#like hdsjhgh idk where that even started but .. girl he's francophone

[softrockstar]

An Analysis on the Ethnic Coding of Petra [Fire Emblem Three Houses]

So Fire Emblem Three Houses is officially one month old now and since that time, I’ve been taking notes on anything Petra, Brigid, Shamir or Dagda related on most of my playthroughs because I’m genuinely curious as to what their real world counterparts are meant to be. And finally I have come to the conclusion that the countries of Brigid and Dagda are based off pre-Columbian Caribbean/Latin America making it plausible to conclude that both Petra and Shamir are Indigenous Latina coded!! Below the cut I have compiled all the references I noticed either from research or just from personal knowledge of mine because I thought some of y’all would interested in this since it hasn’t been talked about as far as I know.

(BEWARE OF MINOR SPOILERS)

First thing’s first, I wanted to point out that although the Adrestrian Empire is heavily based off Germany, it also has Iberian themes (most notably names (see Mercedes and Manuela) and geography.) This connects with the fact that Adrestria is the only known country in Fódlan to have had direct contact with Brigid/Dagda so in the real world, this would be Spanish/Portuguese contact with the Caribbean/Latin America

Attire

Pre-timeskip, Petra’s design doesn’t speak much about her homeland. She wears a standard uniform where the only notable difference between her and the other students are her tan complexion, braided hair and of course, her iconic tattoo on her cheek. Post-timeskip, however, we get much more insight on what Brigid culture is like since she does explain that sometime during the five years Byleth was gone, she returned to Brigid. (albeit, for a short amount of time) This is where we finally get a good taste of Brigid culture and makes it way easier to point out the references between her attire and the real world inspirations it takes.

[just a disclaimer, but none of Petra’s canon classes (Thief, Assassin and Wyvern Rider) really incorporate its way into her war attire with the exception of the one legged leggings and garter from the generic female thief outfit]

From my personal knowledge on the topic, I noticed that Petra’s outfit takes a lot of inspiration from the Kuna people of Panama and Colombia, most notably her jewelry, the patterns and the colour palette.

[most Incan armour were made out of metals and her shoulder guard/chest plate seem to be made out of leather (noted by the seams/colour) so in the image above I was mainly pointing out the theme of fringe/tassels]

The persistent theme of gold accessories in her outfit is reminiscent of many different ancient Latin American civilizations valuing gold so much.

Beliefs

Petra establishes early on that she doesn’t really believe in the Church of Seiros (same for Shamir) and instead explains in Brigid, they believe every living thing has a spirit within. In her C-Support with Byleth, she explains the origin of her tattoo as a prayer to the forest spirits to protect her.

In many Latin American/Caribbean cultures, there are forest spirits referred to as duendes and are to help guide lost people out of the forest.

Once Byleth’s hair changes colour, Petra acknowledges it and gives insight on more of Brigid’s spiritual beliefs.

Hair is very sacred in many Indigenous cultures. It’s believed that if your hair were to change colours naturally, you were enlightened by a god which coincides well with Petra’s reaction to Byleth’s new appearance.

Geography

Brigid is an archipelago with a tropical climate and is located to the southwest of Fódlan (Europe) so it should go without saying much that the location of Brigid is based off the West Indies/Caribbean and Central America.

However something that should be noted is that Brigid and Dagda are very closely tied together, sharing parts of their cultures. Dagda’s real world counterpart is very vague to say the least since Shamir doesn’t share much about it but going off the in-game description of a tomato and a paragraph from one of the books in the library, it’s safe to say that Dagda is most likely supposed to be South America.

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And that’s that on that! I’m sure there’s many things that I’ve missed (such as the significance of Petra’s braids, more on spirits that Petra mentions, Shamir’s animal bone dice, etc.) but for now that’s all I can gather accurate information on. Maybe in the future I will make some edits to this but for now I’m satisfied with the result.

Thank you for coming to my TED Talk!!