I didn’t want to comment on this until it was officially released and I could see it running on my own game, but yes: Fire Emblem Heroes officially uses they/them pronouns for Kyza in English, and doesn’t shy away from mentioning that Kyza has a crush on Ranulf.
Above: screenshot from Fire Emblem Heroes (2022)
Above: Sharena’s official comments for “Meet some of the Heroes”
There’s been a lot of confusion and fandom drama surrounding the decision to give Kyza they/them pronouns in English for FEHeroes, and this is partly because:
- Kyza was referred to as male he/him in the English Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn from 2007 (also true for the Spanish version).
- Later on, a number of fans started using she/her for Kyza, explaining that Kyza was probably supposed to be a trans woman in the Japanese Radiant Dawn (because of reasons I’ll be explaining later).
- Now, Fire Emblem Heroes has changed to They/Them pronouns in English.
I’ll also add that mentions of Kyza’s crush on Ranulf were removed or ‘reworded’ in the non-Japanese releases of Radiant Dawn, but FEHeroes decided to be open and clear about it instead.
So was Kyza trans in the source material? Was Kyza officially gay? Why are people mad or confused? Well, with my questionable skills communicating in English, I’ll try to be as informative and objective as posible:
The short answer is:Kyza is indeed officially queer and has a crush on Ranulf in the source material, which is the original Japanese Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn from 2007. FEHeroes giving Kyza They/Them pronouns in English is correct, since it complies with Kyza using standard neutral Japanese in the source material; at the same time, they/them pronouns is a good way to reflect Kyza’s apparent genderfluidness that is also very much canon in the source material. To top this, in FEHeroes they’ve also opted for giving Kyza a kimono that mixes elements from the typically male and female new year wear.
It’s correct for people to say Kyza in non-binary / genderqueer even when not taking into account the current development in FEHeroes. However, Kyza was only ever confirmed to be queer, never confirmed as gay or trans specifically (but also not negating those two concepts either.) Kyza’s queerness was presented in a positive way in Radiant Dawn, albeit stereotypical (for Japanese standard in 2007).
Up until this point, I’ve avoided explaining much so that the ‘short answer’ actually remained as short as possible. So now, let’s go with the LONG ANSWER:
please for the love of god stop mentioning tumblr’s lack of written censorship because the more you talk about it the more likely they are to notice and change something benign and before you know it we will all be back to posting on independent forums and twitter tumblr knock offs like mastodon and turtleseed
not to post even more Villains Discourse on main but it really bugs me how people read giving villains tragic backstories as inherently excusing their actions and/or demonizing trauma survivors.
the actual message of Tragic Villains is (almost) always “people who are never taught or given any healthy, constructive outlets for their emotions will often find unhealthy, destructive outlets.” it’s that people who are traumatized and never learn how to cope with that trauma can become a danger to themselves and others. the message isn’t “trauma makes you evil!!!!” or “genocide is okay if you’ve been sad before!!!!” it’s “people need compassion and help to recover from trauma instead of becoming increasingly angry and harming themselves and others in the process.”
this site takes an alarmingly behaviorist and punitive approach to everything and it’s literally the most annoying thing. y’all have this concept that “if we just punish people hard enough, if we just scare them enough, if we just make them feel guilty enough.” that people just Do Bad Things Because They Do Bad Things, I Guess, and Because We Didn’t Threaten Them And Shame Them Enough. but humans are an innately social species. at our very core, we need compassion and kindness. we need healthy relationships with other humans.
you can keep looking at traumatized villains and being like “haha this dumb pathetic sadboi thinks murder is okay because his parents died” but as a survivor myself, unaddressed/untreated trauma absolutely can make you ragey and destructive. i was lucky enough to have support and eventually get the treatment i needed. but it’s not hard at all for me to imagine how, if that hadn’t been the case, that could’ve been me. obviously not on a movie-villain scale like murder or war crimes, but it’s so irritating as someone whose trauma has always manifested as anger to watch people on this site be like “this is just bad writing!!! real survivors/good survivors don’t end up like that the writers just hate survivors and want the audience to condone murder!”
Just realised that if Donald Trump wins the presidential elections, it’ll be 5 years before we can even think about a canon Destiel.. Dammit America, what are you doing!
date of origin: 9th of november, 2016.
No fucking way
please tell me this was edited i am begging
we lost post editing after the John Green cock scent incident
