Alder tree's usually represent Strength and resilience, which is fitting for Frederica and I believe this is where hyv stopped if they actually took inspiration from symbolisms of the treeâ but I looked deeper into every meaning it has and I came to some headcannons!
The most interesting thing that it represents is balance, mostly of the genders because male and female catkins grow on the same branch, and this is interesting to me because though I believe that in terms of looks Freddie was inherently feminine looking but she became more androgynous or atleast stopped presenting in gender-conforming waysâ but you could definitely interpret this in various ways, another way to look at this would be overall balance, or as I see it, the existence of good and bad inside of her while she struggles to balance it in a way that is beneficial to her and those around her(especially her daughters)
Another thing that popped up was nurture! Now, I'm not sure you could call her the most nurturing person... But apart from her questionable parenting, this feeds into my own headcannon that Freddie, while being strict and far from gentle, teaches the recruits and squires! It has almost became part of her duty, anytime a new batch comes in, she is the first phase of training, even though she doesn't believe in starting from the basics and will teach techniques that nobody understands but somehow it always works and pretty much every Knight who is younger than her is the fruit of her efforts to teach them seriously!
Now the next thing is rebirth for some reason, this could definitely tie into gender identity, but I don't have enough information to pluck this headcannon out of the vault, so I'll let this marinate and re-examine it when we know more about her relationship with herself, or it could also tie into her changing herself but I, again, don't have enough information to stop marinating it.
The last thing, is based on the chinese translationâ She's called "Knight of the Red Alder", now this tree specifically bleeds red sap, which has a lot of superstition and mythology tied around it, but one thing I found the most interesting is that soldiers would make shields from the wood and let it bleed for themâ this I found particularly interesting because I believed she would be on offense a lot, but her particular love for offense is really just her defending all the knights standing behind her, isn't it? Instead of letting Mondstadt bleed, she let's herself "bleed", and she is technically the shield of a whole generation since she taught them the basics of being a knight.
I love headcannons so much I am glad I exist in a world where creative liberties exist
