Hello! Lately I've been dipping my toes into Sanguine related fics, still trying to get my finger on the pulse of what a solid portrayal of his character writes like. I feel like a lot of interpretations lean into one extreme or the other - either a relatively harmless prankster or something that would be... more at home in Molag Bals sphere tbh. Personally I think there's more complexity and nuance to be had in his character and sphere. And I figured, as a big Sanguine enjoyer, you'd have some good insight regarding writing his character. Thank you!
Hi you activated my trap card <3 I hope you’re ready for a long ass post. I’m going to say that I will do my best to keep it short but I know that’s going to be a straight up lie no matter how hard I try.
From my own experience, it’s really fucking hard trying to find a good Sanguine fic that features him as a main player while not making him a borderline/actual predator, intentionally or unintentionally, which is really unfortunate. But then there are fics that do characterize Sanguine in such a cool way, but he tends to end up being a minor character. That’s no real critique, but it’s just a bummer for Sam fans!
Sanguine is one of those characters that the fandom can do a LOT of good with. I tend to love most interpretations of Sanguine in the fandom (excluding the previously mentioned predatory versions I’ve seen—like you said, Molag Bal is right there, just use him if you need a creep!), whether he be a laid-back prankster or a more serious tempter/enabler. It took me a very long time to nail down Sanguine’s character (and his relationships to Echo and Martin in their respective fics), but I had something of a lightbulb moment last year that fully cemented his character in my mind. All that will be below the cut, but before I get to that, thank you for the ask ^w^ I love talking shop about Sanguine and I hope that you at least enjoy reading my thoughts! I’m sorry for getting to this so late (this ask was from the start of June), but I hope I can still be of some minor inspiration <:]
TO PREFACE: I am majoring in Theology and Biblical Studies. The Hebrew Bible is my jam. When I’m not doing fandom stuff, I’m doing Bible stuff. The religion, mythology, and culture of the Ancient Near East is absolutely fascinating to me and learning about it has been extremely helpful in figuring out where modern ideas originated from. That being said, I know that religion can be a turn off for a lot of people, so let me say: affirm the minorities, the marginalized, and the queer; protect trans kids; black lives matter; end war; sex and porn are not sinful. I am nonbinary and queer, and my religion can and does support my life and existence. I promise this is relevant, I just wanted to state that very plainly before I get into things.
Last semester I had a class where we studied the book of Amos. It’s considered to be the HB’s leading stance on social justice. It follows Amos, a prophet calling out the injustice and corruption of 8th c. Israel. The majority of this corruption came from the elite class using their wealth to exercise supreme control over the peasant majority class, forcing military power onto them in order to force them to keep their heads down while the elite benefited off of all of their work. Insane taxation, threats of physical violence, judicial bribery, and economic trickery all went into making the rich richer and the poor poorer at that time (and wow doesn’t that sound familiar -_-).
What stuck out to me while studying Amos was how this greed was often referenced alongside the rich’s luxurious lifestyles. Their corrupt actions led to them being able to afford luxuries, excesses in unnecessary/aesthetic goods, and perform debauchery at the expense of other’s comforts. You might guess where I’m going with this: to me this sounded a lot like the same vocabulary used with Sanguine, at least partially. He’s the Daedric Prince of Debauchery, “Everything in excess!” is his motto, and he’s affiliated himself more than a few times with the rich and elite (Reman Cyrodiil is probably the most prolific example, but there are other general references to him being buddy-buddy with other emperors/political powers).
Real quick: trust me when I say that I really hate the idea of sex and kink being attributed as symptoms of corruption. Sex and kink are neutral actions and behaviors that can be performed by anyone regardless of moral alignment. Keep that in mind in the following paragraph.
Sanguine is a Daedric Prince, a powerful person in his own right. By aligning himself with imperial forces, especially when those forces have been known to be elitist, classist, and corrupt, Sanguine could be written to turn a blind eye to that corruption in order to favor his friends—the elite. Even if Sanguine himself is not directly getting his hands dirty, by sheer involvement and lack of care towards the poor/marginalized, he helps in making the poor poorer and the rich richer. Everything in excess, debauchery and luxury, but only for the few he favors. He can’t please everyone, so why not focus on pleasing his favorites? He can learn to ignore his and his elite friends’ actions that fuck over the lower classes. He can learn to ignore transgressions and atrocities if he shares another glass of wine with a partner. He can learn to ignore the plagued system at play if he and his friends are always on the receiving end of the good that the system has to offer, and simultaneously never have to live in fear of punishment or failure like the lower classes have to. These things are much easier to forget about when such a system was made to benefit the elite. Why would Sanguine care about those at the bottom when there’s celebration to be had at the top?
This corruption can come in many forms, be it in small consequences or huge life-altering events. I wanted to write Sanguine this way because it just seemed to make the most sense to me. On the surface, he’s just a Prince who enjoys promoting a luxurious lifestyle, but when you look further in, you can see that he’s been (intentionally/unintentionally) supporting vast corruption by associating with certain groups and supporting certain people. When does ignorance lead to evil? The answer to that question, for me, was found in exploring Sanguine’s role in larger society.
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In that regard, I also wanted to explore Sanguine’s fall from that lifestyle. Can someone like Sanguine learn and understand the corruption he’s been contributing to and committing? What happens when he tries to change his ways? How does he go about that?
To try to answer these in short, I think Martin was the perfect way for Sanguine to actually learn his role in so much evil. Martin played into the Sanguinite lifestyle and enjoyed the luxuries that came from him being Sanguine’s favorite mortal, but when he saw that his other friends were being shorthanded—friends that Sanguine didn’t care as much about and didn’t have nearly enough influence to keep the Prince’s attention—and then eventually suffer for Sanguine’s lack of care, Martin understood that he was just a plaything for Sanguine’s momentary entertainment. Once Martin stopped ignoring all the harm and actually addressed the issue, Sanguine became upset at his “sabotage.” They’re just having fun, it’s not their fault if other people can’t keep up, right? Wrong, according to Martin, and this is why he left the Sanguinite cult. Sanguine eventually wisens up and sees Martin’s point.
So, he’s been caught playing the ass. Now what? This is what I want to explore in my Skyrim fic. Sanguine is very avoidant when it comes to his own issues. He has a lot of trouble self-reflecting and, while he doesn’t necessarily refuse to say he’s done any wrong, he does still try to avoid his role in *righting* those wrongs. He’s very averse to discomfort and would rather avoid conflict than try and fix it. So, for The Dez Illusion, I’ve had it so Sanguine has been “missing” for 200 years, essentially ever since the Oblivion Crisis ended. The other Princes know what he’s up to: he’s “playing mortal,” masquerading as a mortal on Nirn and ignoring his Princely duties so he doesn’t have to face the consequences of responsibility, nor witness the fallout of his actions. He understands that he promoted a lot of wrongdoings, but he also believes that his realm is better without him, and thus won’t interact at all. This is only partially true, of course—his realm is better off without all the bullshit, but he’s still the only person able to change anything, and he’s still committing wrongdoing by doing nothing at all.
From there, Sam could either live in a perpetual state of avoidance, or he could move upward and start doing right by the people he really does care about. He’s got power and influence, he needs to learn to use it right. Based on how much I do truly love Sam, you can imagine what direction I’m going to go with for him in The Dez Illusion.
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Again, thank you for the ask. I honestly don’t expect many people to read this all the way through, and all of this will get explored a lot more naturally in my fic—and without the Bible talk, lol—but I wanted to share where my own inspiration came from.
☕️ How are you feeling about the Nintendo Switch 2? (Don't have to discuss the divisive points like the price controversy if you don't feel comfy with it, was mostly curious of your thoughts on the game lineup and any new stuff the console will offer)
Honestly, I cannot wait one of these days. I'm going to get a hold of it especially playing donkey, Kong, Bonanza and maybe getting street fighter 6
