#faroreswinds

[raxistaicho]

Faroreswind Buddhism anon

So a while back, user faroreswind answered an anon ask from someone familiar with Buddhism. I thought it’d be interesting to respond to the ask.

Original post here.

Ordinarily I’d reblog it, but the original is ridiculously long, so my reply will also be very long and thus take up enormous space. I’ll also not be replying to everything because a good chunk is just background on Buddhism which is fascinating but not super relevant, because I’m more interested in what the anon has to say about Buddhism as it directly pertains to Three Houses.

And also, a good chunk is just assertions that I’m also not super interested in addressing.

First, just a couple bits of faroreswinds’s reply:

I know myself and other mutuals have stated that the Church in Houses is no representation of the Catholic Church, as others have insisted upon.

Ugh, right. There's not many Catholics in Japan today so the Japanese aren't very familiar with Catholicism!

I'm not saying it's a perfect representation, but the comparisons between the Church of Seiros and Christianity and Catholicism are there to be looked at:

-In ancient times, the creator god was better-known by the people, and in modern times hides from them. (God or His angels used to appear before chosen people quite frequently throughout the Old Testament. This clearly doesn't happen now.)

-The creator god once came down physically, was betrayed and murdered, and their second coming is expected by the faithful. (The general Jesus story)

-Drinking of the blood of a divine figure as a motif for communion with that figure (Rhea's ritual for inducting people into the higher offices of the Church of Seiros bears eerie similarities to the Eucharist)

-A cataclysmic flood in the backstory

-A place of torment in which sins are washed clean

-Tying the two together, a dichotomy of judgement by fire and water.

-Sothis has a very Old Testament-like do not under any circumstances turn the other cheek way of doing things. You gain support with her if you show no mercy to the rogue in Abyss after the mission to fight Kostas.

Now obviously the Church of Seiros isn't the most profound comparison to the Catholic Church, but the similarities are hard to ignore unless you think the Japanese just aren't familiar with Catholics and Christianity, which would... indicate some ignorance of history...

Now, getting to the actual anon post. Yeah, I suspect Anon will never see this, and they probably won't respond even if they do, but I've touched on the Buddhism stuff pretty frequently thanks to Fantasy Invader, so I think it's an interesting subject to tackle anyways.

Churches and “churches” in jrpgs are often just window dressing to add plausibly western details to a plausibly western high fantasy inspired setting,

I would totally agree with you when it comes to examples like Tales of Phantasia, but the Church of Seiros clearly isn't window dressing.

but even if they include crosses and saints and cathedrals the central trappings are very much not western at all and western consumers of japanese products often forget that, especially because japan has a very strong japanizing filter they run almost everything through.

I actually think IntSys is better about this than most series. For instance, the very first game had a very Greek thing going for it (all the Regalia names, Marth's name, the Pegasus Knights, Marth's lack of pants). It took until Awakening to finally get a clear-cut Wutai-like region (I wouldn't count Isaach, since there's a lot of Irishness to it), which is an impressive space of time away from the roots of the series.

Fans tend to dismiss the general plots of Fire Emblem as the cast fighting and killing an evil dragon-god but they forget a single crucial detail to that: the evil at the end reminds the characters that as long as humanity has evil in its hearts and continues to make the same mistakes over and over again, then evil will inevitably return and so the cycle of fighting and hatred will start again.

[Alm, Marth, and Celica] are heroes but they are unable to break the karmic cycle.

That's not that wide a central theme of the series, actually. Medeus and Loptous are the two villains who say that phrase before going down, and they both happen to be (former) Archanean Earth Dragons. Given their shared hatred for humankind and their shared background, it's not at all unusual that it's a philosophy they both hold to, whether through coincidence or not.

In Fire Emblem's specific case, evil doesn't arise again because humans have a cork in their chakras (had to steal a joke from Logicked, lol) but because the old generation (and sometimes even the current generation!) growing complacent and failing and the youth having to correct their failings is a recurring theme in this franchise.

The leaders of Valentia, human and dragon alike, fell to their own decays so Alm and Celica had to take them out and improve the continent, Adrah disassembled the Shield of Seals so Marth had to restore it, ALL the leaders at the start of Mystery of the Emblem fail in various ways, Marth included, the old generation in Genealogy grew corrupt, Sigurd's generation failed to stop them or were party to their failings, and Seliph's had to right the wrongs.

Duty to the people and what it means to fail that charge, leaving the young to take it up anew, is a central theme of this series.

Lastly, "As Long as There is Evil" is a trope. That's how well-known it is. We humans are very aware of our own failings and how we cause trouble for ourselves.

Anon then goes into Fates for a little bit, and I just wanted to correct a point:

Anankos enjoyed both heavenly and earthly pleasures but being steeped in them too long made him decay, make costly mistakes that only made him more angry and paranoid instead of being able to reflect on them, and in the end became a creature of death and violence and discord who could only be released through defeat.

Anon seems to be suggesting that Anankos became a hedonist and grew corrupt through that, but this is absolutely not the case if that was the intended point. Anankos fell to madness through a biological imperative, not by any moral failure on his part or because his chakras were clogged. This is a particularly damning accusation to hurl at his feet since Anankos foresaw his own madness and set up countermeasures against himself in the past. Azura's pendant was created from his dragonstone, and Lost in Thoughts All Alone was written by him to restrain his power.

Houses especially has the basis of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, but Byleth’s personal class Nirvana, confirms also the basis for Silver Snow and the dual themes that would come better if Intsys was a more competent writer:

Byleth gets their Enlightened One class in all routes, though. It's also interesting to question who gives them the title Enlightened One.

Is it an omnipresent narrator who knows Byleth is enlightened? Except that wouldn't make any sense, given Byleth doesn't act very differently or more enlightened after fusing with Sothis. You can still choose to portray them as a dipwad when the opportunities present themselves.

Or maybe it's Rhea calling Byleth the Enlightened One because she thinks she's succeeded and Sothis is coming back any second now? I find the latter more believable.

Long paragraph coming up because there's a lot to unpack:

Byleth starts out in the realm of animals, it’s reflecting by their title of Ashen Demon and their description of being emotionless killing machines before Garreg Mach. They don’t care about much, they only focus on their immediate needs like eating and resting and whats immediately in front of them, they have no curiosity or inner awareness of themselves and their world. It is coming to the monastery that they become exposed to positive influences that put them on the correct path, they learn structure and good morals and to care for others and the game says so.

No. This is such a fractally wrong reading of Byleth's character progression that it's astounding.

So firstly, the point on Byleth starting off in the realm of animals.

Treehouse fucked it up, because of course they did, but during the opening of the game, when Sothis asks what Byleth is, she'll only accept the answer that Byleth is human.

(Source for the first, and for the second)

This is the creator goddess herself, whom fusion to allegedly represents Byleth becoming enlightened, and she's telling Byleth that they're human. As I've said in the past, the central conflict within Byleth is the dichotomy between their human and supernatural aspects, and here Sothis is telling Byleth to accept and embrace their humanity and not claim to be a ghost or an evil god.

The whole point behind Byleth's initial state is that they do care and they do have their own thoughts, but they're rendered supernaturally stoic due to what Rhea did to them and have difficulties expressing themselves or forging bonds with others. When Edelgard is in danger at Kostas's hands, Byleth throws themselves before his axe. When considering the three house leaders, Byleth peers straight through their exteriors and gleans the people they are beneath (contrast this against our lovable bimbo/himbo Shez only noticing the exterior). Byleth expresses curiosity for their students and those around them very early in the story.

Byleth is not a cold individual, heedless of the world around them and only concerned with their immediate biological needs. Indeed, Byleth is an empathic, perceptive, and thoughtful, they just have difficulties expressing it.

And it is not the teachings of the Church of Seiros that helps them improve and open up, but their bonds with their students. The game is explicit about this.

The agarthans were humans who became greedy and waged war on each other to accumulate wealth and power

I have no idea where you're getting this from. Rhea (not exactly the most reliable source...) claims humanity turned their backs on Sothis's teachings and started up wars, but we never learn what they were fighting over, or whether it was even the Agarthans who struck first.

and the goddess Sothis decided to discipline them, but then agarthans proved they were (ironically) acting like beasts by deciding that their greed was more important. They could not stand being contradicted and being told that their acts were wrong.

Sothis flooded all of Fodlan to stop them (it seems like this would have also drowned all the world, but we have no way to be sure of that). Unless literally every human living on the surface of Fodlan were evil and warring against each other, this is a very Sodom and Gomorrah-like case of an extreme over-punishment of mankind's follies.

So they plotted against heaven and chose to condemn themselves to hell (they live underground in the darkness, Shambhala is supposed to be the name of a heavenly paradise but instead they built it underground to continue their evil away from the eyes of heavens)

...No. Shambhala's original purpose is unclear, but what Shambhala became was a last refuge as Sothis drowned the surface of Fodlan beneath the ocean waters. The Agarthans didn't hide there to connive against Sothis in the shadows, they did it to survive. It's essentially a bunker. Lorenz even notes the air inside Shambhala is stale, suggesting it's air-tight to keep the flood waters out.

Edelgard acts out of ignorance like an animal or common beast, her vision cannot see past her own immediate desires and so she acts on that ignorance and her own selfishness.

Oh boy, "Edelgard doesn't know the truth of Fodlan," again, it never gets old! Except it did. Ages ago.

Edelgard's immediate desire is to lock herself in her room eating sweets. Starting a war that tears at her is the opposite of selfishness.

But what condemns her to hell, what turns her into an evil demon instead of remaining a selfish yet innocent animal is that she turns away from many people imploring her to listen to them and that her actions are wrong and that she is causing suffering.

The only person I can think of who implores Edelgard to stop is Dimitri late in Azure Moon. Rhea mostly just declares she'll kill Edelgard in the most gruesome way possible, and Seteth and Claude urge her to surrender at the last moment.

Now Byleth and especially Silver Snow has shown they rose to being qualified by the good influence of the church and its teaching (even if the game doesn’t show much about those teaching but o well)

Right, because the teachings aren't narratively important. The church is a false religion created by Rhea to keep control and peace over Fodlan until she could resurrect Sothis. Byleth is not improved as a person through following the moral teachings of the church, but through connecting to other people, predominantly their students.

But especially, because the realm of asuras and beasts represent laziness, easy temptations, ignorance and immediate gratification opposed to discipline, hard work, introspection, and renunciation, it makes it more significant when byleth decides to sever ties with her when she reveals that she has not been an innocent student but in fact the flame emperor responsible for the many evil deeds along with the cooperation from agarthans.

So essentially, because Edelgard's fallen onto the wrong path and is spreading pain to others, Byleth should abandon and stop her.

So what about Azure Moon, then? Over the time skip, Dimitri has fallen onto the wrong path, abuses Byleth and his former friends at every turn, spreads pain to those around him, and is leading them on a pointless suicide march, yet Byleth is rewarded for staying at his side and trying to help him by eventually getting through to him despite Dimitri demonstrating no signs of response until the very last moment. If abandoning a student on a wrong path is the ideal way, Byleth should also turn on Dimitri and be "punished" if they don't.

The act of renouncing such ties in order to enact justice and follow the correct path is what immediately qualifies Byleth to Nirvana and why they keep their divine traits on every path except Crimson Flower (where in Crimson Flower, killing Rhea, their final and most egregious act of violence against heavenly principles, condemns them to losing their divinity and turning back into the Ashen Demon, they lost themselves to the temptations and ignorance represented by Edelgard,

How is killing Rhea in that context a bad thing? By that point, Rhea's fallen so far into paranoia and madness that she'd rather set Fhirdiad on fire, killing every man, woman, and child living inside it, rather than accept a peaceful surrender.

Also, Byleth does not lose divine favor or whatever by killing Rhea: they are still capable of S-support Sothis (the scene even has a specific provision for Crimson Flower) during which Sothis reaffirms her adoration for Byleth.

Crimson Flower is the only route in which Byleth embraces their humanity, as Sothis told them to in the opening minutes of the game.

safflowers are used to dye the robes of monks but red spiders lilies grow on the banks of the river of the dead).

I think you just accidentallied your sentence there. Also, Safflowers have a positive connotation: Safflowers symbolize “good luck and happiness”. In folklore they were thought to be useful for attracting love or marriage. And what do red spider lillies have to do with Edelgard? Is it because they're a red flower?

Because they are not the Buddha but are close to reaching enlightenment they achieve a very high position in Buddhism, which is staying in the human realm as a guide in order to help others on the correct path as well and is righteous.

Heh, what'd I say about Edelgard detractors stealing our arguments?

This is also why i have many more issues with Shez than I do Byleth actually, maybe Byleth is silent but they have their own path to follow. Shez has no path and I’m not even sure what they are supposed to represent. Their personal class is asura, often clashing with devas and representing lack of reflection and selfishness and gratification and violence like I said before, but I can’t find anything in Shez story that actually says anything about that or their preferences and choices.

It's almost like the Buddhism symbolism has a habit of just being window dressing without much meaning.

Two out of three times they stray from the correct path and Rhea’s death should mean a violation of dharma because the agarthans have won, but I saw nothing in the game about immediate consequences of that violation or the causing of suffering Shez incorrect paths are causing.

That's because they don't win. They might arguably win in Golden Wildfire provided you kill Byleth because then Sothis is dead and Thales lives, but Scarlet Blaze ends with both Rhea and Thales presumed dead, or at the very least badly hurt and with their respective organizations routed and disorganized.

I've said it before, but Thales's plan doesn't end with Rhea's death. It ends with the surface Fodlanders wiped out and Fodlan back under Agarthan control. He doesn't get this in Crimson Flower or Scarlet Blaze.

So yeah, that's my thoughts on the Buddhism symbolism. Again, I don't expect the anon to read this or even reply, but I was interested in responding anyways. Later!

[n64retro]

Phantom Shadow Beast BONGO BONGO Shadow Temple The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (Nintendo EAD, 1998) Gif by Faroreswind.

[archer3-13]

Whatever is your personal vendentta against Treehouse, I now have a personal vendentta against them for all the times the Veyle wank popped up. Now, how much did they messed up with 3H ?

ive gone over this a few times now, but treehouse was responsible for the hatchet job translation of fates and they have not proven since then that they can be trusted with faithful translations.

if ya want more detailed answers, ask @renisfan or @faroreswinds who have better grasps on japanese translation in general.

[lananiscorner]

But I have to tell you, it’s the combination of these two pictures that I love, because the lady on the right looks like the smoking hot glamor shot that they use as the recruitment poster to get the lady on the left to sign up.

LMAO, bless you @faroreswinds for making me look up Jill Bearup’s latest video, because yeah, the Byleth costume evaluation was great, but honestly this Mass Effect section had me howling.

[renisfan]

@faroreswinds here's Areadbhar!

Bonus shot of Alfred using Areadbhar because why not

[fantasyinvader]

Here’s something I noticed. Byleth’s moniker of the Ashen Demon, looking at the Japenese it’s not presenting Byleth as white. Grey Devil, according to @faroreswinds is also a legitimate translation. Likewise, Rhea isn’t known as the Immaculate One in Japanese, rather the White One. And of course, Edelgard leads the Black Eagle House.

You take the Black Eagles and White Clouds, you get grey. Just like Byleth, more evidence that the Black Eagles are the intended route. But there’s more.

There’s also that trading quest for the two-toned whetstone. Each one of the items in that quest is a callback to a previous FE game with the final item representing Fates. You can give it to Shamir, who can join the Black Eagles and Edelgard, or Catherine, who won’t join you in Crimson Flower and always sides with Rhea the White. Also, joining Rhea means siding with your kin while siding with Edelgard is siding with the one you’re close to.

It’s comparing siding with Edelgard to siding with Nohr. Nohr, who is invading other countries and represented by black. But unlike Conquest Corrin, Byleth doesn’t realize they’re serving a monster or work to expose her. They just follow, possibly subverting her orders by sparing some enemies but at the end of the day, they helped her conquer a continent and there’s no Xander to make things right either. And it’s not like the Empire is as resource-starved as Nohr is either, meanwhile siding with the Hoshido analogue also has the player defeat the hidden threat pulling Edelgard’s strings unlike in Birthright.

It’s like, the game is saying by siding with Edelgard it’s like siding with Garon. You’re her Hans.

[faroreswinds]

Basically Miyamoto does some continuity, but only for a while.

Like Zelda 1 and Adventure of Link both reference eachother directly, but the "references" in a Link to the Past are vague at best and in many ways are re-visitations/remasterings of old themes (An evil wizard manipulating a relative of Zelda).

Similarly Link to the Past is directly referenced by Link's Awakening such as Agahnim appearing.

But than whilst Ocarina of Time, again draws inspiration from the themes of Link to the Past, it doesn't follow it exactly. Like the Gerudo are inspired by Ganon's thief group mentioned in a Link to the Past, but they aren't masters of DArk Magic and GAnon never murders them in a battle to claim the TriForce.

Think of it as similar to how Miyamoto rebooted Star Fox in the 64 era, than again in the Wii U era in my opinion.

Aonuma is more interested in continuity than Miyamoto, but still the gameplay and stand-alone story come first before continuity. Thats my view.

Lol, I just finished writing up a post here about the timeline: https://www.tumblr.com/faroreswinds/702867155942768640/oh-i-know-the-part-about-the-prince-ordering-all?source=share

And funnily enough, it was Miyamoto who asked Aonuma to keep the timeline coherent and it's Aonuma who doesn't like it so much:

When we start to work on a new Zelda, we of course think about all this timeline stuff. Nintendo has a lot of IPs today. And Shigeru Miyamoto asks that we do our best to keep the timeline coherent. So we do it. But honestly, when we start to think of a new Zelda, respecting the timeline is a constraint for us. We would like to be free to imagine whatever we want without having to worry about the timeline. Being able to create while still keeping Zelda's essence, and bring new things to the table. Except now when we think of a new idea, we have to wonder "OK, but where does it fit in the timeline ?" and it instantly becomes very complicated ! And sometimes, we can't do these new ideas because it wouldn't fit in the timeline ! So, for the creative teams, it's an hindrance. Yeah, we published a timeline in a book but among our staff, we would like to be able to stop thinking about it... What's funny is to see the fans debate where BoTW fits in the timeline. But history has been written by historians that have been able to establish an order of events. Except no one is really sure everything happened in this exact order ! Anyways, when it comes to the Zelda timeline, I'm of the opinion that it's for the players to debate, and to imagine themselves the order of events !

[extremepineapple2]

The claim he says he killed "women and children" is false. He never says this, not to my knowledge. People started saying this because they thought that by killing children, he was killing innocents. So people started saying "women and children" because as you said, that typically means civilians. We now know this as false, as Yuri's statement shows he was considered a hero by the civilians for taking out invading imperial forces.

This makes the “he doesn’t just kill women, he MURDERS them” twitter post even more ridiculous sounding.

[electricprincess96]

I like bad puns. I like to tell bad puns.

Now you were probably expecting Alois or someone like that but can I raise you the headcanon that this man

Secretly loves puns but pretends not to, you know to keep the image up but will make very dark and very bad puns while he tortures his victims.

[travelling-on-the-octopath]

Honestly, as far as AU fuckery goes, this Claude might not make me wanna throw up as much.

[emblemxeno]

Good news! Since you don’t want spoilers I won’t be specific, but faroreswinds found more info and it turns out that Claude’s actions aren’t that OOC and actually make sense in context. I let out a sigh of relief when I saw Claude’s reasoning for doing THAT.

I'll take it with a grain of salt, but thanks for the assurance anon <3

[archer3-13]

If you don't mind discussing the dragon lore. Turns out in the jpn dub of Engage, Mage dragon are called Demon dragon.

i am not the best person to ask about this kinda stuff admittedly, but no they're probably just grabbing the wrong end of the stick whoever's spreadin this cause fire emblem consistently uses the kanji 魔竜 which, best i understand it can be translated as either mage dragon or demon dragon. idunn for instance is referred to by this kanji as are the archanean mage dragons. why would they stop now.

unless theirs a different use of the wording mind you, but im gonna trust that IS are using the same wording as they've always have.

idk, @faroreswind off the top of my head could probably give ya a better answer on this.

[gascon-en-exil]

@faroreswinds said

I had to give up on BotW to 100%. I normally do for Zelda games but I got bored.

I did BotW 100% once, DLC included, when it came out, but in the four years since I haven't been able to touch the game. I want to, because I replay most Zelda games somewhat regularly, but the prospect is just so daunting that I've never been able to get started. There's just so much to get and so little structure to follow and also the combat can be genuinely difficult even outside of Master Mode (no thank you). It's a headache from every single angle. Even looking to 100% speedrun pathing doesn't help, because the people who do those rely on as many glitches and exploits as the game's robust physics engine can create and that's just not how I like to approach gaming.

To put it in perspective, my current estimate for my as yet still theoretical Three Houses 29 run 100% is that it would take ~450 hours of in-game time, translating to around three months of real time based on the rate that I play. I finished my one and only BotW 100% in around a third of that, with no extensive planning or anything...and yet I can't bring myself to do it again. I envy people who can enjoy open-world games, but it's just not something that can fit into my tidy world of gaming-by-spreadsheets. In that light I'm actually rather glad that the BotW sequel has been delayed, because it's almost certainly going to be more of the same and I don't know how I'm going to feel about the Zelda series as a whole when that proves to be the case.

[nanigma]

Hi nanigma, floral tribute JPN text anon here. Thanks for adding your translation. Our main difference is regarding 自分で. I translated as "herself" while you and faroreswinds translated as "by herself". I believe 自分で emphasizes a personal effort, and could also be translated as "personally" (ejje. weblio. jp/content/自分で). While 一人で and 独りで are used for "alone" and "by oneself". For example Dimitri's JPN text had '独りで'. 1/2

That's why I understand it as "Edelgard never goes personally". I got my info on "oneself" vs "by oneself" from kiwi-english. net/3814 and en. wiktionary. org/wiki/自分. Let me know what you think and if I missed something 2/2

You are indeed correct. Now that I look at it, this does feel like it makes the most sense too. Thanks for the heads up. Japanese has a lot of very minute details, which can change the meaning a lot. Always appreciate it when people point these things out. 

[agoddamn]

@faroreswinds well, you see--

[faroreswinds]

Hi faroreswinds, floral tribute JPN text anon here. Thanks for checking over my translation. Our difference is regarding 自分で. I translated as "herself" while you translated as "alone". I think 自分で emphasizes personal effort, so another translation could be "personally" (ejje. weblio. jp/content/自分で) 1/2

While 一人で and 独りで mean "alone" and "by oneself". For example Dimitri's JPN text had 独りで. I got my info from kiwi-english. net/3814 and en. wiktionary. org/wiki/自分. Please let me know if I missed something, and thanks again for looking it over! 2/2

Hello there, thank you for your ask.

As I have mentioned before, I myself am not an expert. There is still much that I have to learn, and Japanese is difficult to say in the least.

All of what you have said is correct. I admit I took some liberties when writing my translation. Translating is not a one to one exact science; however, my translation still kept the spirit of what was said.

If you would like to see a more accurate translation, please check out this post. Very similar, but more accurate. A lot of my Japanese is from exposure, so I tend to get wibbly-wobbly when trying to figure out how it would best translate to English.