#claude is allowed to feel hurt and confused and he can still be good heroic biracial representation

[charismastaticarchive]

CLAUDE HC: humanity & the cynical idealist & tragic biracials

claude does believe in transactional affection / information and relationships. he’s a cynic by nature, with a chip on his shoulder---and he doesn’t very much like people who don’t like him and his people and the circumstances of his birth. he’s playing a long game---and i don’t think his people necessarily believe in him. this is a last-ditch effort to form ACTUAL trade bonds and allegiances with fodlan after his mother literally turned her back on her inheritance & the whole cruel world of it (for reasons that are both obvious and just. if only all women in fodlan could get away from its system of eugenics and misogyny).

claude doesn’t really believe that humanity is good as a default. children are just children, and they learn what they’re taught. he believes people are what they are raised to be---and he recognizes that fodlan will always have a bias against him. instead, his idealism comes from his belief that to be human is to be malleable and changeable, that every human can learn to grow & change & make great strides towards the future. humanity is a literal flower in a desert that must be tended to, whose thorns must be clipped, that needs to be watered and weeded and given JUST ENOUGH sunlight.

claude is angry, beneath the surface, and he’s hurt---the way any biracial is hurt when the white side of their family is racist towards them (i speak from experience, my white dad makes coronavirus jokes towards my mom), and claude’s had literal attempts on his life because of who and what he is. he’s grown around it, he’s learned from it for his own survival---but while that motivates him, it doesn’t make him stronger, it just fuels the fire in his heart to make humanity better the way he dreams it could be, in his idealist heart where he thinks humanity sucks ass, but could be so beautiful if everyone could learn to be better, the way he knows they can be with just a little push. but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t still experience hurt. to say he just brushes it off is like. i don’t know. it feels weird to me, as if to invalidate the pain that comes with this specific brand of racism.

he HAS to use transactional conditional relationships for allegiances, he has to play chess games, he has to push his anger and his hurt down. i don’t think it makes him a ‘tragic biracial person’ that he has feelings about literal attempts on his life and the racist ideas that his own friends have against his people that he’s forced to spend time with every day (hilda and cyril). he’s half fodlan, and these people should accept them, they should let him have his birthright and their allegiance, but they wouldn’t let him if they knew where he really came from---and some people don’t want him to now, even assuming he ISN’T almyran. racism is real, and poc will always have feelings about the great tragedies that happen every day. he can be tragic and still have dreams, still keep people at an arm’s length to protect them and himself and WANT everyone to hold hands and be free to be who they are.

there are great moments of joy in claude’s life, even surrounded by people who hate him. and he believes that the growth of humanity through ending prejudice and war against his people isn’t just for him and people like him. it’s for his friends, who are missing out on the beautiful way of almyran life, and the beautiful way his parents love each other.

and just having tragedy in his past and not fitting into a fictional world that is divided by race, and admitting that he experiences both privilege (literally being able to come to fodlan and be the heir and pretend to be white bc he’s white-passing enough according to the game) and feelings of exclusion for not ‘fitting in’ bc he has a white mom and his people probably have feelings about her being born from the very nation that oppresses them on a global scale, bc that’s easy enough to extrapolate in the context of the game, doesn’t mean that he’s a ‘tragic biracial person.’ its like. just him being human that reacts in a human manner?

just. i don’t know! let him be hurt! let him have feelings! let him feel not enough part of one culture or the other and feel that is both his greatest asset in unifying them and also, something that makes him feel confused and enraged sometimes. let him be a human being that feels hurt!!!!! a lot of biracials (more white-passing ones especially) feel like they have to ‘pick a side’ when theyre young or theyre not genuinely one or the other and experience great discomfort because of it. thats a genuine experience and not like. something that can be boiled down to a harmful trope, if u give the biracial u are portraying the humanity and depth they deserve. claude is a complex character, and the way he percieves himself and his race and his two inheritances, which drives his whole character arc, can be complex as well, and still include pain and confusion about being biracial. ok end rant.