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On 9/27/2020 at 8:17 PM, The Awakened Salad said:

It depends on what you mean by “including LGBT+ characters”. Brandon has two gay characters, but I wouldn’t personally say that his books have good representation, as those two characters are very minor in the scheme of things. Lots of books do this, and it’s still rare to find a queer lead or major character, especially in fantasy.

As for the list, I don’t think there would be anything definitive out there, but I think it’s worth noting that for every one book with positive explicit queer representation, there are many more with no rep or negative rep. 

For a bi male protagonist, read Barrayar. Also one of the later ones (I forgot the name.) For an interesting take on gender and transgenderism, try a Civil Affair. For a gay (possibly bi) male protagonist try Ethan of Athos. Bujold is awesome.

I think part of the issue is that it doesn’t always come up naturally. I have a character in my fanfic who is a lesbian. It never comes up, because it has no bearing on her role in the plot; she’s doing stuff for her dad, who is the antagonist. Her partner isn’t present, because you don’t take your abigail to a club. Her private life is not important, so odds are you’d assume she straight. But she’s not.


So sometimes it does come down to the author saying, out of universe, this character is X. I mean, I wouldn’t show her relationship if she was a straight woman with a lover. Why would I do any different because this character is a lesbian? But if I don’t say, no one will ever know, right?

Edited by Kingsdaughter613
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On 9/27/2020 at 0:23 PM, Oakrobin said:

I listened to an audio book not that long ago that was going out of its way to have LGBT characters all through it as well as trying to force the reader to be gender fluid accepting. 

How does an audiobook force a reader to do something? 

On 9/27/2020 at 1:26 PM, Kingsdaughter613 said:

I honestly don’t think Brandon is capable of writing like this yet, though. He still struggles to write romances. His best relationships are more parent/child-esque, or platonic friendships.

I don’t necessarily disagree, but why do you say this? 

14 hours ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

So sometimes it does come down to the author saying, out of universe, this character is X. I mean, I wouldn’t show her relationship if she was a straight woman with a lover. Why would I do any different because this character is a lesbian? But if I don’t say, no one will ever know, right?

Thanks for the author recommendation, I’ll check her out! 

In theory, I agree with you that if it’s not relevant, there’s no reason to make it a big thing. I do, however, believe that we need more literature where it is at least mentioned/implied, and more authors willing to outright confirm it outside if their work as well. 

(Please note that I am speaking here without my mod hat on, and that my words here in this post and in the past should not be taken as representative of what 17th Shard as a whole promotes.) 

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3 hours ago, AonEne said:

How does an audiobook force a reader to do something? 

I don’t necessarily disagree, but why do you say this? 

Thanks for the author recommendation, I’ll check her out! 

In theory, I agree with you that if it’s not relevant, there’s no reason to make it a big thing. I do, however, believe that we need more literature where it is at least mentioned/implied, and more authors willing to outright confirm it outside if their work as well. 

(Please note that I am speaking here without my mod hat on, and that my words here in this post and in the past should not be taken as representative of what 17th Shard as a whole promotes.) 

I say it because I find a lot of his romances clunky. I’ve read some excellent romance. The best he’s done, by far, was Wax and Steris. He also has a thing for the love triangle, which I loathe, and he does it rather awkwardly. I love Heyer, and she is the queen of romance. And Bujold can do a good job too. My favorite is in Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance, in which marrying the girl you just met makes a surprising amount of sense.

So my character lives in the Regency, and primarily acts as a high society spy for her father. She flirts and dances with men, and complains about not being married. But it’s an act, because it’s her spy persona. There’s no way to know who she’s interested in though, and it’s completely irrelevant. The protagonist’s interest in her is ‘what is my enemy’s daughter up to?’ and they interact once. When I created her I realized she wasn’t interested in men, but I doubt anyone would put it together if I didn’t tell them.

She’s my favorite original character, actually, and one of the few who carry over to another fic in the same world, because I wanted to play with her again. She’s very flamboyant, so a lot of fun to write.

I think more authors would confirm if they weren’t accused of virtue signaling when they do.

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3 hours ago, AonEne said:

How does an audiobook force a reader to do something?

I correct myself. the authors writing, not the audiobook.

 

i wrote out a whole essay explaining myself and then realised this is a mine field so I’ll just say this.. if a story has all kinds of genders and sexual orientations in it that’s fine. But when the author stops the story to preach it to me, it ruins it. 

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6 hours ago, Oakrobin said:

I correct myself. the authors writing, not the audiobook.

 

i wrote out a whole essay explaining myself and then realised this is a mine field so I’ll just say this.. if a story has all kinds of genders and sexual orientations in it that’s fine. But when the author stops the story to preach it to me, it ruins it. 

Do you mean like the bit where Kaladin is called out for homophobia or something else?

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So I just found this thread and I wondered if some of you read the Nightrunner Series by Lynn Flewelling? I know that might be a little off topic, but as I saw that there are already some recommendations for books written by other authors, I just wanted to ask if someone knows it and if yes, what do you think of it?

I loved that one, the characters are very well developped and I liked her setting, and the way she depicted different cultures and their prejudices felt very real to me. And yes, both main characters are male and gay. It's no romance, they simply are who they are and to me it was nothing more and nothing less but a part of their identity, neither the determining fact about them, nor did it feel as if they only exist because of it.
I actually only mention it, because of the title of this thread. So in short, to me this series is an very good example how you can include gay characters (or strong female ones by the way) without making that attribute the most important one and without making it feel forced or the central part of your story. They are who they are, and the books tell their stories through war and devastation.

Sorry, if someone already mentioned them, I mostly read the first page, skimmed the second one and then last one again.

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  • 3 weeks later...

I have mild opinions 

I think one reason Brandon hasn’t written a lot of major LGBT characters is for realism. I know, talking about realism with regards to completely fictional worlds, but hear me out. LGBT people are a minority, having a ton of gay characters would feel forced and political. Not truly representation. It would feel like he’s just trying to pacify all the people pushing for more rep. If Brandon does anything right, it’s making his worlds feel real. He’s the worldbuilding king. He focuses everything on making sure the world stays true to itself. His priorities are worldbuilding first, then plot, then character. 
I actually have this problem with Allomancy in era 2, one of the very few glaring mistakes I feel he’s made. Allomancy’s supposed to be a lot rarer, but still almost all the main characters are Allomancers, and all the common ‘bad-guy henchmen’ are too. It takes me out of the story a little bit every time I notice it. Same thing would happen for me if all of a sudden there were a bunch more gay characters. 

I think this fact, (paired with the fact that writing a gay protagonist would be something Brandon has never done before, and something he has no experience with, so he probably feels like he’s unqualified to try and tackle this topic) is more than enough to justify him so far. Wishing for more representation in general is fine, saying that one particular author needs to change because you don’t think they’re doing it right, is not, especially when that author is doing pretty good already. I expect we’ll see plenty more gay characters as the cosmere goes on, but probably only where it feels realistic. 

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  • 5 weeks later...
On 10/21/2020 at 3:14 AM, Danex said:

I have mild opinions 

I think one reason Brandon hasn’t written a lot of major LGBT characters is for realism. I know, talking about realism with regards to completely fictional worlds, but hear me out. LGBT people are a minority, having a ton of gay characters would feel forced and political. Not truly representation. It would feel like he’s just trying to pacify all the people pushing for more rep. If Brandon does anything right, it’s making his worlds feel real. He’s the worldbuilding king. He focuses everything on making sure the world stays true to itself. His priorities are worldbuilding first, then plot, then character. 
I actually have this problem with Allomancy in era 2, one of the very few glaring mistakes I feel he’s made. Allomancy’s supposed to be a lot rarer, but still almost all the main characters are Allomancers, and all the common ‘bad-guy henchmen’ are too. It takes me out of the story a little bit every time I notice it. Same thing would happen for me if all of a sudden there were a bunch more gay characters. 

I think this fact, (paired with the fact that writing a gay protagonist would be something Brandon has never done before, and something he has no experience with, so he probably feels like he’s unqualified to try and tackle this topic) is more than enough to justify him so far. Wishing for more representation in general is fine, saying that one particular author needs to change because you don’t think they’re doing it right, is not, especially when that author is doing pretty good already. I expect we’ll see plenty more gay characters as the cosmere goes on, but probably only where it feels realistic. 

OhhoHO I didn’t think this thread would return (and in season too!)

you just need to reread all the posts if you didn’t already. The topic’s been brought up, and has been talked about. We don’t want to upset the mods, so we gotta be civil if we are going to restart this discussion (which I don’t NECESSARILY advise, given that I think all the points that can be made have been made).

 

Since I like to inform humans (Even though this is my opinion, not actuall fact. That stance doesn’t quite apply here does it?), I will say it is all about representation.

minority groups need more representation in any media more than is statistical. It’s all because of the role model thing. Obviously someone that is gay can have a non-homosexual role model, but it is easier as humans to have a model that has the same problems that you need to overcome. That is why you need some more LGBT characters-as role models. For example, Captain Jack Harkness from Doctor Who. He doesn’t necessarily NEED to be omnisexual, but he is, and he is a BOSS.  He is a role model to the flamboyant gays all around the whoniverse. So the more LGBT characters, the better. Even a small thing, like in dawnshard, was fantastic. 
 

He has added some LGBTQ in the past and plans to add more. He is doing amazing currently. Dawnshard and RoW had some WONDERFUL stuff that I could relate to and made me smile. And both times were flawlessly done, not making you feel like it was shoved down your throat or pushing an agenda., which is important for some. 
 

So basically, Brando Sando is doing just fine and is doing it well, while still staying within the whole statistics thing.

Edited by Koloss17
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  • 3 weeks later...
On 2/18/2020 at 2:10 PM, Elsecaller_17.5 said:

Agree to disagree

Yes we got of topic. But part of that is there simply are more straight people than not straight people. At this point I'm tempted to go through all the books and hammer out the ratio.

im new and late here. so excuse me if it's already been discussed but i think i had to weigh in after seeing this idea of percentages and ratios popping up. which seemingly only ever pop up in conversations regarding lgbt characters.

firstly, the ratios we are aware of are not accurate. 5% or wtv @king of nowhere mentioned. where are we getting this from? our world? where lgbt populations are still stigmatized? where people are still coming out in their 50s? how can surveys possibly account for people who are in the closet? who are in denial? who are unaware of their own identities? 

Vorinism is a massive empire, devoid of any stigma our world holds. even though sigzil had problems with documentation and biased cultural perspectives its clear even the Azir empire dont stigmatize it. we have people calculating and theorizing the time difference of how cultures formed in this complete fictional world which spans multiple cultures, religions, fauna, flora, magic, etc etc. yet still have myopic takes on lgbt populations?

a world that doesn't stigmatize the gay populations is NOT going to have the same ratios and populations as our world. the most unbelievable thing about the whole drehy chapter was that kaladin WASNT shocked. considering how we never see any other gay character, and there is no mass media or internet, kaladin must have had substantial interaction with gay folk over his 20ish years to be aware of them and avoid biases and stereotypes from building up. yet we dont see any of that casually in the backgrounds? 

lets go further. why even 5 or 10%? why in a world where we have blue golden and carapaced people do we need to adhere to our ratios even? why is this even coming up as a talking point?

Quote

so, if i read a book and we are introduced to a handful of main characters and a double handful of minor characters, and one of those characters is gay, it feels just right. If it turned out every other person was gay or bisexual, it would certainly be statistically weird (and that's how i reacted in mass effect when kaidan tried to hit on me: "oh come on, what are the odds?") 

what about a planet full of epicanthic folds is statistically *right*? why is a, say, 50% gay population on a fictional planet statistically "weird" or lacking of realism to you? 

I TRULY TRULY love Brandon Sanderson, i've read it all, and i'm going to be reading it when i'm in my 60s and beyond(im in 20s now). so this isn't a slight at him or anything. i understand as someone who came from a fundamentalist islamic upbringing in saudi about his feelings on the Gay. i believe he will eventually do it justice. i dont want to wait, but i am willing. my problems here are with people praising the drehy stuff for being casual even though it was pretty forced even while being tertiary. with people who think this is enough or even one or 2 more major viewpoints would be enough for a broad enough representation and to avoid stereotyping. or people just arguing against the reality of cosmere being very heteronormative.

im left handed, and lefties are not a stigmatized, and yet i'm still reminded of my handedness often.

i have a hard time believing drehy and the people around drehy would function and react the way they do in a 5% gay world. in a world where they aren't even casually sprinkled into the background. i guess there's 6 books to course correct the realistic implications of Vorinism.

edit: @Ookla the Disproportionate

Edited by Ookla the Intimidating
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@beejsbj I wasn't planning on ever getting back involved in this conversation but I feel like you deserve a response.

5% absolutely is an estimate and I agree the number is likely higher.

There would still be people in the closet, coming out at older ages etc. but you wouldn't expect those people to be very visible in literature for the same reason they're less visible in real life.

I disagree that vornism has no stigmatism.  The extreme gender roles make a homosexual couple infeasible economically and socially and mid to upper class. That said there is definitely a lot less stigmatism. 

As to why numbers would be similair; because we haven't been told otherwise. If it hasn't been brought up and there's nothing to indicate otherwise I'm going to assume it matches earth standards.

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@beejsbj, although that is a good point, LGBT representation in literature tends to be pretty handwavy, with (usually external) comments about how differently a fantastical society treats LGBT people but the interactions seen in text usually reflecting Earth standard behaviour, with meta-commentary from the author. So far, it's been the same in Sanderson's works.

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I read the first few pages of this thread, and the last, and all I'm gonna say is:

Idk if anyone brought it up but Gideon the Ninth and the sequel Harrowhark the Ninth feature lesbian main characters and it's a AWESOME sci-fi fantasy story. Just a kick ass read with a lot of fun combat and as it was described to me, a "resident evil-style murder house"

Apologies if this one has been mentioned already

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On 12/8/2020 at 2:03 PM, Arceoxys said:

I read the first few pages of this thread, and the last, and all I'm gonna say is:

Idk if anyone brought it up but Gideon the Ninth and the sequel Harrowhark the Ninth feature lesbian main characters and it's a AWESOME sci-fi fantasy story. Just a kick ass read with a lot of fun combat and as it was described to me, a "resident evil-style murder house"

Apologies if this one has been mentioned already

Probably has been, but the main problem is that Honorless is specifically looking for male lgbt protagonists. Obviously queer rep is pretty low but you're far, far more likely to get a lesbian one. 

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I really don't see why statistics on how much of the population of our world our relevant at all really.

1. This is a world where everyone except a single fairly small group has epicanthic folds, and darker skin. A world where we know genetics work different, with mixed-color anime hair and where if a darkeye and lighteye have kids the kids will have one eye of each. A world where, canonically, humans have interbred with crab people leading to higher instances of asexuality. I don't see why having a much higher lgbtqia+ population would stand out as weird, considering this population is just statistically so different from ours in a number of ways and specifically in this way for at least one demographic. (And hell, while we're talking about singers- all our statistics are about humans, so even if you want to make that argument it still doesn't apply to singers. Who, again, have mixed with the human population.)

2. Let's assume, for a second though, that their lgbtqia+ statistics are the same as ours (which we know they're not at least with regards to asexuality). That still wouldn't mean a story with a bunch of gay main characters would be statistically weird. It's not uncommon in our world for gay people to form friend groups together, sometimes before they even realize they're gay. Even if gay people are roughly 5% of the population that still doesn't mean they have to be 5% of the main characters. I work at a summer camp, and if we matched population trends, there'd be 1 maybe 2 gay counselors and a half dozen gay campers. Instead, most of our counselors are lgbtqia+, and we've had entire cabins of kids come out. Environments that are lgbtqia+ friendly will tend to make gay people stick around, and having a couple gay people around tends to make those environments. So even if Roshar is only 5% gay, that still wouldn't make it abnormal for a particular group like our protags to have a much higher instance.

(Did I just go from explaining why we shouldn't apply the real world to Roshar to applying the real world to Roshar? Yes. I am a hypocrite, and I'm not in the process of changing. For the record, my ideal would be that Brandon takes the she-ra approach and says everyone is some genre of lgbtqia+ unless specifically stated otherwise.)

Edited by Stormtide_Leviathan
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23 hours ago, Stormtide_Leviathan said:

A world where, canonically, humans have interbred with crab people leading to higher instances of asexuality.

What? Where did this come from? The only Ace rep we know of doesn't have any singer blood. And, Singers get to choose their form, which is pretty much the opposite of how it works for humans.

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54 minutes ago, Fezzik said:

What? Where did this come from? The only Ace rep we know of doesn't have any singer blood. And, Singers get to choose their form, which is pretty much the opposite of how it works for humans.

Here’s a WoB on it:

Quote

RenegadeShroom

You said earlier that Parshendi are primarily asexual, does that extend to all Listeners -- parshmen, and those descended from Listeners, like Horneaters and Herdazians -- or is it just the Parshendi?

Brandon Sanderson

Most Listener forms are asexual, but several forms are different, including slaveform. Horneaters and Herdazians are not, as a rule, though there are higher instances of asexuality among them.

uchoo786

I was actually wondering about how Parshmen would reproduce if they are only in slaveform? I thought one had to be in mateform in order to reproduce?

Also, could Horneaters and Herdazians change forms as well?

Brandon Sanderson

For the first, mateform is not the only form capable of producing--any more than warform is the only one capable of swinging a sword. The forms are specializations.

For the second, RAFO.

/r/books AMA 2015 (May 19, 2015)

 

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19 minutes ago, Ookla the Ethereal said:

Am I missing something? What happened?

Renarin/Rlain got Word of Adam confirmed.
 

Basically, Brandon said we could probably guess who Renarin was crushing on and Adam said that people were guessing correctly. Then Brandon said there were probably a few guesses, at which point it hit Adam that there was only ONE guess. Which he’d just confirmed as correct. That guess being Rlain...

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13 minutes ago, Ookla the Ethereal said:

Am I missing something? What happened?

It's not something that's been totally confirmed, but in the recent Stormlight livestream it's been all but confirmed that one of the major characters has a crush on another man.

Minor Stormlight spoilers

Spoiler

 

In a previous WoB, Brandon revealed that Renarin has a crush on someone but hasn't told anyone. In today's livestream, someone asked about that.

Brandon hadn't intended to reveal who Renarin had a crush on, but stated that it wasn't something he was trying to be particularly secretive about. Adam then pointed out that the chat had already figured it out, when the chat had been practically spamming "Rlain". No other character had been mentioned in the chat, so unless there was some huge miscommunication, or Adam had misunderstood something, it's all but confirmed that Renarin has a crush on Rlain.

It's also worth mentioning that Rlain is uncomfortable with the idea of continuing the Listener bloodline with Venli, and recalls the one time he entered mateform being confusing. At the same time, Renarin seems to have an interest in Rlain, as he was the first person he considered when Sja-Anat wanted to sent one of her children to bond someone.

 

 

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