#as always other zofians can feel free to chime in )

[vaalkyrja-blog]

// Meta-a-day: tell me about how Zofian nobles show off their wealth, and aside from lineage, what other factors separate the nobles from the commoners?

ooc.

zofian displays of wealth

as much as the game tells us that zofia is across the board known for its leisure and plenty, and never having to work hard for anything, i think that this image actually is only perpetuated by the nobility. it’s clear in-game that the peasantry still works hard; alm talks about being handy with a plow, and those sheep in ram village aren’t going to milk themselves. even if mila provides a lot of bounty, it still takes human effort to actually obtain it by sowing crops, reaping harvest, etc. i don’t think that the hard-working villagers are only a product of the famine that’s been going on for two years by SoV — someone still has to farm, even in golden era times.

as a result, though, i think that zofian wealth display goes hand in hand with the idea of not working, because this helps to uphold the traditionally ‘zofian’ image of mila’s bounty. among the nobility, leisure pastimes are huge, and as much a presentation as they are an actual pastime. 

hunting for sport. zofian nobility often own vast amounts of privatized land ( clive and his four villas lmao ) and with that comes a lot of private hunting grounds that people do get jailed and fined for trespassing on, or hunting within. the game there is supposed to be solely for said nobleman’s use. though different nobles enjoying sport hunting to varying degrees, you’d be hard-pressed to find nobility that doesn’t own hunting dogs. breed and pedigree matter a lot here, and the dogs themselves are a symbol of wealth. more on that later.

sports such as dressage, pedigree showings, and horse races are also common in zofia among the upper class. in fact, i vaguely headcanon that dressage is one of the only ways that noblewomen are permitted to engage with horses beyond a purely aesthetic level, though it’s still considered a little strange. dog and cat shows are also common, and nobility who participate in these sports go a long way to not only make sure that the animal performs well, but also looks good; fortunes are spent on trappings and outfittings, and all sorts of fancy tools. there are books upon books on the subject. a lot of wealth display in zofia is centered around the idea of ‘how much money can i spend on stuff that isn’t  necessary to show that i don’t care about spending’.

on that note, certain animals are only owned by nobility — purebred dogs, for example, and horses. though horses certainly exist in villages and among commoners, they’re often very noticeably workhorses, and especially in villages, they don’t tend to belong to one specific person, since the upkeep for even one horse is very costly. nobility is often recognizable for owning fine horses of good lineage, and owning a lot of them, hence fernand: “i mounted my finest destrier and sped here as quickly as i could.” 

very importantly, only nobility are permitted to own warhorses of any kind; trainers are not permitted to sell horses bred and trained for anything related to battle to someone without the proper papers. this is to make sure that only nobility are able to become knights, which is something the game mentions. as a result, nobility are often depicted in portraits alongside a favored animal — often their finest hunting dog. the animal itself is an indicator of wealth and class.

i also have been thinking about how prior to the war, there was likely a holiday that the zofian nobility ( and to an extent, the middle-upper class ) celebrate which involves deliberate wastefulness. they’d gather together a bunch of stuff, the better quality the better, and burn it — clothing, food, silverware, etc. the point of it is to show that you’re so wealthy that you don’t even consider losing these things to be anything worth caring about. people noticed whichever house amassed the most things. it’s obvious why this was only done amidst the upper echelon, but the practice dwindled when mila left and the famine hit, and has probably since been dropped completely after the war as the nobility began to understand what it is to want for something.

wealth, of course, among the nobility, also manifests not only financially, but also as political power. the two are often directly correlated, but not always, and depends a lot more on influence and connections, as well as other forms of socio-economic monopoly. you can have a family that’s very wealthy financially, but if they don’t have assets or investments in the right places, they might not have a lot of political clout or leverage with which to sway the king. in some ways, political wealth matters more than financial wealth, and of course this is where the court games come into play.

difference between nobility vs. commoners

aside from the obvious blood lineage, there’s a whole lot that separates zofian nobility from commoners; in fact, they pretty much run in two entirely different spheres, and culturally they can even be vastly different. python points towards this incredibly wide gap when he says to clive that people born and raised in nobility just can’t ever hope to understand commoners, and vice versa, no matter how open-minded and egalitarian they might be. the lifestyles are just so vastly different.

one of the biggest cultural differences i think comes in the form of speech. it’s easy to see in the game, even, where that comes in — clair’s way of talking is an exaggerated form of noble rhetoric, but i think it’s actually what’s common in the circles she runs in. we should keep in mind that clive, mathilda, and fernand are nobles too, but in many ways they’re quite different from regular nobility. at the very least, they’ve been in the deliverance for this long, and have adapted their mannerisms to appeal to a wider audience. speech in the higher circles isn’t so much about what you’re saying as it is about how you’re saying it, and clair’s ‘fancy’ words and habit of speaking in third person and addressing others by epithets are likely a lot more emblematic of how the average zofian noble talks in court and at other social engagements.

class lines in zofia are also heavily drawn on the urban vs. rural line, as well; though nobles are decentralized around parts of zofia, urban areas tend to build up around noble places of residence — because of the heavy need for manpower within each house ( servants, etc. ), it’s natural that communities tend to form around the seat of nobility in each region. additionally, all high nobility have residences in the castle city around zofia castle ( which……is unnamed bc intsys likes to make my life hard idk, but is presumably the capital ) in order to attend court when it’s in session and also to just stay in the know. 

because of these aspects, nobility tends to be associated with urban lifestyles and culture, while commoners are associated with rural life. dialects are probably different as a result; nobility probably all speak relatively similarly, probably an ‘urban dialect’ with minor variations, while rural dialects can vary drastically, and what’s spoken near the mountain ranges probably sounds very different from what’s spoken elsewhere, etc. this is also why i think lukas gets so much flack for being “backwater nobility” — removed from metropolitan life and therefore uncultured, very literally situated amongst the commoners because of real, geographic location.

i also think that nobility and commoners probably view the mila faith differently and worship the zofian religion in different ways, actually. again, the game depicts zofians are being decadent and depraved, but realistically this probably only applies to nobility, or people who can afford to be decadent and wasteful. the mila faith among the upper classes tends to be about celebrating mila’s blessings with pleasure and leisure, because this is historically what mila wanted them to have — to lead lives of comfort and happiness. in this way, their worship verges more on what we see in SoV’s opening sequence, with wine and dancing and excessive food and riches. it’s all about just basking in decadence because you can, because this is what mila wanted for us. in this way, their faith much resembles dionysian worship practices.

in contrast, i think among the commoners, the focus is a lot more on being grateful for mila’s bounty and plenty, particularly focused around the harvest. there’s still a lot of food and drink and celebration, but it’s less about overindulgence and leisure and more about being grateful for what you have, sort of like the idea around thanksgiving. 

as mentioned before as well, only nobility are permitted to enter the knighthood, and i think traditionally, nobility are also the only ones allowed to assume high-ranking leadership positions in the military. there’s probably been more wiggle room for this over time, though, and there have definitely been cases where commoners have risen to become celebrated military leaders ( i’ll talk later about how i headcanon how mathilda’s house was one of these waaayy back in the day ), but this is still a rare occurrence, and the knighthood is still restricted to those ( men, usually ) of noble birth. this is why mycen had to be formally made a count by the king himself in order to be granted knighthood, though i think such an occurrence is very rare and — as fernand shows us — definitely looked down upon for not being traditional nobility by lineage.