Regarding Ike & Soren’s Sexuality
I’m a little bored and I’m feeling pretty talkative and advocative right now so I’m gonna try and lay to rest an extremely bitter and long-lived shipping battle, and also throw my own opinion into the ring about Ike/Soren and their individual sexualities as characters, just for fun and because hey opinions, everyone has one!! So first I’ll have a section regarding why the controversy is unneeded, and then what my personal feelings on the ship are.
First of all, if you haven’t read amielleon’s write-up on Ike’s sexuality, I highly recommend you do so, link right here (warning, it’s long).:
https://amielleon.dreamwidth.org/237826.html
You should read it if you’re interested, because I can tell you for a fact what I’m about to say isn’t going to amount to anything this person has said. It is a near perfect, un-biased essay on the Ike/Soren controversy and how to solve it. But nevertheless again I feel like talking so I’m gonna try re-iterate some of their points anyway.
My unbiased take on the ship:
They’re shipping characters from a video game! It doesn’t matter!! There are so many more things that are better to worry about, world hunger, clean water, teacher salaries, etc., and you’re worried about some anime fuck being gay or not gay?? Go outside and live a little.
Ha... sorry I got carried away there. Anyway like I said, it shouldn’t matter so much to you. Ike is my favorite fictional character of all time, and I don’t ever mind at all when I see people ship Ike/Soren, Ike/Elincia, Ike/Ranulf, etc., you know why? Because people can ship what they want, unless its morally wrong. It makes them happy, and you can’t take that happiness away from them with your opinion. It’s rude and it likely won’t help out either one of you in the situation.
There’s a lot of evidence for both sides of the argument, usually enough for either sides to reign victorious in an argument, to which then it usually comes down to one’s argumentative skills. (I won’t bother listing all of the evidence for both sides, you can check the link above for that.) The fact of the matter is the games make Ike and Soren’s canonical relationship out to be very vague because of the amount of evidence for both sides. It’s a problem that isn’t meant to be solved, and sometimes that’s ok. The dialogue in FE9 and FE10 are so vague that it can be interpreted either way. In a sense, I think this is great. It allows for everyone to have their own personal fun with the ship and have it still be convincing, and with that said I think it’s time for me to throw my hat into the ring.
My biased take on the ship (in other words, my opinion, which is by no means fact):
I don’t think Ike thinks about sexual identities or relationships, and I think Soren is basically Ike-sexual.
Soren:
Two quotes from Soren in particular make me think this way. One is Ike’s death quote in Radiant Dawn: “Ike... Please live... Even if all the cities burn, and the seas swallow Tellius... You mustn't die... Not you...” and the last line in the Japanese version of Ike and Soren’s support in Path of Radiance, which I can’t seem to find the quote for right now, but it was something along the lines of him saying Ike is the only one who is special to him. Soren has had some pretty traumatic experiences as a child (if you haven’t already find an article on his backstory regarding his near starvation and parental abuse.) And all of these experiences went away when Ike and Greil found him and offered him food and shelter. Ike is a savior to Soren, nearly a deity. I think his trauma was so hard on him that he developed some sort of savior complex to him, and has therefore shut everyone out in his life, save for Ike, which explains his antisocial behavior. His trauma is something very serious, and if it were to happen in real life, I think his behavior in the game isn’t too far off to what would actually happen. I think some people take his trauma too lightly and see Soren as an overall good person, without thinking about how much his trauma would realistically affect him. I actually think Soren is a very tragic character, and while he is aligned with the good guys, I think he’s only with the mercenaries because of Ike. He lashes out against his own comrades, particularly laguz in FE9, and even shows only small signs of improvement with his racism in FE10. I think if Ike didn’t exist and Soren somehow survived his childhood, he’d become a villain and an outlaw, using his magic to retaliate against those who rejected him for his brand.
To conclude, Soren has a deep and complicated character that is explored plenty throughout FE9 and FE10, but in my opinion at the core of this character is his trauma, and Ike is involved in this trauma. He develops tragically undying love and devotion to Ike on almost a terrifying level because of his trauma, and it becomes even more tragic as Ike is unable to feel the same way.
Ike:
The short way of me explaining Ike’s sexuality his that he’s married to the job. In other words, being a mercenary. No, I’m not saying he’s asexual, I just don’t think he thinks about it at all. He just doesn’t care enough. His whole character revolves around him being a blunt and tireless warrior, who appreciates a good fight and challenge, but yet doesn’t love bringing up a sword in times of war. His job and lifestyle leaves little to no time for romance, and Ike has seen evidence of this in the case of his parents, Greil and Elena, as Greil eventually kills Elena, indirectly because of Greil’s life as a warrior. He’s always thinking about the next fight over romance, which is evident in the base conversation in FE10 when Ike almost pretends to romanticize the infatuated Aimee just to get a discount on war supplies.
In the iconic scene in FE10 where Ike offers a shoulder to cry on for Soren, I believe this is Ike simply sharing pain with someone. Ike has lost his parents to war, and has therefore suffered trauma similarly to Soren, but not nearly to as strong of a degree. I mean heck, this is war! Realistically speaking, some tears are gonna be shed at any given point, whether the characters want to or not, so just because Ike started getting all touchy-feely when Soren started bawling doesn’t mean he’s in love with Soren. It’s war, and people have to look out for each other during war. There’s also Ike’s paired ending with Soren in which they both disband the mercenaries and leave off on their own. I believe Ike, being the thrill-seeking warrior he his, went off to find a new challenge, and took Soren with him, not because they were on their honeymoon or something, but because it was his only option as Soren’s friend. Soren has seen and lived with too much to go back to living on his own, and his fixation on Ike doesn’t help much either. Ike knows this, and even though he knows Soren has huge glaring flaws and permanent trauma, Ike believes in giving everyone an equal chance at happiness life, so that no one suffers the same way he did. He fights for his friends after all! If Soren staying with Ike is enough to make Soren happy, then I’m sure Ike was happy to have him tag along.
I like to headcannon that over many years Ike managed to turn Soren into a much better person as he became wiser and older, maybe kinda like a mentor/older brother dynamic. But of course we all know because of his brand, Soren would live longer than Ike and would eventually have to live by his teachings alone, which I think makes for a great story of redemption.
To conclude, Ike/Soren has been a really fragile ship for nearly a decade, even though it really shouldn’t be. I can understand why some people see Ike/Soren as canon (I mean out of context, that crying cutscene is pretty darn gay lol), and I can see why other people don’t. However as fact, as apposed to Marth/Caeda, Ike/Soren isn’t canon. But however (again), nothing needs to be canon!! You can ship what you want, and think what you want about these characters, whatever makes you happy!! I know I feel happy after writing this post and sharing my thoughts on the ship, and I hope you feel happy as well. Happy happy happy. Thanks for reading.