Thoughts About Sesshōmaru's Mother and Father, Or What Immediately Stops Me from Reading a Fanfic
I’m getting real tired of writers portraying Sesshōmaru’s mother as some victim of a husband with a wandering eye. The poor Lady Mother, or “Gobodō-sama,” sits passively by while the Inu no Taishō abandons her and Sesshōmaru for Izayoi and Inuyasha.
Really? Is that all fandom can come up with, now that we’re all the way in 2014?
The Inu no Taishō and his family lived during a period of Japanese history where polygyny was embraced (polyamory optional). If the Inu no Taishō could support two wives (and it appears he could, until Ryūkotsusei decided to act up), he’d have no reason not to do so.
“But,” you say, “the Inu no Taishō and the Lady Mother are yōkai, not humans! They were mates!”
I’m going to have to stop you right there. inu-fanon has done a marvelous job of systemically proving that the idea of “mating” in InuYasha is total and complete fanon. There’s no proof that the Inu no Taishō and the Lady Mother were connected through anything other than having a son by each other.
They obviously met up however many times it took to conceive Sesshōmaru, and when the Inu no Taishō delivered the Meidō-seki to the Lady Mother. At bare minimum, they shared space with each other two times.
As fans, that’s all we have canon support for.
Does that mean the Inu no Taishō and the Lady Mother didn’t love or like each other? Not at all. There’s just as much evidence for them being a lovey-dovey couple in perpetual honeymoon as there is for them being distant with each other––which is to say that there is no evidence for either idea.
It’s up to the fans to come up with any backstory for them, and that’s why it’s so annoying to see the same backstory every single time.
The Inu no Taishō, the Lady Mother, and Izayoi could have been one big happy threesome. Or perhaps the Lady Mother and Izayoi were friends, and the Lady Mother introduced Izayoi to the Inu no Taishō.
“Izayoi, you must meet this fellow. He’s ridiculous and has funny eyebrows, but he fathered a wonderful son for me and has a charming personality.”
“Are you sure? I mean, I have never thought about male yōkai like tha––oh!”
“Did I mention he pulls off those eyebrows very, very well?”
I know some readers are shaking their heads at the idea of the Lady Mother being friends with Izayoi or any human. After all, didn’t she ask Sesshōmaru if he planned to eat Rin and Kohaku?
Here’s another thing that gives fanfic writers a wonderful amount of flexibility (which is being thoroughly wasted): we know next to nothing about the Lady Mother.
She’s Sesshōmaru’s mother, she slept with the Inu no Taishō at least once, she’s an inuyōkai, and she has wonderful fashion sense. That’s the sum total of all the facts canon gives us. We don’t even know if that enormous floating castle belongs to her. For all we know, she was vacationing at a friend’s place. It certainly would explain why Sesshōmaru had such difficulty finding her.
As for the comment about Rin and Kohaku serving as Sesshōmaru’s snacks, she could have been straight up trolling her son. She’s quick to say he’s not as charming as his father, which could mean Sesshōmaru’s own mother doesn’t like him.
But we don’t know that! As fanfic writers, we have an enormous blank canvas to paint our imaginings upon. There’s no need to draw the Lady Mother as a victim of adultery in every fanfic.
If you must have your adultery fix, why not go with Izayoi cheating on the Lady Mother with the Inu no Taishō? It’d be original, at least.
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