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!
