Kissing Cousins

Is it fairly common in Japanese culture to wed one's cousin? Or do the Japanese think that in feudal times, the white man nobles married their cousins (they did; its how the royal families of most european monarchs ironically had the same genetic diseases, notably haemophilllia)

it just always made me wonder why it was even an option to marry Thea.
I would hate to find out who marries Gwyn.... o.O

and my second gripe is beingforcedby one of the parents into what can be conceived as shotgun marriages, at the ripe young man age of 16!

Well, to be totally fair, Ayn and Thea were second cousins. While some might find that still a little too close for comfort, I think most geneticists agree that by the time you get that far apart, you're not doing that much damage to your future offspring.

That said, I believe Maia was initially betrothed to Lyle, her first cousin. You might be correct, that that was supposed to be an interpretation of some European monarchies.

The ages bother me more, truthfully. Not to mention the 30s are not kind to men on the Alisa III.

I remember reading something about how we (humanity) share about as much DNA with a stranger as we do with a 4th or 5th cousin, so Thea and Ayn as 2nd cousins aren't *too* related. That's probably as distant as royalty could get in a dying, isolated community, anyway.

Yeah, I'm not crazy about the teen weddings, either. Or being "old" and sporting a creepy mustache at 30-something.

There was a comic Toyo Ozaki drew years ago (which makes it sorta kinda not official), where Kara (princess version) either had a crush on Aron or was promised to him, and I really hope it was all tongue-in-cheek, because ENOUGH with the cousin love!

Tanith and I once had this whole conversation about the ridicule of PS3's marriages, I still have it in my google docs since we were also discussing a fanfic I was planning.

Yeah, 16 years old cousins forced into marriage = creepy. I fully intended to ignore marriages in the fanfic I was writing. I should really finish this.

Oh man, there were SO many great conversations over some crazy-awful (in a good way) ideas for PS3 parodies. I remember discussing one idea with A4 about Ryan accidentally falling into a cryo chamber and waking in time to become Gwyn's live-in boyfriend.

There were some other ideas that unfortunately can't be expressed in this forum.

I recall Gwyn the space pirate and how easily you guys used this to make me shout profanities

Yes! That was another favorite idea. Well, not the part about making you curse. That was just a perk.

I do not like cousin marriages in modern times, but I think they are kind of more difficult to avoid, and perhaps needed, with a small population (especially when each town has like 10 people, like in the game, hahahaha).

Also, about the heroes being "16", or the previous heroes being around "30" when their pictures look more like 70...

On this, my first time paying the game, I went Ayn's route. I noticed how the game mentions 15 years of peace before the game lets us control him. Then I see people saying how he was 15 years old. My mind then thinks that, if those 15 years start exactly the day of the wedding, then Ayn would be 14, not 15.

I also think (especially seeing how the PS III books mention him being 18 years old) that those years of peace started some years after the wedding. Maia/Marina was 16 when she got married, and she could definitely have kids then, but she could also have waited a few years. And the marriage must have helped bring the two kingdoms together, definitely, but there was still too much hate between the two people at that time. Getting used to the new status may have taken some time and hard work.

If the 18 years age can be taken as "official" (since it just appears in an art book), then Ayn was already 3 when the peace finally started.

And all the men who get married in the game were at least 18 (some of the girls got married younger, but I suppose that was also normal in medieval Europe, and it is still normal, even now, that the brides are younger than the grooms).

Edit: I guess I would need to know what the original Japanese text says. The English translation does mention Cille was a peaceful kingdom, even at the time of the wedding, then it mentions 15 years of peace, and then we start controlling Ayn.

Me neither, I don't like wedding between cousins in modern times : but in PSIII, where there is a more medieval world and atmosphere so... that was something some of usual so why not ?