#strawbarrow

his name

kodya karevic. sounds russian, right? wrong. this is not a name. kodya is NOT a name, like, at all; karevic is definitely not a russian last name. im reserving judgement for the last name karevic because honestly there are a lot last names out there in the world (and god forbid i say something like ITS NOT REAL and one of you pops out of the woodwork with an anecdote about three of your family members) but it's definitely not russian. the russian equivalent i guess would be karevich? so maybe they took karevič or something and removed the mark? but you can't do that? and karevič still isn't russian? and while inventing a "russian" name wholecloth is obviously bad, to me the worse offense is the last name

first off though, what's wrong with kodya? western media has a weird thing with slavic names (take a shot for every time the russian is named alexei or mikhail. now imagine every english speaking character being named either alex or michael) where its like one of the three russian names hollywood knows every time someone is even vaguely eastern european, and toon fits into this narrative of "eh. slavic enough" even though they TRY to deviate and make a different name. they don't find an actual slavic name. kodya (which, to be honest, i thought was some kind of weird diminutive, so i was really confused as to why everyone kept shortening it to "kody") is made uppppppppp it's not reallllllll its a fake nameeeeeeeee. how about kazimir? you get to keep the alliteration. or kolya is a real diminutive! use kolya! also please don't give western nicknames for diminutives its SO WEIRD. it's chai tea, it's already a nickname.

karevic, however, is worse. i'm gonna be honest with you, i don't know if this was even a little bit addressed, so if it was in the scene with the phoenix please forgive me. i do know that it wasn't addressed enough though, so the point still stands. i'm sticking with my theory of karevic being a real non-russian last name. when kodya's life is set, russians had colonized ukraine, poland, the baltics, and like a little bit of romania. if kodya's family was from one of those areas and they weren't russian, they could have been forcibly assimilated, made to speak russian, and of course kodya was conscripted. russian colonization made a point to force the pride of someone's country out of them (same thing is happening today in ukraine, russians are kidnapping ukrainian children and forcing them into being "russian") and this is obviously a very traumatic thing for people to go through. if that happened to kodya, i don't think that history should have been glossed over. towards the later end of the comic, when gyrus splits the timeline to go find kodya, it's revealed that he was a troublemaker in the army and had saved a firebird from being killed or something. idk man. anyway, the way the military commander talks about kodya in that scene was really interesting to me and i really wish i could go back and read it because i can't remember if kodya was usually really well behaved and rule following or if he was more of a rebel. either way really interesting but within the context of ignoring russian colonization, fucking up kodya's name, etc. either one is kinda dangerous. either he's "not like those russians" or "he's changed and been redeemed" so there's not much of a good option.

2. his outfit

WHAT is bro wearing ToT a FUR-LINED VEST??? it's horrifying. it's not even faintly time accurate so that's not an excuse, there's only fur there to sell his being from somewhere cold, it's bad desert attire anyway, idk WHAT is going on there. the fur collar and ripped sleeves is atrocious.

3. his introduction

oh boy. kodya is introduced as a gruff, russian-swearing, unlikeable character. obviously he VERY MUCH has reasons for acting like this, but i was an og ros fan. i remember the "i hate kodya so much i cant wait for him to die" comments. that was on purpose, and while i really love his character arc and i love him dearly, i find it a bit. odd. that he's the one who is given this arc. "russians" are usually portrayed as either the ultimate bad guys or as reformed bad guys who betray their country for the obviously superior capitalism western freedom country. also every slav has the exact same personality for some reason, always a little psychotic and with no moral compass (until they are shown the light by the westerners, obviously) and they are very deadpan and sarcastic. listen, i can be deadpan and sarcastic, but it's a firmly established stereotype and a cop-out from actually developing a character. ros DOES go on to develop kodya, but at first it relies a lot on the quiet, brooding, probably-evil, traitor-to-the-good-guys russian. which brings me to the first big thing his character does is (to the audience) betray gyrus. man. cmon now.

kitty cat kitty cat run run run (bow wow)

original image under the cut!