OKAY SO I imagine if Shen hadn’t gone batshit fucknuts and decided to murder a whole village of pandas and hadn’t made the bad decisions he did…
aka WHAT IF SHEN WAS A GOOD GUY
So! He might have left the city for other reasons (possibly to hone his own skills and because fuck assassins he hates those guys) and he might have the slightly more sympathetic backstory (where his parents were disappointed he turned out to be leucistic and weak and he was raised solely by his nanny). He still has all the lovely personality traits that makes him Shen the arrogant asshole, though, he just didn’t make awful decisions.
And he could have shown up in the first movie as a cameo, since I imagine he’d be interested in that whole ‘choosing the dragon warrior’ thing. Maybe he’s just hanging around and honing his skills against other masters? I imagine the valley of peace would be a hotspot for people looking to test their skills and whatnot.
He’d travel around with Boss Wolf and the pack instead of a royal retinue or something even if he is the prince, and I can see him wanting to get out from under the shadow of being ‘royalty’ simply because his parents were ashamed of him. BASICALLY IN THE FIRST MOVIE HE’D BE RUNNING AROUND BECAUSE FUCK MY PARENTS, MAN.
And in the second movie he’d probably be one of the protagonists simply because technically, it’s his city and he was next in line for the throne. He wouldn’t overshadow Po or the Five but he would assist them! There would probably be a power struggle plot, and the whole ‘end of kung fu’ plot could totally happen - someone thought of using the gunpowder to actually make cannons, it just wasn’t Shen. (Someone massacring the panda village would also happen, it just wouldn’t be Shen.)
And he’s been away for god knows how many years so people would probably attempt to take the throne/assassinate his parents to be the next in line/etc and they possibly thought he was dead! (he may have faked his death on purpose to avoid attention, in the first movie he would probably always travel cloaked up) and they would have to stop the villain destroying all the things in order to RULE CHINAAAA and Shen would take his place on the throne and get to work repairing everything after the huge battle, or maybe he’d reject the throne and choose another successor (or instill the Council instead!) because clean up is boring cmon. B(
I imagine he’d probably thaw out through the course of the second movie as he gets more screentime? He’d go from arrogant asshole to slightly less arrogant asshole. character development basically!
gosh why did i put so much thought into thisYes~
I love all these AUs of him being a good guy and how people would see him AS a good guy.
It’s all very interesting. :)
Me too.~ I just find it really interesting to picture villains with the morals flipped (hence my love for Mirroverses).