DE: Let them eat cake

[bjornwilde]

 Does your pup come from a place of privilege? How do they feel about their answer? Are they even aware of said privilege, assuming they had it? And let's define privilege by their canon's standards.

Comments

[bjornwilde]

Jessica Drew definitely does not see herself as coming from privilege. I think she is aware of how the color of her skin has made somethings easier, but overall, it's hard for her to think she has it better than someone else. She does know her current situation gives her many advantages other people don't have but she's okay with that since she puts herself in the way of things that can destroy the Earth if they wanted.

Hank McCoy is oblivious to his privilege and the effect it's had on him.

Isabella/Lady Trent comes from privilege as well, her family being landed gentry. Later, when she travels this causes her to unfairly judge other cultures by her expectations but she does get better about it. She also is a victim of privilege, being discriminated against due to her daring to be female and having not only a mind of her own but a scientific mind of her own.

Quinlan Vos knows he comes from privilege, both from his family and as a Jedi. At first he wasn't aware of it but spending a lot of time in the lower levels of Coruscant tends to open your eyes.

Sam Wilson does not come from privilege and fought to get where he is. Still, he is aware of male privilege and does his best to speak out for the sisters.

Andrea Nash wouldn't know personal privilege if it hit her in the head. She sees it in other people though and when they abuse it or take it for granted, it pisses her off.

Brimstone recognizes privilege and abhors it.

Mulan doesn't understand privilege but does understand station. She's had to prove she deserves her station as a warrior far too many times to take it for granted. She is also aware that her life would be very different had she been born to any other family.

[genarti]

Enjolras: Yes, he does, and yes, he's extremely aware. (Although not so much privilege as to be unassailable -- he's rich, he's from the bourgeois class, but he's not nobility, and fortunes can be lost. And even being rich means that maybe his father was part of the teeny percentage of people who could vote, but quite possibly not.) Enjolras is well aware that he can't set his privilege aside, and he's weaponized it instead, like he's weaponized basically everything else about himself.

He's less aware of his male privilege, though. Or, rather, he's aware, I guess, but he doesn't think about it much. As opposed to class and economic privilege, which he is extremely conscious of. I try to mention it in threads when it comes up -- he's very deliberately respectful when speaking to people he reads as poor, for example.

Thor is aware, but he takes it for granted. He's a prince! Of course he's high on the social ranking! Also, he's awesome. :D Thor is basically a walking avatar of well-meaning privilege in a lot of ways -- and sometimes when I have to come up with a Millicanon thing for him, my deciding factor is "what would give him the most privilege?" He really is genuinely well-meaning, but he's also extremely capable of messing up because of it.

River comes from a background of plenty of privilege, especially socioeconomic. Then she became a disabled underage fugitive from the law! (Although privilege is part of what let Simon rescue her in the first place -- he burned through a lot of resources, but he had them.) She's no longer underage nor a fugitive from the law -- and privilege is definitely relevant to how that latter came about -- but still. River's situation wrt privilege is a complicated one with a lot of axes, these days.

Regan, however, is just straight-up privileged. Like Thor, she's aware of it but also stumbles over its pitfalls a lot, often without even noticing. In some ways, she notices even less than Thor, in that she has a lot more peers than Thor does, but she's also older and has rather different blindspots than he does.

Trowa can fake it to some degree, but: no, he's a former child soldier with very little formal education (although a whole lot of informal education) who's worked as a soldier, a mechanic, and a circus acrobat, often overlappingly. Mostly he sees himself as outside society, but it's blue-collar or military society he gravitates towards when he does engage. Granted, he is able-bodied, and there's enough cultural variation in his world that his apparent ethnic background (partly Mediterranean & maybe Latino by self-contradicting Word of God, but not by his culture/upbringing) is probably an advantage some places and less so in others, but -- hmm, I'm trying to think how to phrase this. He's aware of what privilege he can use, but he doesn't phrase it that way. (And his boyfriend is extremely privileged along several axes, but that's not a point of friction between them, because they both sort of think of Trowa as outside the spectrum there.)

Clare is also outside the spectrum to her own mind, but I would say no, she's not very privileged. She was a poor orphaned kid who underwent a lot of abuse, and we don't know her family background before that but there's no reason to think it's particularly high; now she's a Claymore, and they're needed and feared and paid and ostracized, not respected.

Cosette is also privileged -- sort of. That is, she's wealthy, she's healthy, she's educated, she's from a sheltered bourgeois background to anyone's eyes. And she's aware of that privilege. But there are secrets even from her in her backstory, and if it were known that she was the daughter of an unmarried prostitute and that her adoptive father was an escaped convict and not any blood relation of hers, it would very genuinely ruin her social standing. Marius might still want to marry her -- but it would be a few years yet before he could legally do so without his guardian's permission (at 25), and they would both suffer for the social stain of her background. Unmarried, she'd have even fewer resources. There are reasons Valjean has gone to great lengths to conceal this from everyone, even Cosette, and is about to go to greater lengths. So: yes, Cosette comes from a place of privilege, and she's quite aware of it, but it's a much more fragile privilege than she realizes.

[camwyn]

Medic, yes. He's from an old family with a nice bit of money and he's aware of that putting him above other people socially, and he's just fine with that.

Edward Kenway: in the Caribbean, yes, because he's white and pale even when tanned and that puts him socially above the native population and the slaves/people descended from same. Example: he and Adewale escaped at the same time and took control of a Spanish war brig. It never even occurred to Edward that Adewale might be entitled to claim command/ownership of the vessel just as much as him. Among speakers of English, though, the instant he opens his mouth he's marked as a Welshman rather than an Englishman, and as of being of low socioeconomic standing, which nullifies kind of a lot of the rest of it; he harbors some pretty burning class resentment.

Varric: It's a little hard to say. Among surface dwarves, yes, I think so. The family is ex-nobility and has decent money to back that up. By Orzammar standards he's just-barely-necessary-for-our-survival scum and since he dresses like a surfacer he'd never be able to get away with anything, but he doesn't go to Orzammar anyway so it's kinda moot.

Gordon: Pre-canon, upper middle class white male United States citizen levels of privilege. Post-canon, he's basically seen as the Messiah, so...

Shephard: Male and white, but again, like Kenway, the instant he opens his mouth he's socioeconomically marked (and carries a real attitude about it, too). Post-canon the social prejudices towards people from Appalachia aren't nearly as much of a problem, but neither are a lot of the other social standard by which privilege is constructed, so who knows.

Stacker Pentecost: I am pretty sure that the reason his accent ICly wanders from time to time is because he had to teach himself to speak in a more polished fashion for the sake of getting ahead in his career. He's more or less had to claw his way up from near the social bottom for everything he's got.

Santo: Male in a strongly male-inclined society, but usually speaks what sounds like everyday Mexican dialect rather than upper-class Continental-sounding Spanish. If he were anyone else he'd be moderately privileged. As it is, he's aware that he's the most famous and admired man in Mexico and strives to use that for good.

Ellen: ... well, she's got not-a-ghoul, not-a-mutant privilege, does that count?

[street_sparrow]

Giovanni - Yes, his father was a rich merchant and the family still has the social status that implies - if not as much money as they used to. He never really thinks about it.
Harry - middle class florist, so he does have a certain amount of privilege mostly related to being a white man of reasonable means, but he wouldn't consciously use it
Ichabod - not any more. He was born into the British nobility but he lost all that when he switched sides. He does still have white male privilege, but he tries hard to treat people equally.
Roshaun - Ahahahaha yes. That said, if you're a wizard of any status, race or species, you're his cousin and will be treated with respect.
Gavroche - Was born poor and lived his first ten years at the absolute bottom of society. He has status in London Below now, but he's never forgotten where he started - and most of the women there could kick his ass.
Nancy - Was middle class, but then she had a child out of wedlock and ended up homeless, taking care of the city's unwanted children. She doesn't think of herself as privileged at all.
Norrington - ...still does unconsciously have rich white male privilege even if he's now - well, not in need of money, but not rich. He'll slowly lose it over time and he's happy that way.
Jonathan - Not especially. He certainly doesn't deliberately use any male privilege he might have.
Michael - Would be horrified if anybody suggested he'd taken advantage of anyone, in any way, and immediately take steps to fix it. Following Skin Game, he is now in a position to help a lot of people less fortunate than him, and probably will.
Sharpe - Born to a prostitute, grew up in a workhouse, and the fact he's now a retired officer and gentleman farmer will never change that. I think he quite purposely keeps his 'common' accent unless it suits his purposes to disguise it temporarily. However, he is a man from the 19th century.

[minkhollow]

Cata: Not... particularly, I don't think? She worked for the improvement in her status she got through the Guild, but it's hard to say that put her in a position of privilege in more than an economic sense, given: assassin.

Sam: Considers himself to have come from fucking nothing; like Cata, he worked for what he got. On the other hand, his father was kind of in the ultimate position of privilege, enough so to rape a woman and ensure she could never tell anyone about it. (Protip: Don't let Sam catch you forcing yourself on someone. You Will Die.)

Don't ask me how race as seen in our world works in this one. It's a fantasy novel, I have no freakin' idea.

Claudia: Her parents were a lot better off when she came around than when Joshua was born, and she had a pretty damn big cushion to fall back on. She also knows that as foster kids go, she's one of the lucky ones, as she ended up with people who actually took good care of her (they just committed the cardinal sin of not being Joshua). She's somewhat aware of racial/gender-identity privilege, and more used than she'd like to admit to people going 'but you're a girl' when she busts out her computer-fu. At least the Warehouse is good at not doing that.

Apollo: Is a god, your argument is invalid. If he's aware of it, it doesn't really make a dent in his mindset, though he does generally go about bedding mortals who are interested. (We don't talk about the Daphne incident.) He also tries to avoid hitting on teenagers; even if his preferred manifestation age these days is around 18, that still comes off as creepy more than hot, he's found. Humans are so weird, amIrite.

Imp: Country kid who was briefly VERY VERY famous. That's as far as he's ever had cause to think about it.

Regulus: Heir to the oldest pureblood family in magical Britain. YOU BET YOUR ASS HE COMES FROM PRIVILEGE. He's aware that if he wants the current attitudes in the wizarding world to change, it's pretty much down to him to lead the charge; no one else has both the interest and the political clout to make any kind of progress. He's trying to stop with the 'oh, Muggles' thing, but the habits of a lifetime aren't unlearned overnight; at least Milliways is good for making him deal with non-magical people. Oddly, what he's least aware of is that not everyone can afford to buy a new thing when the old thing breaks. Repairs are for family heirlooms, not your clothes.

Red: NOPE. She's probably lucky she learned to read and write at all, but I don't see her grandmother letting her be illiterate. She doesn't have much concept of money, other than 'something the nobility has.' Oh, and then there's the whole werewolf thing.

Woolly: Was a white man in a white man's world, and knew that helped in several cases. And while his family did decently well for a Jewish family in the 19th century, he's still Jewish. He knows other Jews had it much worse and counts his blessings for that, but he still thinks Christians are weird and always will. Thank God for the Warehouse's equal-opportunity policy (in a place this specialised, you take the people who can do the job, whether society at large would take them or not).

(I, uh, half dread the day he finds out about the Holocaust. At... least his family would have been mostly unaffected...?)

[sdelmonte]

Most of my pups are not from any sort of privilege. Knox might have made it to some degree, but he doesn't think or act like a man with money. Cy might be a hero and famous and all, but he's still an inner city kid with a keen sense of what he doesn't have. Gibbs was poor, is poor, will always be poor. Charlie was raised an orphan, and whatever he earned as a reporter or a poker player, it was never real to him (though for maybe two or three years, being a reporter was a position of some local privilege).

But then there's Howard. Wealthy before the war. Wealthier after the war. Raised in the lap of luxury. One of the most privileged men in the country. And he barely understands what that means. He thinks it means he should give to charity - which he does, but not nearly often enough - and hire or support those in lower classes. But he doesn't really relate at all to the poor, or to minorities or women. He thinks he is open minded, but he needs help to get there. He is better than most tycoons, but not by as much as he thinks.

And Kirk...in his time, privilege means something different. It's not about money anymore. It's about connection. And access. His father was connected in the fleet. His mother, too, apparently. And he's the famous James T. Kirk. And yet he doesn't really see that as mattering much. He believes entirely in the meritocracy of Starfleet. There's a reason he never insists on ceremony involving his honor and rank. Yes, he sometimes unconsciously takes advantage of his position. And once in a while, consciously. But he strives to earn everything that comes to him. Which is why being forced out of his command at the end rankles so much.

[death_gone_mad]

Amascut was one of the few gods that were actually born that way, so she didn't have to kill anyone or seek out artifacts to become a god. she was also one of the few gods not banished from the world. Those two could be a source of privilege. But then the gods that had to work for or stumbled into godhood are much more powerful than Amascut is and it isn't like she has any sort of peer group that she to which she can relate and that wields undue influence over the world. Well, there is her brother, but she hates him.

She might also be the cause and justification for anti-ginger sentiment in the Kharid. She might have also helped eliminate some of the gender bias on her world, but by showing that women could be equally as horrible and murderous as men. Via her alter egos, of course.

For Fairy Fixit, I don't know how Zanaris fairy society really works. The is a very noticeable lack of visible males, though. But the few visible males were able to stage a coup and hold power in Zanaris for a while and the Fairy Godfather and his gang certainly didn't seem particularly oppressed. The Fairy Godfather was almost a co-ruler of sorts until the coup to overthrow the Fairy Queen and become the sole ruler of Zanaris, but I don't know how relevant that is, really. So maybe Fixit has female privilege? She does toss out technical jargon in casual conversation like she expects everyone to understand it so there is some education privilege there.

[lady_mary]

Mary is very privileged, is aware of that privilege, and would like to keep it. At the same time, because she's a woman, legally she's can't inherit her family wealth, and she's come head to head with sexual double standards, so she's incredibly conscious of the social limitations of being a woman. She feels pretty sorry for herself sometimes because she might have to marry someone who's only rich but not titled, but she's not oblivious of the fact that many people are actually way worse off. She's generous to her servants and and does charity work for the poor. People contain multitudes, etc.

Carol grew up in a working class family, and the fact that her family could only afford to send one child to college and chose one of her brothers instead is an important part of her origin. Carol does come from a place of privilege in that she's white and conventionally attractive, and through her work both as a feminist writer/editor and an Avenger she's learned more about how she can use her place of privilege to be an advocate for all women.

Stiles isn't incredibly privileged, but of the bunch he's probably the least aware of the degree of privilege he does have. His family isn't wealthy, but they get by, and he struggles socially because of his ADHD and quirky personality, so he doesn't perceive himself as privileged. At this point in his life, he's not tuned in to the privilege he has as a white male, but he's only a teenager and will probably become more aware of that as he gets older.

[protect_and_survey]

Try #2 (stop crashing, computer!)

Ace: Is really not from privilege, and knows it, and resents it. Or at least she did when she was younger, before meeting the Doctor - turns out there's lots of worse fates than being poor.

Jemma: Her family is affluent enough that getting into the schools she wanted was never a question of economics, but I don't think she really recognizes that she was lucky. It was just a sort of thing that happened, in her family.

Oswin/Clara: While their families never struggled really, neither of them were from backgrounds affluent enough to support their dreams. Thus Clara is saving up to go travelling (and dealing with the guilt of potentially leaving behind people who helped her) and Oswin took a job as an entertainer/hostess on a cruise ship. It's really not their fault those turned out to be poor life choices.

Katya: ... In my head-canon that I haven't really expanded upon, she very much comes from privilege, on the human side, but that ceased to matter the moment she became Other. As an Other, she's also from privilege - there's an interesting bit in the latest book addressing that. Basically, human economics and social standards fail to have anything to do with her - she's a higher-level Other with a reputation in a large Night Watch - she's going to be treated accordingly.

Sam: Again, her family doesn't struggle financially, since her father is a vicar, but she's definitely not one of the upper crust in society. In her day-to-day life this doesn't bother her at all, but her interactions with the rich that she runs across with Mr Foyle tend to go... well, not badly, but definitely strained. She has opinions, and with more of her loyalty going to Mr Foyle and the war effort than to social mores and expected behavior she tends to get shouted at a lot.

William: Is most definitely from privilege - his family is titled, but as one of the younger sons he doesn't get to count on a lot of that privilege - the most it got him was to make it easy to become an officer-cadet, and give him more of a fast track to higher rank. He still has to earn his rank beyond Midshipman, just like everyone else.

Bones: ... As noted above, privilege means different things in his where/when. I'd say no, mostly... he was forced into Star Fleet when his previous life exploded in his face, but he kind of made his own luck by being a very, very good doctor.

Glorfindel: Is very, very much from privilege, and knows it - his father was a lord, he is a lord in his own right, and he is a reborn (which I believe (based on some really really good fanfic that I like the underlying logic of) is a definite bonus for him back in Middle-Earth, but a problem elsewhere (aka you had the bad sense to go off against the will of the Valar and you died for your crimes and now you want to come back like nothing happened?)) He can occasionally stand on rank and demand to be treated accordingly, but thankfully those times are far and few between.

[ceitfianna]

Will now has more privilege that what he was born with but he grew up low in a time when class mattered a lot, he was the poor son of a family with no land who sold in the marketplace. Being Robin's squire lifted him partway out but then they were outlaws which was lower once more, he definitely as some as a man. He's kind of aware of that but he's very conscious of other people's privilege, if someone takes advantage of something due to how they're born, he'll notice it.

Charles has lots and lots of privilege as a white, rich, young man in the 1960s, he's aware of some of his privilege but not all of it and he's constantly learning. He tries as his telepathy makes him aware of how much he has versus how much others don't but he' still figuring out how to effectively change such issues.

Ivan has a lot of privilege and is aware of parts of it, being a High Vor, being a ranking officer, being healthy and looking like his society's ideal, having money but in terms of being a man, he doesn't get it as much.

Moist isn't really aware of it, he knows a lot about class and money as that's what he needs to play people as a conman but he's not as conscious of his own since he sees himself as playing the world.

William doesn't think of himself as privileged and in his time, there is some privilege as a white young man but his poverty, lack of education and how young he looks end up going against him. He's incredibly aware of what he doesn't have and how he doesn't fit.

Jane is aware of some of her privilege, that she's educated, her family has a solid reputation but she also knows the bounds of society and how easily all of that could fall apart. Its part of what makes her books so fascinating to read as she picks up on a lot of nuances of society while missing other aspects such as the life of servants and those in deep poverty.

Sameth knows he's privileged, his parents made sure that he and his sister understood that and things like going to school where his title meant nothing and traveling on his own helped teach him more of how much he has.

Demeter is a goddess who actually is fairly aware since she spends a lot of time with mortals, she knows what she has.

Tumnus knows how much more privilege he has versus what he didn't have since he's connected with the royal family.

The Pirate King has no idea about his privilege, he knows he has power but that's about it.

[shinyhappygoth]

Enzo's sister is the COMMAND.COM of his system of origin and owns quite a lot of it, so, um, yeah. However, she raised him not to lean on that too much in everyday life (emergencies and special occasions are another matter), and while she is now his safety net, he is on his own for the most part now that he has an income (which is enough but far from spectacular). As a Guardian, he has his own degree of privilege, although it's not monetary: Guardians are usually highly regarded, will be deferred to in most situations, and although he's only the equivalent of 16, most sprites will treat him as a de facto adult because of his uniform. He is aware of his privilege, but feels neither smug nor guilty about it—his sister earned the heck out of her position, now it's his turn to do likewise.

Zecora, I think, was average at home
(before she left, the world to roam),
not really rich, but knowing for sure
that there were those worse off than her.
By traveling, she has placed herself
in a situation less to do with wealth
and more with being of a foreign race,
the effects of which vary from place to place.

[hey35andholding]

Clem: is dirt poor and scheming to get away from said dirt-poorness every single second of the day. The only privilege she's aware of having would be her blondness. She's totally clueless.

Dixie: Constantly tries to help the downtrodden, so I'd say she is.

Juliet: Same.

Pinkie: And same

Eponine: Is also dirt-poor.