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valeriefauxnom · 1 year ago

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How Euden Was Primed To Have Identity Crises Even Before Nedrick (Or: Yet Another Very Long Analysis As To Why Euden Is More Messed Up Than He Appears)

Did you know that the whole plot point of Euden not being the actual 7th scion was decided by Okada? Yeah. Make of that what you will that that one decision impacted the whole trajectory of the story, but I'm sure to many it helps explain the transition from a more typical story about royal family infighting and rescuing siblings from demonic possession to identity crises and fighting God(s).

Surprisingly enough, though, I'd argue that Euden would be in hot water whether or not he was the 'real' 7th scion or not!

The very long and short of it ties back to my long dives here on Tumblr which explored just how ridiculously self sacrificial Euden is and how his behavior is a problem, but in this analysis I'm going to narrow in on another of his problems under the giant self sacrifice umbrella he is constantly lugging about.

As the title says, I'm going to be looking at how Euden might have had an incoming identity crisis even before Nedrick popped in to say 'hi' even if he did kickstart it in the worst way possible.

First, I'd like to establish Euden's complete lack of 'selfish' motives. Everything he does or wants tends to trail back for others.

It's started even before canon: Euden only knows how to play piano was because his father made him take lessons, eventually he decided to continue just so he wouldn't disappoint King Dad (read: Aurelius, in contrast to King Dork, Alberius, in a set of nicknames me and WillOfWinnie maintain for the fam).

He seems more personally invested in practicing the violin but maintains his study of piano just to please his father.

Then there's the very start of the game, in which he only really struck out because Aurelius and the kingdom needed him to. Personally, he wasn't interested in pacting (as he is trying to remain nonthreatening to his siblings, capitulating to their supposed 'desires' of their security) or gaining the right to the throne, but he set out regardless.

Other than that I really just have to wave vaguely to all his motives throughout the entire game+side stories. Despite how he frames them all as 'selfish' they aren't actually serving him beyond emotional fulfillment in that he thinks it's the right thing to do and make him feel good.

Forming a kingdom and establishing himself as leader? That's to protect the people fleeing the empire and establishing order instead of a quick power grab. He's a very passive ruler when it comes to ruling via traditional means and mostly seems to run the Halidom in a 'don't cause too many problems or else you'll end up in my therapy class' philosophy.

Rescuing Zethia? Well, there's... many reasons for that, not least of which freeing her and thus the people from the Other's tyranny, which is another of his goals that are for the people instead of him. Besides, one of his base form's lines is: "I've grieved and grown with Zethia. She needs me." Keep that last bit in mind...

This gets pointed out in Luca's dialogue nearly verbatim in 18:

This leads to the second point of my overall argument: Euden has few things he then can characterize himself with. Most people have some sort of individual dream or trait they view as intrinsic to them. Whether it's 'I want to be the best x ever' or 'I'm very x, personality wise' we have certain markers, no matter of how well conscious they are to our actual behavior, that we use to try and keep in touch with ourselves.

But Euden's goals, so wrapped up in other people and for other people means he's lacking some of the common methods people use to define and drive themselves. Combine that with his surprisingly low self esteem I've also addressed, Euden doesn't really seem to have many of the typical means to keep in touch with himself.

So, how does Euden keep track of who Euden is and what Euden should do?

What all these other people think of him and his actions. And other people in general.

What's one of the first things to start getting to him in his hallucination?

What's the reason he's trying to stay strong for even after everyone abandons him in his hallucination? That's right: other people, instead of any of his own real drives. He can't let other people's hopes and dreams go to waste.

"Now wait a minute," you, the hypothetical viewer I am creating to discuss with in my head as if this were a Socratic circle, say, "This is from chapter 18, after Nedrick popped up. His identity crisis was already in bloom there."

Yes, but for a big point to demonstrate that this is not a recent insecurity or tendency brought up as Nedrick reemerged, look to chapter 13 before that whole plotline. This is not a recent development, and the 'title drop' moment of this analysis: even before Nedrick, Euden has a pattern of behavior and way of thinking that set him up for identity crises because he has no strong foundation of self that's not tied to others.

"Ed" Beren why did you choose 'Ed' as a fake name instantly identified this weak spot in Euden's mind to start prodding at it.

I think it's relatively fair to say a decent chunk of people's initial response to being told they were not needed would be a feeling of indignation and sadness, depending on how close they were. Euden's?

One could argue that this is a form of indignation, 'prove them wrong', but notably any of the standard 'ha! I am needed, loser' anger-driven vehemence to protect one's self esteem isn't there. He's trying to prove his usefulness...to live up to his family and his duty to serve. Again, external things he has imposed on himself. It isn't out of vengeance to prove himself to get back at whoever the rude person is, it's an attempt to make others realize he still has a use to them.

Beren, keen as ever, notices this weakness in turn, that the big chunk of his indignation is to prove the worthiness of his dragonblood and as prince and prods that.

The essence of this conversation boils down to Euden admitting that he derives a great deal of his own self-worth, goals, and general identity from others. They are what keep him tethered.

What pride he takes in himself more comes from things like possessing the legacy of dragonblood: he feels the need to live up to Alberius' and Aurelius' legacies. That others need him. Remember his ardent claim earlier how 'Zethia needs [him]?' While it by itself more broadly fits into the slow quest people gradually undertook in Dragalia to get the two of them more independent and less mutually overprotective, it also is an example of how he's anchoring himself to what others need instead of himself.

He derives identity on what others ascribe to him: 7th scion, son of Aurelius, dragonblood, Prince... these traits are what give him that framework to define his life around. He needs to practice the sword to be strong, to then fulfill his duties as prince, so on and so forth, etc.

It's a big chunk of the reason why Nedrick's revelation hits him so hard. I've seen some people misunderstand (at least, in my book) that Euden's unhinged reaction to Nedrick's claims is because he believes shared blood is the ultimate determinate of family and that he's just really upset that he thinks now all the time spent growing up was meaningless. No, he seems perfectly fine accepting others of atypical family structures.

What was really getting him, aside from the whole 'core facts of your life have been lies', is that so much of what he's tied together- this duty, most everything he's done in the past year+, -is falling apart. Euden himself essentially calls up this whole issue in the moment:

"Who am I" is suddenly now a valid question because the biggest traits he's used to characterize himself and guide his entire modus operandi has been ripped to shreds. It's the meaning behind what those labels meant to him that makes having them ripped away hurt that much more rather than the labels themselves causing the fit.

There it is again: Euden has a deep need to feel needed. And yes, most of us do to some degree, but I think and hope I've demonstrated in this post that he is a bit too dependent on this need to drive him. As Luca later hallucinates the genocide and complete destruction of his new village as what he fears, Euden's instead revolves around abandonment and being unneeded. And these run deep enough that Euden wasn't showing any sign of being able to break through on his own and likely would have died if not for Luca's intervention.

We also see this darkly demonstrated whenever Euden thinks he is truly alone. Even in as late canon as Bondforged Euden, he has this reaction to thinking every single person and dragon he fought for is dead:

All I can say here is that he's essentially (and possibly literally, I don't know) lying down, ready to let fiends maul him to death with no more struggle, which is...concerning. Before in the Ch.18 hallucination he was adamant about continuing because the others had their dreams...but now that they are 'dead' he's giving up life itself.

Even in Halloween Mym's fantasies, which are notably more closer to the core components of Euden's actual behavior (selflessness, deference to elder siblings, etc) now that she's had more time to get to know him, the vaguely southern, tough-but-sweet-on-the-inside orphan imagining of him immediately is ready to, guess what? Let himself be mauled to death by a fiend because he thinks Mym's dead and he sees no further point in living. I'm sensing a pattern with how Euden chooses to go out-

Ahem. Anyways, the point is that when Euden thinks his sources of motivation and those who need him, who gave him meaning are gone, he himself sees no more need to live either. While it certainly wasn't helped by Nedrick, this is an overall pattern to his motives and personality that existed before, too.

And it's a dangerous one in its own right, even aside from how it again falls under the 'selfless' umbrella that overhangs all his more specific problems. (Honestly, 'selfless' almost takes on its own meaning in this context, not in the sense of being willing to throw one's self onto the pyre for another, but in the sense he has no true internal drive to characterize himself. Maybe why Nedrick+Beren's no.1 go-to insult is calling him hollow? He 'rings hollow' to them and needs to find meaning and drive to fill the gap elsewhere).

Please do take this next bit with the tiniest grain of salt, as somebody who merely has taken an abnormal psych+a few other psych classes in college, but he almost seems to start showing shades of something not quite Borderline Personality Disorder or Dependent Personality Disorder. While I don't actually think he meets many/enough of the criteria for either one, nor am I wanting to play armchair psychologist and get on a whole 'x has y disorder!!!' thing some people do and unintentionally diminish the significance of what y disorder is to those who have it, he still has shades of what we would start to consider clinical degrees of dysfunction.

For the former, one of the big facets of BPD is the fear of abandonment. While, again, he doesn't show some of the other core traits like 'splitting', ie, having rapid mood swings of idealizing others and demonizing them the next, his frantic desperation to avoid abandonment lines up. So too is the tendency to feel 'lost' and 'empty', as well as his trouble identifying himself. Again, for every 1 thing that lines up well, 3 other things don't, but it still is an interesting connection, I think.

Dependent Personality Disorder also doesn't fit him for similarly many reasons. It shares the fear of abandonment, but Euden doesn't particularly struggle to decide what to do- he knows what he has to do to fulfill the duties his roles have placed on him- nor does he feel completely helpless without someone to 'take care' of him. As I've long discussed, he's more of the 'desperately seeking to take care of others' type. But it he does have other few shades, as his tendency to submit to other's wills and efforts not to aggravate them.

Again: this is not even worth 2 cents. It simply sets my eyebrows rising a bit when I linked up just how intense his behavior patterns are to concepts like the 4 D's and those disorders in my pattern-seeking monkey brain trying to hammer square pegs into round holes.

The 4 D's, as I recall, were a guideline in determining normal behaviors or quirks from actual, diagnosable, 'yep this is a Problem' disorders. They are Danger, Deviance, Distress, and Dysfunction. Danger is easy: is it dangerous to one's self or others? Deviance: is the behavior(s/thoughts/etc notably atypical compared to cultural standards? Distress, is the behavior causing marked distress in one's or other's lives? Dysfunction, does it markedly interfere with living a normal life or fulfilling one's daily tasks? I could see an argument for all 4.

I think what I intended by bringing this up is simply to stress just how disruptive his behaviors are. No, he does not have BPD (bipolar or borderline!), nor does he have DPD. But the fact he shares quite a few qualities that are considered atypical enough to be symptomatic is, again, a testament to how concerning and dangerous he would be in real life.

In any case, I really do need to wrap this up since I've danced around my points long enough. If you've suffered along for this long, especially combined with my other long dissections into what I believe is the hidden dark side of the moon to Euden's character, thank you. I hope you've found some of this interesting, at least!

#dragalia lost #dragalia #character analysis #dragalia analysis #You may not believe it but I do think about other things aside from Dragalia. I can just type very fast and like showing off sources haha #Anyways Euden is like those bodies of water that look still but are churning with swift currents underneath that trap and kill. to me.#These are also a way for me to record some assortments of discussions and Thoughts I've had with my best friend so I don't forget!#But I genuinely do hope you have found some interest or 'wow I forgot about x moment' in these!#In my defense for these unhinged analyses: I gotta upkeep my supposed renown keeping characters IC when writing!

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