would genuinely love to hear some of your thoughts on the horror of paris' design, i'd never thought of it in that light before!
Ok yes I can talk about this, and I also do really enjoy yapping about FGO designs so I’d love to do more in the future as well 🔥 as a heads up I’m gonna be talking about Apollo’s characterization in FGO and his influence on Paris for part of this since that’s where most of the horror lies, I’ll try to be as delicate as possible with my language but I’m still putting out that warning (up here and on that section) if you’re uncomfortable with the implications of that. This also might get super long since I’d like to go over his design as a whole before noting the specific parts I find unsettling, but full analysis under the cut!
I will say some of it is very Vibes heavy so idk if those will make sense but I’ll try my best! For Paris I actually really like his FGO design (which I feel is a semi-unpopular opinion), but I am a very big believer in the concept of a lot of FGO’s designs being done in a way that highlights important aspects of the myth / historical figure they’re based on instead of going for pure accuracy (ex. Hektor’s design and kit being very simple and ‘boring’ because he never really wanted to be a glorious warrior in the first place and would have rather led a quiet and peaceful life with his horses). Paris’s design, in my opinion, focuses on these concepts, most of which were at least somewhat present in the Iliad as well:
- him being a figurative golden apple + trojan horse
- his complacency and his dependence on others
- his relationship with the gods and his relationship to fate (the word as a concept)
- the way he is emasculated in comparison to the other men in the trojan war
- his immature mentality
- his background as a shepherd on Mount Ida, and how it compares to him after returning to Troy
- Sheep / Ram / Lamb symbolism
- the fact he spent a lot of time in bed (with Helen) and therefore not meaningfully contributing to the war effort
I’m mainly going to be talking about his Stage 1 and Stage 3 outfits design-wise, as well as what he wears under the dresses in the 3 stages, so I’ll attach those here for reference:
The golden apple symbolism is super clear in the Stage 3 outfit, due to it having a lot of yellow / gold. Depending on what color you see his hair as (yellow with blue edges, or light green), you can kind of throw in his hair for the apple comparison too, with his ahoge being like the apple stem. With the black nighties and bloomers under his gold dress, it can kind of resemble apple seeds or an apple core in the center of the gold, and it can also kind of have the vibe of a ‘hidden darkness’ or ‘twisted truth’ hiding beneath a shiny facade. Besides the golden apple referencing the Judgement of Paris, I personally feel like he himself is (symbolically) the apple as well, being the face of the cause of the Trojan War (even if the truth of that is debatable). For that reason, I also see him as a Trojan Horse. Taking into account his birth (and the prophecy that led to him being left on Mount Ida shortly after), as well as his return to Troy, you can kind of see the royal family accepting him back as a prince as them letting the horse into the city, which then leads to the whole thing with Helen and then the eventual fall of Troy. While there’s no super obvious Trojan Horse elements in his design here, his Stage 1 outfit does share some colors / vibes with Odysseus’s Troia Hippos mech.
Paris’s issues with complacency and dependence show up most to me in his dynamic with Hektor, and with Apollo. For Hektor, it’s pretty self explanatory, he looks up to his big brother a ton in both FGO and the Iliad, and in his interlude he also has a part where he’s trying to figure out what he should do and something like ‘what would Hektor do’ crosses his mind. Aging down Paris in FGO kind of puts an emphasis on this as well, as it makes the ‘little boy idolizing his big brother’ concept super super obvious, but it also serves to possibly create a personal dilemma on Hektor’s part. Not gonna get into it too much here for the sake of length but it’s generally something like ‘it’s harder to resent someone for doing a bad thing if that person is a little kid and staring at you with big starry eyes,’ and it also could bring up discussions about how Hektor may feel even more responsible for Paris, or wants to kind of ‘guide’ him towards a better path since influencing an innocent child is a lot easier than trying to reason with a grown man. Paris’s age in FGO, in my opinion, also helps spotlight his complacency and dependency, as children are often reliant on their parents and authority figures to provide comfort, guidance, reassurance, and such.
This is the part where I go more into his dynamic with Apollo, so skip this paragraph if you need to. We know Apollo was the one that made Paris look Like That in FGO, which by itself is already pretty widely acknowledged as being creepy, but I’d like to pick at it more past just that initial statement. Apollo presents himself as a big round plush ram, and besides it being him making himself super cute, the implications (to me) can get super sinister super fast. Plushies are often associated with children and childhood, specifically they’re usually seen as comfort objects, in the way a safety blanket is. By making himself into a super fluffy and squishy plush (and making Paris into a child), he is making himself into Paris’s primary source of companionship and comfort. Because plushies are meant to be played with and squished and hugged, Apollo making himself into a plush also gives the vibe of him wanting to be carried around hugged and such by Paris, putting it as lightly as I can. Paris having ram horns, as well as having more gold (and more Apollo) in his Stage 3 can also be seen as Apollo’s influence on Paris increasing, and Paris becomes less Paris and more Apollo. The fuzziness of his outfit increases as well. The growth of horns could also be seen as going from a lamb to a ram. For the lamb aspect, one can sort of look at him as a sacrificial lamb, both because of his complacency and dependence, but also because of the blame placed on him for the Trojan War. While that’s the impression that many people get, he was not the sole cause of the war, and was very much a tool of the gods. In my opinion, maybe because of my personal experience with it, most of the unsettling parts of Paris’s concept in FGO comes from his relationship to Apollo. There’s a lot of horror in being molded and shaped into a child, with the mental state of a child, even when you Know there’s something more out there that you just simply Cannot Be, because the person or thing or systems in place that molded you into that shape are still close by, and you still Need them. The complacency and the fact that he does remember what happened when he grew up makes it scarier.
Regarding discussions of Paris’s age and personality, I do want to look at the very clear difference between how Paris is in FGO, versus how Paris is talked about in general when discussing the Iliad or the Trojan War. I think discussions about both of these versions of him tend to get really repetitive really fast (depending on where you’re looking), and they usually revolve around repeating the same joke over and over, which in turn simplifies him much more than I feel he deserves. I personally don’t agree with the idea that Paris in FGO should have been a pretty man with the personality of a sleazy playboy, for the same reasons I’m perfectly content with Hektor’s design and kit and don’t wish for him to be flashier or stronger. I think that kind of sentiment comes from wanting Paris to be closer to how he is in pop culture, but I feel like going in that direction wouldn’t have led to as fulfilling of a character if FGO did it, because that type of characterization isn’t really new, and therefore wouldn’t really add much to anyone’s feelings about him any which way. I think FGO’s emphasis on Paris being a shepherd boy make him a lot closer to Mount Ida Paris, instead of just being Prince Paris of Troy, which I personally appreciate a lot. The Trojans were not fond of Paris, and he himself also became a lot worse of a person after his return to Troy, but he wasn’t always like that, which makes Mount Ida and his death there significant because people perceive him differently depending on the place, and he is dying in a place where he was remembered as a fair and kind boy instead of a selfish and cowardly prince. To anyone that has ever felt responsible for the issues within their family (due to mental health, bad choices, addictions, etc), I feel like that’s something easily identified with. In a way, it also makes FGO’s Paris being a shepherd boy interesting as well, as it can be read as a sort of ‘being cleaned of your impurities and becoming something pure and innocent once more.’ To quickly cover the other parts I mentioned in relation to Paris’s age in FGO, if we go by the idea of his design being used to highlight concepts already present within his source material, him having a very childish mentality within the iliad is brought into focus by making him into a literal child in FGO, and his very feminine appearance and outfit are exaggerations of another existing idea in the Iliad of Paris being a lot more effeminate than the other warriors (him being an Archer also touches on that).
The bed / sleep / dream aspect of Paris can also be unsettling, in the way that stuff like the Stepford Wives are. The art style he’s drawn in, as well as his outfit (specifically the nighties and bloomers and the fluffiness of it all), give him a very dreamy vibe that has the Aesthetic of sleep and beds and everything comforting and soft and warm. You can sort of read it as using sleep and rest as a method of avoiding hardships (and harsh realities), similar to how Paris stayed in bed during the iliad because it kept him out of the conflict, even if doing so made him appear much worse in the eyes of Hektor, the other Trojans, etc. By avoiding a problem and indulging in a comforting and temporary solution, one also becomes much less equipped to deal with the still-existing issue once they’re forced to confront it, which then often leads to a vicious cycle, or leaves them dependent on someone ‘stronger’ or ‘wiser’ that will help them solve the issue they cannot fix themselves, leading to an inability to grow and change (see, it all ties together). It also gives Paris a bit of a toylike, doll-like, or cherubic vibe, all of which could be used to objectify him, similar to how the older him was kind of seen as ‘useless, but with a pretty face,’ which is objectively kind of a depressing situation to be in, especially if the person themselves start to internalize it.
Basically, to sum it all up, I feel like Paris’s untapped horror potential comes from some very relatable fears that I’m sure a lot of people have. An inability to grow (physically and/or mentally), infantilization and objectification, complacency, the people you trust having unsavory intentions, dysphoria / dysmorphia, regression, being blamed as the cause of terrible tragedy and misfortune, etc, are all things that I think could be explored with FGO’s interpretation of Paris. I think for a lot of people, his concept stops at just ‘haha they made the sleazy prince into a little boy in a dress, also Apollo is a weirdo haha’ and it never goes past that (or people just end up seeing him or using him as a writer’s barely disguised fetish sort of thing), and I really really wish he could be talked about past that, which I realize is an unrealistic wish, but I do hope that my lengthy tapping about characters like him at least interests some people who previously wouldn’t have paid him as much mind. And if you made it to the end, thank you so much for reading all of that, and I’d be glad to do more yapping on here alongside posting art! I really enjoy character and design analysis 🔥
