Can we have some aph Babies?

Always.

Are they ‘with’ the mafia?

No. This is a common headcanon/ misconception that I’ve noticed in the fandom.

The Italy Brothers don’t run the Mafia, nor do they work for
them. Instead, they’re often victimized by them.

Since mobsters are more of a problem in the Southern half of
the country, Romano’s respectively more affected by their activities. [x]

Ex: Romano is frequently coerced into doing favors for the Mafia
against his will. He complies because he’s terrified of them.

Nonetheless, Romano has proven to be capable of standing up
to them.

Ex: With Spain’s life hanging on the line due to an economic recession, Romano refuses to hand over the imports he intends to use in saving Spain’s
economy.

Typically, however, he’s seen as easy prey for the Mafia to
get him to do their bidding.

It’s only in the above circumstance where he becomes “stronger”
than usual. Put another way, Spain’s potential death kicked in Romano’s fight
or flight instinct.

How They’re Affected:

Both Italy brothers are frequently stolen from. While some
of this is from regular pickpocketers…

Ex: Veneziano has his car and wallet stolen. [x]

Ex: Romano is well-trained in guarding himself against being
pickpocketed. [x]

…the Mafia [and corrupt politicians] also steal from the
Italy brothers, albeit indirectly.

The personification’s income, as in how much money they have
available to them in their wallet, is dependent on how wealthy their country
is. If the government is corrupt and funds are being frauded/ embezzled, the personification
doesn’t receive as much money as they should.

Ex: Veneziano’s wallet runs thin as a result of corruption
in the Italian government, specifically in the South.

It’s not like they’re not aware of this corruption either,
because they are.

Ex: Veneziano comments on the corruption within Rome’s
municipal government and casts his vote for Virginia Elena Raggi, whose
campaign ran on combatting corruption. [x]

The problem is that because the nations have little
influence in how their government
runs, they don’t have the means or resources to tackle this corruption.

All right! Just a quick disclaimer, unlike many headcanons I’ve seen, the Italy brothers don’t work for/ run the mafia. It’s a serious problem in the country.

If anything, the Italy brothers are routinely stolen from. Or, in Romano’s case, he’s sometimes forced to do things that he doesn’t want to do.

Guide on the Italian mafia in the series coming up tonight!

Without exaggerating
and as I’ve proven in other posts, the nations suffer from a lot of things; to
name a few, anxiety, depression, and PTSD. One thing that they don’t have and
have never suffered from is Stockholm Syndrome.

Of course, the whole unequal power dynamic between the conquered country and
their conqueror makes for an unhealthy relationship, no doubt. However, it’s
within these relations, problematic as they may be, that the conquered
countries are able to form better personal relationships with their ruling
country.

What needs to be
differentiated here is that the nations have a persona as well as a person. Put
another way, they relate to each other both politically and on a personal
level. This is why you’ll see nations fight over one seeking to obtain sovereignty
and yet still attempt to befriend each other despite their hostile political
relations.

Ex: America wanting
to visit a sick England after the American Revolution.

Regardless if the
nation is conquered and ruled over, what I’ll argue is that they’re still able to
exercise agency and free will. Not only that, but they don’t wholeheartedly
comply, have their own opinions, and their survival is never threatened should
they oppose their ruling nation. It’s for this reason that Stockholm Syndrome
doesn’t compare to what we see in Hetalia.

There are many
problems with the characterization in these earlier strips [x]. Stockholm Syndrome
isn’t one of them.

What is Stockholm Syndrome?:

Stockholm Syndrome
occurs when a hostage forms an emotional bond with their captor. This, in turn,
is at first a survival response that eventually becomes internalized and warped
into an unhealthy attachment. [x]

The victim’s response
occurs in four stages; shock, denial, traumatic depression and recrimination,
and resolution and integration.

The shock stage
occurs when the victim realizes that their life is in danger. On a surface
level, their behaviour appears to be cooperative and friendly when they abide
by their captor. In reality, they’re only trying to stay alive.

The denial stage occurs
as this cooperative rationality further moulds itself into the victim’s
thinking. The victim minimizes and dismisses the abuse committed by their
captor as they spend more time with them.

The traumatic
depression and recrimination stage occurs when the victim begins to see their
captor more and more as a provider. This is called traumatic infantilism, which
entails the victim’s becoming increasingly compliant, obedient, submissive, and
more sympathetic toward their captor. It’s a survival tactic whereby children
are engrained to cling to their caregivers for protection.

The last stage, resolution
and integration, occurs when the victim loses their agency [identity] and
identifies with their captor. In their eyes, their captor gives them life. This
is especially in cases where the victim’s life is saved by the captor.

The attachment grows
so strong that being released from their captor is now seen as the danger
rather than being with them. Again, it’s like a child being separated from
their parent. The trauma causes the victim to develop an infantized mentality. They cling to the figure with the most power, someone who can offer the most protection.

That said, let’s tie
this back to the strips.

Why Italy didn’t have Stockholme Syndrome:

Don’t get me wrong.

The trauma that both
Italy brothers went through in being conquered and fought over by other
countries is not healthy at all.

Holy Rome attempting
to drag Chibitalia against his will is not healthy.

Austria’s harsh
punishments of Chibitalia are not healthy.

Despite all this,
Chibitalia does not have Stockholm Syndrome.

I’ve said this
before, but a lot of the older characterizations of the nations are cruder,
more exaggerated, and not up to par as they are now. Hima’s grown as a
content creator, and it’s important to recognize that.

I acknowledge the
problems of these earlier storylines. All I’m aiming to do is prove that
Chibitalia isn’t a victim of Stockholm Syndrome.

Chibitalia’s life isn’t
ever in danger, unlike a victim of Stockholm Syndrome. Although, he is
a hostage in that he has no choice but to live in Austria’s house.

It’s bullying that
Chibitalia fears, not a fear for his life.

The boss and house
system that the series depicts involves the conquered nations acting as a
servant to the ruling nation.

Despite this power differential, they live together and have been seen
to treat each other as family members.

Chibitalia still
exercises agency and opposes Austria and Holy Rome on several occasions.

If Chibitalia’s life
was truly in danger, he wouldn’t have drawn a mustache on Austria’s portrait.

Nor would he have painted,
dressed up in costumes, or spent more time with Holy Rome than he absolutely
had to. Politics and nationhood personas aside, they’re people living in one
house, dysfunctional as the reason that brought them all together was.

Not to mention that
Chibitalia refuses to form an empire with Holy Rome.

However little power that
he had, Chibitalia wasn’t wholeheartedly complying to demands in order to
survive. He didn’t sympathize or adopt Holy Rome/ Austria’s perspective as his
own. Instead, he maintained his individuality and held firm on his opinions.

If anything, Holy
Rome learns from Chibitalia and apologizes for all that he’s done before he leaves for war.

Admittedly, there is
one moment where Italy is taken hostage by Spain in the Maria Theresa Series. When given a choice between
the two, Italy chooses to stay with Austria. This is the closest that we come
to an aspect of Stockholm Syndrome, and yet, it’s distinctly not the same.

Just imagine it.
Italy loses his grandfather, his security blanket and protector, and is living in
a new house with big, scary adult nations. Eventually, they warm up to them and
he grows accustomed to the new niche he’s found. Being conquered and having to
move again would disrupt that environment – his comfort zone.

That’s why I believe
that Italy chose Austria. It didn’t have to do with survival. Spain would have
taken good care of him, probably even better than Austria in terms of emotional availbility. Italy
simply wanted to stick with what he was familiar with, with those whom he had
formed a close personal bond.

It’s also important to mention that Italy is still a child in this strip. He’s
terrified and respectively clings to Austria because that’s who he’s been
raised by ever since Rome’s passing.

Lastly, when he’s not
forced to choose between who he’s ruled by, Italy doesn’t perceive his freedom
from Austria to be dangerous, as would someone with Stockholm Syndrome. He
zealously fights for his autonomy.

In sum, while many
aspects of the older strips are questionable and problematic, applying a label as severe as
Stockholm Syndrome is not warranted. It actually detracts from the discussion
acknowledging how the series has evolved for the better…

There’s nothing wrong with
acknowledging past mishaps of a content creator if they’ve already proven to
have learned from these mistakes.

Are you mad? That would involve pulling up every strip he’s in…

This is a lot to unpack, but, to put it briefly for now,
Chibitalia/ Italy does NOT have Stockholm Syndrome. If you research the
definition and the respective components required for it, the situation with Holy
Rome and Austria doesn’t even come close to fitting it.

Yes, there are some
very unhealthy aspects regarding the power dynamic of being conquered and
forced to live under someone else’s roof. I’ll go into more depth of that later. Still,
while Italy may have bonded with Austria and Holy Rome, none of it comes from a
need for survival.

Not only that, but Italy opposed Austria and Holy Rome’s viewpoints
on several occasions rather than wholeheartedly agreeing with them. Stockholm
Syndrome involves no agency on the part of the victim. Italy, on the other
hand, exercised his own agency and independence regardless of how restrained
his freedom was.

This disorder isn’t something to be applied as lightly and
easily as it has been in the fandom. It lends the series a lot of unnecessary
bad rep.

Anyways, post on young Italy’s home environment coming up
tonight.

[On the topic of Romano’s hostility toward Veneziano.]

Anon 1: It does help, thank you for sharing your experience.

From what I’ve learned and researched, Italy is sparsely different depending on which region you’re from. This is especially the case with how divided and uncooperative the gov’t is. There are so many parties that the failed coalitions get nowhere.

Anon 2: Yes, it is. That’s exactly the reason I gave in my last answer.

Either way, it can’t hurt to cite these strips again. Hima’s highlighted their differences consistently throughout the series, both in old and new strips.

They used to be considered as countries in their own right before unification, where they still both represent Italy. The differences in the regions are deeper than location.

Here are a few last examples detailing their differences / hostilities.

Ex: Romano moving to America to avoid having to rely on his brother during the Second Industrial Revolution.

Ex: Their present economic situation.

The time’s come to begin delving into the older characterizations
in the series, those of which owe Hetalia much of its poor reputation today. What
doesn’t help is that those in the fandom either deny the mistakes that Hima
made in the past or ignore them completely. Both of these actions do more harm
than good.

To be as objective as possible, it’s important that we
acknowledge the series’ early, but nonetheless problematic past. In doing so,
this then opens up more avenues to discuss how the characters have evolved and
changed for the better. Put another way, it’s more effective to air out the
dirty laundry as opposed to letting it [rumours/ misconceptions] sit there in
an unresolved mess.

Another point to hit on is that it’s pivotal that we
recognize that Hima has learned from his past errors. The characterization of
the nations has moved way past the unfunny middle school sexual humour that
used to define them. While things went too far in the past, the fact that they
don’t today is enough to hold Hima into account.

Creators grow and learn from their mistakes. If they prove
to learn from said mistakes, there’s really no reason to continue to shame them
for something that was created years ago
– in this case, a decade.

That said, let’s get into it.

I’ll be blunt. The humour in the early strips is incredibly offensive.
I’m often reminded of how this type of humour was normalized back then. Not
only that, but I remember making some of these jokes myself without really understanding
the meaning of what I was saying. Of course, this doesn’t make any of this
right.

Some of these jokes would include France stripping and groping
other nations.

A good part of this content was owed to the fans as well, who
encouraged and requested nations to do these sort of things [x]. At the time, the
humour was supported because that was the joke culture. It wasn’t as connotatively
aware as it is today.

Briefly, as I’ve already touched on, France’s stripping
doesn’t stem from a French stereotype of sexuality. Instead, it stems from the
stereotype that the French tended to swoop in for fresh pickings of territories
after European conflicts. The best way I can describe it is that they were like
scavengers; they stripped the losing nations to the bone.

Ex: This is seen when France strips Austria clean after the
War of Austrian Succession.

The reason I’m going over this is simply to point out that
France’s stripping did occasionally have a logic to it, bizarre and problematic
as it was.

Likewise, since a nation’s body is a physical embodiment of
their geographic landmass, each body part respectively represents a certain
territory (e.g., Austria’s ahoge represents Mariazell).

This would explain why France ‘rubbed’ Italy’s chest when
his economy was doing poorly. He was seeking territories to profit from.

Like I said, bizarre and problematic.

Even so, there were still boundaries in place for France’s
early characterization. The running gag of the old humour was predicated on
recognizing that France’s behaviour was outlandish.

Ex: He was once arrested for his lewd behaviour.

Ex: In the first chapters of the original webcomic, he states plain
as day that love shouldn’t be forced on anyone.

Ex: For a supposedly territory-happy nation, he’s once shown to have grown uncomfortable at the prospect of imperialism.

Ex: Similarly, when Italy hadn’t covered himself properly,
France had no trouble pointing this out to him.

The humour may be perverse, but France wasn’t always
perverted. This is especially the case in
later strips, where this lewd behaviour has disappeared completely and for a
good reason.

There was a clear recognition that France’s characterization
was not up to par, and over the years, he’s blossomed into something truly beautiful.

The present France is the mouthpiece for exploring several
dark subjects in the series.

Let’s go over a few.

France gives us the best insight into the reason why nations
exist.

…

We implicitly learn from him [his citizens] the pain of constantly seeing loved ones die should a person possess immortality.

The angle then shifts to France, who gazes at a young family. How just a handful of panels can convey so much emotion, longing in particular, is beyond me.

There’s this one moment with Lisa, Jeanne d’Arc’s
reincarnate, that always sticks with me.

France felt betrayed by God in how
unforgiving history was for letting Jeanne die so tragically. When he first saw
Lisa, he believed God was playing a cruel trick on him.

When he realizes that Jeanne has been born into a much
happier life, the peace of mind on his face is undeniable.

It took remarkable strength for France to confront this resentment
and pain, let alone to have the heart to let go and accept that history has
paved a better course for Jeanne, albeit it being in a different life.

Given how rough his own history has been, the ability to
forgive and love reflects on how truly resilient and strong he is as a person.

France also acts as a great father figure to America, having
originally helped the latter gain their independence.

He comes to America’s centennial celebration. The genuity of
the gesture is what truly matters here. America wasn’t just a vessel for France
to spite England, contrary to how his government perceived this conflict as an
opportunity for. There’s a true supportive relationship here.

I’ll end on this. While France’s character may have been
poorly characterized in the past, that shouldn’t take away from how he’s
enjoyed now. He went from a character ‘stripped’ of meaning to a personality
teeming with complicated thoughts, emotions, and life nuances.

There’s nothing wrong with acknowledging the prior mishaps
of how he was depicted so long as it’s recognized that he’s since changed and
grossly at that.

Actually, insulting your sibling may not be a sign of inferiority. It is very, and I do mean very common, for siblings to insult or even constantly insult each other. My little brother falls me stupid sissy all the time, I call my little sister shorty. And none of us have the issue. It would be very weird if we didn’t us them at this point. And, North and South Italy have special insults for each other, can’t remember the exact words but the insult could be to show the divide and normal sibling

[On the topic of
Romano referring to Veneziano as stupid/ idiot little brother]

While that may be the
case for most siblings, Romano doesn’t use insults to show his affection. I
know it’s nice to imagine Romano and Veneziano to be like that, but from what
we’ve seen in the manga, they just don’t have that type of relationship dynamic.

You work from what’s
seen in the strips, not what you interpret a character to be like – especially if
canon has already proven the contrary.

If anything, Romano uses actions, regardless
of the insults that fly out of his mouth, to show his affection.

Ex: He’s still calling
Spain an asshole or bastard as he sends imports to help with the Spanish
economic recession.

On the other hand,
with Veneziano, Romano doesn’t ever use insults to refer to the latter in an
affectionate way. They don’t have a good face-to-face relationship, and there’s
a ton of hostility and resentment on Romano’s side of things. In this case,
Romano’s insults do in fact have to do with inferiority.

The suddenness of
their unification is noted to have caused a tension between them.

Romano is also noted
to detest North Italy “a bit.”

As such, he has a much
better relationship with Spain than he does with Veneziano.

Romano’s inferiority
complex is most seen when he uses insults to undermine Veneziano’s accomplishments.

Ex: Veneziano’s
engineering feats during the Industrial Revolution.

It’s like this in
present strips too. The complex hasn’t gone away.

In the Annoy Romano
series, one of the prompts is to be surrounded by Veneziano, his mochi, and his
nekotalia counterpart.

Similarly, Romano
hates to be referred to as Italy’s older brother, as it lacks individual
differentiation.

Again, his insults toward
Veneziano don’t possess any affection to them. Romano refuses to work with Veneziano.

To put things more into perspective, Romano’s hostility of Veneziano is bad enough for Rome to visit him in his dreams, chiding him for this.

Of course, this doesn’t
mean that Romano doesn’t care about Veneziano either. He’s just not direct with
it.

Ex: He looks after Veneziano during WW2, regardless if he degrades him while doing it.

Like I said, they lack a solid face-to-face relationship.

Q & A

Q: If
the UN has a personification does that mean the EU also has a personification
or is it not significant enough to have one? Another question is that why do
you think certain countries haven’t been given a personification in the hetalia
series, countries like aph Indonesia and Hawaii, is there a reason for this or
is it just a creative choice by the creator?

A: The EU does not have a personification.
There’s no real reason for this. It doesn’t have anything to do with
significance.

As for creating other characters, Hima typically cites that he
wants to travel to the country in question before he personifies them.

Q: How
much does France like anime?

A: A
significant amount considering that it’s so popular among his people.
Characteristics of the population are often reflected in the personification’s
attitude, behaviour, habits, and overall personality.

Ex: He’s
involved in a debate over anime voice actors with Japan, Taiwan, Vietnam, and Thailand.

Q: Any
theory of why France has some perverted tendencies? I know that he just likes
to show affection to others, but sometimes it goes too far.

Q: Why does France strip people, like that’s a pretty recurring
theme from the napoleon strips he was shown to have the thing stripping people from their clothes
and during the Christmas event of 2007 he stripped a bunch of nations naked.

A: It
did go too far. The old characterization of France is pretty awful. However,
the sexualized humour of it is not what people think. It’s honestly just bizarre,
but it does have a logic to it.

France’s stripping of people doesn’t have to do with a French
stereotype of sexuality from my understanding. It’s a historical representation
of how France picked and reaped at leftover territories after European conflicts…
a scavenger if you will. A good idiom in relation to this would be stripping something to the bone.

Just like France stripped Austria for winnings after the War of
Austrian Succession, this was likewise translated into how he interacted with
other nations – by stripping them. [x]

Hopefully, this makes sense, yes?

Q: Do
you think that England has some “big brother” trauma?

A: 100% he does.

Ex: England tears up when he’s faced with the prospect of
becoming America’s guardian. At first, he actually hesitated in accepting the ‘big
brother’ label because of how poorly he was treated by his own older brothers. [x]

The bad memories of his older brothers’ treatment of him that England doesn’t even accept the label of ‘big brother’ at first when he assumes responsibility for America.

Also…

Q: Are
the nations’ homes and/or things provided by the state or they work and earn
money themselves to pay for their own stuff?

A: It’s not clear whether the state provides anything for them.
All we know is that the nations work for their bosses and that the wealth of
the country is reflected in how much money the nation has (e.g., GDP).

Ex: France’s wallet is empty as a result of his economy’s poor performance. [x]

The personification is a physiological embodiment of their nation. Each city/ landmark is reflected in one part of their body.

That’s why, when France ‘rubs’ Italy’s chest during an economic recession, he’s looking for territory to leech money off.

Do you see what I mean by bizarre logic?