Disclamer: I use the word “disability” here not to imply that these conditions are 100% a blight upon the written character but more so in the way that these characters might have the need to be written quite differently from typical characters and may have different challenges which can be written about
So I had this thought today, I was wondering about how diverse vanilla fe and fe hacks are in terms of writing diversity disability wise. I think we can safely say that vanilla fe and hacks have been very diverse cast wise in terms of gender, sexuality and race however how diverse is it when it comes to this other thing.
It’s probably easier if I throw out an example first, Lute is often headcanonned by the fandom to be neurodivergent, her supports are written very differently from other characters in fe8, for example this C support with arthur
Long text
Lute: Hm… I wonder if… Oh, I see…
Artur: What are you doing, Lute?
Lute: Oh! I was just observing this chemida beetle.
Artur: You haven’t changed at all, have you, Lute?
Lute: What do you mean?
Artur: You spent most of your time sequestered in your room, studying your books. On the rare occasion you went outside, you were paralyzed with fascination.
Lute: Of course! There are so many fascinating things to be learned from nature! There are a great many books out there, and I have read most of them, of course. But I’ve found that what is written can differ greatly from how things truly are. Take this chemida beetle, for example. I’ve been reading from “The Glossary of Falibrian Entomology” lately. According to the glossary, their wings fall off once they reach maturity. However, I have just found an adult beetle whose wings still work perfectly! Exceptions do exist to the rules my books outline. This is a rare specimen. I wonder, should we take it back with us?
Artur: Sigh… I hope this isn’t another of your pranks.
Lute: My…pranks?
Artur: Do you remember when I loaned you my copy of “Lux Aeterna”? You replaced my bookmark with the tail of a sedgel lizard. You scared ten years off my life, I swear it!
Lute: Did I do that?
Artur: And! Knowing full well that I have a…mild…fear of spiders, you caught a small army of them and unleashed them in my room!
Lute: I thought that if I immersed you in the thing you feared, maybe you might be able to overcome your fear entirely! And I went to a lot of trouble trying to catch those spiders!
Artur: …Why would you do that?
Lute: Well, I did get a bit of a kick out of the experience myself. Why? Did it bother you?
Artur: YES! Oh, don’t worry about it. At least you did it because you cared about me, right? I’ll just accept it as the best gesture of kindness you can manage, Lute.
we can see that she has difficulties reading social ques and talks about a specific special interest. Now the term of “disability” for neurodivergence is a bit iffy nowadays, but I’m also asking this question about other types of characters, how would a hack for example write a person that is hard of hearing, Hard of sight (and not like blind swordsmans thing where they’re basically daredevil), perhaps you have a paraplegic cavalier/troub or maybe dyslexic mage.
The key challenge here is ofc to represent these characters as fairly and relatably as possible. There’s an inherent value in writing these characters as characters in battle, it’s empowering yet at the same time you also need to write the real and unique challenges that people who have these conditions face in their character. A blind swordsman is cool but it’s not exactly the closest representation to how a real hard of sight person’s experience.
Anyway rant over, now to the question. My question is if you have experience with these conditions, how would you like to see a representation be written in the series or in hacks
or
are there already good representations in vanilla fe or fe hacks and if so how are they written?
I feel like there’s a lot of posibility for failure and success here, making fe stories more diverse and interesting but also IF they’re written badly it can be a huge problem. Still I’d like to see it more in fe as a whole, I don’t think we have a prominent deaf character in fe for example
I think that it’s kind of a risky line to tread when it comes to writing people with disabilities or who are neurodivergent in any media, so people tend to steer away from it unless they’ve got personal experience with it, are using it for a specific purpose, or the disability in question is made to be more than is seems (like it being a kind of superpower, like Daredevil for instance).
Writing and representing isn’t bad, but portraying it in just the wrong way can get a lot of people up in arms, so unless you’re either experienced with it or do heavy research, it’s often a risk to attempt to write a character with a disability or abnormality of any kind.
That being said, I think there’s some good representation in Fire Emblem here and there, and I hope they keep going forwards with portrayal respectably. I haven’t played Engage yet, but I think of Bernadetta in 3H and her anxiety/trauma disorder she pretty much has. The only thing I would say is to be careful not to make disabilities their entire personality, you know? I like it when characters can be characters and not exist in a space where there’s this label that’s slapped onto them that’s what they’re defined by for the whole game. Now that I think about it though, fighting against a widespread label for them would be a good struggle for a “disabled” character to have lol.
Low key I actually think bernadetta is bad in representing it. Not to completely discredit her character but I honestly believe marianne is a better rep for anxious and low mood people vs bernadetta, all of her supports are comically running away from people, her entire arc with hubert is her being “outloudly” scared of him, passing out wh
ile standing up was it?
Marianne is more subtle in her characterization, just from looking at her academy portrait for example you already know that girl got some baggage
here’s Marianne’s B support with dimitri:
Long
Dimitri: Marianne?
Marianne: Oh. Yes?
Dimitri: May I sit here? There isn’t another open spot…
Marianne: Um, you may.
Dimitri: I’m sorry… I should have eaten in my quarters. I know you asked me to stay away from you.
Marianne: No, it’s fine. About the other day, when you said you didn’t regret risking your own life…
Dimitri: I apologize for whatever foolish thing I said to upset you, truly. But…may I ask what happened?
Marianne: It’s just… There is only misfortune for anyone who comes near me.
Dimitri: Misfortune?
Marianne: I’m afraid so. Especially those with complete disregard for their own safety.
Dimitri: Ah, so I didn’t offend you. You’re trying to tell me I should be more concerned for my own safety. Well, I suppose I could improve in that regard. As for you causing misfortune, I think that’s far from the truth. In fact, I find you to be a lucky charm of sorts.
Marianne: Me? Lucky? I’m sorry, but I don’t agree with that at all. My entire life up until this point has been nothing but a string of unfortunate events.
Dimitri: But misfortune finds us all. Perhaps those around you have suffered or even perished, but look at you. You’re still here, alive and well.
Marianne: That’s…
Dimitri: It doesn’t feel good, does it…to be the one left behind? You feel guilt for not dying along with the others.
Marianne: H–how did you know?
Dimitri: You and I are the same. Maybe you should fear being cursed with misfortune for coming near me.
Marianne: Hehe.
Dimitri: Ah, a smile and a laugh. Coming from you, that’s a rarity. This must be my lucky day.
Marianne: I just find the idea amusing. It’s strange to think that someone like you could have anything in common with me.
Dimitri: Is it so terrible a thought?
Marianne: No, no. It’s not that. It actually makes me happy. As though there’s finally someone who understands how I truly feel…
Meanwhile bernie’s C support with hubert:
Long
Bernadetta: Being outside is so tiring. Tomorrow’s got to be just an inside day, Bernie.
Hubert: …
Bernadetta: Whoa, why is it so cold all of a sudden? It’s as if an unspeakable evil just— Ah!
Hubert: You’re late.
Bernadetta: No, into the light! Back to the beyond from whence you came!
Hubert: Are you telling me to die?
Bernadetta: (stuttering) Ah— Hubert!
Hubert: In the flesh. I came to ask you something.
Bernadetta: Oh no! What’d I do? Think, Bernie, think.
Hubert: There have been sightings of a sinister figure, carrying a sharp object, wandering the halls at night.
Bernadetta: Um…
Hubert: A strange giggle, the glimmer of a needle in the dark. The sound of a door creaking open and closed.
Bernadetta: Uh, I was embroidering.
Hubert: I suspected as much. Then you leave me no choice.
Bernadetta: Wh-What?! No, I’m too young to die! I’ve got so much left to do, PLEASE DON’T KILL ME!!!
Hubert: About what I expected.
Bernadetta: It’s no good… I can’t run anymore!
Hubert: That was quite a sprint. A shame you lack stamina. Now, to my duty.
Bernadetta: You’re going to execute me, aren’t you? Please, let me compose my last will and testament! Or at least a swan song? The creak of a door… Sorrow like a needlepoint… Bernie’s gone away.
Hubert: Bernadetta, a word of caution. How would you feel if you fell or bumped into someone while carrying around that needle? Please watch where you’re going in the future.
Hubert: How did you manage to faint while standing up? (sighs) Well I cannot simply leave her here.
There’s a clear difference in the tone of the support and Imma be frank I kinda hate bernie, legit. Again writing wise she’s basically a parody of marianne for me
Yeah, fair, she was just the first mentally ill 3H character I could think of XD
Bernie is an example of a character who isn’t in Blue Lions I mean is portrayed almost exclusively as her anxiety though, which isn’t something I’m thrilled about. Characters are best when they can both open up about their disabilities or disorders or any other oddity, but also show how they deal with it, or learn to deal with/overcome it. At least to me.
It’s usually handled a bit more subtly by bigger game companies, but sometimes can either be shoved in your face and that one thing is their entire personality, or they fall a kind of “The character is clearly this, but nobody is going to address it” situation, which can be frustrating when I do want the aspect of the character explored but they don’t want to write or acknowledge it lol.
I think more characters with disabilities or similar issues should be unable to overcome or deal with them within the span of the narrative tbh. To only ever see success stories is kind of a lot of pressure
Oh that also reminds me, the stories shouldn’t always end with a “now we’ve fixed you and you’re cured” kind of scenario to me. I think showing characters learning to cope instead of getting rid of their problems for a bow tie ending because they met the right person would maybe get rid of the fairy tale ending, but that’s not a bad thing XD
I think that if characters’ endings involve them unable to overcome their disability, they still have to have as good of a narrative reason for not overcoming as they would have for being able to overcome it. Endings like that are also typically portrayed as the “bad endings” for characters though, so it’d be interesting to see that in a not “bad ending” context.
Writing about disability, particularly visible ones, is always going to be complicated by the fact that this is a war series and disability generally precludes people from participating in war as combatants.
I don’t have much to add but I would recommend anybody interested in this topic watch this vid from champutee, it’s a really interesting watch that made me rethink how I approach this topic.
I’ll also back up what was said before, as a neurodivergent person who has struggled with depression, that Marianne is a pretty damn good representation of that experience, while Bernadetta feels like a caricature. Even as someone who didn’t care much for that game’s cast, I’ll admit that her B support with Ignatz with the line “Because you’re always looking at your shoes!” made me ugly cry.
The character’s issues with the disability not being resolved is neutral on the good/bad scale - it is just the status quo. Unless the story is literally about their disability that’s fine.
If you’re not ready to be able to cope, then only ever seeing success stories makes you feel like a failure even if you’ve still got your whole life ahead of you.
So in terms of representation, yeah it’s really important to have characters still struggling with their disabilities by the end of the narrative.
I think the fe setting primarily the availability of magic but the presumed lack of modern medicine could be an interesting context for people with conditions, recently i made a portrait of a masked paladin who I headcanon to have a cleft lip, surgery can be done in modern day but ofc fe doesn’t have modern surgeons.
On the other hand magic might be something that can be used as a semi assist for certain other conditions for example maybe a mute character has a magical parchment that conveys her words easier than just writing it down, or maybe certain magic can be used to create vocal imitations of their voice
So there’s an interesting dynamic there setting and writing wise
There’s also a different kind of progression there, a person’s disability is a part of them, if we’re talking about mental health conditions then yea those can get better or a character might completely get through those challenges at the end of the story (tho the support system is a pretty bad fit for character progression because the character will just regress in The C support)
You can still showcase progression without “curing” the disability tho, like for example lute’s partners never try to change how she is, they simply like her right now, or with other stuff there’s still milestones that can be achieved.
Vision problems gang here: There are plenty of FE characters who wear an eyepatch (temporary or permanent), but I don’t recall ever seeing the writing mention one of the biggest things about that - depth perception is strongly dependent on having stereo vision. I made a point of having Saber mention his depth perception in Sacred Echoes: when he spots an enemy ship in the Zofia Seaway arc, he can’t tell how close it actually is.
Also I think there was something in Three Houses to do with Sylvain having issues with bow proficiency and seeing the blackboard because he needs glasses and refuses to wear them (I forget if he said so directly or if it was just gossip)
My take (as someone with a disability) would be to try to be earnest in you writting, and be open minded to critism. A great thing with hack is that it pretty easy to get personal feedback from the community, so simply acknowledge when you falter and rectify the issue.
To be honest, I would personally much prefer to see honest but akward attempt than nothing at all. Of course this is a much more nuanced topic, but never feel like discouraged to write a disability. You can always ask around, and any research on the topic is bound useful outside anyway. And in my opinion I wouldn’t fret too much over realism on the presence in an army, obviously it gotta make sense (someone missing a arm is probably not gonna be able to use a big sword), but FE isn’t a realistic series in long shot.
Finally, something I would very much like to see more is simply character with disability where it isn’t a core pilliar of the character. Some reference, sure, but it doesn’t always have to be the central thing of a disabled character.
Unless the character is meant to be an irredeemable sociopath, the topic of disability should probably be avoided. Stories like Of Mice and Men have been done before from a tragic standpoint but puts the disabled in a negative light. You have things like The King’s Speech or Johnny Tremain, but if you are going to do a positive story like overcoming his injuries to fight or someone learning to challenge their PTSD, the key point that should really be kept in mind is that people typically don’t cure their disabilities, but learn to live with and manage them.
Physical disability really isn’t a problem in this regard. Magic and Mounts allow pretty much anyone to be of use on the battlefield. Yoder would not be allowed into any modern military lol. Of course there’s a balancing act to be had between magic allowing a person to fight vs magic “fixing” the disability, but it’s very possible.
I think the primary issue is that Fe hack stories often aim for a “medieval vibe”, where our modern vocab would feel out of place. For example, the Non-binary reps I’ve seen in hacks tend not to say “Hey gamers, I’m Sal the Nonbinary person”. They instead imply it through pronoun use or short explanation about how they aren’t a guy or a gal. Ace reps won’t call themselves ace, they’ll just explain how they aren’t interested in romance. Trans reps won’t say they’re trans, they’ll just explain they were born a different gender then they are now.
This stuff gets more complicated when it comes to mental health, because mental health is so often just traits and feelings that every person has taken to an unhealthy degree. Everyone gets depressed, but not everyone has clinical depression. Everyone procrastinates, but not everyone has ADHD. Everyone gets anxiety, but not everyone has an anxiety disorder. And so on and so forth.
The problem is that it’s much more difficult to subtly apply any sort of neurodivergent label onto a character in this context. Marianne could have clinical depression, or maybe she’s just sad. Linhardt could have ADHD, or maybe he’s just lazy.
Which honestly, I don’t think is a problem? I don’t think people need the label to find a character as a good rep. Erk isn’t explicitly ADHD, but I found him incredibly relatable as a kid. In this sense, I think there are already a lot of neurodivergent hack characters, or at least characters who represent the lived experiences of neurodivergent people.
Nah, I don’t think sociopaths are a “valid” target for unfair representation. Most sociopaths and psychopaths are chill people lol. Empathy can be taught and learned, and anyone with decent parents figures out how they should treat people. Not that there aren’t unique difficulties, but the can be overcome with some patience. There’s a reason why the infamous sociopathic serial killers always have really awful childhoods.
I should mention here that Lucius in FE7 was told by his bishop that he had a “sickness of the soul”, which was an older euphemism for some kinds of chronic mental health issues. The Japanese term he uses, 心の病, is still used today as meaning “mental illness”. Lucius canonically has “fits”*, wherein he goes pale and finds it hard to speak, which could be read as either panic disorder symptoms or PTSD flashbacks.
*(The JP term he uses here, 発作, can also mean “seizure”, but given the context that he’s telling Renault about witnessing a murder and surviving abuse, it’s probably one of the other two)
