Witch Hat Atelier's writing does have some detractors which is interesting to me because it reads as a very purposefully old fashioned story. Not conservative, quite the opposite. Its vibe is very.... 1920s utopian. The social movement that gave you the first children's rights movements and the Montessori schools. It's Janusz Korczak right down to the fairytale bones. 80% of the characters are reasonable and fair and doing their best to create a better world and another 5% were reasonable and fair until injustice shattered them. Everything is slow and measured. The children are thoughtful and democratic and allowed input in all things, especially their own fates. And I suppose that may seem unrealistic, but I don't think it's supposed to be entirely realistic. It's supposed to be just. One of those old fashioned utopias that's actually willing to get down in the dirt and wrestle with its own contradictions, willing you present you with thorny questions and conundrums, but never loses that sheen of "wouldn't it be nice?"
If I had a nickel every time a band with a very dedicated manager had to write a song to save the world but the song they wrote DIDN’T save the world and it ended up being a completely different song that saved the world that the band made up on the spot all the while the lead singer was dealing with their own inward turmoil I would have two nickels…
…which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice
iris fey/hawthorne 🍒 (also bonus question: which last name do you associate with her more, if any at all? i personally just think of her as ‘iris’ no last name, so i’m curious about your perspective)
IT'S IRIS TIME, YAY, THANK YOU <3333 I go back and forth about her last name, personally, which is why I tag it different depending on the post. Purely from a canon perspective, she is just (Sister) Iris of Hazakura Temple/no last name in the modern sense, so I get why some people are quite adamant on that point -- it reveals agency on her part to have divorced herself so entirely from the two families that hurt her, families she was never really allowed to be a part of, and provides a nice bit of characterisation when you read it like that. But, personally? I think it's kind of boring to only look at it from that angle HAHA I like the separation read, but I also like considering if and when she would have held either name.
She was born Iris Hawthorne; I suspect she would have kept thinking of herself as such even after she was left behind. In fact, I think she would have clung to it for a long time after, because, at the end of the day, she was a child, and she's so full of love, I don't think she understood what the Hawthornes were and what they did to her until years into her adolescence at least. I think a part of her always prayed, hoped, expected they would come back for her. And even after she's accepted that and released herself from the weight of that name publicly, I feel like some part of her still held onto it. Because of Dahlia. Dahlia Hawthorne, her sister, her other half. If she was Dahlia Hawthorne, then Iris would always be Iris Hawthorne. They were connected by that name even when they were miles apart, and that meant something. That's why I think, whenever she thinks of Dahlia, she also thinks of herself as Iris Hawthorne. It's also why Dahlia's insistence on a new identity, a new name, is so significant to me. It would have freed them both, and they could have been only Iris and Dahlia, no family except the ones they chose between them. But that's not how it went.
I don't think Iris ever accepted her relation to the Feys until after the game's events and after establishing a relationship with Maya and Pearl. The Fey name, to her, is a curse. She hates that family, hates what they represent and what they did. Calling herself a Fey would mean admitting that she is a part of that ugliness down to her marrow, and it would be a form of punishment bitterer than serving the clan is. Taking it would be a final act of self-loathing and defeat... until she meets Maya and Pearl. Then, I think, the shape of that name and what it represents begin to shift in Iris's eyes. Much like how 'Hawthorne' changed from being a name associated with abandonment and pain to a final, unbreakable tie to her sister, 'Fey' changes from a curse to a gift. It's connection to a cousin who reaches out to find her, a sister whom she can love without complication, a family reconning with itself and doing better. It's hope. And I think, over time, that's what the Fey name comes to be for her, a way to accept who she is and the acts she's done -- as ugly and unforgiving as her family's history -- and to move forwards. Eventually, just like Hawthorne, Fey comes to represent love to Iris, for the family she knows and has not the family who cast her aside, and that's the Fey name I believe she takes.
Anyway, on to the actual questions now lol.
off the top of your head: notes for characterization? what are the most essential traits of this character to you?
adjacently—do you think fandom does the above traits justice? why or why not?
I think what's most essential to me for Iris's character, and what tends to be overshadowed by her other traits in fandom, is the fact that she's ruthless. And has only a modicum amount of foresight for her actions. Oftentimes I think people tend to forget these parts of her because they come through so much clearer in Dahlia, but Iris very much will cross moral (and legal) boundaries if she believes she's justified in doing so. This is the woman who said she'd kill her own sister if she tried to hurt the man she loved. In court. And she's also the same woman who transported and stabbed a corpse, I feel like that's something that gets glossed over a little when discussing Iris. The core of Iris's character is love, love as something to be feared. She has little love for herself, which is why she's willing and able to go so far for those she cares about. She will not preserve herself over them. This is vital to her character to me, and it links nicely to another part of her which I think gets overlooked in favour of Dahlia: Iris is a fairly competent criminal. I've posted about it before, but I think it's insane how she helped Dahlia with some of her plans, and even how well she performed during the BTTT murder. Iris is both a dreamy romantic and a relentless pragmatist; she will do what she thinks needs to be done to protect her loved ones. She gets caught because, in her mind, she has no need to conceal her own actions and, therefore, no need to think past the point where she may be indicted. It's a selfish mode of thinking that is blind to how these actions will affect the people she's so desperate to keep safe (because she doesn't think she deserves or is loved), and I think it's another form of contradictory doublethink that makes her interesting. She's always split between two forms, and I really like how that's also reflection of her relationship with Dahlia.
3. throw this character at any other character of your choice to bounce off each other as outsider pov to each other— regardless of timeline or logistics. why this combination? what insights would they have on each other?
She and Phoenix have such warped yet telepathically accurate understandings of one another that I just have to see them interact again. Please, Capcom, I'll give you everything I have. They're so interesting because I do think they see each other as their best versions elevated onto pedestals, but I also think they know exactly who the other is and what their integral flaws are. I think they both know how to ruin one another and that comes from how deeply they love each other, and ahhhhh!!!! crazy. crazy to me. They're my everything.
I also think that Iris as a whole is such a complex and intriguing character that most people in universe wouldn't know what to think of her. I wish we'd gotten to see what Godot thought of her properly -- this strange woman, sister of the woman who killed him, who was willing to do anything to keep the sister of her sister's executioner safe. I wonder what he made of her. What did she make of him? They clearly understood each other, but I wonder how much of themselves they saw and knew just from those brief interactions they had. It's such an under-explored part of the story, and I'm enraptured by it.
Also, like, Franziska. She spent so much time with Dahlia acting as Iris, I wonder what she thought of the real Iris once she met her. I've said it before, but I think there'd be understanding between them of loving people they shouldn't (Dahlia and Manfred, respectively), and that would be an interesting perspective to explore.
Other people I would like to see her interact with are Justine/Verity for the religious themes and willingness to bend the rules for those they love similarities and Simon Blackquill because he, too, is 100% willing to die for people he cares about, and I think it'd help both of them to have her provide a bit of insight on that.
4. how do you think you would react to this character in real life and vice versa? would you prefer be a million miles out of range, be amicable classmates, or fall desperately in love?
It would be the same: I would have a true crime fanblog dedicated to her, and she would never know I existed or find it terrifying once she did. I love you in every universe, Ms Iris 🙏
5. ideal flavor of rotating for this character? crack them open and dissect them— do you want them tormented, pining, or being loved + comforted? do you have any specific scenarios you like to think about?
I always want her rekindling her relationship with Maya and Pearl and building a future together from there. They're family. Also Phoenix is there, but I don't think they should ever officially get back together. They need to exist in a state of 'I will love you more and understand you better than anyone else forever and that is why we cannot go back to that', and everyone else just has to deal with it. Aside from that, it's just her and Dahlia all the time. What was their relationship like, were they ever uncomplicatedly happy with one another, what did their love look like... There's so much there, and I love thinking about them.
6. weave a web of dynamics through the cast for this character: which dynamics are you most interested in? both canonically and through extrapolation/speculation— which dynamics are the richest to you, and why?
Okay, NOW I can talk about her and Pearl. Phoenix and Dahlia are a given for this question, but I think her and Pearl are the dynamic that is most complex and, in a way, important after the events of BTTT. There is just so much to unpack between them, and I find it so important and telling that Iris doesn't tell Pearl that she's her sister by the end of the case. She allows Pearl to set the boundaries of their relationship, and I think that's so loving and sad. She doesn't want Pearl to have to live with the knowledge that she has had to her entire life, of how murder runs in their blood and how blood has run over her hands. It's hard enough with just knowing about Morgan. But I do think they come to terms with it quite soon after. Maybe through Maya, maybe through Phoenix, maybe Pearl just learns enough information and puts the pieces together herself. But I do think Pearl goes to her eventually, and they form a relationship. I'm not sure that Pearl ever knows how to truly feel about Iris. I would like to think they're easy and loving, but, realistically, things are just so strange and distant between them. I'm sure she loves Iris, but is it a love that can compare to her love for Maya, or even Phoenix? I'm not sure. Besides the years of simply not knowing Iris existed and the... everything that happened during BTTT, so much of their early relationship will be built with a wall of iron separating them. Pearl's had an odd childhood, but even she's likely to be affected by that. So I think maybe Pearl always loves Iris at arm's length. However, I do fully believe that Iris pours all of her love into Pearl. I think she respects and understands Pearl's need for that distance between them, but I think she was ready to die for Pearl from the moment they met, and I think that tendency of hers to risk everything for the people she loves might actually be part of what maintains that rift. I don't think Pearl appreciates or knows what to do with love of that intensity from her, even if she may not be distinctly aware of it on the surface. I also think it echoes the lengths Maya went to to try and protect Godot at the end of the trial a little too closely for Pearl. It's kind of done away with after its first mentioned, but Mia says something to Phoenix when Maya channels her for the first time about how she is both Mia and Maya in that moment. I tend to interpret that as the medium's spirit kind of going into a subconscious state during channelling, so even though Pearl wasn't aware of what happened during the trial in detail, a part of her retains a feeling of it and what happened, and she feels that anxiety again around Iris even if she may not know why. Ultimately, I think their relationship exists in a state of imbalance, with Iris always giving a little more than Pearl but being okay with that, much like how she was okay with Dahlia and how she used her. It's sad and complicated, but it is loving.
7. do you have particular niche takes on this character? defend those takes.
Pro-snowmobile racer Iris for the win. I am being so fr when I say I think it's the perfect job for her after coming out of jail. She's raising funds for Hazakura and being so, so, so cool about it. Please, Capcom, I'll give you all my worldly goods for one (1) piece of official art implying that's what she's been up to.
There's so many theories going around about Coco being special in one way or another. That she's a descendant of a old witch linage from before the Pact. That her father, mother or both used to be witches who had their memories erased. Or that she herself has some special abilities that makes her exceptional in some way.
But if that was true, then it would be against every theme of this story has set up so far. Shirahama herself told us that Witch Hat Atelier core message is that even someone without natural talent is capable of achieving great things through constant learning and practice.
And Coco really reflects that message perfectly. She's just a normal girl who's trying her best. Throughout the whole story we didn't see her doing anything that wasn't just her own resourcefulness and ingenuity. No "Chosen One" schtick there. If she would turn out to be some long lost heroin from the prophecy then this whole message would would suffer from it.
I think it's pretty telling that the only group which sees Coco as someone special are the Brimmed Caps, story's main antagonists. I also believe that the reason behind their fixation on this little girl will be way more nuances than simply because she's some Chosen One™
theres a phenomenon that happens on here i have been calling "normalize loving parents posting" which is when you spend a lot of time on tumblr and are exposed to a lot of one specific counter-cultural narrative day in and day out until you start to forget what the dominant ideas are for most of the human population and thus feel the need to "defend" things that are widely accepted and popular. it's called this because of the time a bunch of text posts about shitty dads were circulating and then people with good relationships with their dad didn't feel included enough and started making "uhmmm can we normalize loving parents? not everyone has a deadbeat dad, MY dad is great" type posts, seemingly forgetting that good relationship with dad is a cultural norm that is expected and encouraged. i think its good practice, especially when im annoyed, to stop before i hit the post button and ask myself if this is a real issue or if im normalize loving parents posting. because often im about to try to normalize loving parents
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