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A brief defense of Mia
Bear with me here -- Mia, despite harkening from the Tellius Age Of Loads Of Text, has an appeal that's clearer upon Jugdral-esque levels of scrutiny. She's got her recruitment in FE9, a line in a cutscene in FE10, three sets of FE9 supports (one of which is entirely played for laughs), and one base conversation in each game. Which seems like a lot, until you realize that a lot of it overlaps the same material, and the most compelling part of her is outside of that.
So here's the thing: I think Mia is a really remarkable Female Character. And maybe this is a little unfair of me, because part of what made me realize this was seeing her speech style in the Japanese.
The very first lines you get from her are these:
・・・とと、ここにも
デイン兵がうじゃうじゃいるよ。▼
えーっと、出口は・・・って、あれ？
なんで戦いが起こってんだろ。▼
Never mind what it says (it's just about how there are soldiers everywhere and there's a fight blah blah) -- she's using the kind of casual speech normally reserved for men. That's how Mia talks -- casual, blunt, equal. Feminine speech tends to be formal (read: subservient) or "softened", and Mia will have none of that.1 At the same time, she's not disowning her femininity: she uses the personal pronoun atashi, the only pronoun which is strictly feminine.
To be sure, matching up to the men is something consciously on her mind. After being overcompensatingly aggressive with Largo, she admits in a self-aware moment, "I've got something to prove." And why shouldn't it be? Between princesses passed over for uncles and Greil passing his art down to only one of his children, Tellius is a place where these norms are still in place, especially (I'd expect) among rough lower-class men whom she must have made her company with. Yeah, her claim to power doesn't come as naturally and elegantly as Nailah's. But I think that's part of what makes Mia endearing. Nailah scoffs at sexism and puts it beneath her concern. Mia actively engages with it. Both narratives are compelling.
But I think what really makes me believe in Mia as a good Female Character rather than an attempt at one is that she's given a story of growth normally given to men. So she's overcompensating, so she's worked hard as a woman in her position -- that's not the only story she has going for her.
In criticizing Libra, people mention (correctly) that first impressions shape a character greatly, and Libra's very recruitment decided to pull out the I'm-not-a-woman gag. Well, look at Mia's introduction and, more notably, its follow-up. She owes Greil for the help, it's true, but she makes her decision because Ike's bunch are the underdogs. Because they're standing their ground in a rough spot. Because of a warrior's honor.
Mia
Oooh! Times... Times like this... I never have any idea what I'm supposed to say. None! Uh, dam! Hold on. Yesterday...in the middle of that giant mess, you didn't give up, Boss. And I knew. That is how a true man lives! So now I have to follow you. You see?
The choice of "man" in the localization is not incidental. (Jp: 諦めなかった大将を見て思ったんだ。▼ / これこそ男の生き様だ・・・って！) But gendered language aside, she's essentially joining because she has a lot of respect for how well Ike sticks to what a warrior should be, and out of that respect she fights for him. (This dynamic continues through RD, where all we hear about Mia is that she continues to enjoy fights with Ike because neither of them go easy on each other, and that's just how they like it.2)
Think back to Zelgius and Levail, Shihiram and Haar, and others in the series who aren't coming to me right now. Loyalty to one's superior out of admiration for their moral principles is a very masculine narrative. When you have loyal women (Selena and Vigarde, Titania and Greil, even Cecelia and Roy, and arguably little uke waifu Soren and Ike) there's just about always a personal incentive, by which I mean she's in love with him.
For what we're given, Mia isn't. Unlike the aforementioned, she never moons over Ike, can't marry him, and never expresses any particular affection toward his self. She respects his manly warrior spirit -- that's what canon gives us.
Actually, maybe this is why Ike/Mia is so unduly popular. It's dissonant to see a female character express loyalty to a guy without it somehow being romantic. Better to shove Mia back into a trope that she so wonderfully defies.
1 In RD she does have a set of "polite" support lines, but it's reserved exclusively for when she's talking to royalty -- ie, it's situational, rather than part of how she usually talks to people.
2 Alas, the same thing cannot be said of Mist and Titania who (per both the Japanese and English scripts) like to whine about it afterwards.
So here's the thing: I think Mia is a really remarkable Female Character. And maybe this is a little unfair of me, because part of what made me realize this was seeing her speech style in the Japanese.
The very first lines you get from her are these:
・・・とと、ここにも
デイン兵がうじゃうじゃいるよ。▼
えーっと、出口は・・・って、あれ？
なんで戦いが起こってんだろ。▼
Never mind what it says (it's just about how there are soldiers everywhere and there's a fight blah blah) -- she's using the kind of casual speech normally reserved for men. That's how Mia talks -- casual, blunt, equal. Feminine speech tends to be formal (read: subservient) or "softened", and Mia will have none of that.1 At the same time, she's not disowning her femininity: she uses the personal pronoun atashi, the only pronoun which is strictly feminine.
To be sure, matching up to the men is something consciously on her mind. After being overcompensatingly aggressive with Largo, she admits in a self-aware moment, "I've got something to prove." And why shouldn't it be? Between princesses passed over for uncles and Greil passing his art down to only one of his children, Tellius is a place where these norms are still in place, especially (I'd expect) among rough lower-class men whom she must have made her company with. Yeah, her claim to power doesn't come as naturally and elegantly as Nailah's. But I think that's part of what makes Mia endearing. Nailah scoffs at sexism and puts it beneath her concern. Mia actively engages with it. Both narratives are compelling.
But I think what really makes me believe in Mia as a good Female Character rather than an attempt at one is that she's given a story of growth normally given to men. So she's overcompensating, so she's worked hard as a woman in her position -- that's not the only story she has going for her.
In criticizing Libra, people mention (correctly) that first impressions shape a character greatly, and Libra's very recruitment decided to pull out the I'm-not-a-woman gag. Well, look at Mia's introduction and, more notably, its follow-up. She owes Greil for the help, it's true, but she makes her decision because Ike's bunch are the underdogs. Because they're standing their ground in a rough spot. Because of a warrior's honor.
Mia
Oooh! Times... Times like this... I never have any idea what I'm supposed to say. None! Uh, dam! Hold on. Yesterday...in the middle of that giant mess, you didn't give up, Boss. And I knew. That is how a true man lives! So now I have to follow you. You see?
The choice of "man" in the localization is not incidental. (Jp: 諦めなかった大将を見て思ったんだ。▼ / これこそ男の生き様だ・・・って！) But gendered language aside, she's essentially joining because she has a lot of respect for how well Ike sticks to what a warrior should be, and out of that respect she fights for him. (This dynamic continues through RD, where all we hear about Mia is that she continues to enjoy fights with Ike because neither of them go easy on each other, and that's just how they like it.2)
Think back to Zelgius and Levail, Shihiram and Haar, and others in the series who aren't coming to me right now. Loyalty to one's superior out of admiration for their moral principles is a very masculine narrative. When you have loyal women (Selena and Vigarde, Titania and Greil, even Cecelia and Roy, and arguably little uke waifu Soren and Ike) there's just about always a personal incentive, by which I mean she's in love with him.
For what we're given, Mia isn't. Unlike the aforementioned, she never moons over Ike, can't marry him, and never expresses any particular affection toward his self. She respects his manly warrior spirit -- that's what canon gives us.
Actually, maybe this is why Ike/Mia is so unduly popular. It's dissonant to see a female character express loyalty to a guy without it somehow being romantic. Better to shove Mia back into a trope that she so wonderfully defies.
1 In RD she does have a set of "polite" support lines, but it's reserved exclusively for when she's talking to royalty -- ie, it's situational, rather than part of how she usually talks to people.
2 Alas, the same thing cannot be said of Mist and Titania who (per both the Japanese and English scripts) like to whine about it afterwards.
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