I canât stop thinking about what must have happened in the fight between Hanzo and Genji. More specifically, I canât stop thinking about how obscenely, totally one-sided it must have been.
Like, we know that Genji was at the brink of death afterwards and Hanzo walked away, but itâs more than that.Â
Genjiâs body was absolutely destroyed. His limbs are all prosthetic. His face is covered in scars. He mentions how he can no longer eat regular food in one of his voice lines. We only see his eyes when he removes his mask in the Dragons short, but even with the mask removed, thereâs still metal visible on much of the lower half of his face, which might imply that he needed portions of his skull/jaw replaced as well.Â
And then thereâs Hanzoâwho doesnât have so much as a single visible scar. And if he does have scars, theyâre certainly not anywhere on his body where youâd expect to see them if someone had tried to kill you, like his head, neck, and chest. Iâm also working under the assumption that he doesnât have prosthetic legs and just wears futuristic boots, based on the fact that his pants are tucked into them, they go over his knee but possess a normal, organic joint at the back, and his âickâ reaction to finding out that so much of Genjiâs body is now robotic.Â
Like, Hanzo walked away from their fight completely unscathed, but Genji was mutilated. Mutilated, but not killedâwhich probably means Hanzo wasnât just carrying it out like a normal assassination, quick and to the point. He was angry. It wasnât enough just to kill himâhe wanted to make Genji suffer for what (in Hanzoâs mind) he was making him do. He might have even deliberately made it so Genjiâs death would be long and drawn outâsomething which ultimately allowed time to save him.
And Genji, in turn, barely fought back. In fact, he probably only made attempts to defend himself. The chipped sword is likely a direct result of that, since swords are not generally designed to block one another and are meant to simply cut through flesh. The aim is to kill your opponent fast, or at least hurt them enough to incapacitate them. As a trained assassin, Genji would have known that as well as anyone. But if you canât (or wonât) do that, and youâre not fast enough to outright avoid a hit (Hanzo was a better swordsman, after all), then you blockâand thatâs what Genji did. He didnât want to dieâbut more than that, he didnât want to kill Hanzo. Didnât want to hurt him at all. Was more content to let himself get chopped practically to pieces than to raise his sword against his brother.
Thatâs probably what motivated Hanzoâs guilt, as much as anything. If heâd given his brother an easy deathâmade it an honorable killâhe probably would have returned to his life as the heir feeling saddened but justified. But he fought Genji with the intent to crush him, to stomp him out like a cigarette butt, and Genji hardly did anything to stop it. He simply could not bring himself to fight back with everything he was capable ofânot when he loved Hanzo so much. Itâs no wonder Hanzo could barely live with himself afterwards. He had done such a monstrous, unforgivable thing to the only family he had left after the death of their father. And why? For what?Â
So, realizing what the Shimada Clan was doing to himâwhat he would turn into if he stayed with themâhe left. But, Iâm sure he knows as well as any that that doesnât quite erase what he did. Which may be part of why he reacts so angrily towards Genji when they reunite.Â
Genjiâs been alive all this time, and yet he never came for Hanzo. He could have settled the score, but instead he went after the Shimada clan itself, the ones who put him and his brother at odds to begin with, who made it so they had to fight. And thereâs Hanzo, realizing all this and being so upset about it. Because after everything Hanzo has done to atone on his own, itâs Genji once again who forgives him. Itâs Genji once again who loves him moreâwould probably have loved him just the same even if he hadnât spent the last 10 years trying to make things right. And that must have been so frustrating for Hanzo to know that heâd abandoned everything, done so much to make things up to someone who never, ever even blamed him. All this time, heâs been carrying a burden which he inflicted upon himself. And once again, he has to ask himself, why? For what?
But by the end of Dragons, when he lays down his bow and returns to pray at the little shrine heâs made, he finally figures it out: for Genji.
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