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this post was submitted on 10 Apr 2026
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There's also the Darcsens, who are the stand-in for the Jews and probably also Roma as the minority that everyone hates and distrusts. In the past they destroyed the world with dark magic or evil science or something. There's a forced labour camp level later
I know they love this sort of thing in Japan but when I'm playing these games I'm just grimacing whenever a cutscene happens. It's even worse in the sequel since it's set in a military academy for child soldiers so it piles on those tropes on top of the dodgy WWII allegory
Edit: I also love that there's no communism in this fantasy early 20th century Europe. It's just the evil Russian/German empire, the alliance of presumed generic liberal democracies and our good little neutral monarchy in the middle. In the second game there's a revolutionary movement trying to overthrow the monarchy but they're just motivated by racism and basically stooges for the rooskie krauts
It really is depressing how common that is in fantasy/alt history fiction. Whenever there's a stand in for a marginalized community, there's always some reason for it, they always did something to deserve it, but the morally upstanding protagonists are willing to "let bygones be bygones."
I can kind of see why writers would keep writing stories like that. It's more satisfying narratively if the hatred is motivated by something tangible other than just prejudice. Making the oppressed group secretly powerful in some way might also be an empowerment thing depending on the story
Usually it feels like it is to excuse past atrocities unfortunately, like a "yeah bad things happened in the past, but we all need to just move on." I usually see it in very white liberal stories about prejudice, not often Japanese writers though.