Modern AUs: You'd Hate Your Favorite Character

[mark_asphodel]

I was gonna do that fanfic meme that's been going around but my answers are boring and evasive.

On an IM the other night, Ammie dropped a revelation: Soren, in an "our world" modern AU, would vote Republican.

You can agree or disagree or debate the merits of the label, but she had a point.  At least in Fire Emblem fandom, many of the characters if transplanted to our own world and time would probably not be people that internet scribblers (who often hit the "progressive" label on one point or another) tend to associate with.  A lot of 'em would vote Republican, or Tory, or Conservative... though perhaps they'd better fit the party labels of a previous generation than, say, anything to do with the Tea Party.

Who are these people?  Nobles and those who serve them.  The privileged.   Representatives of and defenders of the social structure.  Not being a racist, or not being in favor of child sacrifice, doesn't make one not a small-c conservative.  But how many Fire Emblem playable characters even fit a small-d democrat or small-r republican label?  Dude... these are monarchists, for the most part.  Oligarchs.  Theocrats.  Like... no.

If anything, many of these playables are genuine conservative characters putting down a rebellion from fringe elements, and their victory is The Old Status Quo, But Better.  And IMO, a modern AU that doesn't GET that is likely to be off-base if it tries to deal with the characters in any kind of political/ideological sense.  C'mon, picture AU Seth-- he's a career military man.  Maybe not the most religious guy around in an orthodox sense (re: Natasha supports), but otherwise he's all about orthodox values.  Country.  King.  Law and Order.  And, yes, God.  He probably votes to keep cops on the streets and keep teenagers from getting out of hand.  He probably votes to keep marijuana illegal and the penalties for trafficking stiff.  He probably thinks "marriage" consists of man + woman and wouldn't see anything wrong with DADT.  He's against animal abuse but not much concerned about animal rights.  He eats meat and doesn't think much about where his produce is "sourced" or whether or not the stuff's organic (but GM crops sound suspicious to him).  He wouldn't want his tax dollars going toward Piss Christ. 

(I think the God part may be hard to incorporate unless a character is a pre-packaged cleric because many writers are not religiously orthodox-- or they're coming at faith from something other than the pseudo-Catholic structure of most Fire Emblem worlds.  Ordinary characters in FE do not have personal relationships with their Savior; that's limited to the elite, the elect.  And you're not it unless your name is Claude, or Micaiah, or some other Chosen specimen.)

I mean, I could see Pent as a fringe-progressive guy, but even so he's coming at the system from a position fairly high within it-- NOT from the outside.  He's anything but disenfranchised.  Levin... well, in his bard phase Levin strikes me someone who could be tweaked into 1950s/1960s radical, but even so it's all relative, given that you'd be comparing him to power-elite military types like Sigurd and Cuan.  Seriously, if Jugdral were 1960s America, I'm pretty sure Sigurd and Friends would be hawks on 'Nam.  Supporters of civil rights for 'colored people'?  Yeah, maybe.  But hawks on 'Nam.  Likewise, Levin could be spun into a plausibly Jewish subversive (how appropriate to the era and its fears), compared to WASP-y Grandbellian elites and the oh-so-Irish Lenster crew, and all of those carry their own weight in the cultural context.  Catholics then were not viewed as Catholics are now-- and that's just one detail.

(Alvis is the reformer who wants a world where people aren't persecuted for the circumstances of their birth and bloodline.  Think about that one long and hard in the context of a modern-world AU.  Ow.)

Stefan?  Now, he's gonna mix stuff up.  Oh yes.  Tellius probably offers the widest range of slots to be adequately filled in an AU-- Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and Other.  And then someone like Marth just kind of doesn't work at all IMO in a modern AU, unless you make him something as exalted and untouchable in the bubble of the AU world as he is in his own.  Paul McCartney or Yuri Gagarin, take your pick.  

But if he could exist in 1960s America, Marth would probably also be a hawk on 'Nam.  And maybe support bombing Cambodia.  Just sayin'.

Comments

[amielleon]

Stefan would've been a Malcom X back in the day. Not sure what that equates to nowadays, but I'm sure he's a far-left of the separatist persuasion.

I was thinking of posting a table of Tellius characters and their political persuasions, but I guess you've gone and cracked the subject for me so maybe I shouldn't. :P But just so everyone else knows what we talked about: Shinon is an "instinctive" libertarian who doesn't vote and a questionable influence on Rolf; Oscar is secretly super invested in welfare and quietly votes democrat; Titania is an 80s feminist and a democrat and Mist takes after her. Greil and Ike are the family-values brand of Republican. Soren is a pragmatic Republican who's worked his way up to a nice six-figure salary and would rather keep it than help out strangers.

Boyd is the kind of Republican who'd wave around a rifle while screaming at the kids to get off his lawn. And badmouth the press for trying to steal his guns. Gatrie votes however the girl he's dating votes, if that girl is politically interested at all.

Micaiah is a lawyer who works pro bono, a very moderate liberal, votes Democrat, and I love her. Meanwhile Sothe is frustrated she doesn't rebel against society more actively. (He has not-entirely-thoughtful communist leanings.)

But anyway.

Tellius probably offers the widest range of slots to be adequately filled in an AU-- Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and Other.

I'm pretty sure this is a direct result of Tellius also being one of the most open games in terms of class. The Kaga era protagonists were nearly all nobility, with your occasional village saint and thief straight out of prison. Elibe and Magvel still had basically every ruler in the land duking it out on the battlefield. It's Tellius where you get a lot of characters with more humble origins.

[mark_asphodel]

Stefan would've been a Malcom X back in the day.

I love that comparison.

I was thinking of posting a table of Tellius characters and their political persuasions, but I guess you've gone and cracked the subject for me so maybe I shouldn't. :P

Yes you should. Nobody reads this journal for in-depth Tellius content. :P

The Kaga era protagonists were nearly all nobility, with your occasional village saint and thief straight out of prison.

Well, FE5 offers a nice cross-section of normals. Archanea's full cast has quite a few as well; they're just not developed enough to get a sense of them in that level of detail.

[amielleon]

If you've got time to be playing FE4 some five times over, you have time to play Radiant Dawn! :P

[raphiael]

Whatever Stefan's involved in, I don't see it as at all outlandish to envision him being classified as a terrorist somewhere, to be honest.

[amielleon]

No way, Stefan's definitely a freedom fighter.

[lyndis]

I want rifle-toting Boyd now. So bad. You have no idea. Your fault.

I'd still like to see that table. Especially if it had a short little explanation about each character. :D

[raphiael]

Thinking about it, a lot of the "progressive" characters aren't the shining examples people might want to make them out as. Eliwood might be less conservative in values than others, but at best, he's still rich, sheltered, and privileged in basically every respect, even if that does come with a side of what's typically termed as "slacktivism".

Vaguely related, but I have a lot of trouble hashing out how characters feel about religion unless there's specific text about it. There's just very little on how important it is, outside the theocracies/clerics and the few people who've outright rejected the whole thing.

probably derailing even further oops

[queenlua]

re: religion: do you mean, figuring out their religious views in-universe, or in AU-ish things?

in-universe, I agree that religion's mad-tricky to sort out; for games that deal so much with divine beings, they tend to skirt religion as much as possible. in an AU setting, though, I think it'd actually be sort of fun to speculate on the religious views of different characters...

eirika: moderate, relatively liberal Christian. prays somewhat regularly, esp. when in the middle of dire circumstances or a big decision

ephraim: went to church a couple times as a kid, mostly fidgeted in the pews the whole time and absorbed very little. probably has some vague belief in God if you ask him about it, but he doesn't think much about it otherwise

innes: ...would be just "Christian" enough to appeal to religious voters when he inevitably launches his political campaigns, but secretly thinks religion is largely irrelevant and a waste of time

etc etc idk, thinking about AU stuff is fun! : D

Re: probably derailing even further oops

[raphiael]

Both, actually. More the former, though, just because logically it would likely be a bigger part of life in the setting. . .but you get basically nothing, outside staunch believers (your priests and clerics) and cynics/heretics. It's easy to say that, for example, people in Jugdral are more apt to believe in the divine, because the proof for many of the main characters is right on their skin. But that certainly doesn't mean we know how they feel about all that. Even games where you outright fight gods don't touch on the "wait hold the boat we're killing God" that you might expect for most of the cast. Ike talks to Ashera basically like he'd talk to. . . anybody standing in his way, and that's a giant step beyond sassing Sanaki or treating Elincia like a bro.

(Of course, the genuine nature of the beliefs of even clerics and the like is up for debate-- I'd say Natasha, for example, seems more about the godliness thing than, say, Serra. And I think Renault's turn for religion is total BS.)

So with so little to go on, you really do have to make those gut instinct judgments in AU, I think. You don't always have the "well society would say ___" for every walk of life -- and I mean, even when I do have definite ideas of how characters see things, the implications would change drastically. Like, one of my firmest headcanon ideas on the topic is seeing canon Knoll as an atheist. But translating even something I think as clearly as that is hard! Believing there is no benevolent god as, I don't know, a college science professor or something probably does not have the same weight to his character that it does as someone who's personally faced something claiming to be a demon while rejecting the idea that there is still a "good" side to that coin. And conversely, someone who believed in the divine as fervently as L'Arachel does is a wee bit eccentric in Magvel-- but that would be seen as really outlandish and scary-extremist in many circles today. So do you temper that to give it the same feeling it has in canon, or leave it as is?

Re: probably derailing even further oops

[mark_asphodel]

innes: ...would be just "Christian" enough to appeal to religious voters when he inevitably launches his political campaigns, but secretly thinks religion is largely irrelevant and a waste of time

As much as I'd like to agree with this, given the existence of an apparently Frelian-exclusive war god, I do have to wonder if Innes isn't a actually more devout and serious about faith than, say, Ephraim. I've had second thoughts on the matter, at any rate.

Re: probably derailing even further oops

[amielleon]

for games that deal so much with divine beings, they tend to skirt religion as much as possible.

I think it might be kind of an Asian thing. Divine influences are simply understood to permeate everything; people don't deal with the divine actively, however.

[mark_asphodel]

Eliwood might be less conservative in values than others, but at best, he's still rich, sheltered, and privileged in basically every respect, even if that does come with a side of what's typically termed as "slacktivism".

Exactly.

There's just very little on how important it is, outside the theocracies/clerics and the few people who've outright rejected the whole thing.

There's also the possibility that FE-brand organized religions really are a bit more like the state religion of the Roman Empire, a ceremonial thing that nobles and the upper classes have the money to participate in, but that the peasants maybe have their own gods or folk practices and don't much care about what Bishop so-and-so says. I dunno what that translates to in modern times other than the startling amount of "Catholics" who don't follow orthodox practices and don't plan to start.

[xenosynth]

I honestly wonder if they'd shudder at a non-monarchal, non-aristocratic at least society.

This is why AUs in a modern sense are hard for me. The characters are in such a different time period, that if you directly transplant them without changing a lot of their past, they'd definitely be out of place.

[raphiael]

Well, Magvel at least has everyone looking down their nose at stoneless, council-run Carcino-- which is of course, rife with corruption like no other country is without the assistance of supernatural nastiness. Ilia's uniting under a king in FE6 is painted as definitely a Good Thing, and who knows what they had before? Tellius has two cases of royalty being the purer option over the council of officials: Sanaki, despite lack of magical bloodline powers, is the "good" against the hideously awful senators of Begnion, and near every official beneath Elincia is a snide, gossipy jerkwad.

So I think while they'd understand the concept, they'd see it as inherently inferior and probably doomed to failure.

[lyndis]

I think the thing about a monarchy is, you either get a Really Great leader, or you get a Shitty One. With a council, you're more likely to see influences spreading among everyone, and the entire thing can go corrupt fast. A king is just one guy-- he can be poisoned, assassinated, or even influenced directly by his wife(or vice-versa, her husband), or other people they are close to, like advisors.

It's kinda like a presidency-- we might vote for our president, but he doesn't hold 100% of the power. The king didn't either/doesn't either. The difference is that a king holds a lot more power than a president. This can be good or bad. They do seek council from advisors buuut what does this do for them really?

Honestly it's pretty iffy. I always thought if you have a lot of God & Country men, like knights/etc, they might be better placed into a military. Boyd? Totally a marine. Haar? Air Force until his eye. Marcus? Army. Lowen? NAVVYYY I mean what.

But most people transplant them into other jobs but have them keep their sense of pride in what they do, which also works. For example, Kieran might be stocking shelves at Wal-Mart, but if his boss is Elincia, then Kieran is probably REALLY PROUD to work under her, at that job. He probably shines his nametag. (Can never unsee. That's a bad example, but you see what I mean. The people who serve a king are loyal to their boss (in an AU this is ANY BOSS, corporate, regional, manager, whatever you choose), and take great pride in what they do, and that's definitely not limited to serving a king or being in the military. I'm sure Lowen would take great pride in head chef at a hotel chain that Eliwood runs.) (I can totally see Eliwood running hotel chains. WHYYYYY. No I DON'T WANNA WRITE THIS, IDEA GO AWAY.)

That said, I hate how one-sided things are. The "Good" people defect to your side almost always, or die tragically (Shiharam), and the Bad Guys are always assholes, on the wrong side, being douchenozzles. There's really not a lot of in-between like with Elincia's council of officials. :/

[amielleon]

There's even a villager living in Carcino who is like "We have the joys of democracy! Anyone could be a ruler! -- Maybe that's why we're fucked up!"

[mark_asphodel]

I think they'd pity us for not having touched-by-the-divine heroes available to us. Clearly, the gods have neglected this defenseless and doomed society.

[queenlua]

i imagine l'arachel would be noisily liberal, and she'd champion lots of random, fringe causes (i.e., chain herself to a random building that's about to be demolished because it has some small, obscure historical significance, or panicking over the plight of some endangered species that no one's ever heard of)

...but her attention span would be too short to champion any cause for more than a few months or so :P

(and, this post was really neat :D thanks for sharing)

[mark_asphodel]

That's L'Arachel in a nutshell, yeah.

Glad you enjoyed it!

[lyndis]

Picturing Sandra Bullock's character from Two Weeks Notice, thanksssss

[samuraiter]

Hn. Interesting line of thought.

All I can add is that I'd never wish our wretched world on these people.

[lyndis]

IDK, I think we've got it pretty good, all things considered. We have AC. Cars. Airplanes. And you're not likely to get jumped by bandits on the way to the next city.

Unless you're in Cleveland or Detroit. :P

THAT SAID, I wouldn't mind a tad of magic dropping into the real world. In the right hands. Haah.

[scarletmorning]

I can't say much about ModAU characters' and their political stance because I'm more or less not interested in politics (in general). But I found the discussion about religion quite interesting, because it felt very awkward. XD If the characters aren't obviously religious in canon, I'd never think that they are in any way religious. I'm so used to only see and meet non-religious people that it's hard to see any characters belonging to a religion. I mean, you'd also have to differentiate the beliefs depending on where your AU takes place. Culture would have some impact on the development of the character, I'd say.

[mark_asphodel]

If the characters aren't obviously religious in canon, I'd never think that they are in any way religious.

Mm, I understand where you're coming from, but these character do live in worlds where magic and miracles happen. Often, to them. Aside from Elibe, where the divine doesn't appear to intervene much, it's really hard for me (as an atheist!) to see where a canonical atheist like Michalis is coming from. The divine is so active in his world that his lack of belief comes across as a character flaw... which it probably is. :/

Now, I agree-- a 1950s American AU and a 2010s UK or Germany AU would make different requirements of the characters at all levels of society re: belief. Even today in the US, church attendance can still determine who wins a custody battle, and it's NOT that way in other industrialized nations.

[scarletmorning]

Now that I actually had a moment to think about the politics part, I need to mention something else. Modern only here! I can see most of them being conservative. But not American Conservative. German Conservative, yeah probably. But American Conservatism is far too extreme for my impression of most characters; and I'm not talking about the Tea Party. Just the regular Republicanism. But hey, from my perspective even your liberals are more right than our liberals so that would depend heavily on the political culture.