Category:Samurai

From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe

Historically speaking, samurai are the military nobility of pre-industrial Japan; a degree of dispute and misinformation surrounds many of the details regarding them, particularly due to their fan-following outside of Japan.

For the purposes of fiction and folklore, the samurai is a much more clear archetype: they are depicted as idealised warrior-nobles, powerful and chivalrous. They are usually shown to have remarkable (sometimes blatantly supernatural) abilities with their weapons - typically a katana, or paired swords - and to adhere to a strict warrior's code known as 'bushido'. Samurai characters are usually depicted as being culturally adept, practicing some form or art or serving as a courtier, with the ideal of strengthening both body and mind.

Of course, corrupt samurai appear also, often as servants of an evil lord or as seemingly-noble "anti-villains". Another popular samurai archetype is the ronin, a wandering samurai who serves no lord; typically, a ronin goes hand-in-hand with a dramatic backstory in which he somehow dishonoured himself or his master. In any case, all manner of characters fitting the "samurai" archetype are appropriate for this category.