Nationhood

Worldbuliding time let's do dis

So I think that what makes a place eligible for a personification is that the people there identify themselves as an independent place, and official recognition isn't as important. Micronations are a prime example, since officially they aren't nations, but they still have people living there who claim the place to be a nation of its own. Same goes for places like Hong Kong and Macau - by all technicalities, Special Administrative Regions are cities with a government. But in HK at least, people strongly identify as Hongkonger, and many reject the label of Chinese. So since people here claim HK to be its own thing (culturally and such at least), we have a personification.

This gets trickier though, when it comes to states and prefectures and whatnot. How strongly do people identify with a certain state, as opposed to with their country as a whole? And assuming the Japanese prefectures Himayura drew up are canon (and I do recall in a strip that China got a ton of messages from various Chinese provinces), then that means that there's no need for an independent government before a place is eligible for a personification. I think there wouldn't be city personifications unless the people living there had a strong mutual identity of being from that city. So major cities like Beijing or New York City might get personifications, but minor cities where not many people identify with the place wouldn't.

But there's also the problem of sometimes personifications pop up before people start identifying with the place. After all, the personification of Hong Kong was around before the Opium Wars and subsequent colonization, and even immediately after colonization there most likely wouldn't have been a strong enough identity for a personification to appear according to the above criteria. So I think that nations' existence, traits, etc. might be a clue as to what might happen in the near future. Bit of a far stretch, but it's the only way I can think of that steps around the issue I raised.

Assuming though, that what I theorized is true, that makes for some serious thought fodder. Like, can you imagine how much nations would've freaked out when a new nation pops up in a place that was currently their territory?

When it comes to multiple personifications like the Italies, I don't know enough about Italian history to really theorize about it. I heard that there's cultural differences between North and South Italy even now though, so that might be why?

When it comes to civil wars and such, I think that there are multiple personifications, and when the country is unified the losing personification is somewhat literally absorbed by the winner, who then gets the memories, knowledge, etc. of the loser. So in the end there is only one nation. Think of it as when you split part of a string down the middle - for a section the string is separate, but it eventually rejoins (assuming you didn't split the end, of course). Using an example I am personally more familiar with, during the Warring States period of China there would have been multiple, near-identical China personifications, each representing a different state (Qin, Han, Wei, Zhao, Qi, Chu, Yan). Later the Qin would conquer the other six states, and the China of Qin would absorb the other personifications. Since it was all considered China, there would effectively only be one personification of the country.

As for dying... I really don't know. I think that they die, and then they regenerate. But I also love the idea of nations doing absolutely idiotic stuff just for laughs, because hey, they can't die, so why the heck not? I don't think they're invincible though. Probably they just heal at a very fast rate for most injuries, so much that they might as well be invincible/immortal, but aren't actually so.

When it comes to regeneration, I think how they look and stuff reflects their population. Personalities stay largely the same. I think gender is random. As for sexuality, I think all the nations are by default asexual. There are exceptions of course, but generally speaking nations as a whole just aren't interested in sex, nor do they experience sexual attraction.

They're born knowing the language(s) of their country. This knowledge may change depending on whether or not the original language stays the primary language. If the primary language changes, then they will instantly be fluent in the new language, and their knowledge of their original language will degrade just like any other language. If a sufficient amount of their people speak a language fluently though, they will be able to speak that language as well, though the nation's fluency varies.

I do think though, due to how long they've existed, they know how to speak a lot of languages. You tend to pick up stuff when a good number of your interactions are with people that speak a different first language.

As for status, I think it depends. They represent the people, not the government, so in a democracy they might serve as a spokesperson for what the people want and will be able to directly relay all the relevant information directly to whoever's in charge. In other system, like maybe a dictatorship, I don't think their opinion would be as highly valued. Ultimately though, they do have to listen to their bosses. As for who their bosses are, that's another issue entirely - one would assume that it's the president or prime minister or whomever, but China's boss is a dragon.

There's probably also an interesting train of thought regarding how much of a nation is the personification and how much is them as a person, but eh, I'm lazy and tired.

I like the idea that their form is fixed until regeneration. I don't think they could choose their appearance though, or at least can't influence it all that much.

I think that Nyotalia and 2Ptalia are in the canon universe, and they represent different facets of the place they represent. I've seen a headcanon that 1P's represent foreign stereotypes, and that 2P's represent how the people of the country view themselves. For example, the 1P America's are white, blond(e), and blue-eyed, which is the stereotype of Americans, while the 2P America's are (at least from what I've seen) depicted as people of colour, which is a mashup of how Americans view themselves racially, given the diversity in the US.

(This ended up really long and very rambly, I'm sorry. It's a quarter to four in the morning, I really should be asleep.)