Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-26421770-20150523140442/@comment-995426-20150528141557

BlazeinBoots wrote: Gilgameshkun wrote: Maybe is actually Oroku Nagi. There's one little flaw about that: Hun is Chinese, whereas Shredder is Japanese... Yes, I already thought of that. One of my theories is, ninja clans aren't exactly legal in Japan (or even nonfictional, for that matter&mdash;Eastman and Laird appeared to take liberties when they wrote the original backstory :P), putting them in a similar legal area as the yakuza and other organized crime groups. Even if the Hamato Clan is supposedly honorable, they still fought and all but annihilated the Foot Clan, in the late 20th century no less. There's no way that's legal in post-Meiji Japan, let alone post-WW2 Japan. And one thing commonly associated with organized crime groups in Japan is their acceptance of people often discriminated against in mainstream Japanese society, including certain ethnic minorities, multiethnic Japanese, and especially disadvantaged traditional castes like the Burakumin, etc. To at least some degree, it's a meritocracy.

Now consider this: Hamato Yoshi, a Japanese man, married Tàng Shén, a Chinese woman. Marriages like these aren't super-common in Japan, especially considering all the baggage Japan and China have with each other. It's perfectly legal and all, but is not always the most enthusiastically welcomed in either society. However, my theory is, it may be relatively more acceptable in a fictional ninja clan that exists outside of Japanese law and civil cultural norms. Karai herself is a Chinese-Japanese multiethnic child, also not always the most enthusiastically welcomed. As such, it seems possible to me that Shredder and Hun could be brothers, or even half-brothers, one or both of them having multiethnic parents.

Of course, this is only a theory, and I wouldn't put any money on it. :) This theory just offers a possible explanation of how Shredder and Hun could look related while gravitating to different ethnic identities.