Leigh

I imagine that out of all the beorc nations, Daein is the most intensely homophobic. Like Begnion is just as bad, but they’re more subtle about it, y’know? They hide their bigotry under a guise of concern. A classic “think of the children!” approach. Daein, however, is far more straightforward with its hateful rhetoric.

So just as Jill was taught to hate laguz since starting school as a young girl, she was also taught to hate anyone who wasn’t cis and straight. Even stepping outside of traditional gender roles was viewed with suspicion.

That being said, Jill herself was kind of pushing social boundaries just by joining the army. Female soldiers in Daein are not unheard of, esp after Ashnard came into power, but they’re still few and far between by the time Jill enlists. So Jill is a bit of a hypocrite, then, in that she would get into arguments with more old-fashioned men in her platoon, calling out their sexism, and then turn around and sneer at men who exhibited any traditionally feminine traits.

So when Jill first joins Ike’s army, she would have been insulted by the suggestion that she was anything but straight. And she had a bit of a crush on Haar (which I refuse to imagine is ever requited, considering he’s like twice her age, and her superior, and a close family friend, so he’s probably known her since she was just a baby), so Jill has no reason to suspect that she could possibly have anything in common with those foppish boys her friends and her used to gossip about in school.

Then Jill makes two very important friends: Mist and Lethe.

Mist befriends Jill almost immediately. And Jill, who hasn’t had any female friends since she joined the army, greedily seizes the opportunity.

Except, despite having been raised in rural Crimea with no formal schooling, and being a bit ignorant of a lot of social issues, Mist’s got a big heart and an open mind. She’s nothing like the catty, judgmental girls that Jill used to hang out with. Mist gives everyone the benefit of the doubt. And whenever Jill finds herself making snarky remarks about someone else, Mist is always offering a different perspective.

Then there’s Lethe. She infuriates Jill, but mostly because of just how similar they are. They both have fiery tempers, they both tend to stubbornly cling to their prejudices, they are both competitive and proud and share similar values. Except, while Jill is constantly second-guessing herself, chronically indecisive about what is right and what is wrong, Lethe is so self-assured, so confident in all of her decisions. This is all to say that Jill envies Lethe a lot. Even when they start getting along, they frequently clash, the both of them too stubborn for their own good.

Jill doesn’t know quite when her frustrations with Lethe started to be at least partially fueled by sexual tension, but even when she realizes her feelings, it takes her a long, long time to come to terms with them. Like, years of second-guessing herself.

I imagine she does eventually talk things out with Mist during the endgame portion of Radiant Dawn. Multiple times, even, because Jill can’t help but go back and forth, discussing pros and cons and what-ifs until even Mist, with the patience of a saint, eventually reaches a breaking point and refuses to rehash the same conversation for the tenth time.

I also think that Jill and Lethe need to spend some time apart before they can be together post-game. Jill returns to Talrega a changed woman, more confident in herself, and no longer ashamed of her sexuality like she was just a year ago. But to leave Talrega to pursue the romance with Lethe she never allowed herself before… well, she isn’t ready for that right away. But I do like to think it eventually happens.

Thanks for reading! Sorry this one got so long and rambly. I just have a lot of thoughts about Jill being raised in a military culture household, in Daein no less, and how much harmful propaganda she has to unlearn.

You can see all of my Tellius Pride posts in chronological order here!