Axis Powers Hetalia/Fridge: Difference between revisions

* It seems like almost every character with a recurring role has their own version of either Marukaite Chikyuu or Hatafutte Parade. The Axis and Allies have one of each, of course, but characters with shorter appearances are starting to get them, too - like Lithuania, Liechtenstein, Greece, Turkey, even Sweden, who's only been in three or four episodes so far. And considering the size of his fanbase, and the fact that he was introduced in the second season, before both Sweden and Turkey, shouldn't Canada have his own version of the theme song? Well, obviously not - they forgot about him again!

** Although, he did receive his own character song, titled "Canada Complete Introduction"

** Regardless of the validity, it also turns out that apparently, Belarus and Russia are technically one...''since 1997.''

** While on the subject of real life canon and [[Hot-Blooded]] Tsundres, why is England a tsundere in the series? Because in real life Great Britain is essentially the world's ''biggest'' tsundere towards the United States! Seriously, Britain has been our allies, then our enemies, then our allies again and so on and so forth. Makes perfect sense when you think about it.

* At first, I was a little curious as to how [[Canada, Eh?|Canada]] and [[Hot-Blooded|Cuba]] were friends, despite being separated by the United States. Then I read about how from the 18th century, Canada and Cuba were trading with each other and have kept a cordial relationship with each other since, Canada even protesting against the United States about the [[wikipedia:Helms-Burton Act|Helms-Burton Act]]. It is also noteworthy to point out that Canada's former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and Cuba's former Prime Minister Fidel Castro were good friends, up to Trudeau's death.

* I had been a bit disappointed with how [[Romantic Runner-Up|Canada]] was portrayed as the [[Butt Monkey]], with nobody ever noticing him or if they do, they just think he's America. His constant companion Kumajirou always wonders who he is. [[Psychopathic Manchild|Russia]] even sat on him for a whole meeting with realizing he was there and his best friend Cuba keeps thinking he's America whenever he sees him! But Hidekaz Himaruya gave us a cute little wink during the strip when Canada and America got into an argument and Canada burst into a ''three hour'' [["The Reason You Suck" Speech|rant about why America sucked]], promptly leaving America in tears. This alone showed that Canada was one of the few people, if not the only person, in the world who could do that to America, overpowering and dominating America for once when most of the other countries couldn't.

** In order to give someone a [["The Reason You Suck" Speech]], you have to know them very well. And who could know America better than his own brother?

**** Fangirl Reason: Because that would mean killing him, and that would be sad. [[Department of Redundancy Department|Reasonable]] Reason:It's pretty much an exact parallel with the U.S. and its North/South divisions, it's one country but the line is still there and the people still identify by Northerners and Southerners, they consider themselves a separate people. It's also similar to Berlin: they still divide themselves by West and East even though the wall is no longer there. Now, why the U.S. doesn't have two doesn't make any sense to me, but maybe the south was like North Korea and was avoided due to controversy. -nekoconecto

***** Well, Italy and Berlin were reunited peacefully, no? America WON A WAR. It is entirely possible that a confederate America existed at some point and just no longer does. (Maybe America was forced to terminate him?)

* Same troper. The whole England/UK thing has never exactly bugged me, and the explanation of England representing them all at meetings makes perfect sense. But then his full name is put down as 'United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland'. This threw me slightly, until it dawned that since England no longer exists as a seperate entity, then yes, that is the official name it falls under. So it would be his full name, but it would also be his brothers' full names (possibly with their respective extra names stuck on at the end like the Italies).

* When this troper first saw the scene where Latvia sold Russia's old clothes (thus causing a major freak out among the Baltics), she first thought it was just an excuse to portray the Soviet Union as a [[Big Screwed-Up Family]]. But after taking a bit of Russian history, she realized that Russia has [[Freudian Excuse|a reason]] to be freaking out about people messing with his clothing. During Renaissance times, the Russian czar forced his citizens to wear more "European" clothing... [[Disproportionate Retribution|or, you could just pay a fine whenever you travel anywhere and eventually have your clothes cut to an "appropriate" length when you can no longer pay the fee.]] Nice job going for the [[Berserk Button]], Latvia.

** So, it wasn't really "Renaissance times" but Peter the Great in the early eighteenth century (definitely Early Modern Europe, bordering on Modern Europe). Also, it wasn't all citizens, it was nobles. And, if the Nation-tans are meant to represent the people, not the monarchs, then this makes no sense, since the vast majority of the nation (nobles especially) hated these measures and they were reversed after his death. Of course, later, European styles became fashionable among the nobility (having a number of Emperors and Empresses who spoke only/mainly French or German helped too), but then we get into the messy issue of whether Nation-tans represent their people (who would be mostly the peasants, and still very much unaffected by this change in fashion) or their political body (who would be mostly the nobles and very much affected). Still, in either case, the whole Peter the Great thing would have been a short-lived problem for Russia, one that would most likely play out in the series by having him complain that his boss made him shave his beard and wear funny clothing that he didn't much like.

** Or even China? Despite the fact that he [[Viewer Gender Confusion|kinda looks like he could be either one...]]

** Uh...not really. Ukraine, actually, isn't big enough to warrant such a chest. The percentage of arable land, however, is very high, which I suppose means that she is very fertile.

* Switzerland and Liechtenstein's relationship can come off very close, if not borderline closet-incestuous, despite being [[Not Blood Siblings]]. Then you notice the fact that in [[Real Life]], Swiss and Liechtensteiners really ''do'' view each other as close brothers. And that's not counting the generous Customs Union that effectively ties the two Alpine nations closely together...

* Spain has kansai accent, and some of the nordics have touhoku accent. This fits quite well, considering kansai is Eastern Japan and touhoku is Northern Japan. Admittedly, though, other characters' accents are not so readily explainable.

* The episode where Japan-cat tries to convince the other cats not to ban trading in canned tuna. At first, I thought of it as just a cute cat-centric strip. Then I thought about it: sea-living life form... banned as food due to endangerment... Japan protesting this... {{spoiler|holy crap, is this a whaling metaphor?}}

** Well, Japan is in a similar situation as whaling in regards to tuna fishing, so I've always assumed that the nekotalia episode was pretty much literal.

** Sadly, Polish cavalry attacking German tanks was a part of German war propaganda - it was their way of saying: "Ha Ha! They still fight with clubs and rocks!". Poland's obsession with ponies, propably comes from [[wikipedia:Polish hussars|the Polish Hussars]], the elite cavalry of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. They were considered nearly unbeatable, and for Poland, they are a source of memories of that brief period when the whole Europe was afraid of him.

* At first, I thought that the plot of the movie was a [[Jumping the Shark]] moment, with the aliens and all. But then again, what else other than an alien invasion will get the nations of the world work together?

** And why would the aliens skip Switzerland and Liechtenstein? Simple: Not only do they have a long history of fierce militarism (the use of Swiss soldiers was for a time considered a ''war crime'') in addition to their neutrality, but there's also the various facilities in their territory, including the CERN LHC. It would be no surprise therefore that the Pict would simply find them too much effort to take over.

 

== [[Fridge Horror]] ==

** More precisely, [[Word of God]] said: "They have either retired, live in their own territory [implying that they take no part in international politics], they have slowly disappeared, or something like that. They've passed on the baton to present time Germany." So it's not necessarily horrorific, and there's no definitive answer as to what happened to them, so readers are free to decide for themselves.

** And Prussia's not a ghost.

** Don't forget about England. He wouldn't have been very old at that time either.

* The general concept of the series is in itself Fridge Horror. Just think about it. These people are practically immortal, involved in every war their people ever fight - ''on the battlefield''. How many people must they have seen die? How many people must they have had to kill? They can't form relationships with humans without getting their hearts broken, they have to fight people they've grown up with, people who've raised them, and their own siblings. And they have to live with the memories of the greatest tragedies in history. Some of this has been touched on in canon, but since this is mostly a comedy series, it's left to the imagination just how much ''every single character'' must be suffering inside.

** There's also the possibility that it could work ''the other way around.'' Or in other words, they could potentially influence their citizens to do what is demanded for them...

** There is [http://hetarchive.net/scanlations/nonlinear.php?vais a recent comic], a rewrite of an older comic, that actually touches on this. It is a massive [[Tear Jerker]].

*** What is the point? Parents were very cruel by today's standards to both little girls and little boys of the time, his treatment, from I've seen from the clips was fair. Now, what might have happened had Austria actually known Italy was a boy from the start might actually be a cause for alarm, but there is nothing to suggest it'd be any different.

**** Okay, now explain why child rearing would be ''anywhere'' near historically accurate in a comedy series that skirts around fighting so much. It was actual [[Fridge Horror]] to this troper at least.

**** YMMV ctd. This Troper agrees with the above about the possibility of a [[Culture Clash]]. I'm English myself and was raised, as my granddad would say, 'by hand'. If I did something my parents wouldn't agree with, a smack to the back of the legs etc. (not particularly painfully or overly used, it was more of a shock tactic) would be their way of stopping it. Even now my parents sometimes use it (I'm a teen) but more jokingly, and also things such as a 'naughty step' are used for time-outs in certain countries, which would probably be the equal to aforementioned putting of Chibitalia in a shed (kind of), in my own personal opinion.

***** [[Nightmare Fuel|There are things he could have done without seeing that Chibitalia wasn't a girl.]] (Would like to add that I don't think Austria would be sexually abusive in any way to Chibitalia - he was definitely kind of a jackass, but not that bad - but this is a Fridge Horror page and the possibility hit me.)

*** Perhaps he simply prefers the be called their grandfather because he's so much older than them? They could have been born/appeared when Rome at least appeared later in his years.

** On a related note: Rome taught Veneziano to sing, paint and trade...but not to ''fight''? Had Rome grown so sick of Empire that he actually told his grandson to ''avoid'' conflict (explaining Chibitalia's reaction to Holy Rome's dreams of empire)? That would explain a lot...

* A prompt on the [[Kink Meme]] involving the Japanese "puppet state" of Manchukuo got me thinking. If Manchukuo did have a personification, they would only have been around for fifteen or so years, so they'd still have been in chibi form. And, since Manchukuo was dissolved at the end of the war, this implies heavily that, in the Hetalia analogue, the Allies killed Manchukuo-tan. In other words, they may have ''killed Japan's child.''

** Not neccesarily. Manchukuo was mainly the region of Manchuria. We know that regions can have personifications, so there was probably already someone there when Japan invaded. It's quite possible this personification was renamed and made to do what Japan said, and when Manchukuo was dissolved simply went back to their old name and to living with China. If Manchukuo ''was'' a new person, then ''that'' begs the question of what exactly Japan did with Manchuria during that time. So... it's probably better to think of them as the same person. It's not particularly nice still, but history isn't, and the alternative is worse.