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spectraeevee · 14 hours ago

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You know, if it's one thing that kinda grinds my gears, it's this... weird persistence some fans of Dragalia had to say that the game was totally angling for this ~Euden/Zethia~ ship all the while.

I mean, sure, I guess I can't stop anyone from shipping anything, but I can speak to the supposed 'canon' degree of a ship by analyzing the broader work and specific lines within.

And let me flat-out state now that, for all of its plot craziness, Dragalia actively made a stand against the Euden/Zethia ship.

Proponents of this argument, joking or not, most often point to four major points in the at least semi-serious arguments I've stumbled upon besides just the people who jokingly meme about it for lols:

-Euden and Zethia act 'too invested' in each other beyond 'normal siblings', which suggests to them that they are romantically involved,

-The truth of Euden's birth gives space to start making it a 'non-taboo' ship, 'wow, we aren't related at all, we don't need to hide anything!' sort of way.

-With Euden's total lack of interest in any of the men or women who become interested in him, they take it as though he is already interested in Zethia and thus uncaring about others' attention

-Euden ends Dragalia as someone that potentially might not be even related to Zethia or remember her, further freeing up the ship to be a normal ship for endgame

Let me address those points in turn.

The 'Too Invested' Argument:

Now, I'm not here to claim that Euden and Zethia had a perfectly healthy dynamic. Euden was hyperprotective over Zethia, and, though it gets less focus, Zethia was hyperprotective over Euden.

Yes, both had problems about being overprotective.

I could list examples all day, but I think I'll narrow it down to a few to just recognize this point:

Here, Euden contrasts the value of his life with not hers, but her mere freedom. Between that, ch.14, 15, etc, Euden paints a very clear picture that he puts Zethia above him in value. Just to add some silliness, he comes close enough in one line of dialogue to inspire me to make this:

(Full quote: No matter where we are, we love and support Zethia always. May those feelings find their way to her...)

And on Zethia's side...

Several times she's motivated to great personal risk to get Euden out of binds, including this case where she willing stays in the demon's den of Agito+Nedrick instead of taking a chance at freedom, because she believes in Nedrick's threat. It's a direct and ironic reversal of Euden's words earlier - she values Euden's life more than her own freedom.

Euden's not alone in starting to lose his head if Zethia's in danger, either. Gala!Zethia (well, technically another Zethia) sees her Euden die, and immediately breaks her ordinarily calm demeanor.

I'll address the reasons for this behavior in brief. On Euden's side, it's a combination of 'big brother protectiveness' and his concerns for her mental state. Euden knew Zethia as sensitive, growing up, but changed after their mother died, and views her current behavior as a facade trying to cover things up. So he fears her suffering in misery with nothing but Morsayati or later Nedrick as company (+ all the other reasons for why you might not be keen on letting a demon overlord keep possessing your twin).

On Zethia's, it's a reflection of Euden's actions. Zethia knows Euden is so recklessly devoid of self-preservation, especially in defense of others, that she feels the need to fix any problem he inevitably involves himself in and the injuries that result. She outright states that she's only as good as healing because Euden gave her so much practice growing up. Part of it is also tied to her self-worth - even though Zethia is, by all likelihood, stronger than Euden at the start of canon, Euden's interventionist personality to get in front of her and stop something from truly challenging/threatening her makes her want to be able to do something instead of feeling like she's always trapped under his protective shadow.

For both of them, it also stems from the fact that they only really had themselves and Notte growing up for same-age friends, so there weren't any others to separate them. Limited attachments means less time to spend with others, which only let them become even more glued at the hip.

And this is where Dragalia had a moment of self-realization that maybe this isn't a wholly healthy dynamic to be stuck in, and that's why there's a surprising-large-if-still-a-small-subplot body of moments in late canon where the two of them start to work on becoming less mutually protective of the other.

Bondforged Zethia's story in part revolves around this idea.

...And where Bondforged Zethia walks with this idea amid its main plot, Advent of the Origin runs with it:

Here, both Zethia and Euden start to acknowledge that they cannot be each other's eternal saviors. Euden tries to recognize that Zethia doesn't need him for everything any more, and Zethia attempts to stand strong on her own without Euden's aid.

While both of their efforts are a bit misplaced (Zethia tries to go too hard to the 'I don't need ANY help at all, mom!' direction and neglects telling Euden of the disturbing, potentially ominous dreams she's having), they reaffirm this again after they both get erased from existence oh what a sentence to write, but that's what you get when going into late Dragalia canon...

To put it in brief: yes, Euden and Zethia's dynamic is not that of an perfectly ordinary, healthy sibling dynamic, and it is a thing that Dragalia actively starts to give them both therapy remedy and get them to a more normal place where they both support each other without becoming overprotective. It's not your standard lovey-dovey nonsense couples oft get up to in media that's viewed as a positive as just an 'expression of love', and instead was more informed by their isolationist upbringing and early difficulties of losing their mother so soon.

As a last note, see Bondforged Zethia's line:

The overall trajectory of their relationship is the both of them finding a happy medium where they mutually support each other whilst growing more independent and less overprotective.

The 'Non-Taboo' / Ending Argument

This one is a lot more straightforward than the last one: Dragalia actively affirms at every interval questioned that Euden and Zethia consider themselves siblings at the end of the day.

We can dance around it all day, but at the end of it, this is the sentiment that Euden and Zethia share at the end of canon:

So, no, no matter what dreams any might have that Euden or Zethia somehow would take the increasingly-muddled bloodline of Euden's (even if not much has changed fundamentally from the simple fact that he has inherited Nedrick's, -Zethia's twin, -blood) as permission to change what they think about each other, that's just flat-out not the case.

And while the ending is high-key ambiguous as to what's going on, as I, who wrote a 300k+ speculatory dragalia fic on the subject would know, there's still nothing to suggest this dynamic has changed!

Questions one can ask about the ending are abundant: did Zethia create a base simulacrum of Euden by remembering him, or is he the real thing? What does he remember? What does she? ...But, ultimately, there's 0.00 evidence to suggest anything has fundamentally changed.

What glimpse we get has Euden just concerned about Zethia breaking down in front of him, and Zethia struggling with feelings she has no memory to tie them to. In fact, with the ending more suggesting that Zethia is remembering more about Euden, the odds of them running with the 'whoop-de-doo, now they don't remember each other' contrivance to 'fulfill the ship' are further decreased.

The 'Euden's Lack of Interest' Argument:

Ah, a classic. I still remember all the people hyper-analyzing over who he had blushed for as evidence of a ship or romantic interest.

I've gone over it several times, but it's never too late to bust out the good old evidence that Euden was seemingly aroace instead of just oblivious or already occupied with another. And for once I'm not grasping at threads to make a funny joke or crazy lore idea!

Euden says at minimum three times that he explicitly 'doesn't ever really think about romance', 'doesn't understand romantic love as a concept', and 'doesn't even think he's mentally ready to even start figuring out if he wants a relationship'.

If one wanted to argue that these come from very Dragalia and that Euden could have since developed, one would still be disappointed, because the middle image here is from Summer Mym, very late in the lifespan of the game.

I know when I first saw that they were doing S!Mym, my first thoughts (and probably several others) were something along: 'ok probably inevitable, Mym is unfortunately reduced to this waifubait character 99% of the time even if there technically is shades of something deeper to her, her story is probably going to be mindless rom-com nonsense with Euden'.

But if they instead choose to take the high road and make the bold decision to let her have mature discussions of love with Euden, replete with her understanding that Euden just doesn't romantically love her and respecting his reaction to her confession now that she finally put it in a way he understood...

(They would continue to disaffirm a Euden/Mym ship in the very last chapter, impressively, too!)

...I can't see them backtracking so hard just for another ship, if that's the maturity of love and rejections that they could take with Mym of all characters. Here, Euden again rejects the concept that he even understands what it means to romantically love, and instead has come to recognize that even if he's capable of it, he needs to figure out this little thing called 'self-love' first.

If they'd suddenly made another Elisanne or Euden alt and immediately backtracked on Euden's blanket refusal to engage in anything romantic, fans of all stripes would be pissed, to put it bluntly. Whether it was diehard Mym/Euden shippers upset that they contrived a reason to sink the ship only to ignore that reason to uphold another, people who appreciated the overall strong body of evidence for aroace!Euden now upset that they decided to needlessly shove a ship in... It would please almost nobody save for diehard Elly/Euden fans just trying to take their food where they can get it.

This has gone on a bit of a tangent, but in short: start to finish, Dragalia strongly rejected affirming any /Euden ship, and not just because they wanted to keep shippers' dreams alive - if they're willing to so thoroughly sink one of the biggest ships in the game, nobody was safe and the course did not appear to change.

Also, at the end of the day, blushing isn't just an expression of romantic love/attraction, ya know? It's foremost one of embarrassment and other strong emotions like anger.

In summation:

No, theoretical internet person, Dragalia Lost did not push a Euden/Zethia ship, so if you're gonna ship it, just know you can't hide behind 'but it was canon!' or 'hey, I'm just going along with what the writers clearly wanted' as a cover.

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