kalevala-sage:

gascon-en-exil:

I mentioned in a response to the Zelda half of this post that the unbelievable excess of camp in characters like Ghirahim and Oliver renders them offensive but not as actively malicious as ones like Valtome, whose implied homosexuality seemingly exists only to make him more unlikeable.  How hard would it have been, say, to have Valtome obsess in a vaguely sexually way over Elincia rather than Zelgius?  He seems to hate them both with similar passion, and it would have made him even more rationally unlikeable if only because Elincia is a well-established “good” character whereas Zelgius definitely isn’t.  He’d still look and talk like an absolute fop, but the combined effect wouldn’t have been quite as problematic.

Hey, this is just a malformed thought, but if homoeroticism has to be considered viscerally vile, doesn’t that make it kin with other deviant sexualities—say, necrophilia?  Your comment about (male) villains having female fixations made me wonder if any such characters existed, and I kept coming back to Orson, whose reputation does profit from playability, and, moreover, the player’s trust in the Jagen archetype, but whose (straight) deviance is, while perhaps messed up and certainly very creepy, meant to be read as sympathetic…hetero dead people sex is more acceptable than gayness, WTF. *shakes angry fist*

It’s also interesting that while these male antagonists come off as malicious if pursuing a male and somewhat redeemed if pursuing a female, idolatrous female villains don’t seem to exist at all, either by virtue of the lack of femme fatales or their stereotypical abstention from predation—Aversa and Sonia come to mind, but those two and any other malignantly seductive females I can think of aren’t quite the masters of their own wills, let alone homoerotic in the least: is that misogyny, or the lesbian double standard at work?

I’ve considered the Orson/Monica plot a little bit, and I think the writers get away with making Orson sympathetic (though still insane) is by drawing a parallel between him and Lyon.  Both have loved ones resurrected into undeath, and I don’t think we’re meant to speculate further than that about just what’s going on in Orson’s bedroom.  I think there’s a case to be made for one or two “villainous” homoerotic relationships that don’t partake in gay stereotypes – sure, Valtome loves to creep on Zelgius, but Levail is also incredibly dedicated to him and then there’s all the Sephiran/Zelgius subtext.

Speaking of Levail/Zelgius, I’ve seen the argument before that Ursula’s devotion to Sonia can be read as similarly homoerotic.  It’s plainly a one-way thing, but it’s something I suppose.  I just don’t think there are enough female villains for there to be lesbian subtext very often, in FE or in most media.