they're dealing with know that they're talking to nation-tans? If they do, I normally only have someone such as a head general or a president or prime minister or king or something refer to the nation by their human name, and everyone else either use country or the title+last name format. If you don't want the people the nations are interacting with to know they're nations, then go human all out. It really comes down to headcanon.

3) Okay so, TECHNICALLY, it's "United Kingdom"; the separate, official, sovereign states of England and Scotland haven't existed since the 18th century and Wales is just chillin'. They adopted the name "United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland" sometime int eh 20th century (going off memory here, hooray!) after Ireland decided fuck those guys. So I guess according to that title, the most accurate would be Britain, because that's what the landmass (England+Scotland+Wales) is referred to in it's title (Great Britain?) but most people use England because it's specific to just that one land mass, and people do still use England, Scotland, and Wales to define different parts of the United Kingdom. I use England because I like the word England better than the word Britain. HOORAY.

WHEW. I hope this helps! I took two classes on English history this semester, so it's all tumbling around in my brain @_@

Yup, exactly, so I feel like it'd be totally weird. Also, war is pretty terrible. Japan and Canada have had experience before, many times, but HK...actually, he didn't see TOO much violence during the Opium War. I've always imagined that he was more of a bargaining chip during that process, and what I've studied so far about it is that Britain won through threatening not just Southern China but also nearly capturing Taku and Beijing. But what all they really wanted was a trading port, so they got HK. And actually, weren't all that impressed with their prize at first...

Anyway, there will be both historic military/political figures as well as a few human civilian OCs (no more than 3 though, I'm hoping) who appear, so I do think that I'll have nation and human name appearing. Nation name when it's time to be official and deal with the beareaucracy, and human-name when hanging out with friends C:

But it showed Chibitalia battling Turkey/Ottoman Empire, so... I don't know what to say about the legalities. :3

That's true. There IS a lot of child-nation fighting in canon, I now remember.

However, I think I might use the excuse of the fact that HK was a mere colony and most of his official soldiers were NOT Chinese, but British, Indian and Canadian. I really just can't imagine a scrawny preteen scrambling around the mountains with grenades blowing up around him...

1. In the anime you see young Switzerland carrying young Austria after battle. I know there is a sketch of young Italy fighting off Turkey. I am not positive, but I think there is also stuff of young Hungary and Prussia fighting too.

2. Already handled, skipping

3. England, Britain or United Kingdom are all equally valid. Word of God is that his name now is United Kingdom to everyone else, but England to his siblings. I also understand that it was Himaruya's request that he be called "Britain" in the dub. However, in fandom it is more common to see England then UK or Britain.

Good point. But that's a lot of young nation vs. young nation, whilst this is mature nation vs. young nation...but there are instances of those too. I kind of addressed that in the above post :3

Yes, that's my main issue because I know he is supposed to be official Britain (and at the time, the Empire was still in full force), but England seems to be the most common usage. I'll probably go with that to make things easier.

I suppose most people above have left some pretty good opinions I'll probably just be repeating in one way or another, but I'll share my headcannon and you can decide if it helps or not :D In the end it's going to be up to you.

1. The age/height of a nation in my mind is determined by the status of the country itself, be it physically or economically. Holy Roman Empire went off to war when he clearly was a little kid, but otherwise we mostly see adult nations entering battle along side soldiers. In my mind, a 'younger' and less 'mature' nation helps out his respective army from the sidelines or from a safe distance, to represent the lesser stature of his respective nation. When a nation is older and more capable, he joins battle himself while also helping with strategy and orders. Of course, this might change depending on if the nation is under control of another, in which my headcannon states the nation does not help with war effort and that side is taken care of by the controlling nation.

2. Also from my headcannon, a nation's real name is the name of his/her respective nation. As a sign of respect and status, the nation is referred to as his country and nothing else. However, each nation has picked a private name for themselves that they only share with people they are close to, as a show of trust. This also applies to relations between countries. A boss might know a nation's human name, but then again he might not if the nation doesn't trust them or isn't as close to them. As a nation is secretive and remains known to only his/her boss, they end up being that one guy everyone knows, but they can never remember his name and pretty much call him 'sir' or 'commander,' only to turn around and ask who the heck that guy was to their friends XD A nation might share their name with a human they meet, because the see them as a good citizen, and that's how they make it through in an army. They see most soldiers as good individuals unless they sense otherwise.

3. Heck, I call him England. It's what I and the fandom are used to, and while Britain or UK is also technically correct and acceptable, it's just easier to go by England.

Hope that is understandable and helps!

Seems like we share very similar headcanons =D You make an excellent point with HRE. My main deal with trying to figure out how HK will age is based off of the fact that in canon, he's definitely still a teenager in present day (probably because he has never been actually independent), and how America grew up extremely quickly due to his early independence and growth. Using him as an example, I kind of deduced that HK would then have extremely SLOW growth. He was a colony for 156 years, and afterwards he didn't even go independent, but just switched caretakers. The global importance of Hong Kong as a trade and financial centre is what I am going to base his "growth" upon, but even that's a little debatable.

It's been giving me a couple of headscratchers...

We seem to share the same headcanon for naming as well =D Though I never want to really say anything is 100% set (the mind always changes!) so that's why I asked for others' opinions.

1. Child countries fight all the time in canon. I think one of the earliest ones shown was Austria holding up Italy (Chibitalia) when running into battle.

2. I myself DESPISE the human names. I think they kind of go against the point of the whole thing. They AREN'T regular people, so why use some substitute name? I understand the fans can more relate to the characters whose names aren't countries, but that's what they are! I can understand their use in a way with humans who are unaware of their true natures as a sort of alias and thus for their own comfort/safety (if it's possible to even be killed by humans). However, in no canon appearance has any country ever referred to another by his/her human name, and so when I read fanfics (where it's often the EXCLUSIVE name used) I find it takes me out of the story entirely. I'd say use the human name sparingly.

3. I'd say use Britain or UK unless it takes place before 1707 or if he is dealing with the other constituent countries. He's England, but he's the UK to the world.

Good reference. But afterwards, didn't Austria tell Chibitalia that from then on, he would take care of all formal matters? HK is a British colony, and practically all of his soldiers were British, or sent in from other British colonies. However, I DON'T have Britain there himself because I figured that the Blitz would have him pretty preoccupied. But Japan's entire goal was East Asia, and this battle was Canada's very first ground combat site in WWII, so I think they deserve to play pivotal roles in the battle.

Yeah, I would like to avoid human names...but I also want to show the social and every day life of the city of Hong Kong, so I plan to have him interact with human civilians too. I think with them he'll use a pseudonym human-name to blend in. But in the end, he IS Hong Kong.

I refer to England as England, and I have a headcanon name for Hong Kong: Xiang (Shang/Zhang).

Soldiers would probably refer to the Nation by their human name in discussing strategy.

Maybe Hong could be an assistant to a general?

I also think that the Nations in battle only fight other Nations, and consider it un-noble to attack humans directly. Their armies fight each other, and they fight each other, but the two "species" do not engage in conflict.

I hope that helps.

The reason why I kept HK at HQ was because as he is small, I also want to depict him as being very young (but is this OOC, I wonder? It's difficult to tell from other characters because I think their boisterous personalities take over a lot xD) and possibly even confused by the entire ordeal. But he would definitely be up to date on what's happening to him, especially since fate of nation-person depends completely on fate of the people.

Thank you for your input ^-^

Yo. This'll mainly entail the concept of a nation as a character, since the other issues have already been discussed (young nation-characters still fight if the nation itself is young, nobody remarks on their age because they're a symbol of the country itself; they would be addressed just like any other fellow soldier or commander, or just fight one-on-one with another nation-character... and "Britain" was formally requested, but England/Great Britain/UK can all be used depending on which part he is playing in the historical parts of your story)

The way I see it, as shown in real canon, the nations are symbols of their countries. Their thoughts and actions reflect those of their people. They basically appear in any circumstances where their people make a notable impression on history.

If there's an important decision made by their leaders, they're there to witness (and whether they agree or disagree depends on how the common people feel; if people protest, the nation protests. But if people end up having to obey, then so does the nation-character).

If there's a battle that's a major turning-point, or important defense, or rescue operation, then they're fighting in it, usually in a leadership/commander or advisor role. And usually against the opposing nation-character, but sometimes having minor fights with their soldiers to get to them.

They're wounded if, say, a lot of their men are wounded or killed. For example, a whole battalion is lost, so the nation is, at the same time, shot in the leg by the country they're opposing. The more casualties or territory lost, the more scratches and bruises they sport. Or if a major city is bombed, they may suffer a great blow to the body (but they can't die unless their country has been historically disbanded). If their economy goes bad, they're sick. If there are food shortages, they're malnourished.

They can interact with historical figures, to symbolize how their people look up to them (such as France with Joan of Arc). It's not like the nations are a perceivable individual, it's just a summary of how various people in their country interacted with the figure. Though if a few of their people disrespected the figure, but most did not (or later the figure was revered), then usually the nation-character takes the side of the majority or the hindsight. Or he can disrespect the figure at first, then grow to respect them over time.

Or even if it's a small thing, like you're a tourist and you meet an 'example' of the citizens there that make an impression on you, that example can be done using the nation-character. Because that influences how people perceive the nation itself.

It seems a lot of fans like to think they're some sort of sacred beings who walk among their people, but can be targeted for assassination to take over a whole nation, but that's entirely fandom. If you use such an approach, that's your choice. But in canon, they're just symbols who can interact, but aren't hiding any sort of identity because they just represent one, or many, or all, of their people at any given moment.

As such, they need no human name, and if it weren't for fans keeping track from years ago, nobody would even know they had them in the first place. It was just a random musing for fans who preferred to think of the characters as people, without the weight of a nation on their shoulders.

And as for territories, in the series canon, it's been shown just as often to be two things: 1- Just plots of land on the country's home territory, or 2- Body parts on the character, which can be claimed by another country-character. Which of these are chosen are up to the writer, as both are viable options.

Phew, sorry I went on for so long, but I'm just trying to supply what Himaruya-sensei intended when he made this series, which a lot of fans seem to have forgotten. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing at all, and you can do it totally differently. But it's just nice to know where things started from, so fan-changes can be acknowledged as what they are.

Would you possibly be able to share your work when it's done? I'd love to see it, regardless of what direction you choose. :3

I agree to a lot of what you say regarding the nations' sensitivity to their people and events. My major deal with the whole child-fighting-in-war also stems from the fact that he is a British colony, and if I may take a canon example - Austria did tell Chibitalia after he was captured that he (Austria) would now oversee all formal matters concerning his country. And the Hong Kong Garrison was comprised of completely British ranks (well, some British Indian regiments too). I posted this in another reply earlier, but I don't plan to put Britain himself (or England, as most of the other people agree is more often used) since I think the Blitz would be a much bigger worry on his list. Japan and Canada are there though, because this is Japan's main war front, and the Battle of Hong Kong was the very first Canadian ground combat contribution to the war - the first wounded, the first death, and the first awarded honour. Not to mention that they were just very brave and fought so diligently...

My concept that grew out of this was how HK as a nation-person would be both involved with major events such as war and trade, but also have another side reflective of the people and every day life. He wouldn't really have to hide his identity, because I figure that by looking human, most people assume you're human and just don't pry. It's not like they LOOK any different from us.

And the idea of body parts corresponding to landmarks has always been a weird idea to me. I know there are canonical references (ie. Austria's ahoge = Mariazell), but the concept seems too complex to apply to each character. But I DO fully intend to have characters react physically in regards to what happens to their citizens, because as you said, they reflect their people.

Yes, by all means! =D Honestly, I'm expecting that very few people will look into it: who really cares about a long-winded (this WWII arc alone will be 10 chapters, and that's 5 years in a roughly 200 year history), multi-chapter, historical fanfiction containing zero romantic pairings and starring a very minor character in the series? It's a project purely to get all my nerd-feelings out of my system.

The story won't be posted for a while, though. I'm still researching the other time periods, and I think I'm probably going to include some information about him BEFORE the British were even involved. But if you're still interested by then I'm more than happy to share it with you!

Oh trust me, I LOVE historical fics the most. While I think pairing is cute, I'm much more into Hetalia for its historical aspects, first and foremost, and my favorite aspect of fandom is when it's used to tell history's tales like that. :3

Perhaps Britain AND Hong Kong can be involved alongside each other? Or they can communicate over the phone with each other with Hong Kong passing on the orders to the British men, and carrying them out in his stead?

I will still be interested, so definitely share once you're done. :3

I've written a lot of AU, but I'm like that too - I got into APH for the history, not the other way around. After I got into the writing habit, I found myself with a nice reader following...so I'm going to see if they'll still stick with me when I stop giving them fluffy Spamano and start throwing Chinese history at them xD

England will definitely try to be clued in all the time. But another thing that I want to emphasize is that around here is the decline of the Empire, because this particular battle was an embarrassing indication of how the Brits had spread themselves too thin during the war. HK and Singapore fell easily because they were outposts in the Pacific, far from the "HQ" of GB.

Awesome! I'm excited now because someone who isn't a friend who would like anything I write anyway will be reading this ^-^

1) I don't think HK would have actually been fighting at the time. At most, he would have had an advising position. In my headcanon, only higher ranking humans know about the nation-tans, and even if they knew HK was a tan, they would probally still seem him as a child due to his physcal age. He might be a tan, but any soldier fighting would look at him and see a twelve yer-old boy, and it would be hard for anyone to send such a young kid into battle. And, as a colony, he would have been treated as a child because he wasn't a full nation. I know there are examples of chibi tans fighting, but that's normally in the more historical strips, where children did fight in wars. As you get closer to our time line, most countries have imposted age limits for joining the military.

2) This question really depens on your headcanon. I see the human names just as canon as the nation names, because I see the tans as wanting to hold on to things that make them human. When you've lived for hundreds of years and you've seen everyone around you die and things change to such extreme degrees, you try to hold on to something that makes you feel normal. But then again, my headcanon has the tans as having been human children that died and came back as the land they died on, with none of their human memories, only a vague sense of what had been once. You mentioned that HK would have some human friends, and in that case, I would have them call him by a human name even if they did know he was a tan, because the relationship is on a human level. He's not their nation-tan, he's their friend and their equal. As for military leaders, those that know he's the HK tan would call him Honk Kong, but once again, they'd still see him as a young boy, so they might call him by his human name in a paternal/older brother sense.

3) I always go for England as his name, him onl using UK when he's speaking for his siblings Scotland, Wales and N Ireland. I see UK as more of a title than his actuall name. Britain once again is a title for when he speaks for Scot and Wales, being short for Great Britain. The use of UK vs Britain would depend on the historical context, which always confuses me so I'm no help here XD I would go for England for those who know he's a tan, and UK/Britain for when he's officially being presented to those that know he's a tan. His human name would be used publicly.

And you could use human names between tans if you want to give it a more personal feel. Because England has a "patrnal" relationship with HK, and Canada has an older brother/cousin relationship.

Hope this was helpful, my headcanon can get kinda confusing sometimes... OTL

Headcanons are always awkward to explain because each one differs :3

As zacloud kind of mentioned earlier, the nations are kind of symbolic, so I think those in authority would know of child!HK's value and significance, but in the end he still looks and acts like a child, so they keep an eye on him. His canon personality makes him a snarky prankster, so he'd be quite a handful (though obviously, at this point in time, it's no joking matter).

I really like the point you have about human names lending them...well, humanity. That's the reason why I decided to create some civilian OCs - usually I really dislike creating OCs - so I could reflect that side. He gets to be a normal person during those moments. Also, I want to have people who will age and change through time to compare and contrast.

Yup, I mean, imagine if any of those soldiers had kids around HK's age, I could see it being difficult for them to let him fight. The need to protect him would come in. And he'd prolly tone down the pranking to very mild and only around his friends.

I really like the idea of nations struggling with their humanity, but then again, I'm a big fan of ANGST XD And I think adding in OCs the way you are is perfect. I have a super huge project idea to write about the tans' origins, and I was going to have them interact alot with humans to put into play the question of what it means to be human. Same reason I have tans use human names on a personal level with other nations. Because if a nation is in a relationship with another, it's on the human level, so they'd use human names... IDEK anymore... I really should just get around to writing out my plot bunnies OTL

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[Question] Nations during battle

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