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masquerade-of-misery · 20 hours ago

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hi! since this topic has come up over and over again, i've wanted to ask: is what happened to briarland really colonization?

most definitions of colonization (at least in the dictionaries) have two elements: 1) establishment of a colony, so control over new land 2) the subjugation of people, so control over locals. either one has to be present for it to meet the current linguistic definition of colonization. what bugs me is that the status of fae within the newly established "colonies" isnt mentioned. we know that they've been discriminated against before and after the human-fae war in other countries, like we've learned during lilia's quest to save eggleus. but surely not all fae fled to the mountains of modern day briar valley? were the ones that stayed subjugated? or did/do they exist separately on human-controlled territories (like deep within the forests/caves or smth like that)? moreover, briar valley is still a sovereign nation that retained some of its former territories. indigenous people of the america don't have government autonomy and neither did the nations of africa during colonization.

i would say that fae were displaced and the land they formely inhabited was colonized. i would say that fae were discriminated against. but i wouldnt say that the nation of briarland was colonized or that the fae were opressed. i just dont see the evidence that humans exercised/could exercise their authority or power over fae or that they had governance over fae. what do you think? is there something im missing? id love to hear from you! thank you again for everything that you do <3

[ You can find related discussion under the #tw // colonialism tag. ]

As the ask implies, my response will be discussing colonialism, displacement, and related topics in detail. Please see under the cut if you’re okay with that!!

I think the reason why there’s disagreement on what to call what happened to Briarland is because… well, language changes over time and can be dependent on context. Some people define colonialism in much stricter terms, or having to hit very specific bullet points—establishment of a colony and/or subjugation of the local populace—in order to count. It’s more… pedantic, in a way. Other people don’t need that. To some, colonialism is simply “a powerful country invades, controls, or exploits a less powerful country”, sans specifics of how that occurs.

I don’t think that either interpretation is “more” correct than the other, as I see language as something flexible! I think a flaw of the former definition, however, is that the technicalities make it so that Twst doesn’t meet the “requirements” by omission. The lore does not go into detail about the political fallout or the consequences of the 100 years’ human-fae war. It does not have that scope to begin with, so I don’t think it’s fair to expect it of Twst. Book 7 is ultimately about Diasomnia and its bonds. It is not going to have a tangent to talk about colonies or how fae were treated following the treaty, because that shifts focus away from the main draw, which is the characters and their interpersonal drama. We also don’t know a ton about Briar Valley or its system of governance, so that’s another huge hole Twst will likely never explore in great length.

I want to point out that there are flaws with the other interpretation too. If we set our parameters for colonization to something very vague, then we may overcorrect and label everything “colonization”. It’s true that not all colonization looks the same, but these kinds of trigger-happy reactions could unintentionally water down the term and make discussions of the subject unserious. You have to be careful with your words and their meanings!!

If we read between the lines or really dissect the intentions laid out by the Silver Owls, I think this paints a clearer picture of what was going on. Like many of my other posts which cover heavy subject matter, I’m going to lay out the facts as objectively as I can, and then allow you to come to your own conclusions.

Firstly (and most obviously), humans are taking over a land that isn’t theirs. Nocturnal fae are the residents of Briarland, the entire continent to the north of Twisted Wonderland.

Lilia states that, 100 years ago, the first humans arrived on their shores. They quickly multiplied and started outnumbering the fae who already lived there. This could be interpreted as establishing a colony or colonies without ever speaking the word. And remember, being outnumbered is a HUGE reason as to why the fae lost the war because no matter how strong an individual soldier (like Lilia) is, they cannot take on countless humans without eventually tiring.

Human miners “go around acting like they own the place” and bled the land dry of resources, including magestones and the now rare ore, mystium. They “cut down [fas] forests, lay waste to [fae] mountains, and plunder [fae] resources.”

Due to the mountains being stripped, the direbeasts, deprived of their habitats, enter fae settlements and cause trouble—probably in search of food, shelter, etc. “The fae have suffered immeasurable damage because of them.”

The fae of Briar Valley tried to fight back against the human invaders, much like colonized peoples did irl.

One thing that’s very interesting is that Sebek mentions “speakers of fae languages are quite rare”. This is odd because apparently fae languages are “proud and noble” traditional languages. Should they not be better preserved if they are valued so much? Well, one possible explanation for this ties back to real world colonization.

The colonizing country may impose laws which ban or deeply discourage expressions and celebrations of the colonized culture. This includes celebrating traditional holidays, wearing traditional clothes and hairstyles, preparing and eating traditional foods, and, yes, speaking traditional languages. The general idea is to suppress the culture of the colonized land so that the colonizers’ culture can “fill in” and thus take over. It’s a form of forced assimilation… subjugation.

The fact that fae languages in general are rare could hint at linguistic supplantation. Notably, pixies/smaller fae in Briarland seem to speak in tinkling bells, and the fae apparently from "Faeland" also speak in tinkling bells. Are these the same fae, just having moved elsewhere and having maintained their language, or are these two completely different sets of fae?

Of course, another major aspect of this conflict is the racism and discrimination perpetrated on both sides (although I will be focusing on this coming from the more powerful country’s side). Heinrick repeatedly stresses fae arrogance and the danger fae pose. This often occurs because a colonizing country needs a “reason” to justify invading or attacking.

Heinrick details what he intends to do once the Silver Owls triumph. He wants to take away the powerful object belonging to a fae ruler (which could be seen as symbolically “stealing” the right to govern from Maleanor).

Furthermore, Heinrick gleefully speaks about tearing apart an unborn son from his mother and then raising that son to be his own personal steed. He is not seeing Malleus as a person, but as an item or an animal to subjugate, control, and use as mode of personal transportation. This unfortunately mirrors irl situations in which the colonized are seen as “beasts” or “less civilized” beings that the colonizers or “more civilized” people have to “teach”, “tame”, or “train”.

That bit about tearing a family apart can be taken literally or figuratively. In a way, colonization can ruin families due to displacement, war, persecution, etc. In a figurative way, colonization can alienate children from their culture and heritage.

Thinking about it, if this was how Heinrick was going to treat Malleus (a child and prince), this definitely does not bode well for how the regular civilians might have been treated under his rule. If you want to take that to its darkest possible conclusion, not just oppression but mass enslavement could have been on the table.

Finally, let’s look at the aftermath of the war. It’s not explicitly stated in the text, but we can infer that the fae of Briarland lost a lot of their land.

In modern day, they are just a small valley (hence “Briar Valley”) and not the whole continent. Upon closer inspection, you can see dashed lines running though the country. This hypothetically represents how the victors (ie countries who pledged soldiers to the Silver Owls) claimed the spoils.

It’s not made clear whether the fae all over the country were forced into Briar Valley (which would make it very cramped) or if they continued to live where they already did, just under new leadership. Because Briar Valley is never described to have overcrowding issues, the fae outside of the valley may have either moved away or were subjugated by humans. Given how intolerant humans were of fae at the time, the latter is a little difficult to believe. Maybe they were forced into less desirable areas?? But the game doesn’t clarify for us how fae in those claimed lands are treated or if they simply up and left altogether. I think fans might have saw how horrible of a person Heinrick seemed + how hateful the humans were to fae and may have assumed abuse of the fae in the colonies.

It’s entirely possible that a fae displacement and diaspora occurred, as we see villages being attacked and villagers being killed on some battle maps. We also see pixies (smaller fae) inhabiting Briarland on various battle maps, which implies some are native to the country. Pixies are all over Twisted Wonderland too, such as in the Dwarf Mines area. However, this isn’t clear because fae do seem to be native to or live in other places (like Faeland). The game��s limited assets mean they could just be recycling small fairy assets instead of those pixies being the same ones from Briarland.

What we do know is that, shortly after Castle Wildrose and its surrounding area was claimed + renamed “Bladevale”, the humans began to fight amongst themselves for the land and resources. This is something that can happen following colonization; allies turn on one another to get the most for themselves.

In modern day Briar Valley, humans live among fae, although we don’t know what the ratio is (it seems to be very few humans?). Sebek’s father is one, and his marriage to Mrs. Zigvolt was frowned upon and discouraged by the community. To this day, Baur still doesn’t accept him.

This is the part where I give you the unfortunate possibility that Sebek’s father may be descended from those original human settlers. Lilia’s dialogue implies that Briarland was all fae before those first humans arrived on a sailboat. Briar Valley is otherwise so isolated and closed off from the rest of the world, so I can’t imagine it would be simple for a human to randomly move there.

In terms of governance, it’s true that Briar Valley appears to be a sovereign nation. They still have their monarchy and its own senate. The key word is appears. We don’t know a lot about Twst’s politics, so it’s possible that humans have influence over or an impact on how governing works, like how a puppet leader may be put into power for a foreign nation to control at a distance. Given how proud, strong-willed, and isolated the fae are though, I’d say the chances of this are pretty low?? But you never know.

We don’t know what the peace treaty they signed looks like or how the negotiations went. It’s possible that the humans wanted to take it all and the Dawn Knight or some other mediator argued in favor of the fae being granted some land and independence. What else is in that treaty? Do the fae have to make allowances for the colonizing countries? Do human settlers + their descendants get to come into Briar Valley if they wish? Do fae get to do the same for the human settlements which now exist? What about the scarce natural resources left, how will those be distributed among those left standing? Many unanswered questions which could make the situation actually far less favorable for fae. I appreciate that you lent some real world examples but again, not all colonization looks the same or is carried out the same way.

There could be tons of other realistic problems Twst didn’t think relevant to include. For example, human settlers could have brought diseases native go their home countries to Briar Valley, where the fae may have no resistance or immunity to those diseases.

I think that was all the points I wanted to mention!! As I said earlier, take this information and make of it what you will. Everyone has their own definition of what does and doesn’t count as colonization (depending on how hard you want to enforce “requirements”), and with how Twst dances around the issue + doesn’t go super deep into politics, I don’t believe we’ll ever get clarity on this… unless maybe we get a Briar Valley hometown event, but I still seriously doubt they’ll chitchat about such a depressing topic.

#as a Hungarian I relate to the fae... we've been though shit like that more than enough times #our biggest tragedy was losing 2/3 of our land after WWI #twisted wonderland #twst #twst analysis #briar valley #lilia vanrouge #twst lilia #malleus draconia #twst malleus #sebek zigvolt #twst sebek #baul zigvolt #meleanor draconia #twst meleanor #twst knight of dawn #diasomnia

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