Serious issues with Nintendo's Fire Emblem if/Fire Emblem Fates

[KillingAScarab]

I'm going to preface this with a few things:

1.) I don't know much about Fire Emblem.
2.) I do not understand Japanese
3.) I'm not a journalist and haven't vetted sources.
4.) At least one of the sources is Not Safe For Work

I take part in a Final Fantasy V challenge which occurs annually called the Four Job Fiesta. It heavily involves Twitter, so I tend to check in on the Twitter accounts of other people who use certain hashtags associated with the Four Job Fiesta. I checked in on one particular Twitter user, @Andrea_Ritsu, after trying to offer some advice regarding her Fiesta run. I have since been reading through a series of tweets regarding an upcoming Fire Emblem game: already released in Japan as "Fire Emblem if" and coming out in other territories later as "Fire Emblem Fates." It contains something I found very disturbing and felt should be passed on.

According to @Andrea_Ritsu, she has been able to confirm with multiple people fluent in Japanese that a storyline involving a woman named Soleil has the character admit she is attracted to women. This character is then surreptitiously drugged, for the effect of changing her attraction to women. The character later marries the man who drugged her, Kamui.

tumblr post:
http://andrea-ritsu.tumblr.com/post/123014145700/a-new-degree-of-homophobia-in-fire-emblem-fates

Here is the pastebin post with the relevant dialog translated to English:
http://pastebin.com/bgQC0yEa

A link was also provided to a YouTube video showing the Japanese dialog during Kamui's proposal to Soleil:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZstciDpNkBM

I do not recommend going through @Andrea_Ritsu's Twitter account if you are concerned about Not Safe for Work content.

[Mando Knight]

And this is the problem with tertiary sources: the tumblr user doesn't have the game, didn't do the translation, and drops the context on Soliel's personality. The consensus from /r/fireemblem (https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem) is

She's not strictly lesbian. She fetishizes lesbian relationships, in part due to her relationship with her father (who is a bit of a womanizer). Her support with the yaoi fangirl in the army makes that clear. She's bi (including S-supports with other male characters in the game), with a yuri fetish.
Yeah, the main character (Kamui/Corrin) spiking her drink is really sketchy, but it's not even the weirdest thing that the character can get into (what with all the possible S-supports with his/her family that are possible).
The purpose of it was to help her because as she said in her C-support, "Around the type that I like, I end up fainting if I even get near them." Soliel decided she liked the male Kamui/Corrin because he went through the effort to help her. (That is, the purpose of the powder was to help her get over her anxieties around other girls, not "cure her of lesbianism," and her attraction to Kamui was enabled but not caused by the effects of the powder)
(Almost) all of the main character's romances are pretty awkward, and S-supports in general are usually "3 ranks of getting to know each other, then a proposal out of nowhere."

[Alent]

She's not strictly lesbian. She fetishizes lesbian relationships, in part due to her relationship with her father (who is a bit of a womanizer). Her support with the yaoi fangirl in the army makes that clear. She's bi (including S-supports with other male characters in the game), with a yuri fetish.

Sounds like they were covering their demographic bases by having both flavors of token Fujoshi (TL: "rotten girl").

For the OP's awareness, if he isn't already aware, sexuality in Japan is different. Japan's societal expectations are huge, oppressive and rather crushing, and Yuri/yaoi fandom is one of the ways that otaku have to act out against it. It doesn't necessarily mean they're actually LGBT.

[KillingAScarab]

And this is the problem with tertiary sources: the tumblr user doesn't have the game, didn't do the translation, and drops the context on Soliel's personality. The consensus from /r/fireemblem (https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem) is

She's not strictly lesbian. She fetishizes lesbian relationships, in part due to her relationship with her father (who is a bit of a womanizer). Her support with the yaoi fangirl in the army makes that clear. She's bi (including S-supports with other male characters in the game), with a yuri fetish.
Yeah, the main character (Kamui/Corrin) spiking her drink is really sketchy, but it's not even the weirdest thing that the character can get into (what with all the possible S-supports with his/her family that are possible).
The purpose of it was to help her because as she said in her C-support, "Around the type that I like, I end up fainting if I even get near them." Soliel decided she liked the male Kamui/Corrin because he went through the effort to help her. (That is, the purpose of the powder was to help her get over her anxieties around other girls, not "cure her of lesbianism," and her attraction to Kamui was enabled but not caused by the effects of the powder)
(Almost) all of the main character's romances are pretty awkward, and S-supports in general are usually "3 ranks of getting to know each other, then a proposal out of nowhere."To point 1., certainly possible the character is bisexual. To points 2 and 3, constructive criticism has been offered that the scenario could have been written differently. By giving the character a choice about taking the powder, you can avoid something which is far too close to date rape and conversion therapy (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_therapy). I recognize what the stated goal is, but the ends didn't justify the means as I see it.

[Mando Knight]

To point 1., certainly possible the character is bisexual.

No, in terms of Fire Emblem, "S-Support" means "And then they marry." Soliel can marry any of the second-generation males in her faction (unless the guy in question is her brother) as well as the main character if he's male (the default name being Kamui in Japan and Corrin when the game was featured in Nintendo's E3 streams). Therefore, she is definitely bisexual (or alternatively, the "fujoshi" bit is just a phase, as is generally assumed in Japanese society)... though the only guy she ever really falls in love with is the one she marries.

Anyway, my point is that it's pretty clear from the context that it's not being used as conversion therapy and that the drug is merely the catalyst and not the cause of the relationship (the cause is having the two characters stand next to each other in battle for several turns as well as possibly engaging in the infamously-awkward face-rubbing sessions...). Spiking someone else's drink is sketchy, but Kamui is the kind of naive protagonist who, by the conventions of that kind of plot, tends to be forgiven of various shenanigans by the other party. The support conversation will definitely be one of the things that will have seen a rewrite by the time the Treehouse is done with it anyway...