Misconception: He’s Emotionless.

I think it’s become obvious by now that almost every single nation embodies a good balance between likeable and dislikeable traits. As such, it’s important to lay out some essential characteristics if we’re to understand who England is as a person, his motivations, his faults, and his highpoints.

While England can be invariably cruel and pessimistic – especially towards America– this stems from a latent insecurity that he keeps within himself. He pre-emptively spites others to protect himself from the rejection he’s historically experienced. In modern strips, his temper has calmed considerably, and this spitefulness has transformed more into sarcastic banter and blunt teasing.

Nonetheless, what this post will account for is why England’s loneliness caused him to have such a volatile temperament, not to mention poor relationships with others.

The following character notes are of utmost importance in preventing England’s personality from being misinterpreted. [x]

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

He could easily be the most pitiful one in this webcomic. 

His temper was quite stormy during the decades after America’s independence. 

Put another way: England’s historical isolation caused him to develop a poor sense of self-worth. To compensate for this, he worked hard to improve his nation and external image of himself. Meanwhile, the insecurity remained even as he emerged as a world superpower. Because he was so used to being teased and berated, England treated others in a similar manner, only for this to work to his own detriment.

Arrogance and boastfulness quickly got the best of him. He fell hard and even deeper into isolation after the American Revolution. His violent temper towards America is a manifestation of his strong fear of rejection. What you’ll see is that England is deeply considerate of others and wants to befriend them, but unfortunately closes up and defensively makes scathing remarks to protect his fragile self-image.

With all that said, let’s tie this back to the strips and go through some examples.

We know that having America as a ward helped ease England’s temper. He even admits to this.

What’s important to point out here is that this was during a time when America was England’s primary ally.

England escaped the alienating atmosphere of Europe by visiting America. America’s unconditional love was England’s security blanket. 

This security blanket was lost after the Revolution, thus explaining why England’s temper explodes in the following years. He was all alone again.

England wants to be friends with America, but has trouble overcoming his loneliness. His crippling fear of rejection is often the cause.

In fact, England can be quite shy at times. If anything, it proves how skeptical he is to open himself up to others, let alone make the effort to get them to see him for who he really is.

He embarrassedly offers to be America’s friend when he realizes that the latter doesn’t have any, only to defensively fall back on anger when America rejects him.

It’s a cruel cycle of desiring to be close to another person, opening himself up, and either 1) rudely spiting them, inciting rejection or 2) politely engaging them as a ‘gentleman’, only for this to incite rejection as well.

His anger is a shell – it’s a tough habit to break, even though he woefully recognizes how problematic it is in impacting how others perceive him.

The fact that he doesn’t expect positive reactions from others is chiefly illustrated with how embarrassed he gets when he does receive praise.

Nonetheless, England keeps trying to mend things with America to the extent that these efforts are excessively nosy.

He’s skeptical that Lithuania will be treated well in America’s house, and takes it upon himself to visit them. Curiosity is a form of caring, however skewed and counterproductive as it may be.

Point is, England’s covertly reaching out to America here, likely because he knows firsthand what it’s like to be directly rejected by the latter. It’s the next best thing he can do.

As touched on above, it’s not just America that England’s isolated from. He’s not referred to as the Black Sheep of Europe for nothing, after all.

During the Splendid Isolation Period, and having experienced many political rejections as a result of tensions with Russia, he desperately tries to convince himself that being alone isn’t all that bad.

Eventually, he’s able to successfully form an alliance with Japan. Of particular emphasis is the strip’s title: 

“The anglo-Japanese alliance between two lonely people.”

I really don’t think it can get more explicit than that.

Further, this alienation among the other nations is a repetitive theme in the series. England’s often left out of excursions and activities.

One example that best demonstrates this is when Italy, Germany, and Japan take it upon themselves to interview other nations about their Christmas traditions. The whole strip entails England hiding in the background, fidgeting nervously as he waits to be interviewed, only to be forgotten about.

Interestingly, it’s Japan who remembers to interview England at the last minute. The two share an implicit, but undeniably deep understanding of each other.

Another way that England compensates for his loneliness is by turning to the supernatural – his fairie friends. America thinks he’s crazy, but what he doesn’t realize is that England likely summons these friends to mitigate his loneliness, and therefore prevent himself from going mad.

The imagery of a child-like imagination is later used to describe England’s love of and desire to live in a world entirely made up of fantasy. He lives in his mind because it’s safe. Similarly, he talks to his [real] fairie friends because he knows that they’re safe too; they won’t ever reject him.

I’ve brought this up before, but I think this is a good note to end on. During the Anglo-Japanese alliance arc, which focuses on the subject of loneliness, why is it that England is given the Kappa’s Miracle Cure?

It’s a medicine said to cure any illness…

…but what illness is there to cure if you’re an immortal being that will automatically recover from illness anyway?

It seems to me that the cure was intended for something less tangible, yet just as hard to cure:

Heartsickness and accompanying feelings of loneliness.

To be continued

look my canada aesthetic is really important to me

I figured I’d draw more Supertalia in celebration of Season 11 tbh

bonus: Mattie as Sam with horribly drawn musclesssss :^)))

Insp

Vafangul a soreta, va’ = Nice italian words ♥

Remember that strip where Veneziano and Romano were yelling at eachother in Italian

And Germany was all like “I don’t know what they’re saying but it sounds bEAUTIFUL”

I like to think that Canada would be in Gryffindor, although he and his beaver combines with Hufflepuff

Francis what do you like about Hogwarts so far

“This tree is pretty neat”

Could you make a nyo! Iceland and Nyo! South Korea hanging out with a jealous Nyo!Hong Kong

there was quite a bit similar~ish proposals for nyo!hongice soooo… (and i missed these gals so much)