#exploded badger

She puts up a harmless looking badger secondary model, and it’s a cute and useful one she is comfortable with, but she has that recklenssenes with witch she acts upon her feelings when she protects the people she loves or stands up for herself in battle situations. That badger model makes her so good at caretaking, it’s that hard work and reliability which which she tries to carve her place in the group of her own protectors to be worthy of their services, by shooting 100 arrows a night and training with a sword with her ridiculously powerful bodyguard. It’s admirable and cool how she works so hard to improve herself, but that leaderly passionate battle moves and speeches about justice and peace are all lion. 

Her primary is a bit harder, cause as a princess, person of responibility and legacy, she has those noble kingly goals of helping the kingdom, understanding what leads to peace and wanting to help people in trouble. But at the end of the day, she is driven by the people she loves, which makes her very snake to me. Yona wants to help the kingdom, because she wants to live up to her late’s father legacy and be worthy of being his daughter. She is able to pick herself up after his death because Hak is still there, and she takes up weapons, something she hates and promised her father not to do to protect him. She doesn’t feel entiteled to the dragon’s power or know what to do about being the God’s reincarnation - she seeks out the dragons, because otherwise Hak would have died protecting her, and she can’t have that. And then she meets them and bonds with them, one by one, and they all enter her circle and then it’s suddenly about ensuring their safety, going back to the castle and person she hates most to protect them from enemies wanting to abuse their powers. Yes, she fights the injusticies in each tribe, but it’s because she emphatizes with the suffering of specific people - a very snake way to care about others by seeing oneself in them - that she decides to get involved. She doesn’t go around wanting to be the saviour or wanting to use the dragon’s power for other people’s sake or noble goals. The Happy Hungry Bunch just seem to get into trouble everywhere, drawing attention with their powers or stumbling upon a burning crisis and decide to help or just fight to save each other. 

Yona griefs and burns with hatered toward her chilhood friend and crush that murdered her father, but she doesn’t want revenge - she ackwledges Soo-Won is a good king and moves on by prioritizing to protect the living over avenging the dead. Her snake primary doesn't burn after her father’s death, she mourns, but she has her anchor in Hak and then builds herself up into a stronger person as she adopts the other dragons into her circle and fights for them.

Hak is much more straightforward at first sight, but with complicated issues. His ways are very charging directly through trouble in lion secondary way, with those direct blunt sarcastic comments of addressing things as they are while making a joke out of it. He isn't that good with words or expressing his emotions. He likes to act on what he feels, and that's when people react and flock to him like flies.

His primary seems snakey, as his his one main motivation in life is Yona. While the writing very much makes him his own person and a great well-rounded character, from being a great leader, kind person, loyal soldier, protective general, skilled in politics and strategic as well as fighting genius in battle, he abandons his tribe and his position as the Wind Tribe General to protect Yona and be whatever she needs. His love and devotion for her is a complex one at that - he wants her to suffer and struggle so she could grow stronger, he wants her to shine in danger as much as he doesn't want her near any and wants bigger things for her and agrees with her whenever she wants to help someone in the kingdom. 

But while it was Yona's father who was killed by her betrothed, it was their mutual best and childhood friend that betrayed Hak with the one thing he values most - Yona herself. And while Yona manages not to burn, and drags herself up because even in the midst of chaos she always has Hak, I think he can't really afford the same. Hak's primary burns after Soo-Won's betrayal in part, and he becomes reluctant to trust people to ensure Yona’s survival. He burns so she doesn’t have to. Yona at the start of the story, was just a selfish spoiled little princess, thrown out of her castle and left completely defenselesss without him, so he couldn’t rely on her back then (this changes over time though as she builds herself up and it’s an amazing growth journey to watch). Him bonding with the individual dragons takes place, but it's much slower and more painful process than Yona has with them, and he accepts them first as Yona's protectors, before he accepts them as his friends and actually opens up to them. (the most heartwarming moments in the series are those where this happens though!). It’s when he learns to trust them with her that he makes huge healing steps, becoming more affectionate and calm. The whole time in the series, he is the one who struggles more with rage and desire for revenge for Yona's sake, while dealing with the grief of Soo-Won's betrayal.

This is where the matter gets complicated - since Hak has this issue of overworking himself that I always associate with badger primaries. He has an unhealthy tendency to drive himself to the ground with self-sacriface, and not letting his own desires ever even manifest. He suppresses his love for Yona for years, because he knows she loves Soo-Won and wants them to be happy. He respects her feelings even after the betrayal, and moves from wanting to be loved by her to a sort of distant admiration of her. He is willing to die for her many times during the series, calling himself a weapon to be used, because his pain and suffering are so inconsequntial to him. What eventually drives Yona back to the castle to protect the dragons and face Soo-Won are Hak's desperate promises he would rather die than let them get hurt - alarm bell for her, time to move on before he throws himself under the bus to save them. (Another sign was that he truly started showing his care for the dragons by being willing to be hurt and used for their sakes as well)

This could be a manifestation the messed up bodyguard and master dynamic between him and Yona, as Yona plays on his obligation to her father to be sure he won’t leave her (back when he was trying to leave to protect her at the beginning) and this gets adressed by the series, when she attempts to give him his freedom back - he yells at her angrily that he isn’t some kind of mercenary outsider, that he loves the dragons as family and loves her as a leader and a person, and why the heck would she be sending him away? He def calls himsef a tool several times in the series before people start calling him out on it and he slowly and reluctantly starts to acknowledge his own feelings and expect things from people for himself as well. (It's a hard and gradual process though and he seems to make a step forward and three jumps back everytime).

Could this be a kind of exploded snake primary, wrapping his life around one person? Or maybe he has an unhealthy badger primary model he always leans on when he isn’t sure about his place, his right to be around with the princess. It’s like he can’t just be Hak, the person, but a former general, a dilligent bodyguard, someone in service, someone who’s existence has to be justified by being useful. Someone identifying with the role of the bodyguard and servant so strongly, he can’t let it go without feeling like a failure. It’s a point of criticim in and outside the series, that Hak often puts himself down, like he can’t stand on equal grounds with Yona when he is actually one of the most powerful characters in universe - and he manages that without any supernatural powers. 

His emphasis on his role would make me think he is a badger primary, but he only ever has this problem with his role as the bodyguard. He doesn't have any other roles, and he doesn't want to play any other ones for people outside his closest circle. (He has to justify his existence to them while they fiercely disagree and try to protect him from himself). He looks very unhealthy doing it, his selflessness being so self-destructive and with other characters encouraging him to be more honest about what he feels and wants, outside of what would be best for Yona. Also the fact his role matters mainly in relation to Yona and maybe Soo-Won and not to the others - he doesn’t mind not being a legendary dragon warrior, he doesn’t mind losing his position as the general in front of the other generals - he is confident in his abilties enough for that. Maybe this is the result of him being an orphan adopted by a Wind Tribe general, trying not to be a burden, or the fact his two best friends in the world were both royalty while he was a commoner, having to build his worth from the ground up with his own power. A bad badger primary model his community and social structures enforced on him? Or an unhealthy badger primary altogether? But he seems too centred around Yona and later the bunch to be a badger - so a super small circle badger that has his community in one person and slowly expands it to the dragons? He is charismatic and draws people in, but it happens the most in battle situations when they see his fighting spirit, which makes me thing they react to his lion secondary and not his primary. Idk, if anyone has any suggestions or insights to explain this, feel free to add on.

But their conflicts come from her caring about him, and specific people, and him basing himself around her as his community and calling (and then adding the dragons to his community circle). That's also where him fitting in with any army he fights for comes from. She doesn't understand why being a bodyguard and her bodyguard specifically is so crucial to him and feels guilty when he mentions it and tries to give him back his freedom, which hurts him (Am I unneeded, he asks, cause that's the gist he gets from her attempts to give him freedom.) Their bonding moments are often thwarted by this, that he can't express himself other than saying he does everything cause he is her bodyguard, which he takes as the highest appreciation (because his role in her life is so important) while she sees it as a chain, making her think he doesn't actually care about her as a person.

It would be cute if it was true that Yona and Hak house match, as two snake lions encouraging each other forward, explaining why they understand each other so much and synch together, despite Hak's hidden and suppressed romantic love for her and hers absolute clulessness and gradual growth in feelings and realization for him.

EDIT: Hak is an exploded and burned badger primary. It's confusing, because his badger community is extremely small at the start. It's just Yona. Yona who as a princess also represents a larger community, the country, the legacy, the role, the leadership. As a princess she is the perfect manifestation of a larger community in one person. She therefore gives meaning to Hak's badger bodyguard role. Hak is exploded badger in being way too self-sacrificial and seeing himself as a tool for his community, supressing all desires and emotions for himself. He is also a burned badger after Su Won's betrayal, not trusting his former community nor being able to trust Yona herself, for her being too weak at the start to handle being relied on.

So yeah, since Hak is a badger lion and she is a snake lion, this explains where they synch and where they misunderstand each either too. They connect through their lions and fighting spirits - she picking up weapons and starting to fight for herself in battles is when Hak starts to admire her - and he helps her bring out that reluctant lion she didn't like to acknowledge in front of her father and didn't need in her comfy luxurious life before the banishment from the castle.

And maybe this is why she gets Jea Ha's rejection before he starts to care about them, totally not blaming him for not wanting to come for noble ideals and it could explain why she doesn't get Soo-Won's lion primary at all - how could he just choose ideals over real people that loved him and he loved them back? She is in the process of trying to understand this, because she gets the logic but not the emotion.

Yona starts out as a hedonistic childish selfish snake who shakes herself off from betrayal and horror with having her last key person around and building a new circle of people in circumstances that make her lion secondary come forth and inspire others to help and follow her. Hak is a ready and mature person at the start, tipped off balance and burning after the betrayal only to gradually heal and let go of his grudges as he let's people in again.

Soo Won is pretty easy. He is a lion primary, willing to sacriface his lifelong friends and bonds to do the right thing in taking over the kingdom. While he says it was because revenege, Soo Won truly cares about making the kingdom strong and makes a just and kind king. He is a also a strategy mastermind and schemer, and can totally shift his personality to match a situation. People can’t read him, being a childish and harmless looking kid one second, a scary warleader the next. Not a guy to play around with, although he enjoys playing others and manipulating, if for their own benefit with friends. And what other secondary other than snake could have kept his feelings about revenge hidden for so long, being friends with Yona and Hak only to try and murder them the day after her birthday? Still loving them and not wanting to hurt them with his burdens until the last second, where he just had to put the kingdom over their happiness? I still have to read the new chapters revealing his backstory, maybe that will give me more answers, since the reactions are mostly that the flashabacks show how much it wasn’t his fault and that he is justified in his hate against his legacy and his uncle killing his father. 

Jea Ha is that kind of playful double snake that I love seeing around. He is teasing, flirting, changing and charming, and while this clashes with Hak’s straightforward approach at first, Hak often strangeling him in frustration over his daring jokes and flirting with Yona, he proves himself as very loyal and mature friend. Jea Ha was also a hedonistic little snake at the start, caring only about his freedom, but with his backstory of being chained up and barely escaping, his desire to live freely and joining with pirates to do good and bad as he likes makes sense. 

Jea Ha vehementaly rejects the legacy of his powers, rejects any duty, higher calling or group identity of the dragon warriors to serve Yona as the Red Dragon’s reincarnation or his own blood instincs. He makes sure not to follow because of magic links or legends or pressure, but from a place of true care - and Yona manages to convince him after the pirates arc. Her lion honesty and fighting spirit as she risks her life on the cliff for a healing plant, her determnation to let herself get kidnapped to find who is behind the women trafficing, her sweet badgery model of caring, her snaky loyatly to her peope...Jea Ha falls for it all, joins the group against expectations and then bonds with all of them, becoming the clever funny older brother. Even to Hak himself, who resists him the most - they are the most mature, protective and snarky characters of the bunch, and it’s to Jea Ha Hak opens up to the most about Yona. Hak, who keeps everything hidden and suppressed, who didn’t ever want to trust again, who doesn’t like showing weakness or emotion, confesses and talks to Jea Ha of all people, who becomes a reliable keeper of secrets (besides being the most insightful of the group’s relationships. He knew Hak loved Yona since the first day, figured when she fell for him too, which was hundreds of chapters before she realized it and another hundred before she knew what to do about it). 

Jea Ha’s self-focused snake primary clashed very much at the beginning with Kija’s badger. Kija is the noble one, the one who cares the most about their roles as dragons, their bonding and connection as dragon warriors of the legends, their responsibility to Yona as the reincarnation and that to the kingdom. He is the first to call these strangers with similar powers brothers, he is the keystone of the group, often offering reassurance and affection the others are too tough to show. Buut he is also naive and clueless, finds out about love around the time Yona does, is the most prudent and concerned with doing things properly. Jea Ha thinks he is brainwashed by ideals about people that will just betray and hold him down, and only gradually finds out how genuine and serious Kija’s badger primary is about it and starts to admire him. He earnestly apologizes to him in the hot springs part, and it’s such a cute realization of Kija’s often overlooked strenght of character and beliefs he holds against all doubts and the darkness in the world. 

Kija is a lion secondary though. He can’t keep his emotions from his face, his fighting technique rejects any kind of stealth or subtely, and he is usually being the one going amok in battles or acting on his crazy dedicated badger primary emotions with a lion vehemence. It’s easy to mistype him I think, cause he is so damn polite. That is not the usual demonear associated with lion secondaries, but Kija is of noble pampered birth, reflected in his high language, his love and knowledge of customs...and he goes about demanding and enforcing those in a very straighforward lion way.

Zeno is an exploded badger. He reminds me of Hak’s self-destructive tendency, but it’s much worse. His powers of healing and immortality brought him so much grief, having to lose all the people he loved to age and sickness, being the only one from the original generation of dragons who lived around the 1.000 years and who only started to heal a bit from his loneliness and grief after he bonded with the newest generation again. He is the shield. His powers are good for protecting others, so who cares if they hurt him in the process? He isn’t above gouging his eyes for experiments, jumping from the sky into the battlefield, being stabbed for show in a mock battle during a hostage situation, holding up a burning roof for a foreign princess - because he can, so he should.

He is very protective of the rest of the dragons, but he often emphatizes their importance as the descendants of the original three dragons he loved and he is very aware of their roles as legends and thinking about the bigger connections - how dragons can be used by the rulers of Kouka, what they represent to the people etc - this could be his ageless wisdom and experience, but it could also be his badger being aware of his role. 

What drove Zeno to take the dragon blood and become a dragon warrior in the first place? Desire to help people in need, to bring at least a bit of happiness. He also very much need-bases in the group, wanting to sacriface himself for the one who needs it the most, because he can’t die. It’s hilarious to watch how he tries to put himself in front of them and they absolutely won’t allow it. His pain hurts them so much it isn’t worth their safety (to his annoyance). He also doesn’t seem to be particularly close to either of them, often playing a child, and offering wisdoms and comfort to the one who needs to hear it. His secondary strikes me as very snake one. He changes faces according to the situation. Plays the poor old grandpa to get out of chores, a clueless child to enjoy life and look harmless, a carefree brave warrior when fighting and the ageless charismatic sage when trying to grab enemy’s attention or when negotiating. 

Yoon seems like a double bird to me. From the flashbacks when he was an orphan not above stealing from those less lucky and not feeling guilty to changing his system when he met the kind priest Ik-so and tending to him, learning to be kind to people as being the right thing. Idk, just feels like an idealist that analyzes the situation and then builts himself around what is logical and efficient. Very flexible. He went from wanting to see the world and thristing for knowledge to priritizing the group, but still also wanting to learn and soak up information. He is also often the one explaining things and trying to find reasonings of why things happen and enjoying it. His bird secondary manifests in who he is the one who collects plants and skills, who takes cares of wounds, herbs, cooking, sewing, often playfully called “mother” by the group. The genius prettyboy, suprisingly mature and instightful despite being one of the younger members. 

Shin Ah is hard for being one of the most quiet ones, but his devotion to the people that brought him out of the cave, the way he charishes the face mask because it was his mentor’s despite said mentor being rather cruel at times, his gentle hard-working ways of helping the group and showing up for them seem very badger to me. A snake who lives for his circle, who takes care of them like a badger, even though he is mentally one of the more clueless and immature characters, who often doesn’t get the relationships or situations. 

Yona - snake / lion with badger model for people

Hak - burned and exploded badger / lion

Soo Won - lion / snake

Jae Ha - snake / snake

Kija - badger / lion 

Zeno - exploded badger / snake

Yoon - bird / bird