Today we’ll be looking at Lady Masako, the third member of our less than happy little family from the CeleKing series. Masako’s origins lie with the original concept that would be fleshed out to form the basis of Erdi society. You have Celestials above and Infernals below, but then a Celestial is cast down. What then? I was starting to develop the idea of the Imperial court and its intrigues, which made for an easy setup. We take a militarily accomplished and politically influential nobleman (married to an Imperial princess, no less) from a hated minority group and the plot practically writes itself. From his limited screentime, we see Masako’s father Lord Kunihiko as a reserved sort of parent who only grants his daughter an indulgence like a portion of his beloved bonsai garden as a reward for having proven herself discerning enough to be a worthy steward of it, not as a free gift. Unfortunately, the story didn’t lend itself to featuring Masako’s mother, Princess Feifang, but you can get some idea of the sort of parent she was based on how Masako herself acts as a mother in Volumes 2 and 3. Masako was raised to be stoic and duty-bound, but due to her age and circumstances in Volume 1, we see more of a different side of her. She is very much a sheltered 17-year-old girl who is ill-equipped for the situation she finds herself in. Her pride is her shield, but that shield isn’t enough to protect her. For much of Volume 1, there is very little she can do but rely on Batista, but we she her start to rise to the challenge as Batista finds himself unable to shoulder all of the load by himself. The experience changes her, of course. She learns a little humility and gains a bit of grit as she spends time among the people she never paid a second thought to in her years at the Capital and Liuyiyuan. Then there’s the matter of the love that blooms between her and Batista, which shapes her fate for good and for ill in the years to follow. Let’s look at a few of the most significant relationships in her life and how they affect her.

1. From the start, Batista had a knock for drawing out conflicting emotions in Masako. She was of course grateful to him for saving her and dependent on him for protecting her afterward, but a rough man like him who pays little heed for rank flew in the face of all her social conditioning. Because she couldn’t play the role of the spoiled, pampered princess around him, she had to toughen up sooner than she would have otherwise. Their initially belligerent relationship giving way to romance is pretty common, but in light of how she would act later in life makes it a bit ironic that she was willing to forsake her duty and responsibilities to be with him. As you know, they eventually came to the compromise of him becoming her knight, allowing for a less disadvantageous marriage, yet one that still would have led to the extinction of the main line of House Suzuki as far as the norms of the court were concerned. The birth of Yasuko brought them closer still, but it was after the assassination attempt that drove Batista to place Yasuko in the care of Tío Jorge that their relationship broke. It could not be help as Batista was reassigned to the Expeditionary Forces and both of their efforts to remain in touch with each other were blocked. Physical separation led to emotional separation and even when Batista was allowed to return to the Capital, they had precious few opportunities to reconnect. Had they been allowed more than a handful of meetings, they might have managed something, but Batista’s jealousy over her marriage to Prince Sturla and longstanding arguments would have made it difficult. In the end, though, he was the man she loved first and best, so his loss hit her the hardest.

2. Next up is Yasuko. It might have been interesting to have seen a few episodes of Masako as a mother to Yasuko when she was younger. I see Masako as having been more of a doting mother than her own mother was, not being so cold and distant as you see when mother and daughter are reunited. It was actually a fine bit of acting on Masako’s part, but suppressing the emotions welling up inside of her was hard on her. She had to fall back on the example of her own mother for Yasuko’s protection. Although she did not have a complete grasp on Yasuko’s plot against the Celestials, she knew that it was imperative for her to mask Yasuko’s Infernal side and get her integrated into Celestial society as soon as possible. Things moved too quickly after that for her to ever get close to her daughter, though you do have the one episode in Volume 2 after Yasuko’s fight with Hongxia, which is the one scene of intimacy they were granted. While Masako wanted Yasuko to be happy, she wanted her to be safe first, and if that meant sacrificing a close relationship with her daughter, it was a price she was willing to pay. Now, it was bad enough that Masako thought she lost her daughter once, but the second time nearly did her in, hence her somewhat desperate ploy to impregnate herself with a clone of Yasuko, knowing that it wouldn’t be the same person. It was her clumsy way of trying to do it right the second time. Then you have Yasuko come back from the dead as a traitor to all Erdi with the blood of not only Sturla but also Batista on her hands. While Yasuko dismissed any possibility of mending the relationship with her mother after what she had done, she was selling her mother short. Masako wouldn’t easily overcome the gulf that had opened up between them, but I believe she would have tried. However, since Yasuko went off on her own, Masako made the painful decision to stay away, thinking she was respecting Yasuko’s wishes. Ultimately, it was a case of mother and daughter thinking on similar terms, that one wouldn’t forgive the other and so neither one tried to patch things up. It’s a shame, but Yasuko rejected the possibility of any healthy relationships, considering herself unworthy of them, and Masako couldn’t muster the force of will to drag her back kicking and screaming if she had to to show her otherwise.

3. Prince Sturla came along at a time when Masako was at her most vulnerable since the death of her father. Although she didn’t flaunt her marriage to an Infernal, it was widely known and normally no one of Sturla’s standing would consider such a match, but once he made it clear that his offer of marriage was genuine, she made what she thought was the best move for herself and her family. Her original idea in marrying Sturla was that it would give her the security to call Yasuko back from the surface, but by that time, Tío Jorge had been killed and Yasuko had begun her wanderings. If you look at how Sturla treated Yasuko, you might think Masako went through something similar, but that wasn’t really the case. We’ll be covering his perspective on their marriage later, but after an initial phase of testing the waters a bit, Sturla became a rather distant husband. Theirs was a political marriage, so Masako wasn’t expecting much more than that. As she intimated to Yasuko, she found him charming and physically attractive yet emotionally unfulfilling. However, she was raised to regard marriage as a duty, so it only took her a little time to adjust her mindset away from the aberration that was her marriage to Batista. She knew Sturla was using her for his own ends, so she did so in turn, focusing her attention on raising their son to meet his potential.

4. Speaking of Masako and Sturla’s son, Snorri was doted on even more than Yasuko when she was young. Part of it is the “little emperor syndrome” and part of it was Masako overcompensating for the loss of Batista and Yasuko and the emotional distance between her and Sturla. Fortunately, Snorri was quite unlike his father in terms of personality and wasn’t on track to become a little Joffrey Baratheon, though you could easily see him going down that route. He’s a case of being spoiled sweet instead of spoiled rotten. As you might imagine, he became quite the mama’s boy as a result. Masako rightly feared him being corrupted by his father, but it was a small mercy on Sturla’s part that he allowed Masako the time to spoil their child and Snorri the time to be spoiled until he was to be shaped into Sturla’s proper heir. We may visit this in a later story, but Snorri would grow up devoted to Masako and supporting her amid her bereavement and the challenges of adjusting to the new authority in the Empire. He actually becomes a doctor, and him turning out as such a decent person is almost entirely due to Masako’s influence. Even more so after the fall of their Empire, Masako focuses on not making the same mistakes with Snorri that she made with Yasuko and the two of them enjoy a much healthier relationship for it. Being freed of the expectations of becoming the next Emperor removes a massive load from both their shoulders and gives her the opportunity to be just a mother.

Since I’ve given you a peek into Snorri’s future, I’ll tell you a bit about what happens to Masako as well. Of course she has to renounce her title as Empress and Countess of House Suzuki when the New Earth Empire takes control of Erdi, but she does manage to secure a place in the transitional authority, which secures a role for her in planetary politics. Much as she had done at other points in her life, she takes the option she sees as best for her family, and indeed her cooperation is what keeps herself, Snorri and Eiko (the clone of Yasuko she gives birth to after the events of CeleKing3) from being purged as threats to the new order. It’s ironic that Yasuko allows herself to be reviled by her fellow paisanos for collaborating with the Empire when she rejected the benefits of doing so, while Masako, for all her pride, takes what she can get, but Masako’s pragmatism is one thing her daughter never inherited. Think what you will of her, but Masako always seeks to play the field to her advantage, which is what you had to do to survive in Celestial society. As much of a survivor as Yasuko was, her own pride consistently made her life more difficult for her. Sometimes the apple does fall far from the tree.

Anyway, that will do it for our look at Masako. Next time, we’ll be turning our attention to Prince Sturla. Stay tuned.

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