It's So Nice How The Guys In Hetalia Have Diverse Body Types In Canon. But The Fanart Where They Are

Daily Hetalia Fact #58

Greetings in Southern Italy are a little more intimate than in other places.

Based on [this] by mezzochan.

God, I love heavy gesturing (even if his only ever seem to cover ‘vaguely disgruntled’ to ‘furious’)

Sorry if I got anything wrong, I have yet to see all of them in real life.

And of course;

Insp

Vafangul a soreta, va’ = Nice italian words ♥

being t.urkey is suffering (x)

Francis is secretly a rebel at heart and always encourages his students to question the status quo.  

Hetalia World ☆ Stars - Chapter 284 Original Translation: y4nderenka // spaghettifelice // donamoeba Scanlation: jammerlea Please link back to our Tumblr when using translated images on other sites.

The Angel of Snow

Misconception: He’s emotionless.

Reality: He’s expressive through non-expressiveness.

Ex: A smile for him isn’t expressed as obviously as it is for some of the other characters. Still, that doesn’t negate the fact that he has feelings. I mean really now.

Misconception: He’s humourless.

Reality: He has an implicitly “evil” and “mischievous” side. In other words, he’s often playful, albeit subtly.

Ex: He’s the one to come up with France’s punishment after the 2007 April Fools’ Event. This entails getting France to praise everything about England’s culture for a whole day.

Ex: When at war with each other, he was glad to have a legitimate reason to punch Denmark.

Ex: He goes along with the Nordics’ plan to host a secret birthday party for Iceland. 

Again, the humour is subtle as he wordlessly teases Iceland and makes light out of the latter’s confusion over them meeting outside.

Misconception: He’s intimidating inside and out.

Reality: His external appearance is intimidating, but he’s tender and sweet on the inside.

Ex: During the stereotypical café arc, Sweden’s customer is initially terrified of him. Nonetheless, Sweden gives away the meal for free.

Ex: He acts as a parent to Sealand.

Ex: Lavonia refers to him [and the other Nordics] as an Uncle.

Ex: He’s good at sewing + uses this skill to adjust smaller clothes for Finland.

Misconception: SuFin is canon.

Reality: Sweden has confirmed feelings for Finland, but Finland doesn’t reciprocate.

In a lost 2007 blog post, Hima confirmed that Sweden has homosexual feelings for Finland and only acts this way towards Finland. [That’s literally what the translation says].

Ex: Finland has repeatedly denied being Sweden’s “wife.”

Nonetheless, the two do share a close relationship, enough for Finland to refer to Sweden as “Swe.”

Ex: The two spend their New Years’ Eve together in 2009.

Ex: This one-sidedness is seen as early as when they were first colonizing America. Finland spots America in the wild, and Sweden proposes the option of them having kids.

Bonus facts:

It’s left unclear as to whether Sweden can see magical creatures.

He and Denmark used to hate each other, but have recently calmed down in their temperaments. Of course, this is to be expected from their present welfare and collectively-oriented nations.

Regardless, the two still tease each other in the present time. 

[Denmark and Finland are imitating Sweden here.]

All in all, a somewhat mysterious, yet thoroughly entertaining character.

Misconception: Finland has a sweet, child-like appearance, so he must be weak.

Reality: Finland’s a warrior, and is noted to possess immense strength and resilience.

Ex: He’s so cold-resistant that General Winter has no effect on him. They even get along. 

Ex: He’s visibly disappointed when Sweden calls off a battle during one of the Polish-Swedish wars. Not to mention that he was excited about engaging in the fight.

Ex: His patience isn’t endless. It’s said that if you poke him ten times, he’ll forgive you, but once you pester him enough, he’ll get you back ten times harder. 

[There’s a slight difference in the translation, but it’s basically the same thing.]

Misconception: Like Iceland, Finland’s one of the tamer Nordics.

Reality: Finland’s actually quite strange.

Ex: He loves nature and enjoys being covered in grass.

Misconception: He’s Sweden’s wife = Sufin is canon.

Reality: He is not Sweden’s wife. Sufin is not canon.

Sweden calls Finland his wife, but Finland does not accept the label.

The two do share a close relationship though, enough for Finland to refer to Sweden as “Swe.”

Although, Finland is often just as perplexed by Sweden as the other nations are.

Misconception: He’s a jittery, nervous, and shy person as a result of being overshadowed by the other Nordics.

Reality: He’s soft-spoken, and quiet-voiced, but is far from quiet. In fact, he can be a very talkative and bubbly character at times. Nonetheless, he is said to be overshadowed by the other Nordics.

Ex: Finland jokes with Germany about his boss, despite the fact that the humour goes right over Germany’s head.

Ex: Finland’s noted to be a particularly nagging person.

Bonus Facts:

He lightly teases Iceland and once asked the latter to call him Big Brother.

He’s offered to act as a father figure to America.

He loves saunas, sweets, and alcohol. Bonus if it’s all combined together.

He’s had the hardest time out of all the Nordics, likely stemming from the fact that he’s historically been an underling to other nations.

Note: This theory will make use of Freudian theory. While I recognize that Freud’s ideas do not bear much contemporary relevance, that shouldn’t take away from the fact that many of his concepts (e.g., erogenous zones, childhood memory repression, catharsis) are nonetheless employed by Hima in the series. The purpose of this post is to give some insight into the psychologies of the characters.

Terminology I’ll go over: Psychosexual stages, causality, regression, fixation.

Yes, that’s right. Freud’s ideas are very much prevalent in the series. A big area of his work was analyzing the impact of childhood on personality development. Freud believed in causality, meaning that who you are as an adult can be directly traced back to your childhood.

How you’re parented and brought up is the most crucial factor. I don’t need to go into this in too much detail, but basically, we go through five stages of development titled: Oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital.

For this specific post, we only need to focus on the early stages of development, which focus on sensual (sensory) pleasure and stimulation, often for the purposes of soothing and experiencing relief.

Each stage has corresponding needs. If these needs are not met (under-gratification) or if they are too easily met (over-gratification), then the person develops a fixation.

A fixation essentially means that the person is stuck at that level of development, which causes them to develop a problematic and unhealthy personality type.

However, it’s only when that individual is met with confrontation or a stressful situation that they regress back to the stage in which they developed this fixation. The stress causes them to revert back to the age where their needs weren’t met, and as such, they engage in childish behaviours.

For example, if you get into an argument with someone and they start behaving selfishly, like a toddler, then you have every right to poke fun at them for having Daddy or Mommy issues. Or, there are those who bite their nails and pick at their lips, something akin to the soothing acquired from sucking one’s thumb as a child.

Where America Fits Into This:  

America’s tricky in that he’s fixated at two stages of development. I’ll go over each of them separately.

Oral Fixation: 

The oral stages revolves around gratification through the mouth and lips. Tension and stress in an infant is reduced as they feed from their mother. It soothes them.

Over-gratification, as in the infant is fed too much or too easily, results in an oral-incorporative personality. In this case, it would apply not to how America was parented, as England wasn’t present in his life for long periods of his childhood, but rather the time that he spent in isolation.

In isolation, America only looked after himself. That’s why when he emerged from this isolation he came across as selfish and egocentric to the other nations. He had gotten so used to satisfying his own needs that he had trouble putting others first. [Please note that this is not the case in modern strips.]

Now, consider how much responsibility America had when he became a major manufacturing power in the years leading up to WW1.

Then, consider how he evolved to the status of a superpower following WW2. That’s a lot of responsibility for one nation to take, and as such, you would think that it would have caused America a lot of stress.

Well, it did.

Ex: He’s visibly distressed and disappointed in himself when the Stock Market crashes in 1939. He assumes all the blame given that it was his economy that had propped up the global market at the time.

While he doesn’t always show it, a lot of America’s habits help reduce this tension and stress. Not only that, but it helps him cope with the loneliness and lingering effects of isolation that he still feels when interacting with other nations.

Oral-incorporative personalities reduce tension through oral activities (duh). This would include things like smoking, drinking a lot, chewing gum, eating excessively, and being overly talkative. Hmmmm.

Doesn’t America overeat?

Isn’t America an overly-talkative person that just so happens to get on a lot of the other nations’ nerves?

Notwithstanding that America is completely aware of the fact that he’s not well-received in the international community?

This brings me to my next point. An oral-incorporative personality-type also possesses a high degree of gullibility. Following Freud’s allegory, they swallow everything they’re told.

With America, this gullibility of not being able to read the atmosphere is an act. 

It’s nothing more than a running gag and shouldn’t be taken seriously, especially if you look closely at his interactions with the other nations.

It’s a stress-reducing mechanism that allows him to avoid confronting reality, given how stressful his position as a superpower must have been. Point is, he’s more than capable of reading the atmosphere as seen in the example above. He simply chooses not to.

Similarly, America also embodies aspects of an oral-sadistic personality type. Under-gratification, as in the infant is not fed enough, results in this personality type. It means that they were weaned off early from their mother.

These people tend to be verbally abusive, or, in less serious cases they use “biting” sarcasm. Note again the use of an allegorical reference to infancy.

That said, we know that the nations often get frustrated with America for making reckless mistakes. More importantly, these mistakes are attributed to his youth and inexperience.

In that case, America being weaned off from England too early and not learning the proper ropes of how to conduct himself in accordance to tradition would be what is most relevant here…

Not many people know this, but America can be verbally abrasive (it’s not quite abusive) and sarcastic. The whole arc covering his and Canada’s childhoods are full of heated arguments between the two of them.

Ex: America gets frustrated with Canada when the latter refuses to let him see England following the Revolution.

The argument ends when Canada slams the front door on America.

Ex: America explodes at Canada upon hearing that the latter intends to gain his independence by being on good terms with England.

It’s the softness of the approach that doesn’t sit well with America. Canada is still fairly sheltered at this point, and hadn’t experienced/ travelled the world like America had. Put another way, Canada comes across as too idealistic to him.

“Is your head a field of flowers?!” 

Ex: Russia gives America a ticket to Siberia for his birthday. America blows his nose with it.

Anal Fixation:

[Yes, laugh. I didn’t come up with these terms.]

This stage of development centers around potty training. As toddlers gain control, autonomy, over their bodily functions, the authority that their parents assert over them regarding how they regulate these functions is met with hostility. They want to enjoy their newly-acquired independence and go whenever they want. The parents are the only barrier to that. Essentially, this stage is a battle of wills between the stubbornness of the toddler and their parents.

Sound familiar? Does the American Revolution ring a bell?

As America became increasingly sufficient, he realized that England’s authority was too imposing; it restricted his growth and freedom as a nation. He therefore pushed back and fought for his independence, his autonomy.

America fits best with an anal-retentive personality type. Similar to how a toddler will sometimes refuse to relieve themselves, these individuals tend to withhold their emotions and hoard their belongings. This also ties in nicely with how America pretends not to read the atmosphere.

Ex: America’s been shown on a few occasions to hold his tongue and not say what he really thinks.

Ex: He has a problem with over-manufacturing [hoarding].

Ex: While this doesn’t apply in the present, when he first came out of isolation, America would only do favors if it served to his own benefit.

Notice how similar that is to the behavior of a toddler. They lack the intellectual capacity to think of anyone but themselves.

Lastly, in terms of stress, you’ll also notice that America is often equated with child-like imagery.

This is especially the case when his ideas are challenged. The stress of it causes him to revert back to childish behaviour.

Ex: When proposing a world defense plan, he crushes bundled spoons to intimidate other nations into agreeing with him.

England berates him for this childishness too.

In sum, America’s childish behaviour is often an unconscious reaction to stress than it is arising from selfishness. Not only that, but a lot of his ‘obnoxious’ habits (e.g., eating excessively) can be attributed to him relieving his stress through them.