#prince orque

It's pretty clear that this traumatic experience informs nearly all of his behavior. I would even argue Claude is so strongly driven by his trauma that you just can't understand his characters without considering its influence. There’s so many elements going in this direction: his drive to create a world that is at its essence safe for him to live in, his fear of vulnerability, his avoidant tendency, his thirst for knowledge, his particular ways of handling battles, etc.

It seems like the root of the treatment of Claude's trauma is both the normalization and dismissal of the suffering of racism. When we look at the wider cast, it shows a concerning trend in the treatment of character who's experience is tied to it: Dimitri or Sylvain tend to be painted much more tragically than Dedue is, and Petra is not really potrayed as tragic in general. It's particularly insidious as it's not necessarily that their hardships are not acknowledged, it's moreso that they do not get the emphasis and emotional drive other are granted. In essence, racism may be treated as something bad but it's normalized in the way it's not taken as an extraordinary traumatic event in its consideration. There's a fundamental disconnect in what is said and how it's actually handled.

Sylvain is fundamentally an unreliable narrator that seems to be projecting his issues onto women. He paints them as only looking at him for his crest despite women either being generally disinterested in him or leaving the moment he acts badly towards them… The very first scene of his support chain with Byleth is a direct portrayal of this:

In fact, we never actually see the horrible dehumanizing kind of women he claims hurt hims so badly. What we do see though are women forced, either by circumstances or by their family, to be with men based on certain criteria valued socially like money or status such as Dorothea or Ingrid. None of them look at men as mean to an end rather than actual people like Sylvain portrays, including Dorothea who’s the only one actually actively looking for a husband. However, notice how most of these women have experiences being abused and kidnapped by men? Those women, forced in position Sylvain bare such an hatred for, are the one actually struggling in the dynamic. They’re the one bearing the risk, and it’s especially clear with Dorothea: if one of her relationships with a suitor goes badly, it’s her who will face the consequences.

This brings us to the core of Sylvain’s trauma: he was hurt by men. Sylvain was hurt by his brother, by his father, by the culture of his country which literally translates to “men's strength”... At no point were women the main perpetrators. He targets women because it’s easier to blame them than his own family and country he has attachment and mixed feelings towards. He targets women because he won’t face consequences as he structurally holds power over them unlike with his own family and country. Thus in effect, it’s not because Sylvan bigotry partially takes the form of a toxic coping mechanism born out of trauma that it’s any less bigoted. Because in the end, we do actually see someone dehumanizing the opposite gender and it’s not women obsessed with crests and status… It’s Sylvain himself. He’s ironically reproducing in a different way the very dynamics he claims to be hurt from.

Fe3h wider story surrounds a conflict that takes roots in much deeper history than first appears. Fundamentally, it arises from the problems of a society based on what Seiros built centuries ago from the fondation of the Church of Seiros to the crested elites... Which in itself originate from the conflicts between the first humans, the Agarthans, and the Nabateans.

In this way, the existence of the Agarthans in relation to the Nabateans embodies a cyclical nature of conflict. Not only does it give depth to the story in the present of the game by giving it a past, but it also strengthens the ideological themes presented in the war and renforce narrative parallel between characters.

For example, there's Claude who has distance with the past haunting Fodlan: him defeating Nemesis to then free Fodlan from some of the shackles holding it back feels much stronger in this context. Similarly, there's Edelgard who mirror Rhea in the wounds of her past caused by the Agarthans, but foil her in the path she took after. Rhea enchored society in what hurt her, authority being literally symbolized by the blood and bones of her kindered, to be able to get revenge on the Agarthans. In contrast, Edelgard used the Agarthans to radically change society in a way that would prevent what hurt her to ever happen again.