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floofiestboy · 4 years

Text

Haruhara Live Q/A Session via Text

Translations of past question corners:

- Question Corners #1-10

- Question Corners #11-20

- Question Corners #21-30

- Question Corners #31-40

- Question Corners #41-50

A couple days back, Haruhara asked people subscribed to his channel to send him questions via email. These are the answers.

Haruhara’s comments:

In this article, instead of a live Q/A session, I answer all the questions I got via email in text form.

Just like in an actual live session, I’ve answered the questions without carefully double-checking my notes and past chapters, so please take this as entertainment. Treat it as non-canon. Anything I haven’t explicitly talked about in canon shouldn’t be treated as such.

Senyuu has technically ended, and so now that’s it’s been over ten years, I’m even answering questions that made me think before, “If I answer this, it’ll affect how they read the main story...”!

Treat it separately from canon! These are just backstories, settings!

source: ch.nicovideo.jp/haruhara-ch/blomaga/ar1939122

Q. I love the BGM on the chapters on NicoNico, so I was wondering who composed them?

A. I don’t know either. Similarly, I don’t know who designed the logos either. But they are nice songs, aren’t they?

Q. Has Alba’s father been journeying since he was young? Did he live apart from Alba?

A. While he’s always been journeying, he came back regularly. If I compared it to a modern-day job, he’d be like a long-distance truck driver or a fisherman.

Q. Does Rchi still have her Mark of a Demon Lord? Do Rchimedes and the Second have the same mark?

A. She still has it, but since I keep on forgetting to draw it, I’ve decided it only shows up when she prays for it to appear. Rchimedes and the Second do not have it.

Q. What sort of job does Justice do in the Demon World?

A. Her job is to be cheerful. Since she’s strong, she has no problems living the way she does. Since the Demon World is still kinda a lawless land, being strong is enough to keep on living on.

Q. Are there only three Four Great Demons?

A. Yes, I just wanted to do a joke where there were a fewer (or greater) number of actual members than a title would make you think.

Q. Is the hole in the world still there?

A. To be honest, when I said that a hole had opened up in the world, what I actually wanted to say was “Something strange happened to the world.” I hadn’t thought about what the hole would be or anything. I bet a giant gate or something opened up for a moment, and monsters and stuff came over here from there. In that case, the hole would’ve closed already.

Q. Please tell me how demons age!

A. It really depends on the demon. Since demons are a race created by Rchimedes going like “Eh, whatevs”, their characteristics aren’t really consistent between each other. I think that demons have long lives because somewhere deep inside Rchimedes, he hated the idea of death and losing loved ones. Though he did play around and had demons fight each other and stuff. While on the surface level, it may have seemed like he fell into despair and raised havoc, I think he really did grieve about losing loved ones deep down.

Q. I’d like to hear more about the Loli 12 Organization and Loli Master the 5th (Master Go Rori).

A. To be honest, I just wanted to say gorori (T/N: onomatopoeia meaning ‘to lie down’). I’m sorry!

Q. Can we no longer see the BL route?!?!!?!

A. Huh?! What do you mean?! - was my first thought, but ah, I remember now. You’re talking about when I drew Ros getting jealous of Alba sleeping with Grandpa during season 2. Since you’re asking if you can no longer see it, I’m guessing you mean that you can’t? I myself have forgotten where I drew it and don’t have the file anymore.

There was a time in the past when I was super into AUs - I drew anything that hit my mind. But then I realized that readers tend to take anything the creator draws super seriously, so I stopped really doing it.

Though lately when I still really want to draw something AU, I always make sure to put a disclaimer stating “This is unrelated to canon!” before it.

(T/N: Please tell me someone has the drawing mentioned here saved somewhere I need this I beg of you.)

Q. In Senyuu Season 2, Rchi keeping information about Creasion from Alba was treated as a joke and kinda just skipped over, but now that I think about it, unless Rchi had told Alba about it, Alba would’ve basically never found out about Creasion. (Since it was pure coincidence that he ended up in the Demon World and found out about it.)

I was wondering if Rchi really intended never to tell Alba about it even though they were working at saving Ros.

If there are any such reasons, I would like to hear about how Rchi was actually planning to tell him once some more time passed, or about how she had some other reason and was really planning never to tell, etc.

A. Ros being the Demon Lord’s son isn’t directly related to saving Ros (via finding a way to free the Demon Lord.) Even if Alba found out the reason why Ros couldn’t defeat the Demon Lord, there wouldn’t have been anything he could’ve done about it. So since knowing the truth would just give Alba more to worry about, I think that Rchi decided it would be better to just stay on their journey and keep looking for information. I don’t think she had any particularly strong desire that would make her really want to tell him.

Q. In F5 Ep. 11, I loved how Alba believed in Ros so easily, and how Ros declared with a smile, “The only person I punch for no reason is you, Hero-san!” How much deeper has their bond become since their early days?

A. How much deeper... how much deeper, I wonder? I feel like bonds aren’t the kind of thing you can measure in words. But I guess, compared to their early days, Ros trusts Alba enough to still be violent towards him even though he’s begun to realize that hey, “It isn’t really good to be violent.”

Q. How do you decide on the characters’ hair and eye colours? What do you use as reference when you draw their clothing and accessories?

A. Honestly, it’s always just whatever comes to me. Aside from the first few characters, I draw new characters vaguely at the storyboard stage, then draw them in properly at the manuscripting stage. For eye colours, in Senyuu I’ve decided that “people who can’t use magic don’t have red eyes.” That’s just something I’m trying to stick to, it doesn’t mean that “Everyone with red eyes in the Senyuu universe can use magic.” Cecily can’t use magic, after all.And there’s random citizens with red eyes out there too. I feel like people’s eyes turn red when they obtain magic because Rchimedes’ feelings towards Cecily were the trigger for magic’s discovery, even in Elf and Alf’s world. Cecily is an important character even though she hasn’t done anything.

Q. Elf and Ros haven’t really gotten the chance to really talk to each other thanks to their respective situations, but now that they work at the same place, I was wondering how close you think they are to each other. If you could expand on how their thoughts and impressions towards each other since their first meeting have changed, I would be really happy.

A. Elf used to think of Ros as someone to be pitied, but nowadays he’s realized that being pitiable isn’t something a bystander should decide, so he doesn’t think that any longer. The two of them aren’t particularly close, but they do chat normally. They’re like classmates who get along pretty well at school but never hang out on the weekends.

Q. If you have any thoughts on scrapped characters like Soldier Rosicks, the Season 2 Alba with the large sword on his back, cat-eared Rchi, etc., I’d love to hear them.

A. It’s less that I “scrapped” those characters and more that I just drew their appearances while I was drawing out all sorts of ideas, so they don’t have any particular backstories or settings associated with them. I’m the type to decide on things like settings as I move the characters around on a storyboard, so when I draw simple illustrations, they’re just empty shells.

Q. I’d like to know more about what happened with the first and third year Hero Academy students after Season 3. Also, how much do Sochi and her classmates know about “Lake’s little brother”?

A. I haven’t really thought about it, so if you’d like me to think about it I’d like to have at least two days for it, but I can’t take two days to think about this question, so the answer is “I haven’t really thought about it.” I’m sorry. Sometimes I can just think up answers on the spot, but I’d feel sorry to push entire lives onto characters based on ideas I thought up on the spot. So I’d like to think about what happens to characters “after” properly. Though I’ll decide things on the spot when it comes to random mob characters and aspects I don’t care about.

Q. The reason why Alba and Salt, who both obtained enough mana to affect the world around them, were able to leave prison was because they became capable of controlling their mana, not because their knowledge reached the level of say, Ros or Elf - would that be the correct interpretation? Additionally, what level of knowledge have Alba and Salt reached by F5, considering that they were getting 0% on even simple multiplication tests before?

A. Alba was released because he became capable of a certain level of control. His level of knowledge has not reached the levels of Elf and Ros. He hasn’t caught up to them, so unlike Elf and Ros, who’d use their knowledge and little tricks to turn 100 bits of mana into 200, Alba uses the bare minimum amount of knowledge to use 500 bits of mana as only 300.

I’ve forgotten most of what I intended for Salt back them, so I apologize if I’ve given a different answer before which contradicts the one I’m about to give. Salt obtained great power, but he had no talent in keeping it within his body, so the mana was gradually released from him. I think he became so incapable of using magic that he was no longer an exceptional case, so he was eventually released.

Q. I have a question about the differences between Main Quest and the original canon. There are scenes in Main Quest that weren’t in the original canon, such as Rchi and Alba’s discussion in Part 2 Volume 4 Chapter 41, “Alba Expresses His Gratitude”, and Chapter 50, “Alba Is Stupefied”, where Mortmorte the 2nd offers to be sacrificed. I was wondering what your thoughts were when you added these extra scenes in.

A. While it isn’t as though I thought carefully about every new addition, when I drew Main Quest, my thoughts were along the lines of “Let’s go a little deeper into things.” I think that’s what I was thinking when I put in new lines. Also, typically I had a set number of pages I needed to draw for, so I think I moved around lines and expanded scenes as needed to fit the pages.

Q. I have a question about Teufel. In Season 1, Teufel only shows up in the extra chapters, but did you already intend to use him as the “Soul Manipulator” during the fight with Rchimedes in Season 2? Or was this something you decided as you got through Season 2.

A. That was something I planned from the start! If you’d like to know why Teufel appeared early, please read Filled It With My Feelings! There’s even a PDF version!

(T/N: *shills Haruhara* Filled It With My Feelings (Digital): hiaruron.booth.pm/items/2329424 Filled It With My Feelings (Physical, only available to order until midnight JST Sept. 3rd): tckc-ch.net)

Q. “The world isn’t at peace or anything! He isn’t! Meta Ros isn’t smiling!” So anyways, Meta Ros hasn’t appeared since the last episode of Senyuu+, but is he happy? Is he having fun with Meta Alba?

A. Honestly, I haven’t really thought too deeply about it since he’s just a joke character. But since he’s just a joke character, I’m sure he’s off doing his own thing somewhere, free and unrestrained by anything.

Q. Since Lym is a demon and Lake is from a thousand years ago, they don’t have last names, but does Salt have one? He is from modern times. If he does, what is it?

A. He does. I’ve also thought up names for Rchimedes the Second and his wife, but the thing is with manga is that you shouldn’t include everything you think up. It’s more interesting to the readers if you just include the information they need to know. Like how if you introduce yourself to someone in real life, you don’t tell them your whole life backstory, like- “My name is Tanaka Tarou! My father is Tanaka Katsuo. My mother is Tanaka Hanako, my grandma is-” You just tell them what they need to know, right? That makes things go more smoothly. Yeah.

So anyways, about his last name, I did think of one. Yeah. But I don’t remember where I wrote it down, and I can’t remember the name at all right now. I mean hey, even in real life, sometimes you forget people’s names when you just call them by a nickname all the time. It’s like that, etc., blah blah.

Q. Why was Ros the only one to be released from the seal even though he was sealed together with Rchiemdes? Who broke the seal?

A. Wasn’t it Elf who released the seal in order to give Alba some stimulus? Though Alba and Ros’ first meeting itself was a coincidence. Elf wanted to release Ros, or rather, the Demon Lord into Alba’s time in order to give Alba some stimulus, and to achieve that goal he teamed up with Dezember... wait, was this something I scrapped? Did I never write about it? I remember everything until Season 4 pretty well, since I drew a lot until there, but when I reached Season 4 I started feeling that sense of relief like “It’s all over~” and remember absolutely nothing...! I’d need to completely re-read Senyuu to know for sure... every, please re-read it for me! If there was something like that in canon, then I’ll go with that. If there wasn’t, then I must’ve scrapped it, or else I just had to cut back some parts that I wanted to draw.

...Now I’m starting to feel like I scrapped it after all... because I thought that having Elf doing everything wasn’t a good plot device... I don’t know...

Anyways, for now the answer to the question is “Wow, it’s really quite strange... I wonder who did it~”

Q. Foyfoy said that Ros was “a soldier from a country who doesn’t know war.” What kind of environment did Foyfoy grow up in?

A. While Foyfoy’s hometown is peaceful, Foyfoy spent time as a mercenary in wartorn countries in order to make money. It’s never been shown in canon, so it’s basically just a little backstory that was thought up at some point in the past.

Q. There’s other countries in SQ, but if there’s other countries in canon would Alba be seen as a threat?

A. There are other countries. But the King of the country that collected all those heroes is so powerful, Alba being a wonder of nature isn’t as important. If we say that Alba’s country is Japan, the neighbouring countries are on the scale of the Fukue Neighbourhood in Kurashiki City of Fukushima Prefecture.

(T/N: You can see the exact scale on Google Maps by searching “岡山県倉敷市福江”, but essentially, incredibly tiny in comparison.)

Q. Is the King’s right-hand man Maine (Minister) still working at the castle?

A. He should be. He is.

Q. Crea awakened to his magic through contact with the Mana Maker, but can he no longer use it?

A. Crea doesn’t know how to use magic so he can’t. There’s no longer a Mana Maker in his body as well. There may be some mana left behind in his body, but he has no idea how to draw it out, so he can’t use it. At the start of Season 3, he tries to make a flower bloom with magic, but fails, after all.

Q. Hasegawara and Grandpa returned to their youths - did they continue living like that?

A. Since they did technically achieve their goal, they should’ve gone back to their original lives.

Q. In The Hero of the Port City, Guilty Justice says that she came because she sensed Creasion’s mana. What was she planning to do?

A. She probably came to fight him because she sensed some rare mana. Considering canon, it’s strange for Justice to appear in a place like that, isn’t it?

Q. How is Alf and Cecily’s relationship at the moment...?

A. They don’t have one.

Q. Back in his Originia era, Crea was an orphan, so how did did he survive?

A. Back then, orphans weren’t uncommon. The villagers helped raise him - he lived a happy life.

Q. The princess from ‘Tis Time for “Torture”, Princess and Hime-chan have the same birthday and a similar hairstyle - are they related in any way?

A. The reason why their birthdays are the same is that when I went to write about the princess’ birthday, I thought, “Hm, did I decide on her birthday? Oh right, March 3rd.” and accidentally remembered it as Hime-chan’s birthday. The princess’ hairstyle is entirely Hira Kei-san’s design, I had no hand in it, but I don’t think it’s that similar to Hime-chan’s?

Q. It seems like demons have long lifespans, so does the Demon World have problems with overpopulation?

A. In order to birth a new demon, you need to have a fair amount of mana and a good amount of skill in manipulating it. Alternately, you need to meet someone who you’re really in perfect sync with. Because of that, their population doesn’t increase that much.

Q. I really really love the “three burrs” hairstyle - will Ros never wear his hair that way again?

A. That hairstyle was something done by the first hairstylist he went to after he was unsealed, so unless he goes to that exact hairstylist again, he won’t have that hairstyle.

Q. What is Dezember and Justice’s newlywed life like? Is Dezember the househusband after all?

A. Though Justice was getting things going with the wedding, Dezember ran away so their newlywed life hasn’t begun. Their dynamic is kinda like the one in Urusei Yatsura.

Q. Rchi is now over 12. How does Rudolf feel about this?

A. I thought that Rudolf was good with anyone below 13? Was it only until 10? But even if she grows past Rudolf’s age ceiling, he won’t really stop being kind to her. He would stop spoiling her so much though, in how he used to do whatever she asked with no strings asked. He would instead start saying that it’s important to try things out yourself too. That’s the only thing that would change.

Q. F5 is a regular manga, so are there any plans to release a physical volume for it?

A. Not in the slightest.

Q. Cecily and Lake were living alone together before reuniting with Ros, so how did their neighbours react to a young teenager Lake having a younger brother in his 20s?

A. Their neighbours don’t think of Ros as the younger brother - they more just think of him as Cecily’s son who came back home from afar. I think updating the family registry wouldn’t have been hard with the connections they have in the government.

Q. I would like you to tell me how Januar got into ninja and tomato farming.

A. He got into ninja because they’re cool, and he got into tomato farming because tomatoes are yummy.

Q. Elf and Alf were time travelling in Season 4 - I would like it if you made a detailed timeline of what they and other characters did. (For example, Alf erased Elf’s memories during X time, at this time Rchimedes and Creasion were doing Y, etc.)

A. When I was writing Season 4, I did make a timeline, but I’m not sure where it went... what Elf and Alf did is all written in the article before this one, “My Memos”. I don’t think things have changed much from the timeline there for Elf and Alf, so please figure things out from there!

(T/N: I’ll consider translating that article at some point... it’s a lot of text... and it’s all disjointed...

Though I guess this Q/A is also a lot of text, I’m already at 3.5k words.)

Q. In the extra chapter in Season 2, “Right Before Episode 60″, Foyfoy asks if Marl wants to come to the castle with him, but do the two of them actually live in the castle itself? Or do they live near the castle?

A. Marl does live in the castle because she thinks it’s cool to live in a castle.

Q. Why are Elf and Alf not returning to their original time (ignoring the new future timeline after their changes) and are instead working at Alba’s research center?

A. Because they look up to Alba and want to help him out.

Q. Do you have any thoughts on how Alba watches over all kinds of worlds out there?

A. I do think, “That seems rather dangerous, doesn’t it?” But I also think, “Well, it’s Alba-san, he’ll be fine.”

Q. Personally, I feel like Senyuu. has a lot of whiplash between comedic scenes and serious scenes. Is there any particular scene you drew while specifically considering this whiplash?

A. Senyuu, is a work I drew as an amateur out of sheer willpower alone, so it isn’t that it has a lot of whiplash between comedic and serious scenes - it’s just that I didn’t understand a thing. “Woo hoo! This seems fun!” was the only thing on my mind. As a bystander, you may wonder, “How can he zoom right into that corner at that speed?” while watching me cruise along in my vehicle, but in reality, you just didn’t know that I was unaware of the fact that zooming into that corner at that speed could result in death. If I wrote Senyuu. the way I am now, I think it would end up being a much tidier manga, much easier to read as well, but I doubt it’d have that same speed and power to it.

Q. I had a question about Rchimedes the First’s character design. Did you give him black and white hair because you personally thought it was really cool? And then you thought it was too cool for him so you made his clothes super lame as a compromise?

A. It was all just from powering through drawing him. I did think “Wow, his clothes are lame!” but I immediately ignored it and continued drawing.

Q. Somewhere along the line, cellphones have spread among the masses - does Ros have one? And really, who’s making them?

A. From the very start, I planned for Senyuu. to be unconstrained by the chains of fantasy and include technology. Even in the start of Season 1, there’s a picture of Ros holding a DS at one point. Since it’s a manga, I completely intend to ignore real-life technological development timelines.

Q. Ros has pretty lax shifts - six day weekends and only needing to come in from the afternoon. Does he really only go to work once a week?

A. He doesn’t even go to work once a week. He does no work but wanders over to the research center to loiter around when he feels like it.

Q. In Senyuu+, Alba seems pretty tired sometimes. Is working at the research center actually pretty bad? As in, does it require a lot of overtime?

A. It isn’t bad, Alba is just going ahead and doing the work he wants to do, then going ahead and getting all tired because of it. From the perspective of the government running it, even just having the world’s hero Alba owning a research center they manage is good enough. It would be fine even if Alba never showed up at the research center at all and never did even one iota of work. Alba is just doing his best for everyone’s sake. Lately, he rests properly.

Q. Boss seems to have accessories and clothes other than his hoodie. Does he buy all of them himself?

A. Yes, he does. I talk about this in the doujinshi Filled It With My Feelings as well!

(T/N: If you enjoyed reading any of this tidbits, please consider supporting Haruhara by purchasing the original article on his channel: ch.nicovideo.jp/haruhara-ch/blomaga/ar1939122)

#senyuu #senyu #senyuu spoilers #haruhara robinson #haruhara robinson channel #senyuu content #my translations

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trans-cuchulainn · 5 years

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In your opinion, who does Cu Chulainn like more between Laeg and Ferdiad? And do you think Cu Chulainn is capable of choosing between them if forced to? Or does he just like them equally?

i don’t think you can really directly compare them, to be honest… he has such a different relationship with the both of them that it’s not an either/or situation. there are some texts, particularly later/early modern ones, that seem to be casting láeg slightly in the role of ‘fer diad replacement’, but that’s not how he comes across to me in the bulk of the material

if we have a look at them both individually… [this is super long so i’m putting it below a cut to save people’s dashboards. also yes i just did like 45 mins’ worth of literary analysis for a tumblr ask. why am i like this]

fer diad was cú chulainn’s companion / close friend / lover when he was very young, while training in alba with scáthach. they were extremely close, having trained and fought together over a substantial period of time, often in seemingly isolated situations. the text indicates that they shared a bed (which, obviously, doesn’t necessarily indicate that anything homoerotic is going on, but does lend itself to that interpretation).

they haven’t seen each other in several years.

they meet again now for what seems like the first time since their youth, and everything has changed. they’re on opposite sides of a war, both torn by their loyalties to their ruler and to their family (both have a familial connection to the person they’re fighting for). it’s a conflict between childhood (foster brother) and adult (family, land) loyalties, and the adult ones win out. despite this, they briefly recapture their childhood intimacy in between fighting each other, but only for the first two days, before even that proves too difficult to maintain in the face of the violence they’re forced to do one another.

(for the record, the way i personally elect to read their relationship is that when they were young they were extremely intimate and had a vaguely romantic relationship, but i don’t tend to read that as sexual because they are literal children. now, granted, this is somewhat anachronistic and inaccurate because, you know, this is cú chulainn we’re talking about, he supposedly sleeps with scáthach at that age even though he’s like six, but the texts which emphasise his closeness to fer diad – and his youth – don’t mention that aspect, so it has the feeling of a divergent tradition in which he’s a bit older. anyway point is i read them as romantic while they’re in training but then they meet again in the táin and cú chulainn is seventeen and fer diad is a bit older and it’s like. oh damn. oh. oh this is not a feeling i should be having about the guy i’m about to fight but. damn. and then they make out. that part’s sort of canon.)

so that’s his relationship with fer diad. it’s… messy and devastating and that’s where its power lies; it’s got this long period of separation in the middle during which they both grow up considerably which really shifts how they interact with each other, and then this catastrophic reunion under the worst of circumstances.

(bearing in mind a lot of this is extrapolated from how they talk to each other in flashbacks, because we don’t ever properly see their youth together)

láeg is cú chulainn’s closest friend throughout his life. it’s unclear where or when they met. one version of compert con culainn has them raised together, both nursed by láeg’s mother, which would mean láeg is probably not more than a year or so older than cú chulainn (since he’s still nursing when cú chulainn is born). other versions don’t mention this, and it’s not clear at what point they become close friends, but it happened at some point. it’s not even entirely clear what province láeg is from, although i think based on that one version of compert con culainn an argument could be made for leinster, which would explain why he’s not hit by the ulaid’s curse (unless charioteers don’t count).

láeg is at cú chulainn’s side throughout the táin. they’re alone there together for literally months. he’s cú chulainn’s servant, technically, but their relationship has some bizarre power dynamics going on (in the book of leinster MS, cú chulainn repeatedly calls him ‘a mo phopa’, which is a very… respectful/deferential way to refer to an older guy, not really what you’d expect. eDIL claims the term is occasionally used as a familiar way to address a social inferior, but honestly? i’m pretty sure they just put that in to explain cú chulainn using it for láeg. i’ve talked about this a few times on this blog, discussing other ways to interpret it, like ‘bro’, which would lean into the interpretation of láeg as cú chulainn’s surrogate older brother figure. alternatively he calls him ‘daddy’ which. you know. is cursed but also uncomfortably valid.)

they play fidchell together, which is like the medieval irish version of chess, and we learn that láeg wins about 50% of the time. given cú chulainn’s association with lug, who supposedly invented fidchell, this suggests that láeg is not only his equal, but also knows him very, very well – well enough to predict his moves.

láeg is with cú chulainn until he dies; he dies because he’s hit by a spear that was aimed at cú chulainn, who dies later in the same story. he’s in the majority of texts that cú chulainn is in (with a few notable exceptions that i’m working on identifying). he goes to the otherworld on cú chulainn’s behalf, at one point, which is pretty brave of him. cú chulainn trusts him and is closer to him than virtually anybody else. i don’t think we ever see him put that much faith in another person.

can you compare them? i don’t know. based on what he says in the táin, láeg was there when cú chulainn and fer diad were training together. he knows them both, and he knows how close they were. he tries to convince cú chulainn not to fight fer diad, because he knows it’ll destroy him. he’s the one who picks the grieving cú chulainn up and convinces him to stay alive afterwards. (at one point he has to literally tie cú chulainn to a bed to make sure he stays still long enough to heal from his wounds. láeg is the long-suffering mumfriend.)

it’s also worth mentioning here that in the stowe manuscript (and only the stowe MS), fer diad’s charioteer is named as idh mac riangabra, láeg’s brother. this name comes up elsewhere as being conall cernach’s charioteer, and since this is only in stowe i tend not to pay much attention to it, but it seems relevant here, because láeg and idh act as interesting foils for cú chulainn and fer diad. they end up fighting each other in their attempts to protect their masters – more specifically, they fight over the gae bolga, which láeg is attempting to pass to cú chulainn; idh is trying to stop him, in order to protect fer diad. in other words, we have two brothers whose loyalty to their masters is greater than their loyalty to each other, causing them to fight… which is more or less the exact position cú chulainn and fer diad have ended up in.

(it’s not just loyalty that sets them against each other; it’s also shame, and honour, and the fact that medb has straight-up threatened to kill fer diad if he doesn’t, or at least, make him fight a whole group of other warriors, which amounts to the same thing. personally i think if he can hold cú chulainn off for three days and cú chulainn can fight like 30 people at once, fer diad is definitely in with a chance of surviving whatever medb throws at him, but maybe he’s better in one-on-one situations. certainly he doesn’t seem to think he can live through it, and in the stowe manuscript he explicitly laments that “medb will kill me with a host” if he doesn’t fight for her, so…)

that interpretation of the charioteers would place láeg’s bond with cú chulainn as the strongest of this mess of interpersonal relationships, i guess, but i think there are a lot of factors going on and none of them are really free to act on what they want – they’re doing what’s required of them (by society, by their rulers, whatever), no matter the personal cost. i don’t think you can really look at the táin and be like “ah yes, i know what cú chulainn wants, personally” because… do we? do we really? i think he wants a nap. láeg almost certainly does.

so, in the end, i’m not sure it comes down to a question of ‘liking’. if forced to choose, i think cú chulainn’s loyalty is to láeg. láeg’s loyalty is certainly to cú chulainn, despite knowing fer diad and understanding what he means to cú chulainn. they are… incredibly close, in a way that seems unusual for a warrior-charioteer pairing given what we see with others, but makes perfect sense if you read it that they grew up together from infancy, and i don’t think we ever see that bond being broken between them.

also, like, he never brutally murdered láeg, which is for sure a point in his favour, given that he… very much did eviscerate fer diad. that cannot be overlooked. that’s kind of an important point.

having said that, as a general rule, i don’t think he wants to make out with láeg. i can occasionally be persuaded to think otherwise, but i generally don’t read their relationship that way, whereas he canonically kisses fer diad.

(kissing in medieval irish lit is actually pretty rare? at some point i really want to do more research into any other scenarios in which there is kissing of any kind, because it doesn’t come up that much, and i feel like exploring those would allow for a more solid interpretation of comrac fir diad as either ‘nothing to see here, just regular homosocial intimacy in a warrior society’ or ‘huh, this is unusual. guess it must be gay’. reading it in conjunction with, say, medieval french lit would suggest the former, but in the context of medieval irish lit specifically… idk, i’m leaning towards the latter, but i need to do more research before i can state that categorically.)

tl;dr i think he has a very different relationship with them both that can’t directly be compared, but if forced to choose, would probably pick láeg.

did i need 1800 words to say that? probably not but here they are anyway

#laeg mac riangabra #cu chulainn #cu chulainn/laeg #fer diad #tain bo cuailnge #medieval irish #tc does academia #answered #rionaofblue #cu chulainn/fer diad #irish mythology

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