If we go off comics she was born in Russia *grins*.

I have AUs where she was born in US but her parents were from Russia. So there's a connection to Russia. Yeah, but if the Red Room imposed being 'true Russian' on her, so not actual Russian, not what a typical person growing up in that country at that time would be but rather a specific type of Russian, does that effect/how does that effect her when she's in an AU? Because then even if we place her in Russia she will have grown up Russian. Not made-up-this-IS-Russia.

Ooo, interesting. So even when the Red Room want her loyalty - and that would be to them, to their ideal of Russia and not the actual country - then they wouldn't be able to make that, what, fundamental? if it would inhabit her ability to become someone else as part of being the perfect spy...

Am I hitting the language barrier here or what? :D

Okay, i think RR uses some kind of "ideal Russian" or "model Russian" identity they impose onto their girls not because they believe in ideal Russia but because it's a tool that gets the job done. National identity is a strong thing, you identify with a group, "they're my brothers" sort of thing, you're ready to die for them and your country. It's what helps convince soldiers to go into war. I've sadly seen how it affects people, and how it makes people hate everyone who belongs to some other group. Us against them kind of mentality, and it's very toxic, where someone convinces you that you're X and that you should have everyone who is Y because Y is wrong, evil, they're an enemy. So I think RR would use that as a tool to ensure those girls are loyal to them and do their work for mother Russia. Their ideal Russia is, I think, what nationality ideals are to any tyrant who wants innocent young people to go and fight a war in their place. To anyone who wants to convince large number of people that they should hate someone and go and kill them. While the idea of Russia would be something central to the girls, I think it doesn't matter all too much to those who run RR. They just want their pawns faithful, manageable and willing to die if they have to. (Up close experience with war is probably something that also affects me as a writer).

Nope, I don't think so? :) Just the way you phrased being born in Russia as 'having a connection to Russia' and some other things I could tell you might be thinking similiar things to me but still something different to me and I want to know what, because fascinating, so I rephrase and repeat to dig *grins*.

Because I got this: that we meant the same thing be a sense of 'ideal' of Russia being imposed, and as part of an 'us against them' mentality, but whilst your brain was analysing what that means for Red Room mine had gone off on what that meant for AU Natasha, who wouldn't have that Red Room sense of being Russian, so what type of Russian would she be? I guess whatever a typical Russian girl growing up at that time would be. (Unless she was part of a maffia or other background with some imposition within that AU, which I know I tend to do, to have some mirror to the hardships she had in her (comics) youth.)

And on the back of what you said there, you've just made me think about the fact that that was imposed on more than one person, on a group, so that Natasha would have a sense of loyalty to the imposed Russian ideal, to Red Room, and perhaps also to the others she was with maybe?

I don't think of RR as being a Russian-based organization in anything other than the geographic sense. Ideologically they seem more Soviet (in the sense of "the collective before the individual", not necessarily attached to a Government) but their sense of identity seems more global, as in transnational organized crime or other assorted interests. I may be off the mark here, since I haven't read the comics, but that's the head canon I tend to go with.