Opinion of Soleil?

[Hunter Nightblood]

So earlier I did a thread on Rhajat, now I'm going to do the same for Soleil.

What's your opinion on Soleil? I'm focusing on the localization only, so Soleil x Forrest is NOT a deciding factor here. If you decide to vote, please leave a reply explaining your reasoning. I'd prefer it if you do not say "for the reasons everyone has listed." I want to read your opinions, not everyone elses.

Useful links:

My analysis of Soleil's character (I think I did a pretty good job here)

Complete support guide

I can already tell this is going to end poorly for Soleil.

Edit: I posted this survey to reddit as well. You can view the results here and vote here if you wish.

Edited May 2, 2016 by Hunter Nightblood

[Time the Crestfallen]

This'll be fun to watch

Seriously though, I'm not a fan. The shoddy attempt at a bisexual character and the way she acts in her supports with her mother, Ophelia and Ignatius is quite frankly disgusting and more than enough to make her irredeemable in my eyes. Not to mention that the Localisation specifically mentions her being bisexual, yet has all her S-Supports with men (barring M!Kamui, which has heavy implications of 'if it's you, it's okay' and Forrest, who looks like a girl) end platonically i.e. having their cake and eating it too. The either should've actually let her S-Rank the guys or just made her gay. Trying to go both ways only means we get the worst of both worlds.

[eclipse]

Time to Actually Read Soliel. . .

. . .and she's actually got a metric ton of things going on at the same time. Flirts with girls? Check. Randomly undressing? Check. Can't sing/dance without help? Check. Always trying to smile? Check. Fucks up social boundaries? Totally. Tries her hardest? Yep.

Put it all together, and I see an unhappy girl, but is trying to smile her way through life. However, she's so focused on herself that she'll ignore what others say, especially if it goes against what she wants to believe (Opheila and her mom), and will commit other social faux pas because of it. Her belief in herself is both her strength and her weakness, and it's kind of a lot to take in. Because she has so many different characteristics, she's a pain in the ass to analyze properly. I think she summarizes her motives best in her Siegbert support:

But I think a really strong woman would be herself, and not be ashamed of her ways. If she feels something, she acts on it, without worrying about anyone else!

As for giving/receiving advice? That's actually something that men are more likely to do (covered it somewhere in high school, too lazy to look this up).

Other than Kiragi and Siegbert, I'm fine with her ending as "friends for now". Some of them, like Ignatius, are open-ended enough where I think they can get hitched in the future. Not every opposite-sex support has to end with marriage, and I would be thrilled if more supports ended on a platonic note. Soliel as she is now probably isn't ready for marriage. Once she gets social boundaries down-pat, she'd be a cheerful wife.

[Etrurian emperor]

Well this is going to be interesting.

I think her gimmick was a source of trouble from the get go. People are calling it bisexuality but is it really? In the arguments around Soleil I heard it come up often that her favored trope isn't based on being Bi but more on a Japanese thing where girls really do have a period checking out other girls before they ''grow up'' and get a man. That would explain why she can't S rank females. Its something that's just not going to translate well in the West and I actually do have to give the localisers credit when it comes to Soleil. By limiting the males Soleil can romance they did tone that the unfortunate implication of her just having to ''grow up'' and they also changed the downright bizarre ''magic powder'' into a more inocent and believable training involving a blindfold.

Soleil is one of those characters like Tharja who is hindered by her gimmick but gets more interesting the more she gets away from it. She's introduced rather nicely, staying strong and forcing herself to smile for her friends when they are in trouble and she's pretty nice in the support with Inigo, Siegbert and Kiragi. Supports that focus more on her gimmick like Ophalia where she is pretty unpleasant and her mother where she's downright weird are things she suffers from.

She's pretty good when she's a cheery girl who tries her best and is a bit socially clumsy but I'm not exactly surprised she gets hated when she harasses her friend or starts checking out her mom. As long as she portrayed with a bit of dignity then I'm willing to say she's alright.

Edited May 2, 2016 by Etrurian emperor

[Matt-hue]

I'm on the "I don't approve of Soleil" boat.

She's honestly pretty awful. She hits on her mom, which is really uncomfortable, she harasses Ophelia and she stalks total strangers in her supports w/ Nina and Ignatius. Treehouse really tried to stitch up the holes, but it didn't really work. They fixed her supports with Forrest and male Corrin- and I appreciate that- but they left lots of other negative bits of in other supports of hers that I didn't like. Even if you took away her biggest personality trait, she still wouldn't be likable. When she isn't being a total creep, Soleil's just a generic genki girl that's really boring. I wanted to like her because she's the daughter of my favorite first gen male, but it's kinda hard. 

Edit: To be honest, I was pretty hyped when I first saw that Soleil and Ophelia could support. I thought their relationship was going to be the opposite of the one their dads have: Soleil admiring Ophelia for her ~flamboyant speech~ while Ophelia finds her constant gawking kinda annoying. Eventually, they'd start to be friends and Soleil would start to pick up Ophelia's manner of speech or smth. I'm kinda disappointed that isn't what we actually got.

Edited April 2, 2017 by Matt-hue

[Thane]

While I dislike her creepy behavior and dialogue, my biggest problem with her is that she's boring. Aside from her support with Laslow, what does she actually contribute as a character that's mildly interesting?

However, I'm curious about the "bad representation of bisexual characters" argument; how are bisexuals "supposed" to act and be represented? Is it ever implied that Soleil acts like this because she's a bisexual and not just an individual who knows no boundaries?

[Matt-hue]

On 02/05/2016 at 0:26 PM, Thane said:

However, I'm curious about the "bad representation of bisexual characters" argument; how are bisexuals "supposed" to act and be represented? Is it ever implied that Soleil acts like this because she's a bisexual and not just an individual who knows no boundaries?

I'd have preferred it if she had a bit more dignity and knew when to back off. You don't see bi representation in media very often, so when the representation that you do get is a stalker that goes around sexually harassing other girls, it's not exactly giving off a very good message. It feels more like someone is writing a bad fanfic than actually attempting to represent various orientations, imo.

Sorry if I worded that poorly, but really, I don't think they handled Soleil very well. It doesn't help that she can only S rank guys either, especially when there's another bi girl (Rhajat) that they could have set her up with in Rev.

Edited April 2, 2017 by Matt-hue

[Time the Crestfallen]

While I dislike her creepy behavior and dialogue, my biggest problem with her is that she's boring. Aside from her support with Laslow, what does she actually contribute as a character that's mildly interesting?

However, I'm curious about the "bad representation of bisexual characters" argument; how are bisexuals "supposed" to act and be represented? Is it ever implied that Soleil acts like this because she's a bisexual and not just an individual who knows no boundaries?

There isn't any way that bisexuals are 'supposed' to act strictly speaking, but if you have a bisexual character that acts the way Soleil does (stalking, harassment ETC), what is the first thought that's going to come to everyone's mind? 'Depraved Bisexual' is a trope for a reason, and this is without getting into Jap!Soleil, who at best is a bait-and-switch lesbian and at worst represents the idea that women being interested in other women is nothing more than a phase that people grow out of or that her sexuality is her only trait that gets any decent amount of focus. In my opinion, making a character's sexuality (especially for a character that isn't straight) a defining aspect of their personality is one of the worst things you can do with characters like Soleil. Why couldn't she be a girl who likes cute things and isn't very good with social boundaries who just so happens to be bisexual? What we get instead is the game beating us over the head with her sexuality and making her social faux-pas' explicitly sexual in nature far too many times (at least in my opinion).

Edited May 2, 2016 by Phillius

[Matt-hue]

On 02/05/2016 at 0:39 PM, Phillius said:

There isn't any way that bisexuals are 'supposed' to act strictly speaking, but if you have a bisexual character that acts the way Soleil does (stalking, harassment ETC), what is the first thought that's going to come to everyone's mind? 'Depraved Bisexual' is a trope for a reason, and this is without getting into Jap!Soleil, who at best is a bait-and-switch lesbian and at worst represents the idea that women being interested in other women is nothing more than a phase that people grow out of or that her sexuality is her only trait that gets any decent amount of focus. In my opinion, making a character's sexuality (especially for a character that isn't straight) a defining aspect of their personality is one of the worst things you can do with characters like Soleil. Why couldn't she be a girl who likes cute things and isn't very good with social boundaries who just so happens to be bisexual? What we get instead is the game beating us over the head with her sexuality and making her social faux-pas' explicitly sexual in nature far too many times (at least in my opinion).

Gonna quote Phillius too bc he worded it much better than I could.

Edited April 2, 2017 by Matt-hue

[Zerosabers]

I hate her, checked every box in the second question besides the last two. English Soliel is better than Japanese Soliel just by removing one of her worst traits with bait and switch lesbian.

There isn't any way that bisexuals are 'supposed' to act strictly speaking, but if you have a bisexual character that acts the way Soleil does (stalking, harassment ETC), what is the first thought that's going to come to everyone's mind? 'Depraved Bisexual' is a trope for a reason, and this is without getting into Jap!Soleil, who at best is a bait-and-switch lesbian and at worst represents the idea that women being interested in other women is nothing more than a phase that people grow out of or that her sexuality is her only trait that gets any decent amount of focus. In my opinion, making a character's sexuality (especially for a character that isn't straight) a defining aspect of their personality is one of the worst things you can do with characters like Soleil. Why couldn't she be a girl who likes cute things and isn't very good with social boundaries who just so happens to be bisexual? What we get instead is the game beating us over the head with her sexuality and making her social faux-pas' explicitly sexual in nature far too many times (at least in my opinion).

If this was reddit you'd be drowning in karma. Also thirding this opinion.

[Thane]

I'd have preferred it if she had a bit more dignity and knew when to back off. You don't see bi representation in media very often, so when the representation that you do get is a stalker that goes around sexually harassing other girls, it's not exactly giving off a very good message. It feels more like someone is writing a bad fanfic than actually attempting to represent various orientations, imo.

Apologies if I worded that poorly, but really, I don't think they handled Soleil very well at all. It doesn't help that she can only S rank men either (and only two of them for that matter), especially when there's another bi girl (Rhajat) that they could easily have set her up with in Revelation.

There isn't any way that bisexuals are 'supposed' to act strictly speaking, but if you have a bisexual character that acts the way Soleil does (stalking, harassment ETC), what is the first thought that's going to come to everyone's mind? 'Depraved Bisexual' is a trope for a reason, and this is without getting into Jap!Soleil, who at best is a bait-and-switch lesbian and at worst represents the idea that women being interested in other women is nothing more than a phase that people grow out of or that her sexuality is her only trait that gets any decent amount of focus. In my opinion, making a character's sexuality (especially for a character that isn't straight) a defining aspect of their personality is one of the worst things you can do with characters like Soleil. Why couldn't she be a girl who likes cute things and isn't very good with social boundaries who just so happens to be bisexual? What we get instead is the game beating us over the head with her sexuality and making her social faux-pas' explicitly sexual in nature far too many times (at least in my opinion).

I see where you're coming from, don't get me wrong. What I mean is that we're going to get more sexually diverse characters in video games as time goes on, and it's important that the characters will be, you know, characters, and not their sexuality.

The bolded part is what I mean: isn't that what we got? A lot of characters have gimmicks that overstay their welcome, so what makes Soleil's different? I wish Setsuna didn't get caught in as many traps and actually talked like a human, and that Felicia showed some actual depth in her supports

I haven't read all of her supports though, so maybe I'm missing something. My question was just what made her a bad representation of bisexuality, rather than just being a bad character who happens to be bisexual.

[UNLEASH IT]

The "I'm a lesbian but not really lol" trope has always irked me

[Time the Crestfallen]

I see where you're coming from, don't get me wrong. What I mean is that we're going to get more sexually diverse characters in video games as time goes on, and it's important that the characters will be, you know, characters, and not their sexuality.

The bolded part is what I mean: isn't that what we got? A lot of characters have gimmicks that overstay their welcome, so what makes Soleil's different? I wish Setsuna didn't get caught in as many traps and actually talked like a human, and that Felicia showed some actual depth in her supports

I haven't read all of her supports though, so maybe I'm missing something. My question was just what made her a bad representation of bisexuality, rather than just being a bad character who happens to be bisexual.

That depends on a lot of things; if you're more cynical like me, you might be more willing to say that she's a bad bisexual character for example. My problem is that while I can acknowledge how some people might see her as just a bad character who happens to be bisexual, the fact that her worst moments are all motivated by her sexuality directly is what makes it a poor portrayal of bisexuality in my eyes.

Take her support with Ophelia for example; if Soleil was merely having trouble with personal space (being a bit too eager to initiate physical contact for example) or a bit too hyperactive for Ophelia's relatively mellow attitude or even pushing the relationship a bit too quickly, such as insisting that they're bff's after only having one conversation, than that would be fine. The problem is that the support demonstrates that a) Soleil is pushing for an explicitly romantic relationship, even after Ophelia makes it clear that she is not interested, b) that her 'faux-pas' can be classified as outright sexual harassment (and in the Japanese version, what she's planning on doing while in control of Ophelia's body could be classified as rape depending on how you look at it) and c) that it takes someone else being driven to tears by her harassment for her to back off. There's also her support with Ignatius as another example; if Soleil was watching the other girls because she's too nervous to interact with them, that would be fine. In fact, as someone who has a lot of trouble when it comes to being comfortable in social situations, I'd be able to empathise with that. Instead, she's watching them because she thinks that they're cute and she doesn't want to scare them away, which is stalking and again, her faux-pas being motivated by her sexuality.

The other problem with Soleil is that she's almost nothing but an archetype. I have nothing wrong with archetypes, it would be a pretty stupid thing to get upset about since literally every fictional character fits into one archetype or another. Let's use sandwich making as an example (oh how I love weird and overly-long metaphors!); the archetype of a character is the bread, the foundation of everything that a sandwich will be. However, if you went into a restaurant and ordered a sandwich, you'd be pretty pissed if they gave you nothing but two pieces of bread on a plate, wouldn't you? While the bread is the foundation of a sandwich, it's what goes between the bread that makes the sandwich delicious. Similarly, a character that is nothing but an archetype is poor and lazy writing. Instead, characters thrive on secondary tropes and traits, on what makes them unique and different from other characters belonging to the same archetype.

Inigo is the perfect example. He's undoubtedly a Casanova archetype, but it's his insecurities, courage and determination that make him tolerable to me, as I found his flirty traits to be overly prominent when compared to his other traits (too much mayo if you will). In Fates however, Inigo is a god-tier character because his flirty tendencies are no longer overplayed and his other, more desirable and interesting traits are now supplemented by the character development experienced between games (in this case, his new-found maturity). Inigo is a B+ Sandwich and Laslow is what you could expect to order from a 5-Star restaurant.

Soleil meanwhile, is what you'd get if a chef put two buttered pieces of bread on a plate and maybe threw in a leftover leaf of lettuce. Soleil is Inigo, but without any of the depth that made him tolerable with the added downside of exaggerating the flirting and pushiness to the point of being a borderline (if not outright) sexual predator. Normally, this would be merely bad and otherwise unimportant. The main problem is that Soleil is representing the LGBT group; a group of people that are very rarely depicted in media and when they are, you have about 50/50 odds that it will be in a negative (often in a sexual manner) light. Soleil could've been so much more than what she is, but as it stands she's just yet another example of Bait-and-Switch-Lesbianism/Depraved Bisexual/Lesbians are Stalkers/whatever extremely outdated LGBT stereotype you want to add to the pile that is already disproportionately large compared to the number of LGBT characters in media.

TL;DR- sexuality as a gimmick needs to die in a fire and whoever wrote Soleil's supports should feel bad.

Edited May 2, 2016 by Phillius

[Matt-hue]

On 02/05/2016 at 0:57 PM, Thane said:

I see where you're coming from, don't get me wrong. What I mean is that we're going to get more sexually diverse characters in video games as time goes on, and it's important that the characters will be, you know, characters, and not their sexuality.

The bolded part is what I mean: isn't that what we got? A lot of characters have gimmicks that overstay their welcome, so what makes Soleil's different? I wish Setsuna didn't get caught in as many traps and actually talked like a human, and that Felicia showed some actual depth in her supports

I haven't read all of her supports though, so maybe I'm missing something. My question was just what made her a bad representation of bisexuality, rather than just being a bad character who happens to be bisexual.

At the end of her paralogue, she's seen hitting on a village maiden and Laslow tells Silas that Soleil's bi.

Her C and B w/ Ophelia revolve around it.

The entirety of Nina/Soleil is the two of them arguing over BxB and GxG.

Her supports w/ Sophie also revolve around her main trait, even though it's a lot tamer than usual.

We all know about how awful her supports w/  her mom are.

She asks Asugi to help her bake sweets so she can get the attention of some girls.

In her supports w/ Ignatius, she stalks girls in the C and B.

She wants Shigure to teach her how to sing so she can win the hearts of girls that like singing.

Kiragi admires the fact that she's so popular with all the other girls in the army in their C support.

Soleil teachers Kana how to hit on other girls in their supports.

Funnily enough, her supports with Dwyer don't mention it ever.

Siegbert notices Soleil stalking other girls in their B support.

Soleil's supports with Percy are Cherche x Robin 2.0.

She hits on Mitama in their C support, but it stops after that.

Forrest brings up girls in their S support, but they're never mentioned outside of that.

The entire M!Corrin x Soleil support's about how Soleil always feels faint around cute girls.

Soleil's supports w/ F!Corrin are about how Soleil attempts to get Corrin to hit on other women and fails.

Three of her supports don't bring up the fact that she finds girls attractive, so I'd say that the game does make her personality revolve around it, tbh. If you're gonna write a character, it's not a good idea to make their entire personality revolve around how cute they find other girls.

Edited April 2, 2017 by Matt-hue

[maybe]

Apologies if I worded that poorly, but really, I don't think they handled Soleil very well at all. It doesn't help that she can only S rank men either (and only two of them for that matter), especially when there's another bi girl (Rhajat) that they could easily have set her up with in Revelation.

the sad thing is from what it seems I don't even think that would work

since with Rhajat it seems more like a case of "I DON'T CARE IF YOU'RE A WOMAN I LOVE YOU ANYWAY"

I do not like Soleil very much

I checked all the boxes except the last two and the one about her mom supports, and even those aren't very good, they're just not a big factor in why I don't like her

which is a shame because there are a lot of things I really like about her

her voice is really nice, I liked her character before her terrible gimmick started to become apparent, and her death quote is one of the few I actually found really sad.

but her supports are not good so I don't like her

[Matt-hue]

*Soliel

He spelt it right.

the sad thing is from what it seems I don't even think that would work

since with Rhajat it seems more like a case of "I DON'T CARE IF YOU'RE A WOMAN I LOVE YOU ANYWAY"

Well, that's what I get for not reading Rhajat's S support with F!Corrin for a whole year.

Edited May 2, 2016 by Matt-hue

[Thane]

TL;DR- sexuality as a gimmick needs to die in a fire and whoever wrote Soleil's supports should feel bad.

Looks like my horrible Spanish internet connection ate my message. No matter, it wasn't very long, I basically just said that we agree that sexuality should never be a gimmick. I also hope that sexual orientation never substitutes a character's actual character.

Edit: people realize I'm speaking for more diverse casts and stuff like that, right? I always get nervous when discussing sensitive topics like this; I have a knack for expressing myself clumsily and get misunderstood.

Edited May 2, 2016 by Thane

[Time the Crestfallen]

Looks like my horrible Spanish internet connection ate my message. No matter, it wasn't very long, I basically just said that we agree that sexuality should never be a gimmick. I also hope that sexual orientation never substitutes a character's actual character.

Edit: people realize I'm speaking for more diverse casts and stuff like that, right? I always get nervous when discussing sensitive topics like this; I have a knack for expressing myself clumsily and get misunderstood.

Of course. I think most people can agree that the way Soleil is presented in Fates is awful. It's whether she's a bad representation of lesbianism/bisexuality or a bad character that happens to be a lesbian/bisexual that's subjective.

[Jave]

I voted "She's alright" but I still voted in the second poll because I do believe she's rather one-note and the way she treats Ophelia in the C Supports is quite uncomfortable to read. However, I don't think Soleil is this horrible character she's generally painted as. I do like how Ophelia and Soleil forgive each other in the end and become friends, and I'll admit I do like the reveal of Ophelia actually wanting to make the friendship work, but couldn't due to Soleil being too thick-headed to notice. I certainly believe they could have handled the support better, and I won't justify nor defend Soleil's actions, but I feel it ended the best possible way it could have, so at least I'm satisfied on that.

The Ignatius support only has the "pinch" bit which I agree is pretty bad (I'm honestly surprised they left it like that in the localization), but it's unrelated to the rest of the Support so I can put it aside, as I think the entire part with Soleil helping Ignatius smile is really cute.

The Mother support doesn't really bother me. It has Soleil being persistently annoying but that's about it. I've seen people stating that Soleil is hitting on her mom in the support, but I really don't see it.

As for the localization improving on Soleil's character, I'd say that's a solid yes for the sole and simple fact the original Japanese supports with (M)Corrin and Forrest were changed entirely in the localization. We know the story behind (M)Corrin, but the Forrest one is on a whole different level of awful, and nearly ruins Soleil's character.

[Hunter Nightblood]

Debate is good, but, excluding me, I see only 10 people posting out of 32. This is a friendly reminder that I would like those who vote to please reply to this thread to explain your opinion.

The actual poll results are more or less going how I thought it would.

Edited May 2, 2016 by Hunter Nightblood

[Jave]

The actual poll results are more or less going how I thought it would.

I'm actually surprised the first two options got as many votes as they did. Given what I constantly read about Soleil around these parts, I was expecting the poll to be heavily skewed towards the negative options.

[Namarid]

My reasons for disliking her are similar to what others have mentioned: boring and poor character interaction. However I also voted other because I'm not a fan of her voice,petty reason to hate her but oh well.

[InsaneNoire]

I've always liked her for whatever reason. I find her cute and entertaining.

My complaints are that that seems to be the only thing to her character and I wish they would have written another side to her. Also the bisexuality thing...she's so obviously gay in the localized version, as she can only marry two men (one who cross-dresses). It's like the localization can't make up their mind. It says in her bio that she's also attracted to men, but friendzones most of them. Doesn't make sense. Um, why is Rhajat the lesbian option again??

I do think the localized version fixed her up a lot, as in the Japanese version she was a huge creep, hence the support with Forrest.

[Hunter Nightblood]

I'm actually surprised the first two options got as many votes as they did. Given what I constantly read about Soleil around these parts, I was expecting the poll to be heavily skewed towards the negative options.

Well, in the Least Favorite/ Favorite 2nd gen poll, 43 people voted Soleil as their least favorite 2nd gen. That being said, 186 people voted in that poll. In other words, you have around 140 people who have not voiced their opinion on Soleil.

I will admit that I expected more negative votes, but it's still early.

What has me completely surprised though, is that so far, there are more people who dislike Soleil rather than downright hate Soleil.

Edited May 2, 2016 by Hunter Nightblood

[December Knight]

Okay, so I'm not really good at things like this but since Hunter Nightblood wants people to comment after they voted so here goes nothing.

I hate Soleil. Mostly because her gimmick* and her wasted potential (in my eyes, anyway).

I think more then enough people (both in this thread and others) have mentioned why I hate Soleil's gimmick far better then I ever can say on the matter so I won't. But I will say this, both Soleil/Ignatius and Soleil/Ophelia did a effect me in a very bad personal way.

What I mean in "wasted potential", is that I think, she could have been more then just the poor man's Inigo (or Inigo 2.0 but with a V instead of P). I do think that a good/okay character is there, like for one, her singing and dancing not being as good as Inigo's and Olivia's (and Azura/Shigure if they are her mother and brother), and how that would effect her. I know that it's mentioned in some of her supports (mostly in Dwyer and Shigure's supports) but I felt it was mostly in background. Like, why couldn't that be her and mother support instead of what we got (if anything I said made sense).

That's all I can really add on this, I'm sorry if this isn't the best post or whatever.

[*. I feel that I should say that I don't hate LGBT characters but I do think LGBT characters shouldn't just be "hehe I'M SO GAY! " and that's it. I'm so sorry if I made anyone think I hated LGBT people and/or characters with this post.]