#ditter

dunkelfelgerians are shown to generally be extremely into ditter throughout the series, and myne often laments that they are a ditter-obsessed duchy. the fandom often compares dunkelfelger's penchant for making ditter happen at the drop of a hat with sports-obsessed cultures in our own world. as a result, the characterization of dunkelfelger is as "the jock duchy" or "the sports duchy."

this is fine as a surface-level interpretation, as the culture surrounding ditter within dunkelfelger does superficially resemble sports culture in many places in our world. however, scratch the surface and it becomes clear that dunkelfelger is not the jock duchy—they are the military duchy.

ditter's purpose

the first point to make is that ditter is not a sport, at least not in the way that most of us conceptualize a sport. ditter does not exist within jurgenschmidt society to serve primarily as entertainment, a form of exercise, or a money-making enterprise. ditter is, quite explicitly, a war game.

there are two types of ditter known to modern-day jurgenschmidt: speed ditter and treasure-stealing ditter. speed ditter involves a group of knights taking down a feycreature as quickly as possible. as we see during the interduchy tournament at the end of myne's second year at the RA, students at the academy train for this type of ditter by learning how to best take down a variety of feycreatures. clearly, the purpose of speed ditter is to train young knights in how to fight a variety of feybeasts and plants so that they will be more effective in the field.

in the second type of ditter, treasure-stealing ditter, the knights' opponent is not a creature but fellow students. we learn from older characters that prior to the civil war, students prepared for the end-of-term ditter tournament throughout the entire RA term, and it wasn't only the knights who participated. all students of a duchy were mobilized. Archduke candidates served as leaders and diplomats, coming up with strategies, overseeing training, forming alliances with other duchies, and leading their knights during the actual tournament. Scholars researched new magic tools to serve as weapons or traps and mass-produced the potions and tools the duchy would need. Attendants served as nodes of a vast information network, gathering and sharing intel, and would sometimes be taken onto the battlefield to manage supply lines and provide mana. Knights, of course, were the main combatants.

if speed ditter is training students to take down feycreatures, what does the above sound like the students are being trained for? the answer is obviously war. treasure-stealing ditter trains young nobles how to mobilize for war.

part of the reason that treasure-stealing ditter at the RA was discontinued after the civil war was a general exhaustion with battle and fear of sparking conflict anew. the royals reasoned that if the newer generations weren't trained in war, they were less likely to engage in it. we learn about this from rauffen's pov in the first-year short story collection.

further proof that ditter is war training is the revelation late in part 5 that "true ditter" is, in fact, war. from myne's perspective, it is revealed that treasure-stealing ditter is a mock battle between duchies and that in real life the duchy's "treasure" is its foundation. prior to the civil war, the RA held an academy-wide mock battle each year to train its students in how to wage war to steal another duchy's foundation and to protect their own.

ditter in dunkelfelger

understanding that the purpose of ditter is to train nobles for battle, whether against feycreatures or one another, sheds an entirely new light on dunkelfelger's obsession with ditter. we're not looking at a duchy where everyone's just really into sports. we're looking at a duchy which has organized its entire culture around maintaining its military might.

the reason for this is also revealed in part 5: dunkelfelger prides itself on serving as "the zent's sword." in fact, the archducal family claims that their founder, the first aub, swore an oath to the first zent to stand ready at all times to answer the zent's call for aid. dunkelfelger is deadly serious about keeping that oath, even all these centuries (or millennia?) later. their culture is proof of that.

we learn that they hold a rigorous test for potential young knights to ensure that only the cream of the crop enters their military force. yet even those who don't ultimately become knights often still train themselves in fighting and look for ways to contribute to the duchy's military strength as attendants or scholars. just as the participation of all students in treasure-stealing ditter at the RA, this is a reflection of the fact that, during wartime, all nobles are expected to contribute the duchy's war effort in one way or another.

but, of course, the zent only rarely chooses to call upon dunkelfelger's military, especially in recent years when the sovereign lands have been expanded, allowing for the development of a large sovereign knights order. how, as the archducal family of dunkelfelger bent on upholding your duchy's oath to stand always ready to aid the zent, do you keep your military constantly in tip-top fighting shape?

well, you keep them constantly training. you encourage them to engage in ditter contests on a regular basis to keep their skills sharp and their thoughts focused on battle. that is the origin of dunkelfelger's ditter obsession and the reason why this obsession has been maintained throughout dunkelfelger's long history. this is not a cultural practice that has arisen organically. it is an intentionally-maintained form of military training.

yes, there are plenty of dunkelfelgerians who aren't obsessed with ditter, lestilaut and hannelore among them. (side note: i'm not sure why people think lestilaut likes ditter when he wasn't even going to participate in his first game against rozemyne until he felt pressured into it by her choosing to participate. he also didn't participate or even observe the dunkelfelger-ehrenfest match during myne's second year, and the big match during myne's third year was not for the sake of playing ditter but merely a means to an end. his goal was to make myne his bride, not to play ditter with her).

yet lestilaut and hannelore, despite their personal lack of interest in ditter as entertainment, still participate in training and in ditter matches, and are willing to even propose ditter as a means of solving disputes or winning a prize that they want. why is that? well, because as members of dunkelfelger's archducal family, they are steeped in their duchy's militaristic culture, and they are taught from birth the necessity of maintaining dunkelfelger's ability to serve as the zent's sword.

aub dunkelfelger is obsessed with taking part in real ditter (aka, war), not because he's a sports-obsessed jock, but because it is the consummation of his duchy's entire purpose. going to war for the zent is literally the pinnacle of achievement, as far as dunkelfelger's history and culture have taught him.

conclusion

it's important to step outside of myne's perspective when trying to make sense of jurgenschmidt and its cultures. myne is an outsider, and she has a very narrow focus when it comes to what she pays attention to. in this case, myne grew up in a relatively peaceful culture and doesn't really recognize the rigid militarism of dunkelfelgerian culture. that is why she can't quite grasp why they're all such ditterheads and tends to see them as himbo jocks. however, when we read side stories from dunkelfelgerians' povs—lestilaut, rauffen, hannelore, heisshitze, magdalena, sieglinde—the dunkelfelgerian mindset comes into clearer focus.