On Defining "Canon Gay"

[mark_asphodel]

Before I delve into Tellius for this series of posts on love 'n' stuff, let's talk about what makes canon gay, well, canon. In a series like Fire Emblem wherein a lot of canon het is left ambiguous and declarations of eternal togetherness rarely surface in the form of "I love you," how do we recognize same-sex relationships when we see them?

1) It fits the criteria used for het pairings in that canon.

Let's take Fire Emblem romance on its own terms. Example numero uno here would be the paired endings for Raven & Lucius and Lyn & Florina, which don't even pass as business partnerships like the Marcus/Merlinus ending does. Raven/Lucius and Lyn/Florina meet every single standard for a "canon het" pairing in FE7. Yes, the (translated) text speaks of "friendship" and not love. Yes, neither pairing gets married. Matthew/Serra doesn't mention love or marriage-- they could just be having "friends with benefits" consolation sex. Or he's perving on her. Rebecca/Wil speaks of friendship and not marriage even though they cement the "friendship" by having a child. The Vaida/Heath ending speaks of "support," not love or marriage. Meanwhile, while I can't verify endings for them at present, Heath/Legault and Eliwood/Hector exist on the same plane as, say, Sain/Priscilla or Hector/Serra, het pairings without joint endings nonetheless enjoy a fair amount of popularity and really can't be deemed "crack." So what's canon, then?

[And again, every single pairing in FE6 except Zealot/Juno and the Roy pairings get the same level of endorsement.]

And as far as Kaga-era games go, find the part where Elice and Merric get married in the game text. It ain't there. In official art, yes. In the artbook, yes. But it's not in the game text for FE1 or FE3. Standards for canonicity are a wee bit slippery in the early days, so what makes Gordin abandoning Altea and following Master Jeorge to Pales (which, if you read between the lines is precisely what he does) any less telling than Elice's implied wedding to Merric? Or Linde's implied crush on Merric? Or Catria's implied feelings Marth? Etc. And again, we're not talking the reboots here, so I don't care what FE12 did or didn't do with these couples. We'll deal with that mess later.

2) Making it "not gay" requires an absurd amount of hand-waving.

Marty's canon epithet is "The Man Whom Dadga Loved." Even if you don't like your muscle-bound yaoi daddies, that one's hard to get around. And if the character Marty were Dadga's young son while Tanya had been a female brigand dubbed "The Woman Whom Dagda Loved," nobody would be thinking twice about accepting that as romance. If you have to resort to a blatant double standard to make it not-gay, or claim that "loved" means something else in a canon that doesn't throw "love" around all that often, then maybe we're dealing with a case of... canon gay.

3) Potter Stewart Rule, aka, "I know it when I see it."

This is very dodgy ground, because we're dealing with interpretation here. We're dealing with "seems" and "maybe" and "possibly" and "sure looks that way," which is a much weaker argument than strict application of #1 or #2. Or worse, we're dealing with "and what the hell was THAT about?" And the example I'm going to use is something I've danced around repeatedly, in meta and 'fic both, because it enjoys basically zero support in fandom either Stateside or in Japan, at least as far as I can tell. But damned if it isn't there in the text.

I said in the post on Kaga-era games that it appeared that Finn (as "het" as anyone else in FE4 as far as pairing mechanics go) was rewritten in FE5 to be, well, not into chicks. Or, as Ammie put it, "Finn seems gay." Do not mention Lachesis, do not pass go, etc. Let's look at the text here, so you don't have to go plowing through FE5. I will bold the most relevant parts.

CONVERSATION (Finn, Selphina)

[Mark: so in Chapter 9 of FE5, Finn encounters an old comrade he hasn't seen in ten years. Selphina is about nine or so years younger than Finn, which means she was in her teens the last time they met. Her husband, Glade, has been Finn's only best friend from the time they were trainee knights.]

Selphina:
"Sir Finn! It's good to see you again."

Finn:
"You are...?"

Selphina: "Have you forgotten me? I'm Selphina."

Finn:
"Selphina? Count Dorias' daughter?"

Selphina:
"Yes."

Finn:
"...Well... So this is that little girl with the braids..."

Selphina:
"Ten years can make a big difference. I'm now married to Glade."

Finn:
"Glade? He's alive!? Where is he? I have to see him!"

Selphina:
"He's not here. He went to aid the people in Tahra..."

Finn:
"Oh, I see... Too bad. I suppose it can't be helped if it's an order..."

*The following part ensues only if Leaf already spoke to Selphina*

Selphina:
"You seem to be more interested in Glade than me, Sir Finn. You haven't
changed at all... You were always cold towards women."

Finn:
"Cold? I never intended to be..."

Selphina:
"Then why did you leave Lady Lachesis? You knew how sad she was..."

Finn:
"...I don't know what you're talking about..."

Selphina:
"Yes, you do! But you act like you don't know at all. You're cruel, Sir
Finn!"

Finn:
"Selphina, we've met after many years. We don't have to..."

Selphina:
"Oh... Yes, I'm sorry. We finally meet again, and I can't do anything but
shout at you..."

Finn:
"No, it's all right. We'll talk about it later. Right now, we must fight."

Selphina:
"Yes, Sir Finn..."

Got that? In terms of "whoa, did I miss something here?" that's right up with some of the classic bits of Tellius innuendo... especially as we're dealing with the character with the most screen time in the entire Jugdral saga aside from the three Lords and their tacticians. And yet, since the "Lachesis love triangle" thing has had far more influence in fandom, I've yet to see anyone take this at face value-- humorously or otherwise . In the exhaustive FE5 playthrough over at Something Awful, OP Cake Attack highlighted this as "an interesting piece of characterization" but didn't elaborate. A longterm GameFaqs poster currently going by the title Wrk20 will ambush you with this conversation if you try to argue canonicity of Finn/Lachesis, but takes it to simply mean Finn is kind of a rat bastard toward the women in his life (something that doesn't really add up if you take his interactions with Evayle into account). Even the Japanese meta site Tara Palace, which presents the maintainer's personal case against Finn/Lachesis in fine detail, doesn't really go there from what I can tell.

So, where does Selphina's little rant fit into things? I'm perfectly comfortable with saying Finn is not actually into chicks, FE4 mechanics be damned, but there are a couple of reasons not to make the full parabolic leap into saying "'cause he's into dudes."

1) Selphina argues about trivial things and maybe we're not supposed to take her seriously. X-ref her argument with Glade over whether Leaf inherited Cuan's eyes or Ethlin's. While canon paints her in a positive light, she's something of a little yappy dog.

2) Per canon, Finn's been an emotional flat-liner since the fall of Lenster. If he didn't show sufficient interest in or appreciation for this fine, fine A-list woman, it could be part of a much broader anhedonia and lack of interest in anything not geopolitical. [This appears to be where Tara Palace is coming from.]

3) He does say Briggid was beautiful. Twice. So apparently back in Gen 1 days, before all the bad shit went down, he at least took note of A-list women. (This is not the place to discuss prevailing tastes in Jugdral).

In conclusion, this "interesting piece of characterization" is more than sufficient to run with in terms of fanfiction and the like, not to mention for semi-humorous meta, but I'd be leery of waving it as "canon gay" in a dead-serious, case-closed sense. (Though it would be a hell of a lot more significant in terms of overall FE canon than Robin'n'Grey or Dadga'n'Marty!) And these essays are nothing if not SRS BZNS, which is why I'm dragging my feet over the all-important issue of Ike, Soren, Heather, Tibarn'nReyson, and the rest of the Tellius crew.

But if you ask me when I've got my personal preference hat on and not my SRS BZNS, defense-of-canon hat on, I'm gonna invoke the ghost of Potter Stewart and say "Yup. Gay." And then ship him with Lachesis and/or Briggid anyway because I like trainwrecks and boy howdy do those go off the rails.

Comments

[xenosynth]

Hrm... my thoughts are mixed if only because I hate assuming things myself. That's probably why I don't write fics that often with characters from a series, I don't like making any assumptions without word of from the author on my side (Unless it's a parody). That said, when it comes to identifying orientation, it's a bit of a mix. I don't think too many people are good at discerning 'gay' and 'straight' with people as per your rule 3, given that I've had quite a few friends think that I am gay, for different reasons such as me avoiding things like 'spin the bottle' at a party that was mostly female, and like the 4 friends of mine from anime club that thought it was weird I didn't want to read some doujin at a friend's house or thinking 'fanservice' and 'moe' were stupid. Not to mention even my sociology teacher had at ask given that on our 'gender/value association' I scored most points in effeminate, 2nd in neutral, and 3rd in masculine, and am apparently one of the only male students she had do that at this school >_>;. It always really bothered me. Then again the same group from the anime club that I was sort of dragged into would also try to use the same criteria on teachers and stuff and it was really weird, even married teachers, so I wouldn't consider them a valid source of judgement. Even moreso it weird me out that someone would do that to people in real life, with a fictional character it's one thing, but playing guessing games with someone's orientation in real life is sort of weird to me, I mean... it seems a bit arrogant and inconsiderate to take someone you've only known for minutes and classify things about them you really can only learn from them.

What is considered 'gay' really I think does depend on which society and norms you are trying to compare them to. I don't know, even in Fire Emblem I don't really do the romance thing, I just tend to pair whoever seems... canon? Which is a bit hard given we aren't really given canon, but the game does tend to hint at things (Eliwood/Ninian, etc.) Though I haven't played much outside the 6/7/8/9 games. I just haven't really had fun with the other games, I don't quite know why but I only can play one chapter before getting bored now xD; Though I will admit the Finn thing seems pretty legit. From those games the only non-het characters I can think of (And I haven't played them in forever so their might be more) were... Ike and Soren and Lucius and Raven, I think.

All in all this might just be a side effect of me finding shipping in general weird xD;

[mark_asphodel]

That's probably why I don't write fics that often with characters from a series, I don't like making any assumptions without word of from the author on my side

Yeah, but the entire point of this essay series of mine is to determine what the canon text actually says about character sexuality and what the franchise norms are. So, when canon throws in something like Grey drinking himself to death over the loss of his BFF Robin, or Florina saying "I love you!" to Lyn, what weight do we give that? Do fans, intentionally or unconsciously, minimize same-sex content in the games because it doesn't "fit" assumptions that all characters default to heterosexual? Do we require a different standard of proof for gay and lesbian relationships in canon than we do for het, kicking aside the actual words the authors provide us because of our preconceived ideas like "Ike can't be gay"?

All that stuff ended up in the games because somebody put it there; it's not like analyzing a real person because these are intentional fictional constructs. They may be sloppy or inconsistent or retconned, but somebody made them.

it seems a bit arrogant and inconsiderate to take someone you've only known for minutes and classify things about them you really can only learn from them.

People do that in every interaction, whether intentionally or not. And depending on the line of work you're in, your job or safety may depend on how well you can do it.

I just tend to pair whoever seems... canon?

Well, that's precisely the question we're working on here. What is canon and where does it stand? And I think the evidence is pretty clear that there's same-sex canon content, or at least same-sex canon implications, beginning with the second game in the series and indisputably by the fifth. Which makes the current game with its "Everybody's Het!" marriage mechanic wherein the self-insert can sleep with a dragon loli and the shota mage can make a baby with a bunny woman strikingly regressive.

But that's the point I'm leading up to with these essays. I just want my groundwork in order.

[xenosynth]

Hrm.. you have a very good point. Romantic subtexts whether het or otherwise are not something I pick up on well, but I do see your point. But at the same time I don't really know what makes a person gay or not. I see sometimes what I see as two men or women being best friends as suddenly being perceived as a sexual love, and I don't understand that. At other times I see a pairing where others are like "O_o they are just friends." So I don't know where to really draw the line on what means what. I mean, I have friends in real life who are homosexual, and I never would have known until they told me, and even afterwards I don't really see what makes them any different from me or anyone else other than their choice in who their partner is.

As for the judging with real people, yes and no. I still don't think it's necessarily fair to the person though especially since assuming a sexuality or race shouldn't change how you treat a person, nor should THAT interfere with a job or not. Iono, I just don't like making assumptions like that on people, and if I do I chastise myself for it.

As for the newest game I haven't paid it too much attention however if it's picked up on the same annoying trend as Agarest then ugh. That is a regression ~_~ The whole loli/shota pairing in games is a bit disturbing and quite a few strategy RPGs with dating sim elements do it, as the aforementioned Agarest, using excuses like their race to say they are older than they are, which is an obvious cop out when it's apparent that it is done for fanservice reasons.

[amielleon]

Last year I was with some dormmates. We were taking the public transpo to see a show. A young guy got on the bus: black, dreadlocks, hoodie, moving around like you wanted to give him some space. I told myself, don't judge this guy. Dreadlocks are good for African hair and hoodies are warm, you wear them yourself.

A few minutes later, he attempted to steal a dormmate's purse. Fortunately her boyfriend had his eye out, and fended him off.

I'm not telling you this to say that all black guys with dreadlocks and hoodies and big movements are thieves. I'm saying that we make snap judgments, we are able to make snap judgments because we and our ancestors needed them to operate, and sometimes they really do protect us. Though there are reasons to attempt to change it, our instinct is intelligent and should not be dismissed out of hand. Many times they pick up trends that are difficult to put into words.

[lyndis]

Do we require a different standard of proof for gay and lesbian relationships in canon than we do for het

That's actually a really good question. I mean, think about things in our daily life:

How many men say "I love you", or "Love you", or even the word "love" to their friends, even really close friends? Even when they do, it's more of an, "I love you, man/bro/son" type of a thing, and only under, it seems, certain conditions (wedding, they almost died, a close friend died, etc).

Whereas with women, I hear them say it all of the time. Even online, tons of "ilu" and "ilu2" fly all over the place between women, and sometimes it means very little, sometimes it means something completely legit. I mean, I love my friends and I'll tell them this now and then, but I never mean anything beyond, "I love you like a friend" to them. Whereas if a dude says he loves someone, male or female, it's looked upon as automatically being a declaration of romantic interest. Hum.

It definitely makes you think, though. I think FE is too loose to determine either way (for the most part) what characters are gay, bi, or het, as there isn't enough canon evidence on any side to really determine it. Let's not forget about the asexual people, either! Or the asexual-bi/asexual-het/asexual-gay people, because they can be divided into those categories, too. ;)

I do feel that IkeSoren has the most canonical evidence of any of the games I've personally played, because they have a close bond already that, from the start, never really read to me as "just pals". Maybe because of the way they talk to one another, or the codependency going on. I'd have to replay to get concrete evidence sadly. But I think for most characters, let's use Guy for example, they just don't have enough background info or supports with other characters, that might make them look as if they lean one way or the other. I mean, Wil and Rath, for example: is that a pairing? I think it COULD be. But maybe Rath just needs a friend, because as it stands, it seems he's never actually had one. Would he even be READY for a relationship? And he does have a canon daughter, so that's where things get sticky. Maybe he's just bi. We don't know. It's really hard to say based on what little information we have. But I think it's safe to say it could go either way, I mean, why not? But we can't say with 100% accuracy, yeah he's straight, or yeah he's gay. Because maybe he's actually asexual and only had a kid to reproduce in the first place/carry on the family line or something. /shrug

[amielleon]

Very true about it changing across gender lines. If two girls hold hands, they could just be cutesy. If two guys hold hands, they're GAAAAAAAY and we should all start barfing rainbows.

[mark_asphodel]

Whereas with women, I hear them say it all of the time.

I guess it's just me, but I don't say that IRL to anyone outside of immediate family, my best friend from high school, and my cats.

But I do think in evaluating media, it helps to take into account the societal norms where something was produced. Some societies aren't as averse to male displays of affection. Hand gestures and body language can mean different things. I remember back in the day in Gundam Wing fandom, once scene in Endless Waltz was taken as "evidence" that one character was raping another (on a habitual basis, I mean), when in reality it was apparently just some very straightforward superior/inferior bodily contact meant to put the "uke" in his place but without any sexual connotation. Meanwhile, a manga illustration of Sailormars and Sailorvenus on a bicycle was interpreted by Western fans to mean OMG Lesbians! when the intent simply wasn't there. It was two friends tooling around on a bike.

So when Florina says "I love you!" I'm evaluating it not in the sense of my girlfriends who say ILU on a regular basis (not that I have RL friends who say any such thing) but in terms of this being in Fire Emblem, a game franchise in which "I love you" don't come up all that often.

OTOH, what does she say in Japanese?

But we can't say with 100% accuracy, yeah he's straight, or yeah he's gay. Because maybe he's actually asexual and only had a kid to reproduce in the first place/carry on the family line or something. /shrug

Yeah, pretty much. You could even make a whole headcanon mess about Sacaean sexual and gender norms to explain it all!

I think FE is too loose to determine either way (for the most part) what characters are gay, bi, or het, as there isn't enough canon evidence on any side to really determine it. Let's not forget about the asexual people, either!

Especially for the early games (outside of FE4). There's just nothing to go on.

[lyndis]

OTOH, what does she say in Japanese?

Good question. I'm honestly not sure!

Also, I totally see what you mean. The L word doesn't come up hardly at all, so for it to be used at all is probably indicative of something.

[amielleon]

[フロリーナ] (中央右)
ありがとう！
大好きよ、リン！！▼ <--- this is the line in question

[フロリーナ] (中央左)
・・・じゃなくって
リンディスさま！▼

She says "daisuki," literally "like a lot" -- you can use it for ice cream and rock stars -- but I'd say "daisuki" is the most frequently used word used for romantic confessions. Granted, I don't know Japanese well enough to remark on if this is a normal thing for sweet little girls to say to their beloved slightly more mature female mentors --

wow that sounds sexual, actually. (I seem to recall that that particular dynamic is a Thing, sort of like a female pederasty thing I guess? but magically more innocent or something. You see it a lot in boarding school anime with lesbians.)

[mark_asphodel]

I seem to recall that that particular dynamic is a Thing, sort of like a female pederasty thing I guess? but magically more innocent or something. You see it a lot in boarding school anime with lesbians.

Yes.

And I figured it was "daisuki," because IIRC only in fanfic-land are characters throwing around aishiteru like Hawaiian tourists abusing "aloha."

[amielleon]

Quite correct. Even when "ai" is used, it's often not said to their face. The manga I'm working on has the same dude saying "suki" and mentally monologuing "ai".

Hilariously enough, Marty is "ai".

[mark_asphodel]

Hilariously enough, Marty is "ai".

He's the joke character that keeps. On. Giving.