#ash analysis

Part 1

I wonder why Naru-chan is the first woman/girl character I can call a favourite. I know that I love thinking about her journey, bad experiences, and good experiences as a trans woman, considering I’m transgender myself (specifically nonbinary), but my experiences are also very different from her since I’m afab and she’s amab. I do love exploring characters with identities different from my own, so I suppose it’s that “different identity” aspect combined with her relatability.

Aside from that though, her personality intrigues me so much. If she was cisgender, I know she would be extremely different. Her persona feels like it’s built on her fragile femininity, because she’s always trying to find affirmation of her identity as a woman/girl. Women/girls are kind, so she must be kind. Women/girls are reliable, so she’s reliable. Women/girls are emotional, so she’s emotional. But also, Women/girls are only emotional in specific ways, so she only shows those emotions. Now, I’m not saying her entire personality is fake and that she doesn’t mean any of her kindness. I’m saying she’s making these already existing aspects of herself more noticeable than other aspects, because she's desperate for external validation. She doesn't even really fight against the negative things people say to her, because that still means her femininity is being acknowledged. She only shows people the parts of her that are palatable, the parts that will make her a “correct” woman. It’s very similar to queer people who feel like their identity is validated by their moral choices, except Naru-chan doesn’t always care about the "correct moral choice". A good example of that is her overbearing attitude even when someone else doesn’t like it (I can think of Tsukasa and Subaru here). Her identity can certainly be affirmed at the expense of other people’s comfort, and even her own. In fact, Naru-chan is excellent at ignoring her own discomfort. Just think of all the times she deflected when people questioned her calling herself a woman. She has just accepted this as the status quo, and that makes sense considering how she likely doesn’t have any role model when it comes to being trans in an environment where people don’t understand her. Her deflections are also hindering other people from actually understanding her, though. If she never shows any willingness to talk about it, then people will start thinking they can’t ask her about it either. I do think she doesn’t want questions because she’s still very unsure herself and is still figuring out her own identity (the girl is 17, people much older never do this much soul searching, let her have a break). Still, ultimately while she acts very open and always wants to help others, she doesn’t want the same help back, because she’s either afraid or feels like it’s wrong to need help.

Part 2

The conversation between Naru-chan and Leo in Silent Knights chapter 4 is very important, especially considering what happens right at the end of the previous chapter. Naru-chan points out that, with Leo's return, Knights have reverted to their old style of keeping distance from each other, and she says that she doesn't like this. In chapter 4 though, when Leo encourages her to open up to him (because he, too, loves the new version of Knights) she immediately backtracks and says it isn't their style to ask about personal matters (though she does open up, actually). Later, in Holy Knights chapter 6, a similar scene plays out where she questions why they're always hurting each other and don't talk things out, yet Tsukasa points out that she does the exact same thing. Ritsu then says something very important: To connect with people is to get hurt, so if you never want to get hurt you'll just die alone. This, I believe, is the tipping point where she consciously realises that these are people she can show parts of her fragile heart to and who won't immediately shatter it into tiny pieces. She takes the first step, and tells the two that she feels like she's never doing anything to actually help people, only watches them, but both Tsukasa and Ritsu tell her that she's always helping them (just like Leo said in the previous scene too). Lastly, in Epilogue 2, she tells all her unitmates that she's begun to like seeking comfort in them, even if it'll take time for her to open up, and most importantly: She confides that she doesn't actually understand what a knight is, but she does understand their sense of duty, and she'll continue to do what she always does. Even though she's changed, and is still changing, she still wants to help people. Learning to be more than her insecurities doesn't mean she has to stop being herself.

I absolutely love this character arc.

1. Clarifications

He goes by two names: Xià Fěi and Felix.

Xia Fei is his Chinese name, and presumably also his legal name. He uses it when interacting with other Chinese people.

Felix is his English name. It is on his student ID card, and also his model name.

From now on, when referring to him as a character, and not just the names, I will use the nickname Feifei (because it’s cute).

2. Let’s start with the name ‘Felix’

So, ‘Felix’ is like a fake identity, a name he uses to fit in with English society, while he deliberately uses ‘Xia Fei’ with Shiguang.

One could argue that he was using ‘Xia Fei’ as a way of gaining Shiguang’s trust (remember how happy Cheng Xiaoshi was meeting Liu Xiao) and/or to avoid people recognising him, but I believe that to be only part of the reason, and that he also wanted to form a genuine connection with the two.

‘Felix’ is the name he is called at work, probably even called at university, and we know that he doesn’t even like his work and probably doesn’t like the university as a place (remember his discomfort with his roommate, and how his clothes’ colours back then didn’t fit him (read the replies)). So, ‘Felix’ is a name that represents discomfort. (It’s probably a very similar feeling to calling a transgender person by their deadname.)

But wait! During the Double Dinner Date Vein uses the name ‘Felix,’ even though he speaks perfectly fine Mandarin and is even pretty close to Feifei. 

One reason for this could be their work relationship, that he was using ‘Felix’ to remind Feifei that this is work,

and/or is that he didn’t want to show Shiguang how close they are, both to protect himself and Feifei from any hostage situations (though this would be pretty stupid considering how before he immediately came to save Feifei).

Another could be that he just wanted to further keep up the act of not speaking (good) Mandarin, which would indeed be very in-character. I believe it to be a combination of all three of these, just with different levels of importance.

So, what we now know is that ‘Felix’ not only means discomfort, but also protection (in a messed up way) that serves as a reminder to not mix work with personal relationships, like an armour he puts on to protect ‘Xia Fei.’ Remember how some of the translations for his character song are “Rent a Shell”? Yeah, I’ll count that towards the evidence. This identity of ‘Felix’ is temporary.

‘Felix’ represents Lies.

3. Now let’s talk about ‘Xià Fěi’

Unlike with his English name, I’m gonna look into the meaning here. Please keep in mind that I don’t understand Chinese and am only using the translations of multiple websites and one app to find a general meaning. (Anyone better qualified than me, please correct me if anything I say here is incorrect.)

夏斐 (Xià Fěi) means ‘summer’ (夏) and ‘rich with literary elegance/brilliance’ (斐). So, summer fits a lot, considering how Feifei is a literal ray of sunshine (aka friendliness, helpfulness, passion), but it also rains a lot during summer which is also something to be associated with him (remember his flashback and YE6 before the modelling shoot began). Rain is quite depressing, especially in the context of Feifei’s flashback. In conclusion, he may have a very positive personality, but beneath all that is sadness and desperation. Now, about ‘rich with literary elegance/brilliance,’ I would connect this with the fact that he’s studying applied physics, has multiple scholarships (supposedly), and even looks to be drawing during a lecture in his character song video indicating that he can allow himself to be distracted. Summarised, this guy’s smarter than he acts. And if we put together his whole name, we get a very intelligent and positive person, who is actually depressed underneath all that. Yeah, that’s Feifei as we know him.

‘Xia Fei’ represents Truth.

So, while ‘Xia Fei’ is the passionate, desperate, and vulnerable identity of Feifei, his real identity, ‘Felix’ is the uncomfortable armour he often puts on, has to put on, to protect the real him, despite it just being a lie he uses to survive.

So, Truth means vulnerability, and Lies mean survival.

4. Now, how does Feifei struggle then?

Well, Vein hates lies, so this would require Feifei to be ‘Xia Fei’ around him, even though as his employee he should be ‘Felix.’ It muddles the separation of these two identities, ultimately resulting in ‘Xia Fei’ being put into ‘Felix’s world. But he doesn’t really need ‘Felix’ here, because now Vein is protecting him, essentially taking ‘Felix’s purpose. Vein doesn’t just require Feifei to stop lying, he keeps him safe while at it. It’s almost like a reward, I guess.

Of course, this is just in regards to canon. If one were to write Feifei struggling with his identity and slowly losing himself, that could maybe be done by having him slowly forget the importance of ‘Xia Fei’ and therefore increasingly be ‘Felix,’ meaning he would forget the importance of Truth and therefore replace that empty space with Lies. This could actually happen after YE6, because he no longer has Vein to keep him from lying. In the end, he’d probably be ‘Xia Fei’ only in name while his actual identity would be ‘Felix.’

5. Conclusion

Feifei has two identities he lives in, both representing different parts of himself. There’s ‘Xia Fei’ who represents Truth (his real self), his vulnerability, meaning his intelligence and positivity (friendly/helpful/passionate), but also depression and desperation. Desperation was what ultimately led him to really create ‘Felix,’ who represents Lies (his model persona), meaning both discomfort but also protection (armour) for ‘Xia Fei’ that let’s Feifei survive. Being around Vein means he has to be ‘Xia Fei,’ while his absence might make Feifei forget the importance of ‘Xia Fei’ and slowly replace him with ‘Felix.’

Notes:

I wrote this analysis back in January 2025, so right when Yingdu released. While part of this analysis probably doesn't hold true anymore, I still really like it and wanted to finally share it.

Fun fact! I basically wrote this for a friend whom I met through our Ao3 comment sections. We shared a lot of analysis thoughts about Veinfei. If you wanna find it, I've got my Ao3 linked in my pinned post.