#but i was SO FUCKING HAPPY when the subtext became text and it was revealed that he really was afraid of his CATHOLIC FAMILY'S reaction

[theotherpacman]

im gonna be honest i do not enjoy the Woke trend of fictional characters' families being, surprise! perfectly accepting of their queer identities. like a gay character is afraid to come out to their parents bc they think they won't accept them but after years of repression and lying and internal conflict they finally come out and the family is like "oh yeah it's ok idc." these gay bitches should have to have homophobic parents like the goddamn rest of us

this post is about guillermo de la cruz

[lucisevofficial]

Good GOD this was a lot longer than I expected it to be Here, have this character analysis/defense of Corrin, drawn from plot, DLC, support conversations, the drama CD, and a couple headcanons thrown in for fun. Enjoy?  @chikoriti @bitrockshooter @gyakusai 

As a disclaimer, I think a lot of the reason Corrin resonated with me on a personal level is that I’m a chronically indecisive (to a nigh-harmful extent), transgender child of divorced parents with four siblings of varying ages, two of which are sisters and two of which are brothers (not to say that Corrin is trans [unless that’s your thing {which is is mine}] but I related to the sort of rift between two identities and the game-wide theming of whether identity is forged through birth or action). 

So what I’m saying is that Corrin struck all the right notes to be incredibly relatable for me, personally, but I get that that’s pretty much a unique position that I’m in. So bear in mind that I came into Fates with a positive, open position on Corrin already, and that probably informed how I felt about them throughout the game. Okay? Okay.

[Actual confirmed canon is gonna be standard text, strongly implied story/subtext will be italicized]

EARLY LIFE

So let’s start at the beginning. Corrin was born in Valla to Mikoto and Anankos shortly before Anankos’ insane form ravaged the country. When Valla was destroyed, Mikoto and the infant Corrin fled, eventually making their way to Hoshido where Mikoto became Sumeragi’s queen consort (an important distinction because while she held the title, she held no actual power).

So right off the bat Corrin’s starting off on a rough foot – a displaced refugee from a ruined kingdom who was lied to from day one – only his mother, Sumeragi, and Ryoma knew he wasn’t blood-related and for some reason they elected to keep this a secret (likely because of the heavy Hoshidan focus on bloodlines and station of birth – no better way to reject a prince than to reveal he’s actually just some random kid. Corrin wasn’t a prince in Valla, he was the son of a commoner and the queen’s sister. And besides, Valla is in ruins – there’s nothing left to be a prince of.

As tensions between Nohr and Hoshido escalate, the pivotal event happens, where Garon murders Sumeragi and kidnaps Corrin. Corrin’s memory of anything prior to the attack is erased and Corrin is sealed away, locked in a tower in the Northern Fortress. Corrin was convinced that Garon is his true father and that the Nohrians are his true family. Even now, Corrin is consistently lied to – not just about his heritage, but about why he is imprisoned in the fortress – Garon claims it’s to protect him – that he’s too weak, and to venture outside the “magical barrier” of the fortress would invite certain death. This is a common abuse tactic – to insist that any limitations or manipulations are done for the victim’s own good, and that the abuser has their best interests in mind.

THE NORTHERN FORTRESS

And so Corrin begins life at the Northern Fortress – a life of isolation, suffering, and abuse at the hands of his so-called ‘family’. Supports with Gunter reveal how he is treated there, with particular attention being drawn to being starved and being physically abused (being whipped is the example given). On top of that he spends most of his time there alone, with only occasional visits from siblings.

Corrin’s only constant companions are his ‘retainers’, an entourage which includes two prisoners-of-war-turned-practically-slaves. Flora and Felicia were taken in as children to essentially be used as tokens to ensure the Ice Tribe’s submission to Garon’s rule. Flora clearly shows outright disdain not just for Corrin and the Nohrians, but even for her sister for treating Corrin kindly – Flora views any concessions to any Nohrians as turning traitor, despite the fact that they are in similar positions to Corrin themselves. All three are prisoners, not for their own acts but as bargaining chips in a grander political scheme.

Jakob, on the other hand, is pretty much the opposite of Felicia. He’s rude, unsociable, and often blunt to the point of needless cruelty (often making Felicia cry). According to supports, the only reason he softened his heart at all is because of the kindness Corrin showed him.

So these are Corrin’s companions for the majority of his life. (Doing a bit of number fudging, my guess is that Corrin lives in the Northern Fortress for around fifteen years? He’s kidnapped when Hinoka is seven, meaning he’s probably around five, and during the plot of Fates I’d guess he’s in the 17-20 age range). Other occasional visitors included Xander who trained him in swordplay; and Silas, who was very nearly executed for the crime of simply taking Corrin out of the fortress a single time, only being spared by Corrin’s own opposition to the execution. Silas was forbidden from ever returning and Corrin forgot entirely about him – about the only outsider who genuinely tried to be friends without being there by force.

Because it’s important to remember that Jakob, Flora, and Felicia were all there by force – they had no say in who they served. I’d have to imagine that wears on your social skills a bit, right? Like, your only friends are people who are FORCED to be your friends. How can you really get a sense for how people feel or act in a situation like that? Flora despises Corrin yet puts on a happy face and serves him with the utmost care and attention. Felicia does the same but truly loves him. Same results, vastly different motivations.

Some of the supports are kind of startling if you think about them – often they’re played as jokes, but they’re really telling of the sort of childhood Corrin had. Corrin’s life goals were to see things like “a town plaza”, a “street food stall”, and “bugs”. Imagine spending your entire adolescence in a single building, with only a handful of friends trapped there with you. It’s entirely likely Corrin’s missing a whole subset of normal skills and knowledge. Does he know what the ocean looks like? A forest? All he can see is the desolation of northern Nohr, so he only knows about the beauty in the world through stories and pictures.

ACTION ANALYSIS

And I think that childhood informs a lot of the rationale behind Corrin’s foolishness. It’s not just naïveté; I don’t think that’s a strong enough word. It’s aggressive ignorance. It’s the result of a childhood of abuse, manipulation, and isolation; of just as many lies from loved ones as from enemies. It’s the culmination of years of social deprivation and a fundamental lack of understanding of how humans interact, of the true nature of what humans do.

(I like to headcanon this is why Corrin is so quick to fall in love – anyone showing him genuine kindness and love without prompting is a marriage candidate in his mind, so unused to such affection is he.)

If I’m allowed to touch on some slightly-outside-game-canon stuff, remember that during this time the Concubine Wars were in full swing – Garon’s children were literally murdering each other while vying for power, to the point where the pool of candidates narrowed down to just four. Did Corrin have other siblings that visited him? Did those siblings just stop coming one day, vanishing forever without explanation? Did those siblings die at the hands of Xander or Camilla, both fearsome warriors with unmatched skill? It’s never really answered in canon, but it’s an easy assumption to make.

So you get a Corrin’s who’s just a fucking dumbass. An unapologetic, unreasonably ignorant fool who constantly thinks that every single person in the world has light and goodness in them. And in that sense, I fucking adore Corrin. I love him so much. I love that he’s a character who has endured all the worst the world has to offer – going from refugee to political prisoner, suffering abuse, starvation, all manner of intense cruelty, and yet he still believes in the good in everyone. Everyone has a chance for redemption, everyone has a shred of good in their soul that can be brought out through peaceful dialogue – even unrepentant bastards like Hans and Iago.

And I love that the game throws it back in his face. His belief in good gets him into a heap of trouble time and time and time again, but he refuses to stop believing people are good. And I love that so much. So many (male, especially) FE lords are characters whose arcs are essentially them learning that strength needs to be tempered with compassion – look at characters like Chrom, Ephraim, Hector, and Ike. Their characters usually start off as these rough-and-tumble rowdy boys, and they must slowly learn responsibility and kindness over the course of the game.

Corrin’s character arc is the opposite – he starts off believing in the good in everyone, showing compassion for everything from wounded animals to enemy soldiers to fucking monsters. It’s an attitude only a sheltered Disney prince could possibly have. He’s an avid reader, so he likely spent his childhood reading about grand heroes who solve problems neatly, who always save the day and get the girl. It’s not until he leaves the Northern Fortress that he learns that war is real, painful, violent, and never, ever happy. There are no happy endings to be found in Fates – each victory is a loss for someone else. Whichever route he chooses means a single, straight march of blood and death and violence that culminates in the murder of his siblings and the death of his father, the only father he has ever known.

Literally the first thing that happens when he leaves the fortress is that Garon hands him a sword and tells him to kill two unarmed prisoners. He of course chooses to spare them, leading to the plot of the game, where he is forced to confront the foolishness of his idealism time and time again – The death of his mother, Hans attacking the Hoshidan soldiers, the execution of the Chevois rebels, Iago slaughtering the townspeople in Shirasagi, etc.

One important note is the Zola subplot in Birthright – even after Zola tries to kill him, Corrin still believes Zola’s lies about wanting to assist him. And he’s betrayed, stabbed in the back again. But it doesn’t stop him from believing that people are good! No matter how many times it comes back to bite him. Essentially half the plot is ��sheltered dumbass doesn’t understand how war works, majorly fucks things up for everyone else”.

And remember that Corrin’s loyalty to his “father” isn’t unreasonable – even despite the cruelty he endures, he’s forever in pursuit of the praise and love of this man who he believes to be his father. This is fed into by Xander, who insists that “Garon wasn’t always like this.” Again, a common thread for abuse victims is for them to insist that it hasn’t always been that bad. In this case, Garon used to be a good man – the transition from man to monster was so gradual that it’s entirely understandable that Xander went along with it. Where is the line between strict king and tyrant? Nohr is a hard land, and austerity is necessary for survival. At what point did that austerity become cruelty?

So Corrin can scarcely even see the manipulation he endures – he sees Garon’s wickedness but is assured that it’s necessary. That father knows best. Nohr is strong, even if its people suffer, so Garon knows what it takes to rule. And Corrin accepts that – he hears his siblings talk Garon up so much, so Garon’s disdain for him must be a personal failure on his part. And he works desperately to rectify that and make his father proud.

META-GAME STUFF

I get people not relating to Corrin’s decisions, but I think Corrin isn’t meant to be as relatable as people think. I never really understood Corrin to be a self-insert as much as his own character, with thoughts, ideas, and motivations separate from the player. And I can see that being grating for people who are used to controlling an avatar, not a character. Even Robin is more of a mix of the two – think about all the decisions you make in Awakening compared to the single, all-important decision you make in Fates.

As for how incredibly Corrin-centric the game is, I do think that’s a bit of a misstep, but I think I get what they were going for. Take the Nohrian characters – even at their relatively young age, the older siblings are stained with blood: they are perpetrators of murders both on the battlefield and off. I think the obsession with Corrin comes from a view that Corrin is Nohr’s light – the last hope of goodness in a royal family wracked with pain, misery, and treachery. 

Corrin was in the Northern Fortress, free from the concubine wars and being trained as a soldier, so Corrin reached adulthood without getting blood on his hands – likely the only Nohrian royal other than Elise who did. Nohr is a dark land, ruled by dark, hateful people. It’s a land of famine and plagues, of bandits and monsters and murderers. Almost every single Nohrian character has a bloodstained past – except Corrin. Except this naïve little prince with his heart of solid fucking gold.

So I get everyone being obsessed with him – Xander seeing Corrin as a chance for Nohr’s rebirth into a kinder, gentler kingdom, and Camilla seeing Corrin as a precious treasure to be protected at all costs.

As for the Hoshidans, I think the drive comes from the honor-and-duty-bound nature of Hoshidan royalty. It’s heavily modeled on feudal Japan, and I think the loss of Corrin was seen as an immense, irredeemable failure. I love Hinoka with my whole heart, so let’s take a look at her – Corrin’s loss drove her into spiraling depression and then reckless, selfless heroism. She became a soldier at age seven, vowing to never again fail to the extent to which she failed Corrin.

Seven years old! And already such a strict, unbreakable sense of honor and pride. An entire life lived in pursuit of fixing a single mistake. And you see that elsewhere – Ryoma’s ritual suicide and Takumi’s possession being the result of his unending grief and abysmal self-image.

And again to touch on my own life experiences, I don’t think that’s unreasonable – having four siblings creates this sort of mob-mentality protectiveness. Any slight against a sibling is a slight against the whole family. Corrin is not just himself, but a symbol, and the focal point of the conflict between both the two nations and the two royal families (which are two separate but interlinked conflicts).

DRAGON BLOOD

The last thing I’m going to touch on is Corrin’s dragon heritage, because I think that’s an important facet that isn’t explicitly touched on a lot in the game.

Corrin is the first manakete lord in the series (which is fucking AWESOME I love shapeshifters and manaketes most of all), and is also the first time we really get to see a manakete’s early life unfold. Characters like Nowi, Tiki, Xane, Myrrh, etc, are all thousands of years old, despite their appearances. Corrin isn’t – he’s like twenty. He’s young and foolish – exhibiting the same foolish childishness as dragons like Xane, Nowi, and Young Tiki. Despite the burden of war on his shoulders, he likes to read books and play games and learn new things. Half of his my room dialogues are him inviting people into his treehouse to play games with him, after all!

But he’s also not human – there’s a disconnect between him and others, even if he doesn’t fully understand it. Everything, even his character design (pointed ears, reptile eyes, fangs, bare feet) puts him apart from “normal” humans, and with no explanation given to him, he’s likely left to assume that’s his own fault. That he’s a freak and a monster. Does he notice that when he’s in the Northern Fortress? Does he think that he was locked away because of his monstrous nature?

If we take Corrin to be a half-breed in the same sense of characters like Nah, then it’s likely he suffers the same problems that all manaketes do. The softly advancing madness, the uncontrollable destructive urges that he needs to balance with his own internal desire to be compassionate and kind. A desire to do good despite the ever-present sensation that he is not normal, nor is he even human.

Honestly I just think making him a dragon was an interesting narrative choice, but the details were all lost in the grand scope of the rest of the plot.

CONCLUSION

Okay this is finally wrapping up and I hope any of that made a goddamn lick of sense. I adore Corrin not just for what he is (his fantastic character design, his viability as a unit regardless of chosen class, etc) but for what he looks like in the grand scheme of the series. He’s a pretty unique lord, all things considered (not just because he’s a manakete) – he has a character arc that runs counter to many of the popular lords and in fact has more in common with characters like Eirika and Lyn, and I think we need that. This series in particular needs that.

At the risk of using a term like “softboy”, I adore that we have a both soft and monstrous protagonist – a half-breed, vicious monster who is defined chiefly by traditionally “feminine” traits (at least in the series history) – staunch pacifism, compassion to all, a belief that diplomacy comes before action.

I love that we have a character who overcomes a childhood of abuse and manipulation to be a fundamentally good person. We can see that Nohr twisted the royal siblings into monsters (again, barring Elise, who is Small) – Leo, Camilla, and Xander all say and do despicable things if you choose Birthright. And if you choose Conquest, they sit by and watch atrocities happen without intervening.

Corrin doesn’t stand for that. For him, everyone deserves happiness. Everyone deserves a second chance, and a third chance, and a fourth chance, and he would willingly let himself die rather than stop letting people try to be something better. And I just love this fucking idiot dragon so fucking much sajhfdkjasdf

Sorry this was so fucking long I have a lot of thoughts about Fates and when people trash Corrin I just *knife emoji*

Anyway I was listening to Mechanical Minds by Nordic Giants as I wrote this so I’m gonna drop in a relevant section of lyrics as my parting words:

More than cleverness, we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost.