#It's a crime how underutilised it the lol-lore route Nabateans are

[randomnameless]

Beating a dead horse but seeing a post this morning (and an earlier fanart) made me think about it -

In good or in Bad, Nopes has characters mentionning how having a crest makes them “monsters” (in good it’s when Miklan supports someone and calls them super rad, in BaD it’s when Uncle Rufus insults Dimitri).

But it’s also, more or less, the same thing happening in the Momo paralogue - we have mentions of how Momo was “turned into a beast” due to his Crest power :(

We also the biggest fuck you - if the player knows everything about the lore though, where Marianne goes :

The Wandering Beast's eviscerated body... Only human bones and this sword remaining.

This “sword” is also a bone, but not a human one so we don’t give a fuck?

Anyways, more about the inital point to make : 

Many times in the Fodlan games’ script, we see the association that Crusts or Relics make people “monsters” and not “humans”.

And while we can muse and legit angst about the crested humans who are basically “insulted” because of their blood, what about Nabateans themselves?

In a verse where Supreme Leader and the Mole People keep on calling them beasts/creatures/other beings without “humanity” or capable of “human feelings”, how do they react to someone, maybe Miklan meaning it as a praise, calling a crested peep a “monster”?

Nabateans have crests, of course, and aren’t humans. Does this automatically make them monsters? Can’t they coexist with humans or even live with them, because they are “monsters” and not “humans”?

Are they still “monsters” when they are the one who look after humans abandoned by their own kin ?

Marianne ultimately goes :

The blood of a beast no longer flows through me. I feel human for once.

But what should Flayn or Seteth (or even Billy) think about this line? What does it mean to “feel” human? Seteth is a “beast” but writes fables for children, are his feelings “human”?

They are not bio-humans, so are their feelings automatically “not human”? Or something that is removed or cannot be understood by “humanity”?

(this reminds me of something in a certain route...)

Of course a positive point can be inferred from Marianne’s paralogue, who says this last line after having put an end to Momo’s sorry life who uwu “suffered for his murderous past” (nothing about Jack the Nabatean of course, it’s not like the games give a fuck about them, nor like Marianne reacts to Rhea’s infodump about her shiny sword and Momo’s sin) - was Momo a beast because of his “murderous past” and not because of his appearance/nature ? 

I’d love to believe it...

But FE16 reminds us that Miklan “turned into a beast” after using the Relic - or at least that’s what we’re told. Miklan was still “human” when he did his thief things, pillages and, in FE16, seduced women - but the second he transformed that’s when he became “a beast”.

We know how transformation in a demonic beast happens - when a human holds a crest stone or uses a relic - but in a way, Rhea’s lies also made sense : transforming in a black beast is a sort of punishment because the human who transforms, naturally, aka not Waldified, was in both instances we see, someone who was already a “monster”, albeit not biologically, but someone who killed/pillaged/did bandit things.

Something like “you act as a monster, then your body shall reflect it”.

Tldr : in a game where there are non-humans, what does it mean to be human? When so many characters angst about not being “humans” due to crests and whatnot, why does it matter at the end of the day?

Yes, Flayn is not human, but she has more compassion than the entire cast reunited given how she “died” to heal everyone once. Is she a monster because - assuming she has one - she can enter a bestial form, even if she has “human” feelings ?

Imagine Marianne or Claude telling a Nabatean, like Seteth, Momo turned into a Monster because of over usage of his relic, and Seteth being in a better game, reacting with something like “Maurice became a monster the day he participed in the genocide of a tribe of people living in mountains, feasted on their corpses and descrated them to craft a weapon, regardless of his outer appearance”.

No wonder after 1000 years of humans angsting about “no i have a crest i am not a human i am a monster :( :( :(” Rhea was afraid Billy would reject her after knowing she is not a human, having witnessed her “other form”.

And again, sure, Dimitri, Uncle Rufus, Miklan and the student cast (save for maybe Claude but the “humanity” nonsense was added by Pat) don’t know about Nabateans or the fact there are “non-humans” living with them, but Doylist wise, we’re still playing a game where Nabateans are “othered” and treated like “abominations” for the sin of not being humans, and humans feeling like “monsters” for having nabatean blood... and Nabateans themselves are never allowed to react to this.

As cute as Flayn’s supports with Dimitri were, we don’t have something where Flayn tries to ask him - in a roundabout way - if he would still be her friend if he knew she was not human but a “beast” (and Dimitri laughing at her because come on, Flayn, being a beast/monster? and then what, she roars? Monsters are people who slaughter others and love violence, even if she was made of, say, sugar cubes, or could transform in a giant wolf, she’d never be a monster!). 

Is it because of Earl Grey, or because this question trumps everything about “we want to tell a story about a 3 way war” and makes everything else pointless?