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Q&A Writing a character who is going through a civilizing process without overdoing it?

There is a surviving account of the first meeting between Portuguese sailors and Japanese locals. What's interesting about it is that accounts of the meeting survived from both sides. The accounts ...

posted 5y ago by Galastel‭  ·  last activity 5y ago by System‭

Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-12T21:57:35Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/42742
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added by user avatar System‭ · 2019-12-08T11:03:58Z (almost 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/42742
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision by (deleted user) · 2019-12-08T11:03:58Z (almost 5 years ago)
There is a surviving account of the first meeting between Portuguese sailors and Japanese locals. What's interesting about it is that accounts of the meeting survived from both sides. The accounts go something like this:

> Japanese account: Those barbarians! They eat with their hands!
> 
> Portuguese account: Those barbarians! They don't have chairs!

You are looking down at your character. You are implying that he is a blank slate, and has to learn everything. Consider instead what _his_ culture is. How do his values conflict with his new society's? What looks like barbarism to him? What does he have that they don't?

A very fine example of this is _Brave New World_ by Aldous Huxley. There, John, "the Savage", who has been raised on values imparted by Shalespeare's works, is confronted with a technologically advanced utopia, where the only value is consumerism.

#1: Imported from external source by user avatar System‭ · 2019-02-28T11:27:35Z (over 5 years ago)
Original score: 30