StarDestroyer.Net BBS

This is an idea for a fantasy story that I came up with a while ago. I thought I'd share it with you and receive some feedback on it before I started writing the story itself.

The protagonist of the story is the son of a prosperous daimyo lord. The daimyo is unhappy with some of the recent taxes and regulations laid out by the kingdom's shogun, so he and his son practice combat and then join a local rebellion. At first, the protagonist thinks he is doing the right thing by fighting against a shogun he is told is oppressive and corrupt. However, during a battle, the protagonist is captured by the shogun's forces. While in captivity, he learns that the shogun is in fact a benevolent ruler. His taxes only affect the daimyo and fund programs intended to help the peasantry, and his regulations are meant to ensure that the peasantry are treated well and to prevent the despoiling of the environment. The rebels, the protagonist also learns, are nothing more than selfish daimyo who want to preserve their power and wealth. Upon learning the facts, the protagonist joins the shogun's forces against the rebels, forcing him to fight his own father...

Is it a good idea, or do I need to modify it?

Like a lot of the ideas you've suggested, I think it has some potential, and the real challenge is going to be the execution: an idea is not enough; you have to be able to make it work.

Make sure you've studied the social background: remember that if this is feudal Japan or a place like it, it is socially accepted that the nobility is superior to the peasants in every way. A daimyo will not immediately abandon what he sees as his rights simply because it would benefit the peasantry to do so.

For that matter, that's a general case: human beings hardly ever experience a 180-degree turnaround in their attitudes or opinions just because they learn a single new fact. They rationalize, they hem and haw, they go "but I still think..." Stuff like that.

As long as the young lord's transition from being pro-rebel to pro-government is handled carefully, gracefully, and above all gradually, this has potential.

By the way, the environmental message can be out of place, but need not be. To take another example from feudal Japan, during this era the central government put harsh restrictions on logging for fear that the country's forests would be depleted (see Jared Diamond's book Collapse for reference).