PLEASE DO RAMBLE ABOUT SARIA IM PUSHING THE AUTISM BUTTON.
I’m newer to arknights and I’m a fan of Saria and Silence because I have eyes but I’m more curious to know what things you wish people talked about more wrt Saria and her relationship to the other RL characters? She has so much complexity as a character but she’s often shown so reductively.
Also cool art (prozd tumblr tags noises)
YOU WON'T HAVE TO ASK ME TWICE THEN.
If you're new to Arknights, then I would gladly recommend you the official Rhine Lab manhua! It's basically everything about Rhine Lab past, Silence and Saria's relationship, and Ifrit's origins, so VERY good to know
You're pretty right that her complexity as a character is not often shown, and it makes me sad, the community often thinks of her as just "divorced dad", the joke is alright but it says so little about her and mostly, about why she's like that
Most people might think "poor Silence" or "poor Ifrit", but rarely anyone feels pity for Saria?
She's someone who grew up without a family. I mean, in the emotional sense of the term. She has a dad, a very likely absent mother as she was never mentioned, but never she grew up lile any child should. She was pressured to act like an adult and independently by her dad when she was just a child. And most importantly, grew up with the firm idea that emotions are useless. Crying won't solve anything. It's showing weakness. You shouldn't get attached to things or people, because it will make you suffer.
But now what does it says about Saria, now that she's an adult? That she's very good at being an adult, of course, but when it comes to emotional stuff, she never grew up. She built some shield around her heart, a VERY sturdy shield, that sure protected her and helped her a lot in her growth, but she came to realize that this shield is now disabling her for her emotional relationships. However, herself don't know how to break it.
I simply love all the psychology and symbolism in this. NoriZC (the artist behind Saria, Silence, Ifrit, and a few other Rhine Lab characters) often associated Saria to rocks and Silence to plants. Rocks are hard to break, but yet, plants can still grow on them. The rocks are also associated to her Arts, as she can use Calcification - a very sturdy shield, basically.
But now this is what truly hurts her. That she can't understand emotions. She's slowly learning (seen with how she learnt with Ifrit and to actually care about her), but there's always things that will escape her. Why Silence is so mad at her, she doesn't really know. She believes that she made a mistake, obviously she blames herself for not being able to stop Kristen or Rhine Lab, but does she understands that Silence is scared that she has been abused and britally faced a reality she never thought existed?
And now she doesn't understand her own emotions neither. She never had a family, never learnt to love, and now that she lost what was the closest to a family, she feels like something is missing. Is she fighting because she wants to stop unethical experiments and save lives? Or is she fighting because she wants Ifrit and Silence to be safe? It might be both, but the second option is out of her understanding. It's just feels weird to tell yourself you care about people when you never learny what it felt to care.
And now, she's alone. Silence may have support from Mayer, from Magallan, Kafka, Ptilopsis, the Doctor themselves even. But Saria? Nobody understands her. Nobody can truly see what is under this shell of hers. Her heart can't be reached, even by herself. It almost feels like that she doesn't care.
That's something I've been thinking about a lot recently. Saying that Saria doesn't care is deeply wrong. She just doesn't know how to show that she cares.
Anyway, that's what I think is extremely interesting in her relationship with Silence and Ifrit. That with them, she would be able to break this shield, to show her heart, to learn what she never got taught, to care and to love. But for this to happen, it would need Silence to perceive Saria's heart and understand it.
dededos
prguitarman
2087
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