Navigator's Log

when stormblood came out, we only had ARR and HW, which also had western leads with light hair and light skin. so the white saviour criticism isn't necessarily that lyse as a character doesn't deserve her story, or that she doesn't represent a kind of person that exists and ought to be acknowledged, or that her character wasn't well constructed. i also feel a lot of the criticism toward lyse is, in part, a result of misogyny, as she was judged very unfairly and much more harshly, not unlike the situation with wuk lamat in dawntrail. i feel this echoes in popular fan treatment of venat and emet selch, and the disparity between them.

the criticism of lyse as a white saviour should be addressing the bias that japanese nationalism produces in its portrayal of these characters and where it places emphasis. it also comes from the frustration of dark skinned people always being underrepresented, especially when the game, at that time, didn't even have proper shading for characters of specific dark skin colours. let's not pretend that colourism is worse for people with fair skin. people of colour, who have fair skin, do benefit from having light skin as being more socially acceptable and considered (erroneously) as more beautiful. as someone of north indian descent, i am one of them. this bias exists in japan as well, and touches a lot of the media we consume, including final fantasy games.

stb is one of my favorite expacs because it's not afraid to be poltical and does want to explore what revolution means. however, it suffers from not completely understanding the story its trying to tell. lyse asking the xaela children of the steppe about nationhood is one of those missteps that feeds into a white saviour narrative--she normalizes the notion that nationhood is a real and natural thing. this is called essentialism. borders are constructed, ethnicities are related to one another, histories overlap. social constructs are not inherent, but rather ideas we impose on ourselves.

further, the current idea of what a nation is, comes from the west. there is no such thing as purity of blood, purity of tradition, sharply defined ethnicities, etc. i wouldn't expect lyse to know this--i would want her to learn this through her journey--but the writers clearly don't understand the depth of what this would mean and how it would shape the story. they write from a deeply japanese perspective, where even the history of ww2 isn't objectively presented to them. they are at a disadvantage when they approach stories about liberation because they hold very specific culturally influenced education and beliefs.

additionally, while there is a great deal of conversation around how the construction of national identity aided in efforts to liberate nations, as soon as the nation is freed, the idea of who belongs to what nation changes depending on what one party wishes to accomplish versus another. so while it is realistic for, let's say the ala mhigans, to rally around the identity of being ala mhigan during a revolution, it's equally important to be careful with the rhetoric of national identity. a good example i'm familiar with is the indian national identity and how it operates as a flawed organizing factor of individuals today, as opposed to standing up for who we once were before the raj.

these concerns are easily addressed with a few, common sense story techniques that likely wouldn't change the entire story. the themes and story in its current form is simply undercut by the ignorance of the writers due to their unchecked bias.

i haven't forgotten that it took yoship witnessing a trans person being treated poorly for doing nothing but existing, for him to feel inspired to unlock the gendered outfits. yoship is wonderful and clearly kind and understanding, but it also demonstrates that he did not have much of an idea of how big a deal it was until he saw it for himself.

over time, things have slowly gotten better. they tried again with dawntrail, and it was a great effort. every expac has its flaws, but for those who care to look, each expac does improve upon the complaints its predecessors suffered from. except maybe the pacing issues. those are an entirely different problem altogether.

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