Shuan

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**Shuan** is a character in *Children of the Whales*. He's the leader of the Vigilante Corps formed to protect the peace on the Mud Whale.

## Appearance

Shuan has short blond hair and wears a black eyepatch with a circular design on it. The eye beneath the eyepatch is an unnatural red. His other eye is usually closed, but when open is seen to be light blue in color. He wears a long black shirt in the design of the Vigilante Corps with black pants, with a red and gold coat on top.

In the manga, Shuan’s left eye is red. He wears a long brown coat similar to the one he wears in the manga, but after quitting the Vigilante Corps he wears two long shirts underneath— a black shirt with white stitching over a plain white shirt.

## Personality

Even among the Vigilante Corps, composed of the strongest thymia wielders on the Mud Whale, Shuan is considered the strongest. He is always smiling, but his true feelings are unknown. He seems to have no qualms with dying, until faced with the reality of it on Amonlogia. Shuan is able to feel emotions, but can’t identify whose emotions he’s feeling at any given moment thanks to the numerous souls of the Nous Falaina he was fused with as a child. This leads to an extreme distrust of his own identity. Shuan can’t tell whether his feelings are his own or someone else’s, so he decides not to try to differentiate and becomes someone who tries his best not to feel or display anything.

Shuan is extremely loyal to the Mud Whale, an aspect of his personality that seems to clash with his little care for his own life. Shuan believes that if he can’t protect the Mud Whale, his own life— all the suffering he’s been through for the past 17 years— was for nothing. Shuan also is loyal to his mother, Elder Rasha, and worries about her when she’s shot on Amonlogia.

Suou notes in Book 14 that Shuan feels a lot more than he lets on. His room on the Mud Whale has been a complete mess ever since the death of his wife Sienna, a tell tale sign of depression.

## History

Shuan was born a happy child, and was very close to his Unmarked mother, Rasha. Throughout Shuan’s childhood his mother felt deeply saddened by her son’s short lifespan, and influenced the elders of Falaina to get them to perform an experiment on Shuan.

At age 9, the elders of the mud whale decided to fuse Shuan with the souls of the Noús Falaina, in an attempt to create an artificial Daimonas. Shuan was told to not forget who he was, and was sent into Midén’s room, a hidden room on the Mud Whale. There, the lives and souls of the Nous were fused into his consciousness. This experience traumatized Shuan deeply, making him forget who he really was and causing him to constantly question the meaning of his life.

Following this experience Shuan’s personality went through a sudden and intense change. He frequently heard the thoughts of people from the Mud Whale and became casually suicidal.

## Plot

When Suou refuses to cooperate with the Committee of Elders' plans to sink the ship, Shuan knocks him out. He is later seen guarding the innermost depths of the ship on the Committee's orders, but lets Chakuro and company pass. He then fights Ouni, who manages to knock his eyepatch off. After Lykos and Chakuro stop the elders from sinking the Mud Whale, he wanders off.

Later, he can be seen telling Sienna, his wife, to be prepared to commit suicide. During the second invasion, he appears and stops Liontari from killing Suou. He then fights and grievously wounds Liontari, but Suou asks him not to kill him. Shuan then kills more of the invading soldiers.

After the battle, he sees the corpse of his wife, Sienna, who took her own life during the battle. He doesn't react at first, and asks her friends to cut her a lock of her hair. However, once he is alone, he acts in a burst of emotion, cutting grass with his blade and shedding tears. He then runs into his mother, Rasha, who disparages him. Later, when Rochalízo and his troops begin to draw their weapons, he disarms them using his thymia.

After the twins attempt to start a rebellion, Shuan confronts Ouni.

## Relationships

### Sienna

Sienna was Shuan’s wife, but he never understood her very well. He showed casual, seemingly unknowing cruelness to her when she was alive. Before Skyros’s second attack on the Mud Whale, Shuan told Sienna to take her own life in order to not leave a displeasing corpse behind.

However, Shuan is much more effected by his wife’s passing than he allows himself to recognize. He seems to almost pretend that his own feelings are someone else’s as a way to pretend he never cared about Sienna. After her death he’s seen slashing at grass with his sword in rage and later crying, while asking himself which of the many souls inside of him was crying. He stops taking care of his room after her death, allowing it to fall into complete disarray. Shuan sees Sienna while close to death on Amonlogia.

### Suou

Shuan sees Suou as someone to defend, similar to how he defends the Mud Whale. He likes Suou and finds some of the situations the mayor gets caught up in humorous (such as getting mistaken for a beautiful woman on Amonlogia), but wishes that Suou would be less naive. He describes Suou to his face as having a brain “full of flower floof”. Despite wishing Suou would be less naive, Shuan will never hesitate to obey a command Suou makes.

### Ouni

Shuan seems to want to educate Ouni and teach him about his abilities as a daimonas, but goes about it in the completely wrong way. His statements to Ouni about the latter’s powers and true nature just end up playing into Ouni’s greatest fears— that he’ll be alone forever, and people will abandon him due to his status as a daimonas. As time passes, though, the two seem to bond over their shared daimonas abilities.

## Gallery

Shuan's hidden eye, revealedShuan without his eyepatch and with his other eye openShuan on the title page of the manga Chapter 50
## Trivia

* His name comes from a color in Japanese (朱殷) meaning "dark blood red".
* Although introduced in the second volume, his name, Shuan, is not revealed until the fourth volume, when when his name is called by Rasha, his mother.
* Shuan tells Ouni that he likes to sit and observe a conflict before interfering. It’s revealed that during most of the incidents where he steps in to save Suou, Shuan was actually just watching the fight for a higher vantage point and waiting until he felt like joining in.

## References

1. ↑ Volume 5, page 193