#...but I think there's a fairly solid case here for Aroace Euden

[valeriefauxnom]

Interesting(?) Corollary on Aroarce!Euden

So, I've kinda already dug up the more obvious scenes that hint that Euden seemed to be Aroace (as seen here if you missed it).

But as I was spamming Dragalia to my friend today, I found another thing that I think is an interesting addition to this previous evidence.

Specifically, Orion's stories. His base form doesn't exactly give out any flags, aside from his continuing absolute blind spot re. romance...

...But his Valentine's alt has an interesting line in it indeed.

The exchange is as follows:

Again, pretty innocent. Euden thinks he's 'too young' essentially, to be worrying about that, etc. Fair enough.

But this concept seems to be echoed again all the way later in Summer Mym's story.

I'll stress the 'not mature enough to understand what it means to be in love' part for this one.

Here's where it gets hypothetical, but to me, it almost comes across as if Euden, growing up, has learned to associate 'romantic love' with 'maturity' in some fashion. It might stand to reason: kids are often told that, when they see couples behaving certain ways that are weird to them, etc, 'you'll understand when you're older/an adult/when you find that special someone/etc.' So child!Euden might have had a similar moment or three, and associated that romantic love=maturity.

The mere omnipresence of romance as a major theme in society probably doesn't help to dissuade the notion that it's the 'normal' state in the world, and that he is the weird one as he grew up to never having that spark of 'oh now I get romantic love'. Combined with the aforementioned connection he's made, Euden might believe that since he still doesn't feel it, it means he's not mature/too young.

Combined with his other comments over the years like flat-out stating to Naveed he doesn't understand the kind of love he's talking about (romantic) to Malora's story where he says "(romantic love/'capturing someone's affections') [is] just not the kind of thing [he] think about", Euden is consistent on the notion that he just flat out doesn't understand what people mean and feel regarding romance and the corresponding love.

At the very most, he can echo some of the trope sentiments people commonly say word-for-word in media, but even that kinda reinforces that he can at best throw out the most common tropes when trying to come up with what 'romantic love' is: this fanciful 'love at first sight' devotion where one puts absolutely everything about their partners ahead of anything else.

Even then, he doesn't mean a word of it and doesn't really understand why Elisanne is acting all weird about it, because he understands it was an act, she knows that, why would anyone react to having that spoke to them? He was just mindlessly repeating tropes from romance books to upset a dumb fiend. At most, he could see why it was uncomfortable - because it is uncomfortable having that kind of stuff professed to you when you don't like someone, which Euden would perceive Elly as feeling (Heck, he doesn't even really know Elisanne is big into romance novels, thinking 'it's not like her'). In fact, he more bases this comment on making her uncomfortable from a religious sense with the whole 'undying love of Ilia' thing she's forsworn above all else.

So yeah. Valentine's Orion provided an interesting prequel to Summer Mym's story that I felt added a new little layer of elaboration about what Euden thinks of love. All in all, it's surprising just how consistent they were in the messaging some of Euden's thoughts regarding romantic love and its associates.

Bonus round:

Also, apparently the dev team was being funny, and decided to add a running joke for Orion's anniversary lines that Euden just immediately starts walking away and ignoring him whenever he starts waxing poetic about love:

Which, as my friend said, "Honestly what a mood for Euden to walk away/zone out when it comes to things he doesn't experience, aka romance. If he doesn't know what it's like then it's hard to focus or even relate"

The idea of Euden just getting a glaze over his eyes and meandering off whenever somebody starts talking like this is a funny one, though!