Let Me Just Preface This By Clearing Up The Most Common Misconception About Russia; That Is, He’s Evil.

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Let me just preface this by clearing up the most common misconception about Russia; that is, he’s evil. In canon, it’s the complete opposite. Russia is explicitly described as “not evil”, albeit being “naturally scary.” Obviously, being scary in appearance and possessing an evil mind are two entirely different things.

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In the same character note, it goes on to say that Russia thinks that Vodka and General Winter are his friends. What’s more, everyone that he meets he thinks are his friends. Strange, considering that aside from protecting Russia from invading nations, General Winter attacks and torments Russia himself.

It’s this warped understanding of reality and interpersonal relationships that I’ll be discussing over the course of this post. To do that, we need to understand the core influence of Russia’s childhood on his present person today.

In doing so, this will give insight into the reasons why Russia wrongly sees violence as an answer; why he comes off as cold; and why, despite having good intentions to make friends, he does anything but.

To put it simply, Russia’s childhood was brutal. For the most part, he spent his winters alone with little help and no shelter. This strip darkly alludes to the fact that he grew accustomed to freezing to death.

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On top of that, Russia grew up in oppressive circumstances. One example of this would be how he was subjected to Tatar Rule (the Golden Horde).

In “The Yoke of Tatar”, Lithuania first meets Russia and warns the latter that he’ll “freeze to death” if he stays outside for too long. Of course, from the example above, we know that Russia has already died this way several times before.

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Here, Russia fantasizes about becoming a bigger country and tells Lithuania that they’ll become friends one day. Now, pay attention to what Russia says when Lithuania offers for them to become friends in the present moment.

“We don’t have enough power.” To me, that seems like a child with a twisted conception of what a healthy relationship entails. Power in a relationship is what Russia’s been taught, it’s all he knows.

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He’s picked up on the authority that the Tatars hold over him, and therefore applies it to how he interacts with others. Put another way, the ruled strives to be the ruler.

This cycle of unhealthy learned behaviour is also demonstrated in chapter 194 of World Stars. There, Russia dismantles England’s naval brigade during the American Revolution. When confronted about it, Russia’s response is so naturally oblivious that it appears to have been internalized.

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He’s literally equated power with the ability to do whatever you want. Once again, you see how the influence of his childhood factors in here. What Russia observed as a child is now being repeated by himself.

Likewise, it’s not as if Russia’s history has given him a break from suffering either. The damage only keeps accumulating.

In the Bloody Sunday strip, Russia’s brought to tears as he laments about how all his hard work to improve his country has backfired, resulting in his people hating him.

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Even darker is that at the end the strip, it’s hinted that he’s been tasked with quelling the civil unrest.

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Russia also hasn’t had any mercy spared to him regarding his bosses. While we don’t get too much information about them, what little that we do is heartbreaking.

When Russia is taken as a prisoner of war in WW2 by Germany, he erupts with happiness and claims that he’s in heaven. Out of everything, the most important comment is how he mentions that he doesn’t have to deal with his boss.

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Further, when he’s later forced to build a railway by Stalin, Russia snaps. By snap, I mean that he begins to fantasize about warm weather and loses all touch with reality.

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This distance from/ misperceived reality is also to be taken into account regarding how Russia doesn’t understand the consequences of his actions. He grew up with violence, so violence is the only way he sees fit to solve his problems.

One example of this would be when England’s caught sleeping at a meeting, and Russia offers to wake up England by hitting him with a sickle. China’s comment, “violence is not the answer!”, is the most telling indication of Russia’s troubled neuroses.

Another example of this inability to recognize the consequences of his violent actions is when Russia snaps Latvia’s neck in an attempt to get him to stop trembling.

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That said, I would like to end this by citing a favourite psychologist of mine, Karen Horney. She believed that the “basic evil” (this is used loosely) in the world is parental indifference, neglect, and hostility towards children.

While Russia may have had Ukraine and Belarus, they weren’t around all the time. Centuries of oppressive leaders, bloodshed, and isolation has taken a massive toll on Russia. What Horney also said was that parents who exercised this basic evil of indifference were incapable of treating their children with warmth and compassion as a result of their own troubled childhoods.

Isn’t that what you see with Russia? It’s not that he doesn’t want to be warm and compassionate towards others, because he does. He wants nothing more than to make friends and help ease his chronic loneliness.

The problem is that he doesn’t know how.

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England’s character tends to get a lot of criticism, for, well, how critical he is of America. Don’t get me wrong either. England can be exceptionally mean. At the same time, however, as I’ve mentioned in previous posts, he can also be just as sweet, considerate, and thoughtful.

To understand why England tends to take out his frustration onto America, it’s important to situate this behaviour within the context of the Revolutionary war, both before and after (duh).

The isolation and constant mocking that came with being the “Black Sheep of Europe” took a huge hit on England’s self-esteem. Of course, being as sensitive as he is, he responds with anger and keeps the accompanying feelings of stress and anxiety to himself.

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Things were different with America, who functioned as England’s stress relief. England’s even noted to feel at peace when he’s with America.

This can be attributed to the fact that America’s youth and naivety led to his unconditional acceptance and love for England. America was the one person England could feel at home with. While the rest of the world hated England, America didn’t.

That said, England became dependent on America emotionally. He didn’t have to worry about being rejected by America…that is until America began fighting for his independence.

To put it simply, America going against him broke England’s heart. He felt like he could trust and rely on America to have his back, only to be betrayed (in his POV) and isolated once more when other European nations sided against him in America’s favor.

History repeats itself, and England found himself all alone again.

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While subtle, there are significant hints about just how deeply the Revolution hurt him.

For one thing, it’s said that he’s suffered from 100 years of heartbreak. Likewise, an even more telling emotional omen of the past is that in one his character notes, three important pieces of information are given.

1) “His temper was quite stormy during the decades after America’s independence.”

– Anger is a maladjustive way of either expressing one’s need for something or acquiring it. In this case, it could be a reaction to the loneliness he experiences after losing America.

2) “He’s quite bad at expressing himself. He himself knows that people often misunderstand him, he uses this fact for self-depreciating jokes.”

– This ties in with how easy it is to see him as an angry person when he’s  actually extremely sensitive.

Taking the latter two bits of information, you can see why Hima then says this about England:

3) “He could easily be the most pitiful one in this webcomic.”

In other words, England thinks lowly of himself, cares about others’ opinions of him, poorly expresses his sadness by acting out in anger, and yet doesn’t bother to fix these external misconceptions.

Like I said before, America was his best friend, and because he can’t articulate his feelings well, England went from using America as a stress ball to a punching bag (this term is used loosely).

For example, England is notorious for being a “scathing” critic of America’s movies.

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Nonetheless, what you’ll also notice is the subtle hints of America knowing that England cares about him.

Here, America –with a noticeably teasing look, as if he understands more than what he voices– allows England to poke holes in his proposed world defense plan.

Also pay attention to how England “commends” parts of America’s plan.

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Aside from these faults, the strengths in England’s character prevail when they’re most needed. Even though any mention of America’s dependence causes England to get sick, he visits America and celebrates the occasion with him. 

It causes him a lot of pain to do so, but he still commits to it. Not only that, but he gives America the liberty bell on the 100th anniversary of his independence, worries over and offers to repair the bell in 1958 despite the offer being turned down by American officials, and gives America a new one another one hundred years later.

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While America is amused by England’s evident embarrassment, the next panel can easily be interpreted as him crying and laughing from happiness.

Please note that the anime handles this scene quite differently, as it’s depicted more as in America laughs so hard that he cries.

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I think it’s also important to end this by mentioning that England was also America’s best friend. America is arguably just as lonely as England.

When he was younger, America was scared to sleep alone. Regardless if England always fell asleep before he did, America still needed him.

In “We’re Shipwrecked Too”, we get this awkward moment where both of them consider sleeping closer to each other for warmth, but in the end choose not to.

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The tension here reveals that England isn’t the only one having trouble working past the difficulties in their relationship.

Nevertheless, we also get moments where America reaches out to England.

Ex: During a blizzard, he asks England to come and play video games with him, but is turned down.

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As seen in more modern strips, the two of them are slowly working towards reconciliation and visit each other often. The perfect ideal would be if they’re able to become best friends again, not just in their hearts, but openly and expressively without any qualms of what others might think.

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