#since shes present in all of them as (semi) important charas

[5-pp-man]

v intrigued by the 4th one so far. i love how its, once again, a completely different setting and time period than all the others

[meirmakesstuff]

1/2 Hi Meir! I saw your answer on WWC, and since you mentioned you're professionals, I figured I'd ask directly: I'm writing a second world fantasy with a jewish coded people. I want to be clear in the coding but avoid the "if there's no egypt, how can there be passover?" so I called them Canaanites. I thought I was being clever by hinting in the naming that the whole region does exist, but I've since read that it might've been a slur in fact? Do you have any advice on this?

2/2 I did consider calling the group in question Jewish, but aside from how deeply Judaism is connected to the history of the Israelites, I haven't used any present-day real-world names for any other group, (I did use some historic names like Nubia). I feel like calling only one group of people by their currently used name would be othering rather than inclusive? Or am I overthinking this?

Okay so I want to start out with some disclaimers, first that although WWC recently reblogged an addition of mine to one of their posts, I am not affiliated with @writingwithcolor​, and second that the nature of trying to answer a question like this is “two Jews, three opinions,” so what I have to say about this is my own opinion(s) only. Last disclaimer: this is a hard question to address, so this answer is going to be long. Buckle up.

First, I would say that you’re right to not label the group in question “Jewish” (I’ll get to the exception eventually), and you’re also right in realizing that you should not call them “Canaanites.” In Jewish scripture, Canaanites are the people we fought against, not ourselves, so that wouldn’t feel like representation but like assigning our identity to someone else, which is a particular kind of historical violence Jews continue to experience today. I’ll get back to the specific question of naming in a moment, but because this is my blog and not WWC, and you asked me to speak to this as an educator, we’re going to take a detour into Jewish history and literary structure before we get back to the question you actually asked.

To my mind there are three main ways to have Jews in second-world fantasy and they are:

People who practice in ways similar to modern real-world Jews, despite having developed in a different universe,

People who practice in ways similar to ancient Hebrews, because the things that changed us to modern Jewish practice didn’t occur, and

People who practice in a way that shows how your world would influence the development of a people who started out practicing like ancient Hebrews and have developed according to the world they’re in. 

The first one is what we see in @shiraglassman​‘s Mangoverse series: there is no Egypt yet her characters hold a seder; the country coded Persian seems to bear no relation to their observance of Purim, and there is no indication of exile or diaspora in the fact that Jews exist in multiple countries and cultures, and speak multiple languages including Yiddish, a language that developed through a mixture of Hebrew and German. Her characters’ observance lines up approximately with contemporary Reform Jewish expectations, without the indication of there ever having been a different practice to branch off from. She ignores the entire question of how Jews in her universe became what they are, and her books are lyrical and sweet and allow us to imagine the confidence that could belong to a Jewish people who weren’t always afraid.

Shira is able to pull this off, frankly, because her books are not lore-heavy. I say this without disrespect--Shira often refers to them as “fluffy”--but because the deeper you get into the background of your world and its development, the trickier this is going to be to justify, unless you’re just going to just parallel every historical development in Jewish History, including exile and diaspora across the various nations of your world, including occasional near-equal treatment and frequent persecution, infused with a longing for a homeland lost, or a homeland recently re-established in the absolutely most disappointing of ways.

Without that loss of homeland or a Mangoverse-style handwaving, we have the second and third options. In the second option, you could show your Jewish-coded culture having never been exiled from its homeland, living divided into tribes each with their own territory, still practicing animal, grain, and oil sacrifice at a single central Temple at the center of their nation, overseen by a tribe that lacks territory of their own and being supported by the sacrifices offered by the populace.

If you’re going to do that, research it very carefully. A lot of information about this period is drawn from scriptural and post-scriptural sources or from archaeological record, but there’s also a lot of Christian nonsense out there assigning weird meanings and motivations to it, because the Christian Bible takes place during this period and they chose to cast our practices from this time as evil and corrupt in order to magnify the goodness of their main character. In any portrayal of a Jewish-coded people it’s important to avoid making them corrupt, greedy, bigoted, bloodthirsty, or stubbornly unwilling to see some kind of greater or kinder truth about the world, but especially if you go with this version. 

The last option, my favorite but possibly the hardest to do, is to imagine how the people in the second option would develop given the influences of the world they’re in. Do you know why Chanukah is referred to as a “minor” holiday? The major holidays are the ones for which the Torah specifies that we “do not work:” Rosh Hashannah, Yom Kippur, and the pilgrimage holidays of Sukkot, Passover, and Shavuot. Chanukah developed as a holiday because the central temple, the one we made those pilgrimages to, was desecrated by the invading Assyrian Greeks and we drove them out and were able to re-establish the temple. That time. Eventually, the Temple was razed and we were scattered across the Roman Empire, developing the distinct Jewish cultures we see today. The Greeks and Romans aren’t a semi-mythologized ancient people, the way the Canaanites have been (though there’s increasing amounts of archaeology shedding light on what they actually might have been like), we have historical records about them, from them. The majority of modern Jewish practice developed from the ruins of our ancient practices later than the first century CE. In the timeline of Jewish identity, that’s modern.

The rabbinic period and the Temple period overlap somewhat, but we’re not getting into a full-scale history lesson here. Suffice it to say that it was following the loss of the sacrificial system at the central Temple that Judaism coalesced an identity around verbal prayer services offered at the times of day when we would previously have offered sacrifices, led each community by its own learned individual who became known as a rabbi. We continued to develop in relationship with the rest of the world, making steps toward gender equality in the 1970s and LGBT equality in the 2000s, shifting the meaning of holidays like Tu Bishvat to address climate change, debating rulings on whether one may drive a car on Shabbat for the sake of being with one’s community, and then pivoting to holding prayer services daily via Zoom.

The history of the Jews is the history of the world.  Our iconic Kol Nidrei prayer, the centerpiece of the holiest day of the year, that reduces us to tears every year at its first words, was composed in response to the Spanish Inquisition. The two commentators who inform our understanding of scripture--the ones we couldn’t discuss Torah without referencing even if we tried--wrote in the 11th and 12th centuries in France and Spain/Egypt. Jewish theology and practice schismed into Orthodox and Reform (and later many others) because that’s the kind of discussion people were into in the 19th century. Sephardim light Chanukah candles in an outdoor lamp while Ashkenazim light Chanukah candles in an indoor candelabrum because Sephardim developed their traditions in the Middle East and North Africa and the Ashkenazim developed our traditions in freezing Europe. There are works currently becoming codified into liturgy whose writers died in 2000 and 2011. 

So what are the historical events that would change how your Jewish-coded culture practices, if they don’t involve loss of homeland and cultural unity? What major events have affected your world? If there was an exile that precipitated an abandonment of the sacrificial system, was there a return to their land, or are they still scattered? Priority one for us historically has been maintaining our identity and priority two maintaining our practices, so what have they had to shift or create in order to keep being a distinct group? Is there a major worldwide event in your world? If so, how did this people cope?

If you do go this route, be careful not to fall into tropes of modern or historical antisemitism: don’t have your culture adopt a worldview that has their deity split into mlutiple identities (especially not three). Don’t have an oppressive government that doesn’t represent its people rise up to oppress outsiders within its borders (this is not the first time this has occurred in reality, but because the outside world reacts differently to this political phenomenon when it’s us than when it’s anyone else, it’s a portrayal that makes real-life Jews more vulnerable). And don’t portray the people as having developed into a dark and mysterious cult of ugly, law-citing men and beautiful tearstreaked women, but it doesn’t sound as if you were planning to go there.

So with all that said, it’s time to get back to the question of names. All the above information builds to this: how you name this culture depends on how you’ve handled their practice and identity. 

Part of why Shira Glassman’s handwaving of the question of how modern Jewish practice ended up in Perach works is that she never gives a name to the religion of her characters. Instead, she names the regions they come from. Perach, in particular, the country where most of the action takes place, translates to “Flower.” In this case, her Jewish-coded characters who come from Perach are Perachis, and characters from other places who are also Jewish are described as “they worship as Perachis do despite their different language” or something along those lines (forgive me, Shira, for half-remembering).

So that’s method one: find an attribute of your country that you’d like to highlight, translate it into actual Hebrew, and use that as your name.

Method two is the opposite: find a name that’s been used to identify our people or places (we’ve had a bunch), find out what it means or might mean in English, and then jiggle that around until it sounds right for your setting. You could end up with the nation of the Godfighters, or Children of Praise, The Wanderers (if they’re not localized in a homeland), The Passed-Over, Those From Across The River, or perhaps the people of the City of Peace.

Last, and possibly easiest, pick a physical attribute of their territory and just call them that in English. Are they from a mountainous region? Now they’re the Mountain People. Does their land have a big magical crater in the middle? Craterfolk. Ethereal floating forests of twinkling lights? It’s your world.

The second option is the only one that uses the name to overtly establish Jewish coding. The first option is something Jews might pick up on, especially if they speak Hebrew, but non-Jews would miss. The third avoids the question and puts the weight of conveying that you’re trying to code them as Jewish on their habits and actions.

There’s one other option that can work in certain types of second-world fantasy, and that’s a world that has developed from real-world individuals who went through some kind of portal. That seems to me the only situation in which using a real-world name like Jews, Hebrews, or Israelites would make sense. Jim Butcher does this with the Romans in the Codex Alera series, and Katharine Kerr does it with Celts in the Deverry cycle. That kind of thing has to be baked into the world-building, though, so it probably doesn’t help with this particular situation. 

This is a roundabout route to what I imagine you were hoping would be an easier answer. The tension you identified about how to incorporate Jewishness into a world that doesn’t have the same history is real, and was the topic of a discussion I recently held with a high school age group around issues of Jewish representation in the media they consume and hope to create. Good luck in your work of adding to the discussion.

[suzyundertale]

tumblr user suzyundertale makes a post about Suzy from Undertale

Suzy masterpost, because people need to pay more attention to Suzy. This is not a theory post, but more of a collection of information on what we currently know about the Undertale character Suzy. Of course, due to the nature of Suzy as a very mysterious character, there will be slight speculation, but hopefully it’s clear what is canon and what isn’t.

Section One: The Beginning

When Undertale first released, there was very little that we knew of the character “Suzy”. Even less than what we know now, which is impressive. The only connection we had to her was word of mouth from an NPC with no name, but known in the files simply as “clamgirl”, found in Waterfall if your “Fun” value is between 80 and 89.

When you first talk to her, she says the following:

* I'm visiting Waterfall from the city. * Synchronicity...? * My neighbor's daughter looks about your age. * Her name is "Suzy." * I feel like you two should be friends. * You have... * A neighbor's blessing!!!

(”Suzy” here is written in yellow text.)

Talking to her a second time:

* Not knowing where I live is no issue. * Fate finds a way.

And, finally, talking to her post-pacifist:

* So you never became friends with my neighbor's daughter. * Don't despair. * This world has infinite opportunities. * But there's a limit to the things you can do. * Accepting this is healthy. * Take my neighbor's blessing! * And consider this blessing for anything you like!

(She has more dialogue, but this is all that you really need to know.)

Section Two: The Patch

In January of 2016, a couple weeks after Toby made (and subsequently deleted) a tweet about he wanted to “start something else” in 2016, a something which we now know to be Deltarune, Undertale received its first major update - version 1.01.

Here’s the relevant information.

Toby made two very, very minor changes to Clamgirl’s post-pacifist dialogue. Here is the new dialogue, with changes bolded:

* So you never met my neighbor's daughter. * Don't despair. * This world has infinite opportunities. * But there's a limit to the things you can do today. * Accepting this is healthy. * Take my neighbor's blessing! * And consider this blessing for anything you like!

He changed “became friends with” to “met” - emphasizing the fact that Suzy is not a character you can meet in Undertale.

He also added the word “today”, to emphasize the fact that this does not mean Frisk will never be able to meet Suzy.

This wasn’t the only Suzy-related thing in the version 1.01 patch, however. The patch added a well-known line of dialogue to the lab behind Sans and Papyrus’ house. Normally, when you examine a certain drawer in the lab, you get this dialogue:

* (There's a photo album inside the drawer.) * (There are photos of Sans with a lot of people you don't recognize.) * (He looks happy.)

However, from version 1.01 onward, if you examine this drawer after having spoken to Clamgirl, you will get this dialogue instead:

* (There's a photo album inside the drawer.) * (There are photos of... Huh?) * (A card is sticking out from the back flap of the binder.) * (It's a poorly drawn picture of three smiling people.) * (Written on it...) * "don't forget."

Again, I’d like to emphasize that this dialogue only appears if you’ve spoken to Clamgirl, if you know who Suzy is. In this way, the phrase “Don’t forget” is intrinsically linked to Suzy.

So, from all of this, we can gather a few things about this mysterious “Suzy” character.

She is a girl around Frisk’s age.

She lives in the capital.

She has at least one parent (who happens to be Clamgirl’s neighbor.)

Frisk is, apparently, fated to meet her.

Despite this, it is impossible to meet Suzy in Undertale.

Sans’ photo album will have a card reading “don’t forget” only if you know who Suzy is.

Section Three: Fast Approaching

Did you think that was the only Undertale update that added cryptic Suzy-related dialogue?? Guess again!

Fast-forward to September 2018. Undertale has just been released on Nintendo Switch! Almost immediately, it is discovered that the Switch version added this:

(excuse me posting my own video, but it’s really the best one on youtube...(side note; i’m not sure if she’s actually supposed to reappear when you exit and re-enter the room, that might be a side effect of me poorly emulating the game))

Anyway, this is what happens post-pacifist in the Switch version if your fun value is exactly 81. If it’s 82-89, Clamgirl has her regular dialogue from v1.01.

The Switch version of Undertale came out September (15 in Japan, 18 everywhere else) 2018 - A month and a half before the release of Chapter 1 of Deltarune. In hindsight, it’s obviously foreshadowing - but when you think about it, foreshadowing what?

A month later, we play Deltarune, and meet a brand new character named Susie. Not Suzy. (More on that distinction in a bit.) If that’s the case, why did Clamgirl claim that we were going to meet Suzy very soon? 

Well, the answer is that we don’t know.

It’s important to consider what Clamgirl says from an in-universe standpoint. It’s easy to take this line as Clamgirl talking directly to us, the player, since she’s clearly hinting towards Deltarune - but in actuality, in the game, in-universe, she’s talking to Frisk. She’s telling Frisk that they’re going to meet Suzy very soon. It’s possible that, when it comes down to it, what Clamgirl said might not apply to us at all.

Section Four: Deltarune

In October 2018, Toby Fox not only released an entire demo for an entire new video game, but a video game with a major character named Susie. Not Suzy, but Susie???? What’s going on?

Since Deltarune seems to have an alternate universe thing going on, some people believe that Susie is simply the Deltarune universe’s version of Suzy. This is definitely a possibility, but there is also reason to believe that this may not be the case.

Deltarune also introduces a new character named Catti, who is Catty’s little sister. Like Suzy and Susie, their names are pronounced the same, but spelled slightly differently. This could be hinting at the difference between the two.

As it stands, however, we currently do not know the relation between Suzy and Susie, or if any even exists.

In any case, it is likely that Suzy will be a major part of the story of Deltarune, as the main theme of the game is called “Don’t Forget”.

Bonus: A Comment From Toby

To my knowledge, the only time that Toby has ever publicly spoken about Suzy is in this tweet, since deleted (not specifically, but because Toby wiped all his tweets before a certain date), from nine days after Undertale’s release:

Unfortunately, since we’ve lost the context, it’s difficult to know who exactly “yellow kid” refers to here. The tweet was most likely in response to speculation regarding Suzy’s identity. Since Suzy’s name is written in yellow when Clamgirl speaks about her, some people assumed that Suzy may be associated with the color yellow. “Yellow kid” could be referring to Monster Kid, Frisk, or the yellow human soul. (I’ve heard people say before that this tweet is specifically in response to people speculating about Monster Kid being Suzy, but I don’t know how true that is. If anyone has any proof of this claim, let me know!)

Conclusion

Generally, when you’re writing an analysis of a character, you’re able to say more than three facts about them. There is very little we can say about Suzy, however, without delving into pure baseless speculation. Hell, we know more about Gaster, who is generally regarded as the mysterious Undertale character.

It’s very likely that we will learn more about Suzy in the future, but right now, we don’t have much to go on. However, that also means we’re free to speculate pretty much anything we want. Essentially, until proven otherwise, Suzy is whoever you want her to be..!