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LGBTQ+ Representation in Fire Emblem
179 Plays11 months ago
Hey folks! We'll be doing an episode of Sacred Stoners each month. Sequitur and I will be the regular cohosts and we'll bring on a guest each week! This week's topic is LGBTQ+ representation in FE, something very important to all 3 of us on the cast today!
Palestine Children's Relief fund: PCRF
Featuring Alexis Sara:
Thirsty Sword Lesbians https://evilhat.itch.io/thirsty-sword-lesbians
Twitter https://twitter.com/TransComics
Tumblr https://www.tumblr.com/alexissara
ActualLizard
Youtube: ActualLizard - YouTube
Twitter: Actual Lizard (@ActualLizard) / X (twitter.com)
Sequitur
Twitter: Sequitur (@SequiturV3) / X (twitter.com)
Intro Music: “Jehanna Vibes” by D3ejus
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Transcript
Introduction to Sacred Stoners Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
Hello, everyone, and welcome to the very first episode of the Sacred Stoners podcast, where we will be discussing all things Fire Emblem. And given that this is the first episode, some introductions are in order. I'm actual lizard. I'm a Fire Emblem YouTuber. Given that this is the first episode, that's probably how you found this podcast. But if not, I'm a Fire Emblem YouTuber. I'm here with my lovely co-host, Sekwitter. Hi, I'm not an FV YouTuber. I'm just an FV fan, mostly.
00:00:37
Speaker
mostly just for the past FV6 and onward. I'm still working on the older games, but yeah.
Guest Introduction: Alexis Sarah
00:00:45
Speaker
And today we have on with us our first guest, Alexis Sarah. Hi, I'm Alexis Sarah. I am a queer comics and video game writer slash designer person. I love Fire Emblem. I've been playing it since the series came out in the West.
00:01:07
Speaker
And yeah, I'm excited to talk with actual lizard and sec. Yeah.
Focus on LGBTQ+ Representation in Fire Emblem
00:01:13
Speaker
And today we're going to be talking about mostly LGBTQ plus representation and presentation in the fire emblem series.
Favorite Queer Pairings Discussion
00:01:21
Speaker
We're going to start with a little warmup question, which is, I would love to hear from you guys. And then I'll give mine who your favorite queer fire emblem pairing is. Um, why don't we start with sec? Tell me your sec.
00:01:34
Speaker
So like, it took me forever to find, to figure out which one I wanted to do. I don't really have one specifically, but I'm going with one of the newer ones. Um, I really like Panetta and Tamara from Engage. Engage has like no non-avatar ships in general, but I really like their supports. Um, I like the way that, uh, like how you can tell how much they actively care about each other, the way that, um, Panetta sees like Tamara sort of like saving her and then kind of overcorrects changing herself for Tamara.
00:02:02
Speaker
which Tamara never really asked for, but still kind of appreciates. It's sweet. Yeah, I feel like that's like probably one of the best picks for Engage because I mean, I know it's not explicit, but like Tamara, Pinnett and Maren. It's really easy to read romance into that, I think. Yeah, now it is. The Racket of Psalm is my favorite Engage ship. The three of them together is they're just so cute. They're so cute. Yeah, big polycule vibes, definitely.
00:02:33
Speaker
All right. And then what's your favorite pairing, Alexis Sarah? My favorite pairing. This is so hard because I am, I am in terms of a flyroom fan, being a big fan of ships is probably up there in terms of my engagement. But, um, I, I love, I think, I think I gotta give the shout out to Florina and Lynn for being my first, my first, uh, ship ever. Um,
00:02:59
Speaker
I didn't ship anything. And then I saw Florina and Lynn, and I didn't really realize I was shipping them at first. I was just like, they should, you know, live together forever. I don't, I didn't really get it, but I was like, these two are inseparable. And yeah, and there was some good subtext there. And, um, you know, there's a reason that Lynn is in an FE6. Who else is in an FE6? How coincidence. I don't know.
00:03:29
Speaker
That's always a funny one to me because when I played FE7 when I was, I don't know, I would have been like maybe eight or nine. I totally didn't get it, right? So I remember later when I learned about shipping and got more online and people were like, oh yeah, we ship Florida and Lynn. And I was like, oh, really? I wonder why. And then I went back and read the support and I was like, oh, yeah.
00:04:00
Speaker
My pick for my favorite is Catherine Shamir from Three Houses. Three Houses is one of my favorite games in the series and I really like their dynamic. I feel like the reason why I like them is because they feel very grounded to me. I feel like I know Catherine's and Shamir's, like people with that dynamic.
00:04:25
Speaker
especially with like Catherine. Kind of being awkward, being flirted to and kind of like it feels like discovering aspects of herself through their support. So that's something I really enjoy. I liked that pairing. I like that it seems to have only become more canon than like hopes and heroes since three houses. So that's always been one that I really like. Yeah, that was on my list of other ones I considered like Erica and Laura Shaw was too.
00:04:55
Speaker
Yeah. The three houses has so many great ships. I definitely was tempted to just say like the Edelgard polycule, but I felt like that was non-committal. I had to be like, let me explain everyone that's in the polycule and where they stand. So I decided to just go win in Florina. Yeah, I kind of had the same issue with three houses, just like there's so many good ships in that game. And I was like, none of them are like entirely my favorite, but I'm like, I like most of them.
Significance of Representation in Media
00:05:25
Speaker
Well, I'm glad I'm glad that we all agree that there are some good ships in three houses, because that kind of brings me to the first kind of question I wanted to talk about on our topic, which is kind of what does good representation mean to you? What does it look like? And like, why is it important to you? So it's good that we all have one game that we like. OK. I guess good representation for me, I usually
00:05:53
Speaker
I don't want to say I don't look forward in Fire Emblem. It's just usually with the way shipping works. It's kind of like nice if it's there at all. When I think of like things I like that have really good representation, it's ones that kind of feel like the queerness is a part of that character's identity. It's not their only defining trait, but it's like naturally woven into their character. I think my favorite queer like ever is like Night in the Woods just because it's like so authentic. It's like a big deal for those characters, but it's not their only thing going on.
00:06:23
Speaker
And it comes up in ways that don't usually come up like how like they're in a small town and they're like the only other queer people they know. And that's feels real to me. And it's, it's good to have that because a lot of the time a lot of kids grow up just not knowing themselves at all and then don't see themselves at all in media at all. And it's nice to be able to find ways to identify with yourself if you don't have that in like school or anything else.
00:06:49
Speaker
Yeah, I think what you touched on at the end there is part of why representation is important to me, which is letting people see queer characters in fiction where like, for me, I didn't discover that I was bisexual until college. And I think a big part of that for me was there was really nothing, not only was there nothing pushing me to like,
00:07:16
Speaker
explore that aspect of myself, but rather a lot of culture is pushing pushing you away from exploring that. Right. So I think having characters that, you know, show you queerness is good in that way. Mm hmm. Totally.
00:07:34
Speaker
Yeah, that's why diverse representation is so important too because I knew what being trans was kind of early on because I was on the internet and I was looking for it because that's how trans I was. So I was actively seeking out stuff, but then there was a lot of gatekeeping at the time because I'm 31.
00:07:55
Speaker
and at the time of like forums and stuff it was still very like you need to be straight and you need to do this so I didn't know that like being trans and then also being a lesbian was like or was possible I think at the time I like thought that it could be possible because I knew somewhere like internally it was true and I would like fight with people about it but like I had internalized what you know adult trans people on the internet have told me I'm like well I can't be trans because I like women um
00:08:24
Speaker
So because I had internalized that, and if there was representation of trans people who are lesbians, then I would be like, yeah, I mean, I can do that. I can be like this person, right? Or even more representation of lesbians in general, like that wasn't, you know, at the time what there was like the L word maybe, and I'd never watched it. I never knew it existed. So like, but yeah, so like representation can really help, you know, push the
00:08:53
Speaker
push that from like, this is a person who theoretically exists to like, this is a kind of person I could be. So like, even when you become aware of a concept, having like a role model can be really useful or at least kind of like a template to then, you know, deviate from. Yeah, I think what you said was a good point on like, diverse representation being important.
Critique of Fire Emblem's LGBTQ+ Representation
00:09:15
Speaker
And it's something I wanted to talk about in regards to Fire Emblem, where it feels like in Fire Emblem,
00:09:23
Speaker
LGBT representation, especially in more recent games, is often like we get like mostly we get the occasional explicitly gay character. We don't get too many explicitly lesbian characters. And then we get a lot of what I'm going to call like Schrodinger's bisexual, where like they're they're gay if you're a male avatar and you choose to date them or like, you know, if it's a woman, they're they're gay.
00:09:53
Speaker
You're a woman avatar and they decide to date you. But like in any other circumstance, there's like nothing in the game suggesting that they are. Yeah. Yeah, that that's an issue that I sort of have with a lot of rap in the series, because a lot of it's if it's not like not explicit, like some of the older games, then it's like. The character is queer in the sense that you can date them, but not in the sense that it's part of their lived experience in the same way that if they
00:10:22
Speaker
where a character with an explicit heterosexual relationship, it would be, or even like a past heterosexual relationship. And we've gotten like some progress on that front, like Dorothea feels like an explicitly LGBT character, but like it's slow progress.
00:10:40
Speaker
Yeah, I completely agree. And like, when you were talking about lived in experience, and like, out of the woods, like, that's, like, people go like, Oh, they can't be their whole character can't like, I'm like, but like, being a lesbian is pretty definitional, like, it shouldn't be their whole character, right? But it should be a thing that matters to them, right? Like being bi, being trans, being gay, whatever, right? Like, it has to be, it should be like a foundational part of them. Like, it needs to be something that like, like,
00:11:08
Speaker
partially defines them because it's your identity that like like being your like whatever your core identity may not be your only like found like foundational part of that but it's something that's gonna be important to you it does change your lived experience yeah and straight people do it too right like a character like Saint is defined by being heterosexual yes and that's like a whole character trait at like half these games we've had characters done that in like four of them like like four or five of these games at this point it's
00:11:38
Speaker
Well, yeah, I mean, it's to the point where we have like the the womanizer trope, right? Yeah. Like there's one in every game. We've had that for so long. The series has subverted inside, but like typically obsessed with exactly one man instead because a woman being two into men would be deviant and slutty. Yeah. But but her being obsessed with exactly one man like all or from, you know, that they can never be with. That's fine. They can be defined by being hetero in that way.
00:12:09
Speaker
Yeah, we've had that so long. Oh, my God, I. I'm happy we're moving away from that one, too, partially. I mean, Faye was bad, though. Faye was a lot. So that was a bit on like kind of what representation is to us. What's good? What's bad representation in our view? What are like some explicit examples of like you think when you think of like good representation in Fire Emblem? What are the kind of the pairings and characters you're thinking of?
00:12:40
Speaker
I think I think Dorothy is one of the the biggest ones I think just like that's especially with hopes now Hopes like made it even more explicit with stuff like some of her dialogue saying She'd like she'd be interested in marrying a woman. I think Shamir is also up there with hopes hopes gave her a lot I wasn't expecting it to but it did Otherwise, I'm not Edelgard would be up there I think
00:13:07
Speaker
Oh, and obviously I get more paired endings with women than any male Lord before. I think I'm pretty sure I mapped it out before. Maybe not, but I would be shocked if she wasn't. Yeah. Other than avatars, which I mean, get their pick of the litter. Um, if they're men, yes, if they're men, um,
00:13:33
Speaker
The outside of them like she has like what like she has like seven paired endings with women. It sounds right. And some of them are like more. Explicit. I think if I wanted to go back a little further into like kind of when they weren't giving us explicitly LGBT characters as often, but they were kind of giving us queer coded characters or characters where they were like.
00:14:01
Speaker
Like they were roommates vibes. Yeah. A couple that jump out to me are actually I would say I was going to say Leon in Echoes. I would say Leon is explicitly gay.
00:14:14
Speaker
Yeah, he's literally gay. I don't think there's there's any. I was there's no. No, I completely forgot about Leon for like a hot minute there. Yes. And he's good. I do like him a lot. I think he's a good example of what you guys were talking about earlier with a character where being gay is central to his character, right? Like it's not the only thing about him, but it's important.
00:14:41
Speaker
Yeah, like it's shaped like his life in a meaningful way, which I think a lot of, I think it's like a lot of like FE characters, especially with the app, like how the avatar like romance works, like their queerness, like you could remove it if you didn't want to acknowledge it, which I don't, which isn't really ideal. Whereas like- Yeah, I often talk about unavoidable.
00:15:08
Speaker
queerness as a main factor. What I want Fire Emblem to do is it's not even locked behind the A support. They say something, but it becomes something that you know in multiple low-rank supports. It comes up, but it doesn't have to be the whole conversation. It's something that you would know and that people would know about them.
00:15:35
Speaker
Yeah, I think the way that I like to look at it is like. If I played the game when I was like a dumb high schooler, could I could I have avoided it? Could I have ignored it? Yeah, yeah. And I think there are like some examples in old games where you could and somewhere where you kind of can't like one where I would say like it's not technically explicit, but it's all but even when I was younger, I was like, OK, yeah, is like Ike Soren.
00:16:05
Speaker
Um, yeah, where something I noticed when I was going back and reading the supports, um, that has, has made me almost say it was explicit, but it wasn't quite was that every paired ending in radiant dawn is romantic. All of them. Um, except for like the, you know, only the Ike Soren and Ike runoff ones aren't explicitly romantic, but every other paired ending is, and I'm like, okay.
00:16:33
Speaker
So then also seems like there was a trend here. Yeah. And their endings like, Oh, they went off like I was, I can soar and went off together. Um, and we're never seen again. And like, so sore and went with the only person he'd ever trusted. And it's like, they were roommates.
Analyzing Iconic Relationships
00:16:52
Speaker
Yeah. That's like, to me, like right there at explicit and the same with Heather and radium thon, I feel like radium thon Talius really did. Um,
00:17:02
Speaker
It's kind of the bar. It's probably tied with Houses and Hopes for game representation. I think I remember like before Three Houses came out that Telius was like talked about, like it was the main like LGBT like region, like like series of games in the series. And I do think that holds up. And I think the way that it contrasts with Houses and Hopes is interesting because the characters in that
00:17:30
Speaker
there's no avatar romance, so their queerness has to come out in other ways than just a support. And so you get stuff like, I feel like I can sort it as like one of the few LGBT relationships we've had in the series where it's like, it's an integral part of like their characters and not like something that's added just to let you do it yourself. Yeah, like I was playing Path of Radiance again with one of my
00:17:58
Speaker
with one of my girlfriends, and she was playing Path of Radiance for the first time. She's a big fan of the series, but she never had a GameCube or Wii. So she was playing from the GBA, but she just missed the ones because she didn't own the consoles. And she was just like, yeah, this is definitely, they're gay. And she could just like, and even with the Ike Rinalff, it was pretty clear to her without having to say it. It was like, oh yeah, I think there's something here.
00:18:21
Speaker
Yeah. Well, I mean, especially with Ike and Sorin, Ike is literally in Path of Radiance, one of Sorin's two support partners. Yeah, that's it. He only supports two people. It's Ike and it's it's Stefan and it's only there. Yeah, it's only there so you can go. I know what you are. It's literally all he does that support. It's just to go. I know what you are. Yeah.
00:18:51
Speaker
So yeah. Soren's very, very much like, I think Soren's in like kind of like a trope, like a gay coded trope in the Fire Emblem series that we've seen like from the beginning of the series, you know, to some extent with like starting with like Minerva Paula, where it's the like, this this important character and they're like very loyal retainer that's like very clearly into them.
00:19:15
Speaker
Yeah, I think with the with the arc in a games, it's interesting because there's so little dialogue. Yes. Where it's like with any relationship or character dynamic, it's like you kind of have to read into it, right? Yeah. Yeah, I would say that there wasn't a ton of juice for that specific ship until like way, way into the DS. Right. But yeah, it's pretty. Do you think it was kind of like, right? Like the like the genesis is there and then you get like a
00:19:44
Speaker
And seven, seven or well, that the F5 on you get like Edea and God, what's her name, Athena? Hi, I forgot I have I'm not a Thracia girlie, but. Yeah, Thracia is an interesting one being devoted to her and stuff. Thracia has my favorite crack ship, which is Dorian's in August. But
00:20:15
Speaker
I do feel like kind of Fe4 and onward is where you really started getting a lot of these ships just because there's more dialogue in these games. Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't really surprise me that the first time we got like the I feel like the biggest like the first like landmark like FEL GBT ship in the fandom is like Lin and Florina. I mean, I'm sure there was people who ship like others before that, but I feel like that was the biggest one up to that point. And I feel like that's not
00:20:44
Speaker
Um, a coincidence with the fact that we have like paired endings now. Um, and just a general, like bigger support library, like every six had supports, but the only endings were with Roy. And every six cause of war quality was a little weird. And a lot of the characters were Arcanada, like XB's. Yeah. Okay. So now we've gone through some of the good ones. I feel like we also need to talk about some of the bad ones, right?
00:21:08
Speaker
Yeah. Specifically, I know when we were talking about our plans for the episode, we felt like we needed to address kind of the elephant in the room of a fire emblem LGBT rep, which is fates and more specifically, Soleil. Yeah. For the uninitiated, I will explain quickly Soleil and why we're going to talk about her.
00:21:37
Speaker
In the Japanese version of Fates, Soleil is... I haven't read all her supports. My understanding is she's pretty explicitly only into women in the Japanese. Like, because in the Korin Support, which is the one I'm going to talk about, she like explicitly talks about only liking women.
00:21:58
Speaker
But that support, the premise of that support is that Soleil gets weak at the knees and faints when she's near cute girls. And so asks Corin to help her get over that and not do that anymore. So Corin's solution to that is to drug her drink with a magic powder that makes her see men as women. And then they get married two supports later. It's weird.
00:22:28
Speaker
it's it's real bad and also see women as men important important that that she doesn't that it makes her unattracted to women yeah it's it was a choice
00:22:40
Speaker
They did change this in the US version to a support that frankly doesn't make a whole lot of sense, which makes sense since they had to change it, but I guess not change it too much, where instead of drugging her, Corin blindfolds her and just speaks in a girly voice, and then they get married.
00:23:02
Speaker
Fates made a lot of decisions. Gotta love that you can't do it with female corn either, right? Like, it's like, I mean, a girly voice, that's enough for her, but not a woman's voice. It's utterly bizarre to me that Soleil cannot as support any women. Yeah, like the case for Soleil not being a lesbian and that it's not conversion therapy that I've seen placed on the internet.
00:23:27
Speaker
Is is just that like in her s supports with men. She's like sure I'll date you Yeah, well, I guess on the u.s specifically They did add that line like in the core in support. She's like, oh, I like men fine Just you know, not most of the time, but it feels very it feels weird. I
00:23:49
Speaker
Yeah, no, I think it's homophobic, right? I'm saying the case that people make, I feel like it's worth saying it. And so I can say like, that's bullshit. It's like, yeah, if you get to the S rank support of her saying, I don't like men, and you say you're going to like men, she'll say, yeah, I like men a little bit. There was an explanation I heard a while back about why she's like this
00:24:14
Speaker
And I don't want to repeat it just because I don't know if it's true. It was like a Japanese cultural thing, but it was from like Reddit. So I don't know if I trust Reddit's opinion on Japanese culture. But the way it was described kind of exemplifies the problem where her being into women is treated like a frivolous little like it's treated the same as Nina essentially being a fujoshi in the same game, where it's like, oh, it's like funny that she's really into girls, but it's not like an actual thing about her.
00:24:43
Speaker
you know, it's something she'll like get over. It's like, but it's like so integral there. And it's like, you, it's never treated like, Oh, she just might be into women, like a normal thing that other people in this game seemingly are like with Raja. I wish it wasn't Raja, but it is. It's yeah. Yeah. This is
Queer Coding in Early Fire Emblem Games
00:25:04
Speaker
it. There is, there is a thing of, of that that like is a trope that men like to impose onto sapphic women in Japan.
00:25:12
Speaker
And conservative women also use, like conservative politicians often will say like, yes, people like girls in high school, but we grow out of it. So I'm sorry. That was I don't think that's normal. Yeah. And I mean, I guess we do that in the we do that in the West, too. Right. Like how often do you hear like, oh, it's a phase or like.
00:25:35
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, I'll probably like change it women experiment in college, but then they yeah, yeah Yeah, or like um, yeah the troops just moved to high school instead of college But it's because of all girls schools being a pretty big norm, but it is it is homophobic It is a thing that explicitly homophobic people say it is not like a belief held by queer people and I know that because I was following fates before it came out in in English, right
00:26:02
Speaker
And I was following the Japanese and there was this Japanese lesbian blog who talked about the Soleil supports when the game came out. So like, that's how I knew about it. Um, like, right. So like there was a stink being made about it in Japan. It wasn't just like Americans heard about this terrible thing. Like, yeah, no, I feel like that's something like when we talk about the cultural differences that people like people actually like Japan has like a monolith on like
00:26:31
Speaker
they feel about queer people but like it's it's similar-ish in the way it is like here where like there are actual queer people there and they have varying opinions on like how to done like queer issues yeah yeah as far as i can tell um not not a fan the the queer women in japan did not like the sole support yeah i can't imagine it would be no no they were not fans that i read obviously maybe maybe there's many i didn't see
00:27:01
Speaker
But, you know, my impression was, and then I think if we look at the next game that happened after, you know, I think there's some some credence to, you know, it's to the fact that there was blowback from everyone about gay people. Even in like echoes, there's actually
00:27:23
Speaker
like more than you would expect from like a game based on Fe two. Yeah. Where you have Leon, you also have. Oh, why can't I think of his name? The night that you get at the beginning, that's ace. Oh, Lucas. Yeah, Lucas. Yeah, Lucas being ace was like a pretty pleasant surprise to be what I played echoes. I always forget about that. But yeah, it's like they've like a there's like a really nice support about it. That's like surprisingly very accepting.
00:27:54
Speaker
Yeah, so definitely something they've done better on in recent entries. I do think one thing that's like a factor, I think I think honestly, Bates was not it was was a really bad place to start including any semblance of LGBT rep just because Fates. So even in awakening, there's like some supports that are extremely weird because you can tell when they made this requirement that every sport has to have
00:28:23
Speaker
like four supports and one of them has to end in a romance that they just ran out of ideas. And I think that's even worse in fates because they did it for the second time in a row. And so many of the kid characters are like completely removed from the actual context of the game. So you get characters like Nina, whose main funny trait is being a fujoshi, or you get stuff like Sizo telling Charlotte that she should marry him because who better is she going to find or stuff like not.
00:28:51
Speaker
threatening to eat Inigo and their support, it's bizarre. And I think it kind of leads to some supports just being worse because the quality is worse. Yeah, I do think also even comparing to awakening, awakening did not have everybody support everyone, even though, like, I mean, there were still a lot of supports and still the opposite gender ones had the, you know, the support. So it had a little bit of that problem, but like,
00:29:22
Speaker
It wasn't like Fates where pretty much all the men support all the women. Yeah, and I'll say that the issue in Awakening mostly comes up in child character supports, which I can imagine probably were written after, because they're more of a bonus thing. They don't really necessarily benefit you in gameplay as much. I will say Awakening was too cowardly to actually give us gay krobin. That's true. Oh my god.
00:29:51
Speaker
Kravan is a whole different. Which they've kind of they've corrected now. Now we get gay Kravan. Yeah, I am. Now it's only gay Kravan. Yeah, it's bizarre. There is only male Robin X Krom. What do you mean he marries a random village woman if you don't have support with women? He marries Kravan. I'm like not over. I'm never going to get over the the engaged Krom like Kravan Robin like ring that's called The Emblem of Bonds and then Lucina talks to them like
00:30:22
Speaker
They're both her dad? I could not believe how explicit they made that in Engage. She calls Robin, her father's other half, and is embarrassed to be fighting him. And then afterward, they're like, oh, we weren't going to tell her about how worried we were. Like, what? Or like, like, or Crom and Robin have a disagreement, and then one of them is like, not in front of the kid, OK? Like, literally, I'm like, what?
00:30:53
Speaker
It is wild how like whoever was in charge of writing the emblem rings clearly was the gay person in the room, the only person who was allowed to write gay things. Well they did it for Soren and Ike too, so you're probably right. Yeah, Soren and Ike was also really, was actually really nice. I'm really happy. Soren's like, Ike, no, you don't have to prove yourself to me. And I'm like, okay, Soren. And then after he's like, please God, let me be, let me be by your side again.
00:31:22
Speaker
Actually, fun fact, one of Soren's voice lines in the Somniel, I think even before you get him is literally just where's Ike. It's extremely funny. They were not subtle and engaged, which is weird because engaged is otherwise really subtle for some reason. Yeah, with everyone but like, Maren? Yeah. You get the lesbian vibes from Maren, I feel like.
00:31:52
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's mostly carried by her design. You know, like, I think it's there, right? Like, I mean, as a, as a lesbian. Yeah. Like they don't, they don't like, like, right. Like she has good energy with the racket of solemn and with a Lear if she is a girl. I know a lot of people like her with Chloe too, which is the only time anyone talks about Chloe. It's a great dynamic.
00:32:18
Speaker
Yeah. Not to mention her personal skill is literally like, I'm stronger if you surround me with women. True, true. It's true. There are like some, there's some like gay ass supports that are explicit. It's, it's, it's not a ton. A lot of them, a lot of them are vague, even with heterosexual relationships, which is, it's very weird to me how like little romances and engage. I'm not really sure why that's the case.
00:32:47
Speaker
And it is weird because it seemed like there was more in the. Actually, I shouldn't say. Well, OK, I'm going to say this now that I started saying this, but you should check the actual script and confirm that this is true and not just the thing that I read online, that there was more explicit romance in the Japanese script, but that some of that got trimmed out in the in the localization.
00:33:12
Speaker
Yes, that is my understanding as well. I was reading the data mines when the game was getting leaked online and stuff, and reading the translations of the Japanese. And I would say that, yeah, they definitely are more explicitly romantic, both for straight and gay stuff.
00:33:31
Speaker
And it seems like tree house was just like, Oh God, no. What did they do? What did they do? No. Why is it like that? No. Okay. We're going to get rid of all romance. We can't wait. The ring has to be deniable. It is not romantic. Okay. I just, I wonder why they made that decision because I feel like romance and shipping has been a very successful part of fire emblem for the last 10 years.
00:33:59
Speaker
Yeah, and it's like, even if the script thing is a factor, which it is, I know some supports definitely got changed. But there's still a lack of paired endings between anyone else. And that's so weird to me. That's been a thing for how many games now? And it's just well-liked. I'm not sure why they decided to get rid of that.
00:34:23
Speaker
The removal of paired endings is crazy to me. I could not believe it when there weren't any shots bizarre. Because that's something I absolutely take for granted. And I'm going to assume it's going to be in the next game, too. So it's just so weird to me that it wasn't in this one. I mean, I hope it is because it's like even they even added them to like echoes and stuff. I mean, they weren't like you couldn't influence them. They were just kind of like a factor of both characters lived, but they still were there.
Gender Identity Exploration in Fire Emblem
00:34:54
Speaker
Yeah, no, no, it was shocking. Like, I remember being like, what do you mean there's not? No, clearly it's a glitch. It's an error. We're missing some data. It feels like some of the supports and like, I'm like, all right. Yeah. Okay, so we obviously we've just spent a lot of time talking about
00:35:17
Speaker
kind of the LGB portion of the acronym. But we haven't talked much about trans characters or maybe more accurately kind of the lack thereof in Fire Emblem because we don't we don't get many. I mean, it's it's kind of like it's essentially like the closest we really ever get is the very weirdly pervasive feminine like guy trope that has only gotten like further
00:35:47
Speaker
I want to say further feminized, but more intentionally into cross-dressing territory as the series has gone on. But it's weird because the games seem to very rarely have any meditation on what an identity that isn't cisgender would be. I feel like with Forrest and Rosado, there's a talk of acceptance of how they want to present
00:36:14
Speaker
but it never goes any deeper than that really. And I like Rosado, but I feel like there's like not, there's just nothing else there. There's no like consideration for any non cis identity. Well, there's certainly no real exploration of the gender dynamic, right? Yeah. 100%. I'm going to get, I'm going to get stones thrown at me. I don't like the fire emblem fanboys. I think it's bad. I think it's transphobic even.
00:36:45
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think that's unreasonable. If they existed in the sense of like, oh, they're just a character that exists alongside other trans characters, I'd say that. But the trope started with characters being like, oh, you look like a woman, but you're actually a man. And it's kind of like, why have we kept doing this for 10 plus years? Someone at IS is fetish. I'm convinced at this point. I would not be surprised, yeah.
00:37:15
Speaker
Someone with power is like, put in a femboy. I need a femboy. Where's my femboy? Present him to me. Femboy Fire Emblem character save me. Save me Fire Emblem Femboy. But it's just one of those things we're like outside of like kind of Kaisa. Do we have confirmation on Kaisa's gender? Kaisa is a complicated little ball. I want to say no.
00:37:45
Speaker
is so weird. Because my understanding, I did some reading up on Kaiser before this podcast. I now know more about Kaiser than I ever have before, is that in the U.S. version of Radiant Dawn, I believe they use he him pronouns.
00:38:02
Speaker
Yes, that that part. Whereas in the Japanese version of the game, my understanding is that Kaiser uses feminine pronouns. But then my understanding is that this isn't in Japanese, that isn't necessarily as indicative of like gender as it would be in the US. Is that correct? Yeah, it's it can be can mean that it's kind of like
00:38:29
Speaker
Japanese isn't really gendered the same way that like Latin languages are like there's like pronouns in the sense of like there's terms that mean like oh I or me but there's no like he or she like some of the different versions of I or me or other pronouns are like just specifically male or feminine sounding but it's it's weird because there there are male characters that can use like the more feminine sounding ones and it's also like it's complicated basically
00:39:00
Speaker
Yeah, like, yeah. Fire Emblem Heroes uses they-them pronouns in the English side of things for Kaiza. So, like, they now acknowledge that there's something gender-happening with Kaiza. But, like, is Kaiza a straight trans woman? A queer non-binary person? A gay man? It depends on the translation you've read, I guess.
00:39:28
Speaker
It's such a weirdly complicated situation for a character that is, by all accounts, a bit character and radiant. Well, and then and then according to the wiki in the 20th Fire Emblem anniversary or the Fire Emblem 20th anniversary encyclopedia, the Kaiser subtitle is like the body is male. The heart is female with a question. Yes. And that's why I say it like that. Yeah. Yeah. Like my reading of Kaiser Kaiser is a trans woman.
00:39:58
Speaker
But I also know it's the closest we've ever gotten to a trans character in Fire Emblem. Yeah. Yeah. Well, OK, there is. I. I guess you could say Lim Stella at this point kind of is because they use they them and they've actually kept that. That's true. I suppose Lim Stella is. I would say Lim Stella is like used on. Yeah, I'm still is weird and that was a science non-binary at Earth.
00:40:28
Speaker
Right. Yeah. No. Yeah. I guess that would be the argument. Is that like is still a non binary or do morphs not have gender? I it's weird because like I we never really get an idea if it's the same for Efidel. I mean, I don't know if anybody cares about Efidel, but like or like any of the other morphs because the other morphs are like based on real people. Is this kashuna have gender? I have no idea. It's fake.
00:40:55
Speaker
I'm still kind of happy they kept it for heroes, but it's, it's not exactly like the pinnacle of trans representation. Yeah. Yeah. Like, and then outside of that, like, I think that forest narrative reads as a trans woman's narrative. Like when I read the story, like, okay, your dad doesn't accept you. He's, he's a total dick about it. But then like, it doesn't go anywhere. It's just like, I can be a boy and be a disappointment to my dad too. And be into clothing.
00:41:24
Speaker
Yeah, basically. It's kind of like, oh, I can be into women's clothing. Very empowering. It's very empowering. Yeah. And then with Rosada, Rosada is the only one allowed to wear women's clothes, like cross-gender clothes at all. Yeah. Even though Jade and some other characters wear more masculine clothes, they're like default cam clothes.
00:41:48
Speaker
Yeah, like the women can't wear male clothes casually Only if only they're only they're a bit default, but they can't wear men's clothes. Otherwise Or risotto is allowed to wear women's clothes Yeah, I do feel like risotto has a bit deeper of an actual like examination on Identity than like forest did it's but it's still never really like touches on like what
00:42:14
Speaker
Like if they have any like identity that isn't just a cis guy that is really into like more feminine clothing. I mean, I think the thing that gets me about these characters is like I mentioned earlier that like, whether like, I don't know, I think you could do a character that's like, I don't know, uh,
00:42:37
Speaker
a cis guy or a cis woman exploring like their relationship with the traditional expectations of their gender. But it doesn't really feel like Fire Emblem does more than like kind of gesture it that vaguely, right? Yeah, I agree. And I think that that it's specifically femboys, right and not right, which is like unknown, unknown fetish, like nobody working there doesn't know that that is like a thing that
00:43:06
Speaker
There's a lot of cis men that are into, right? Like, and not butch women, right? It's never like, let's explore the expectations of women and let's have like a woman with like a bus cut in like a, right? Yeah. I mean, probably the closest we've gotten to that is what? Sully fire, emblem awakening maybe. Yeah. Um, like we, we've had like more masculine, like mask women, but it's, it's not even usually like,
00:43:36
Speaker
like something they even really like touch upon and maybe it is a little sometimes like silly might have a bit um but like it's never a lot and it's never it's never presented as strongly as the femboy stuff is yeah and i think one problem with the femboy stuff and the like kind of like masculine coded women the couple that do exist is that they're detached from queerness right like we have we have real life
00:44:05
Speaker
men who like to wear women's clothing that are cis. They're called drag queens. And they're typically queer, they're usually bi or gay, or trans women. Most drag queens historically have been bi or gay men or drag queens, either way connected to the queer community, right? There's very few cis straight, like feminine guys and same with butch women, right? Like, like, usually they would be queer.
00:44:35
Speaker
I think that kind of also kind of like, it's like these, these characters, um, if they existed in a vacuum, I wouldn't have as much of a problem with it's the fact that they exist in a game that does not want to acknowledge any other gender, like non-conforming expression or a deeper like meditation on it that makes it feel shitty. Yeah. Well, also the fact they keep making jokes about, Oh, they looked like a woman, but they're a man that doesn't help.
00:45:04
Speaker
Yeah, the fact that it's part of a bit. They did do less of that in engaged if I wanted to give them a little credit. That's true. Rosada was a bit better in that regard, but yeah. I do wonder if that's, you know, localization or not, which I have no clue because I didn't really touch Rosada stuff too much. Rosada was like the final straw for me where I was like, I'm done with it. I'm not even going to give them credit because
00:45:28
Speaker
I used to be the person on the internet who was like, Forest is a trans woman. It's so clear. And then I was like, no, you know what? Forest is a fanboy. Fire Emblem's not ever going to do anything good about trans characters again. I give up. It really does feel that way. And it's kind of sad, huh? Yeah. It is. It is. Like, when Yuri was announced, I thought, oh, wow, we're going to get a non-binary character because Yuri is like so
00:45:54
Speaker
like right queer in Yuri's like in his presentation right yeah like he wears makeup and heels it's 100% of the time at least he's explicitly bi i'll give him that but yeah it's just that the series does not want to yeah the series just does not want to like delve into into trans stuff which is like you're really any like gender meditation which
00:46:24
Speaker
is like, it's unfortunate. Yeah, I wonder how much of it is like transness is more political than queerness. I mean, yeah, I'm sure that's a factor. Yeah. I can't imagine it isn't. I
Portrayal of Masculinity and Femininity
00:46:40
Speaker
especially can't imagine that with like all of these characters, like even like Rosado, Forrest, Yuri, like any of them, at some point in the writer's room,
00:46:51
Speaker
it was never considered they just be explicitly transgender. I mean, before Engage came out, there was that whole debate and if Rosada was going to be a trans man or not, and obviously he isn't, but like, I feel like that kind of plays into it.
00:47:06
Speaker
I was going to say that I was definitely there in the trenches. I really thought I was trying a good faith intelligence system as much as I could and be like, no, look, Rosado can wear women's clothes. No one else can cross gender clothes and all this other stuff. Here's all the reasons why I think we're finally going to get a trans character. Did that happen? Yeah.
00:47:30
Speaker
It just frustrates me because I feel like it doesn't even like like I feel like Rosado is hypothetically the kind of character I should like where like I'm someone who like can struggle a bit with masculinity. Right. Like I like like the idea of getting a piercing or wearing like more gender nonconforming clothing. And that's hard for me because, you know,
00:47:59
Speaker
self-consciousness and internalized expectations of masculinity. Hypothetically, a character like Rosado, I'm like, okay, maybe this gets into some of that, but it really doesn't. There's just no exploration of any of the dynamics. There's no worries about... I don't need all of the characters to be weirded out by it.
00:48:26
Speaker
But like, I don't know, it feels like there should be at least some discussion of it beyond just like, oh, I like cute things, so I wear cute things. Yeah. And I think that's a general feeling I have about queerness and fire emblem. Like even in like three houses, which I would say is probably right. It's up there. Like we don't really get a weight of like what it is to be queer in this like eugenics fueled society. We can assume it's bad. It's like,
00:48:55
Speaker
It's like weird, because it doesn't even seem like... It doesn't seem like it's like even like... It can't even tell if it's supposed to be signitized. I feel like it's not, because like...
00:49:05
Speaker
Like Ray is bisexual. So I guess something that is not explicitly said by the game, but leads me to believe that that folks would not be jazzed about queerness in Fodlan is that society is so crest based and like nobility based. So there's a lot of value placed on like having a kid.
00:49:35
Speaker
That's true, that's a good one, yeah. Particularly if you have a crest, right? Or if you don't have a crest, there would be a lot of focus on trying to kind of marry into one. Yeah. Yeah. I think the society in Fodlan is definitely homophobic. I think there's evidence to it, but they don't really dive into it, right? Like, Rhea is bisexual.
00:50:01
Speaker
in that she will be into you no matter what gender you are, the vessel of her mother. Right. Right. And by all of this, it was a wild ride of a of a pairing. She is. She is your grandma and also your her mom. It's it's incredible. It's it's fire emblems greatest piece of incest. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. Like it's it's honestly like impressive. OK, it's a new. How does it stack up with like revelation surprise incest, though? OK, OK. That.
00:50:30
Speaker
Which do we prefer? Do we prefer, like, grandma and also my daughter incest or jump scare incest? I think jump scare incest is worse, um, partially because so many people, like, act- actively did Corrin and Azura and then just get jump scared by that. Yeah. Like, I punched Corrin and Azura so hard. The bio 3A1 is just so absurd that I kind of, like, just think it's funnier than anything else. Like, what even happened?
00:51:00
Speaker
What's going on here? Yeah. But yeah, so I think, yeah, like there's a lot of evidence that Fodlan is homophobic. Like, right. Like you said, the quest system, right? The eugenics based system that we live, that they live under. Right. There's a lot of pressure to have kids. There's a lot of pressure to have, you know, babies. I don't think Raya is the homosexual greatest defender, even if we take her as being bi, which I think is questionable, given that her only evidence of that is that she's into her mom.
00:51:30
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I don't I don't I wouldn't I wouldn't force the but for a dealing with queer issues if it was something she had to take a hard stand on because that's kind of like antithetical to her her own like character issues. I just I don't know. Well, it's one of the I guess with Yuri, especially it feels like it's one of those things where I feel like this is true of many of the issues in Fodlan. It's it would be systemic, right?
00:52:00
Speaker
Yes. Why does why does Dorothea want to in some of her? Like, why does Dorothea flirt with men maybe like to marry one and like get some money? Right. Because that's like socially advantageous. Yeah. Yeah. No, we say we say a lot of that. We say a lot of like, you know, and basically every woman supports. We find out that their dad is trying to marry them to a man specifically. Right. Like even though some of these women have a queer ending is like Mercedes. Right.
00:52:30
Speaker
Mm-hmm or Edelgard talks about how she might have to take a husband Yeah, and I feel like it's also like I guess this is never explicitly stated but it feels pretty heavily implied to me that like any of the guys with crests the Expectation is that they're going to have a kid, right? Yes Yeah, no, it's it's a ton of percent. It's the way that like that kind of homophobia manifests right where like women get
00:52:56
Speaker
the very explicitly sold as property where men are just expected to have their choice of the litter, but it has to be a woman. It's going to be a little bit less bad for them, but it's still not good. But they'll have the power in the homophobic imbalance. Yeah, I can see that. All right.
00:53:18
Speaker
We've been talking for a little while on a representation here, so I want to close this out on one last question, which is what do we want to see Fire Emblem do in the future? And I don't mean like what do we expect they're going to do, but like what do we want them to do, you know? Yeah, a bare minimum. I want parent endings back. I it's fairly frustrating because I feel like in terms of endings, like the amount we got in three houses is like
00:53:48
Speaker
close to what I'd want, where there's a lot of same-sex endings and a lot of opposite gender endings and stuff. It wasn't as explicit as I'd want, but I would like that back. Yeah, I would agree. Definitely. There are minimum paired endings coming back and hopefully more explicitly gay paired characters. I think for me, in addition to that, something that I would like is
00:54:15
Speaker
I feel like even among the explicitly gay characters, it's like surprisingly rare for just like a man and a man or like a woman and a woman to be like, I love you, or like, let's explicitly get married. Um, so I would like to do away with the, um, like, and then they went to live together forever. Or like in Catherine and she mirrors, obviously like there's implications, right? Where they're like.
00:54:43
Speaker
Oh, we could get married in the in the S support. And then the paradigm is like, oh, and then they went and lived together forever. And you're, you know, the implications are there. I would like it to be explicitly stated at least some of the time. Yeah, like the closest we get is like the Dorothea Petra one. Mm hmm. Now, the Dorothea Petra one, too. Yeah, I was like, I don't want any more of the history. We'll say there were roommates, best friends.
00:55:11
Speaker
I think there's an argument to do it in some of the routes of Three Houses to write history. We'll say they're best friends because the systems of power stay in control.
00:55:21
Speaker
But like, and there's no reason in like the anal guard route, right? That anyone would be like, and they were besties for life. Like, they got rid of the nobility. Like, right, like in Constance's solo ending, right? It mentions that like her family does not get things by themselves and they actually have to earn like their position. Right. So then logically, people should be able to marry whoever they want.
00:55:47
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Right. Like, it doesn't matter. Like, her, her genes don't matter. Like, Gucci, if she adopted a kid, they would have as much of a shot as a peasant at getting, like, being a magical minister. Um, and yeah, so like, you know, it is, it is, um, I definitely would like more explicitness and I'd like paired endings, but I feel like that's the bare minimum. I don't think I would buy that there wasn't paired endings in it.
00:56:18
Speaker
And there weren't some of them weren't gay. I agree. We're talking bare minimum here. We're not asking for much. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, that was like the first thing challenge. What do I want to see? And I'm not going to give IS any slack. Let's go. So I want a lesbian. I want a trans woman. I want both of those. I want it to be explicit in the text.
Hopes for Future Representation
00:56:43
Speaker
and unavoidable. I don't want it to be up for debate. I don't want there to be an internet argument. I want it to just, it's a thing that happens in the plot, you know about it. And I loved there to be a bi man and a bi woman and a gay man. I love, I love one of each at least, preferably multiple. Yeah. I, I, uh, above like the thing I want most is like, I also want all those, but I want them to just be like, I want it to be like a part of their like, like
00:57:11
Speaker
like, um, lived experience, like what we were saying earlier, just something that like is no, has noticeably affected them in their life and is core to like their identity. Yeah. Yeah. Cause yeah. Cause I don't think what we want is like the cartoon gay ending thing that like has happened as like a phenomenon in like America where like a pair of women will pair off at the last episode and maybe they'll kiss.
00:57:38
Speaker
or hold hands or something, and then it'll be canon. Like, I want it to be a part of their lives and their experiences and their, like, how they see the world. And I think that we kind of got close with, like, Monica in hopes, but I think that it's very telling that that game got rid of paired endings altogether. And some romantic supports altogether to get us, like, is that what it takes for us to get an explicitly lesbian character again?
00:58:06
Speaker
Like Monica, like just completely denying agency, like. It's I feel like a lot of hopes has like a lot more explicit references to it, like the the Shamir parallel, where she's like, yeah, this is someone I like dated in the past and it's a woman and like Dorothy is saying she'd be interested in marrying a prince or a princess. But I think it's hard to like men flying.
00:58:35
Speaker
That's true, yeah. It's just, I think it's hard in the Avatar games that we have now. And I just, I don't see them not including an Avatar with how popular they've been. And we've had them for so long where it's kind of like every character has to be at least on some part bisexual, which is just, it's frustrating because there's like, it doesn't even feel like real representation to bisexual people because it's not a factor until then.
00:59:01
Speaker
Well, no, I mean, that's what I was saying before when I was saying that like, in those games, it kind of feels like Schrodinger's bisexual to me because like, none of the characters, okay, some of the characters in Engage feel a little queer to me, but it's independent of the fact that I can marry them. Most of the characters, even though I can
00:59:19
Speaker
gay marry them, do not feel queer to me. You know what I mean? If it's only noticeable if I marry them, then it just doesn't feel quite as notable, I guess.
00:59:38
Speaker
Yeah, I would I would love if the characters had individual sexualities. I think that'd be great. And I think the individual sexualities could be everyone is bisexual, but then we should get like a diverse representation of bisexuality.
00:59:51
Speaker
We should have people who have dated same-gender partners, people who have only dated partners of the opposite gender, people who are discovering their sexuality, people who have never dated at all. If everyone's going to be bi, let's represent bi people very, very broadly. Bi people are very diverse. I would say we saw a game that did that. Not that this game did it perfectly, but did it better than engaged, I would say, in Baldur's Gate 3.
01:00:17
Speaker
Where like, I don't know, the characters talk about their exes, they'll have sex with each other if you don't. It doesn't feel necessarily like characters just like become bisexual because you want to fuck them, you know? Yeah, that's that's that's an issue where it's like it it's it needs to be independent of you, the player.
01:00:43
Speaker
And sometimes it isn't in three houses. That's like the characters that are like the most queer and not like the average person, which feels like a shame. Yeah, like Mercedes, who I love, I love Mercedes, like definitely felt more like she was a bi option because fates got critiqued for having sadistic, evil bisexuals.
01:01:10
Speaker
And that that was like a homophobic stereotype. And they were like, don't worry, Catholics are gay now. We didn't even listen. They were like the Pope's gay now. It's fine. She's getting into incest. Oh, damn it. At this point, the Fire Emblem game, we have no debatable incest will be like that. The rapture will be after the world will be able to handle it.
01:01:38
Speaker
We ought to put in the list of fire emblem death side issues. All right. It's it's been for so long. Well, on that note of our inability to escape fire emblem incest until the heat death of the universe, I'm going to close this out. Thank you, Alexis, Sarah, for coming on with us.
Conclusion and Charity Mention
01:01:57
Speaker
At the end of the podcast today, I'd like to plug Palestine Children's Relief Fund. I'm going to be donating the profits from the podcast and the YouTube channel there this month.
01:02:07
Speaker
They provide humanitarian relief to Palestinian children and displaced Gazan families. If you want to make a donation, you will find a link in the video description or podcast description, the description of wherever you're listening to this. But yeah, is there anything you guys want to plug before we hop off? Yeah. Yeah. Well, first of all, the charity, please go, please look at it. It is really important that we do what we can to help the kids and everyone in Gaza.
01:02:37
Speaker
as much as we can, so any kind of relief and charity. So look at that. But if you want to see more of me and stuff, I'm cooking up an SRPG in my free time. I don't know when it'll come out. It's not my number one priority because I'm probably just going to take money I get from other projects and slowly invest it into that so I can make it a real thing.
01:03:01
Speaker
But if you want to check out TTRPGs, that's what I'm mostly working on right now, like Thirsty Swords lesbians. I'm working on the next expansion. You can check me out on at transcomics on Twitter or at Alexis Sarah, basically everywhere on the Internet, Mastodon, Tumblr, co-host, Blue Sky, all of the places. I'm probably Alexis Sarah there. But how much I post there, that's debatable.
01:03:28
Speaker
You should definitely check out Thirsty Sword Lesbians. It's pretty sweet. It's great. It's great. And it's not just for lesbians. It's fantastic for anyone of any sexuality, especially queer people. It's made with all kinds of queer people in mind, just centering lesbians and then expanding outwards. Yeah. Well, thank you both again for coming on. And we'll see you viewers next month. Hope you have a lovely month.