No.6 Discussion Board

I've wondered about this before as well.

He's quite a complex character with a very disturbing and complex history that probably has had a lot of influence in his behaviour when he was older.

Though, intelligence is not altered that strongly by nurture and Nezumi seems to be exceptionally bright. He has little problems with literature and is able to understand different cultures and worldviews, which is quite a feat thinking about the barren cultural background he grew up in. I doubt that people in the west block give a **** about other's beliefs or traditions if they don't even care for their lives. But Nezumi still understands the concept. (He though does have a head start as he was confronted with a most likely very traditional culture in his early childhood.)
He also seems to have an able mind when it comes to the mathematical-logic intelligence, since he's built the robot mice himself. Not to mention that apparently he was way better in making them behave natural as in the novels it is mentioned that No.6 robots are nice, but often dysfunctional especially with those that get more complex tasks and are easily recognisable as robots.

Taking that into consideration, no matter where Nezumi would grow up, he'd most likely be a person to think about and analyze the world around him. He'd most likely be critical either way as he developed that trait even in a world that tries to extinguish it within people. So yeah, the snarky, a little wary part of him would probably still be there. And I think if he grew up with the forest people he would definitely have met some sort of prejudice against the city as they clearly want to stay out of the developement business.

I could very well see him being interested yet very wary about technological advance. And with all that intelligence he would probably still know how to manipulate people just as well, but I could see him making less use of it and probably also being less harsh with it.

His emotional development would be the most interesting though and that could definitely even with his family take several routes. There's not much of a description on the forest people and Nezumi obviously does not remember very much. But their social structures would be very interesting.

There's one thing I did wonder about. Nezumi is a singer and due to that, how much of a different treatement he would have gotten because he has inevitably more "power" than others. I don't quite think there's as much of supressing hierarchy amongst the forest people since they're trying to just live peacefully with the nature around them, but even in tribes there's usually a hierarchy. And with someone that holds a potential for power treatment is usally different.
It could very well be that with growing years expectations of him would have grown and caused him to be more careful with his emotions. So he would still be careful whom he shows how much of his emotions. Also, he might generally be someone not so vocal and social, he seems to have been playing alone after all in the very few memories we get from him. Being alone in the fields when he meets the forest god.

The biggest difference I think would be the lack of his obsession with destruction. I think that is what would also make him more approachable and gentler in general. He wouldn't be driven with the destruction of No.6 which would broaden his sight for his immediate environment and mostly the people around him. I don't really think he'd give or show anything of himself carelessly, but he'd certainly be more invested in having people get along around himself and he probably wouldn't think in the strong dichotomy he shows in the novels. That part is almost controverse to his intelligence and undestanding of the human being otherwise, that's mainly driven/blinded by his obsession to get rid of No. 6.

The lazyness that has been mentioned, I'm not so sure if that is a part of his personality or more of a symptom of the depressive surroundings. Could be either way.

I'm actually going as far as to say that Nezumi would under the circumstances of the forest people being alive make a pretty good mediator - probably working best alongside Shion - between them and the city of No. 6. Gentler than he is with all the trauma, but still not naive and pretty realistic, good for standing his ground with his arguments.