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lordelmelloi2 · 4 months

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On Hephaestion in Fate

Iskandar’s closest friend…though he didn’t think so himself. While his sister spread such information around, Hephaestion was aware that was simply counter-intelligence. Hephaestion was inserted at Iskandar’s side so as, even if only a little, to reduce the chance of him being attacked. [...] If alive today, he would no doubt be accused of having a siscon streak in him. In a way, one could say that fear became accurate after his death.

From Hephaestion (person)'s entry in the materials of Lord El-Melloi II Case Files. Very frustrating to read.

I hate what Fate series is trying to do with Hephaestion and Iskandar's relationship, I Know explicitly they're trying to make room for fujo shipbrainrot here by saying essentially that they don't have to worry about it; but there's problems.

Urobuchi and Nasu and etc. have all stated Iskandar is bisexual, there is no way they could've made that judgment unless they explicitly acknowledged the nature of Iskandar and Hephaestion's relationship. The fact is also that the parallels between Iskandar and Gilgamesh and their respective "closest friends" are very blatantly apparent through F/Z and other incarnations that like to put them together and Case Files as a novel itself also hasn't really made any attempt to discredit Hephaestion's importance to Iskandar, either.

It's weird also that they even use the word 'siscon' here because it almost implies that Hephaestion didn't feel anything for Iskandar as much -- which is so fucking bizarre, because Iskandar's love of Achilles and the Iliad has been present during the entirety of F/Z and through FGO and other incarnations, who do you think was Patroclus? Like there is no actual fucking way they could strip that Hephaestion was the Patroclus out. Of course though they have basically all-but erased Patroclus from Achilles' story as well.

The thing though is that this does also imply a lot more Olympias machinations. Because we know Faker was also something that was Olympias' doing, taking Hephaestion's twin sister and molding her into a nameless body-double for curses to be redirected towards in order to protect Iskandar. If that setting is true then yes of course Hephaestion is going to be fiercely protective of her because he's acutely aware that his sister is being used for something so dehumanizing on purpose and she doesn't even care about it; she's also thoroughly stripped of her own mental self-agency in that she's truly devoted to Iskandar and her brother and that's it.

So it can almost be inferred that in the Fateverse that Olympias essentially set up Hephaestion and Iskandar to be best friends rather than it being their choice in Aristotle's classroom -- or perhaps that Hephaestion fit the bill for what Olympias was looking for and so she began manipulating the situation accordingly. Hephaestion has always historically been remarked upon as being the smarter one so I don't doubt he would see Olympias' nonsense with his sister and be upset about it right away. Though, I mean, it's hard NOT to be upset with what Olympias was doing through Alexander's childhood; she poisoned all his siblings, including one that he did care for, she pushed him constantly into the spotlight for the sake of power, she even at one point bought a prostitute for him and begged him to have sex with her because his disinterest in women and sex at that age was something she felt personally concerned with (again, powergrabs, but also, definitely covert incest shit in noble families). The last anecdote I've listed is one that's not stated in Fate series but is something that happened historically.

The question then is whether or not Fate wants to legitimize Hephaestion's feelings towards Iskandar as mutual. It's possible that the phrasing here would imply that Hephaestion merely believed he could not be as close to Iskandar's heart as he truly was; something that, given the amount of personal relationships Iskandar had, isn't a hard thought of self-doubt to keep. Iskandar had many relationships and all were very important to him for many reasons (Ionioi Hetairoi existing makes this obvious). It's just that truly, his relationship with Hephaestion was the Most important, and for Hephaestion to even be relevant in this manner or even discussable in this manner also adds to that.

If Hephaestion was (presumably) opposed to Olympias and protective of his sister, why would he follow Iskandar in the Fate verse, then? The benefit of course being power, which isn't something one would scoff at in this setting, but I truly doubt that Hephaestion would simply go for powergrabs if the whole point is that the people who followed Iskandar did so because they admired him and loved him. But that brings up another point.

Hephaestion has been absent from Ionioi Hetairoi and from character designs or materials despite his significance until the Case Files manga. There has been no depiction of Hephaestion himself in any material featuring Ionioi Hetairoi, the 10,000 strong army of Iskandar, of which features his most important relationships. Faker was also absent. What does this imply?

Faker's absence was due to protest. We know this from information from Case Files. Faker also has the ability as we know from Lady Reines' Case Files to be able to summon Ionioi Hetairoi herself, featuring Iskandar within it. One would presume Hephaestion also has this ability. But why is Hephaestion not there at all?

A few options -

Hephaestion IS there, Waver just doesn't want to talk about him because he's insane in the head or whatever

Hephaestion is there, but in the back or something -- his role being not forefront is the reason why he's in the shadows; something that is remarked upon in historical analysis as to why we know so little about Hephaestion even now. Hephaestion's role traditionally was to do a lot of the "dirty work", and so his position was less favorable to put the spotlight on in comparison to the sun-shining glory of Iskandar.

Hephaestion is not there because of protest, much like his sister.

Hephaestion is not there because he is not that important of a relationship to Iskandar...

Hephaestion is not there because he doesn't truly exist.

I generally feel like I trust Makoto Sanda to not go this route, but there has been (somewhat baseless) speculation that Hephaestion was actually Iskandar's split personality. I Highly Doubt That This Was The Case in Fate series given the way it has treated Hephaestion thus far as a figure, but it would explain why Hephaestion has been a complete phantom in the series and in Iskandar's recollection.

Though I think personally it's more likely that it's 2 or 3, I don't think that it's out of the question for it to be the simply negligent option 1 or the outright ahistorical option 4.

The other question is: why is Fate series so negligent of Hephaestion?

That's easy to answer from certain standpoints -- one is because it gives them more room to make money off of fans that are there from the sheer yaoi market that Isuwei as a pairing as brought in. Like from a marketing standpoint it is blatantly obviously advantageous to simply ignore Hephaestion until the end of time.

The other reason adding on to that is because in terms of representing gay content, Fate series really considers itself to have no liability to do so, especially when there's such a massive fan following for a male/male pairing. The fans make the majority of the content, so TM's work is done, and they can hand off crumbs to people hungry for them and keep fans of the actual historical figures begging for scraps with little things while rewriting it to suit their needs. It's the reason why Achilles doesn't have Patroclus despite the significance. It's also why the genderbends are so predominant; it's what's keeping the money going. In the recent GudaGuda event Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin's historical homoerotic relationship is explored but the weight of it lessened as Uesugi is not just a genderbend but also one of Takeuchi's designs. So the risk of straight male fan complaints about yucky gay stuff is lessened because Uesugi isn't "really a guy" in Fate here.

Type Moon hasn't really been one to look up to in terms of whether or not they will give realistic male/male representation in pairings; either one side of the pairing or both have to be in a female body, thus leaving what would normally be a m/m pairing as a "safer" yuri f/f pairing (which then benefits their marketing as well as the majoritively male fanbase is easier to sell to).

The problem though is whether or not it is going to mesh with the rest of the story.

As I said from a marketing standpoint it is obvious that ignoring Hephaestion is beneficial. But from a narrative standpoint -- and this is Sanda's challenge -- ignoring Hephaestion forever just doesn't make sense.

There is no Iskandar without Hephaestion. It is impossible to write a story about Iskandar that involves ANY aspect of the historical portion of him without mentioning Hephaestion. And the fact that Hephaestion was mentioned at all was Fate series' first mistake.

Iskandar's materials have him listed as Dhul Qarnayn, aka the Great King mentioned in the Quran as one of the ideal ways a King should exist. The reason for THIS is because of the Persian Alexander Romance. The Alexander Romance is basically a legend-version of Alexander the Great's story in which Hephaestion's presence is very little or just outright absent. It is a fantastical version of Alexander the Great's kinghood in which he performs many great deeds. There are Greek, Persian, Syrian, Hebrew, Ethiopian, Nigerian, Indian, Malaysian, Byzantine and even more chrono-regional versions of this story, and each one features that mysticism that made Alexander the Great into such a worldwide figure today.

It is pretty apparent that a lot of Iskandar's characterization comes also from the version presented in the Alexander Romance. His being Dhul Qarnayn solidifies this. It would have been easy to continue to ignore Hephaestion if they simply continued to go down this route -- the Alexander Romance features little stories featuring him, and glorifies Iskandar into this God-chosen figure, and in some versions, even as a prophet of God.

But in Case Files Faker is introduced and so is Hephaestion as a figure that did exist. Hephaestion is given some material, but never appears, except as a version spoken of by his newly-conceptualized twin sister. (Hephaestion did not have a twin sister in history, but that much should be common knowledge).

Hephaestion's absence then becomes this bleeding, gaping wound in the story, where the writing fails to stick to just one version of Iskandar -- and chooses to also associate with Alexander the Great the Historical version. Hephaestion's absence leaves this hole at the core of a lot of Iskandar's lacking characterization, where we see this vibrant, energetic character full of appreciation and care and love for those around him, except the man he was told to have loved and been close to the most.

And again. Hephaestion's importance to Alexander within history itself cannot be understated. I've mentioned before the sheer amount of money that went into Hephaestion's funeral, the fact that Alexander started executing people who had beefed with Hephaestion before (Eumenes was one such person who narrowly escaped the threat of execution because of his poor relationship with Hephaestion), Alexander executed the doctor who was in charge of Hephaestion and otherwise went on a complete megalomaniacal spree in the 8 months between Hephaestion's death and his own. There was no Alexander without Hephaestion. For Fate to come in and say that Hephaestion did not think he was the closest person to Alexander is to understate the megalomaniacism of the later Alexander's historical life, which strips from the character we are also inferred of through Faker's recollections in Case Files.

Faker often warns about getting too close to Iskandar, stating to Gray "The King is like the sun. Its heat burns away anything that gets too close." For the man who was considered equal to this sun, his absence is like that of a black hole where the rest of Iskandar's character is held. I also accept scraps of Iskandar's characterization here and there from various authors and depictions; I'm not saying I'm better than anyone on that note. But the frustration as an Iskandar fan I have at the sheer lack of consistency is what compels me to write on my own.

I generally have been very trusting of Makoto Sanda as an author to wrap up fine details, and he's generally been very consistent -- the inclusion of Ergo as Alexander IV's repo'd body in Adventures is still messy but the conclusion of Case Files was overall pretty decent. But it would still behoove him to write more on Hephaestion as a character or for the developers to genuinely consider adding in Hephaestion and fleshing him out; otherwise we miss so much of Iskandar and so much of what we think is going on in the Fate version of the Hellenic Empire history because that one piece is missing.

#hephaestion (fate)#iskandar (fate)#character analysis #fate grand order #fate series #fate zero #faker (fate)#alexander the great (fate)#alexander the great #lord el-melloi ii case files #lord el melloi ii case files #adventures of lord el melloi ii #adventures of lord el-melloi ii #Wrote this this afternoon in a fit of needign to write Something #narrative analysis

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hasmephydoneanythingwrong · 1 year

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I started conceptualizing design ideas for Hephaestion. I used Gacha Life since I don’t like drawing designs out until I’m 100%sure of them, and Gacha Life helps me come up with ideas for outfit details anyway.

I wanted his design to resonate well with both his sister and Iskandar, so I took design inspiration from both of them. I also saw this painting of Hephaestion with a red and gold cape, so I made sure to include that, too. I looked up Greek bows for accuracy, but Gacha Life’s only bow was this one with all the spikes. Just imagine that the spikes aren’t there, lol.

I imagine he’d carry himself carefully, presenting himself as a wise philosopher who tries to avoid violence although he likes the thrill of a good fight, but he’s naturally boisterous, and when he has to take action, he won’t hesitate to protect those he cares about. He’s also a bit of a self-sacrificer who would turn down anyone’s direct offers to ease his burdens.

Dialogue Ideas

“If I have no choice but to draw my bow, then I shall give this fight my all! Your orders, Master!”

(To Iskandar) “Ah, great King of Conquerors! It is good fortune that we were summoned on the same side! But take note of this: should the day come when we are forced to be enemies, do not hesitate to strike down the one who knows your secrets… my everything."

(To Alexander/Iskandar Lily) "Haha! It seems that you are simply wise beyond your years, just as I expected! Hm? That shocked look on your face... Has interacting with a younger you caused some sort of time paradox!?"

(To Faker) "Dearest Sister, it is good to see you again! Hm? Faker...? Ah, foolish Sister, you're trying to do my job again, aren't you? Don't worry. Iskandar will have no need for another protector so long as I am here!"

(To Oda Nobukatsu) "Listen here, young one. A word of advice: if you want to support your sister, you must not sell yourself short. After all, if one of her fiercest allies cannot even hold confidence in himself, then what does that say about your ability to protect? ...I'm sorry to say such a thing, but it's the harsh truth."

(To Bartholomew Roberts) “Lord Pirate, I simply must ask… why are you following me with that grin on your face? Huh? My hair?? That’s… very flattering, but… that’s no basis for admiration! True admiration only shines through in the face of a strong personality! …Oh? You like that too? Well, regardless, I’m taken.”

(Wearing Spiritron Dress "Clothed in the Care of the Conqueror"): "Well, would you look at this? This fiery red hair, the strength coursing through me... I may still be an Archer, but I'd forgive you for thinking that I'm the Faker now! ...Don't tell my sister that I said that. Please."

Others' Dialogue for Hephaestion

(Faker) "The sister you wish to speak to no longer exists. Rest easy, comrade, for I shall protect Iskandar in your stead. Unfortunately..."

Gameplay Conceptualizing

Hephaestion (True)

Class: Archer

Rarity: ★★★★

Attribute: Man

Deck: QQQAB

Traits: Servant, FGO Newcomer, Hominidae, Human, Humanoid, Weak to Enuma Elish, Male, Greek Mythology Male, Costume-Owning Servant

Also Known As: Hephaestion (Archer)

Active Skills

Hawkeye (C+)