The Burning God

Content Warning: This section contains discussion of racism, death by suicide, physical abuse, and emotional abuse.

Due to their relatively darker skin, Rin and other Southerners are pejoratively called “dirt-skinned,” a colorist and class-based insult. The South symbolically integrates mud into their fighting uniform to show their nationalism and strength. When Rin and Souji’s forces need a uniform to distinguish them from their enemies, they don’t have enough money even for fabric to make into headbands. They cake mud onto their skin so they appear like the “Red Emperor’s very finest, baked fresh from southern dirt” (105). The poor Southern Army takes a material they have been disparagingly associated with and quite literally reclaims it into their uniform, wearing dirt as a symbol of pride in their southern heritage.

Later when Rin is able to get real uniforms made, she chooses brown so they can use natural dyes like tannins found in bark and acorns. Their first muddy uniform was born of necessity, but here Rin evokes earth even when she has other choices. This symbolizes her embrace of her Southerness, which she used to reject with shame. Now Rin believes she “was dirt. Her army was dirt. But dirt was common, ubiquitous, patient, and necessary” (456).