That Rath essay. Finally! (Part 1)

[shimizu-hitomi.livejournal.com]

Figured I might as well post this. It was easier to clean up than the Archanea magic meta... though it's only half-written. -_-;

(Long) Disclaimer: Rath was actually one of my favorite characters (i.e. during my first playthrough of Lyn's story and even a good way into Eliwood's story) until I realized he had no personality didn't get much character development and there were far more explicitly interesting characters in the cast. I still have a serious soft spot for him though. But I suspect I like him more because of what he represents in my head than how he's actually portrayed in game.

In other words, one of the reasons I've been so reluctant to post this (despite intending to for at least a few years)... is because I realized that my views on Rath and Sacae are HEAVILY personal, and deeply colored by my own particular racial/cultural lenses. I also had and still have a deep suspicion that the portrayal of Rath and Sacae in general has a lot to do with inherent Japanese racial/cultural issues, which I am NOT an expert on, but the consistent Othering of the Sacaen characters is obvious and definitely problematic. And as I wrote elsewhere once (probably more than once), the Sacaens (the nomadic tribes) are clearly coded as Mongolian/Central Asian with perhaps other influences and vaguely Chinese (Karel/Karla and the non-nomadic Sacaens) in a Japanese game in a universe and overall franchise that's otherwise overwhelmingly white/European*, both culturally and uh, phenotypically. And again, this colors the way I see them and ship them, and I highly suspect also colors the way Japanese fandom sees and ships them.

* Yeah yeah, beastpeople and turbans and Jehanna, but I'm not inclined to let Jehanna count because it's still awfully white despite hinting at a non-European culture -- and don't talk to me about beastpeople and racialized anthropomorphism. (For the record, I haven't played Tellius so I can't judge how it's actually handled in the games, BUT I will say that it always annoys me when people claim that the Tellius games tackle racism as a theme because. Uh.) And I am mostly fine with that actually (it's pseudo-European fantasy man, what do you expect), except the power dynamics with the Sacaens as portrayed in game are really damn weird (especially compared to, say, the Isaacians in Kaga games, who come the closest to being an "Eastern" analogue outside of the Elibe games).

I'll discuss some of this more in the essay itself, but just wanted to get that out there first.

Bonus Disclaimer 1: Since it's come up recently, I want to clarify that although *I* find the Mongolian influences obvious, I don't think this is the be-all end-all interpretation of Sacaen culture -- just that this is how I've chosen to read it in my particular set of fics.

Bonus Disclaimer 2: I am NOT an expert on Central Asian culture. I have done plenty of research, but I may be wrong regardless, and if so I apologize and definitely welcome corrections.

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( this is long, trust me )

This has mostly been written for about two years... In the next part, which I have yet to write, I actually start talking about Rath. *sweats*

eta: Second part should be up sometime by the end of this month.