Hetalia mini-rant [Canada, America, Russia]

[transemacabre]

Now that I've been into Hetalia fandom for a few months, I have to say that one of my saddest discoveries is that it seems America adores Canadians, while Canada seems to waver between being mildly annoyed by America and outright despising it. I honestly never thought that the America/Canada lovefest was so one-sided. You see it a lot in fic where Canada (canonically a very passive-aggressive and downright wimpy character) is characterized as being Too Good For This Sinful Earth and sekritly a snarky badass who is unfairly overshadowed by his asshole brother, America. For goodness' sake, it can't be easy having a brother like America, but canonically Canada is more than capable of handling America (along with being outright verbally abusive towards him). Canada's tears will not cure cancer. He is not a special snowflake. Zac Efron is not going to show up and take Canada to the prom. I have a feeling that a lot of authors let their own personal feelings about their siblings bleed through in a lot of Canada fic.

On a semi-related note, I have to say I feel bad for Russian Hetalia fen. Russia is characterized as the rapetruck and go-to villain so much, it must be a little painful for them. I mean, America gets more crap than I honestly feel he deserves from fandom, but even his most Yandere incarnations aren't as crazy-bugfuck-insane as Russia's portrayals. I do have to say all the fic in which America is gang-raped by basically the entire cast do disturb me greatly. It says something about Hetalia fandom that there are several epic-length fics on this topic -- what it says I'm too terrified to contemplate, but it definitely says SOMETHING. At least Russia isn't being gang-raped in every other fic. Still, he's portrayed as the devil incarnate a lot of the time and I feel bad for actual Russians.

Comments

[transemacabre.livejournal.com]

I have never heard of that book. But I would like to address something -- it is not that I do not LIKE Matthew/Canada, but that I find his portrayal in fandom to be sometimes troubling. It's that America is so often cast as a foil to Matt, who is rarely even a Matt recognizable from the series, but rather St. Canada, or Manada, or Snarky Badass Canada.

I think that if you take a look at my fic, you will see that when Canada appears he is portrayed positively, so its not so easy just to say 'Oh, well you don't like Canada anyway'; no, I don't like the BIAS I see in this fandom.