Gay Male Protagonist

[Hoid the Former Drifter]

On 2/16/2020 at 8:07 AM, Honorless said:

When gay characters do appear in the mainstream and they're not badly written, they're usually secondary characters or at most, the deuteragonist.

Out of curiosity, have you read Worm by J.C. Mcrae? 5,000 pages or so, pretty good book, and all sorts of orientations: LGBT, and also straight, as protagonists and antagonists.

[Honorless]

7 minutes ago, Hoid the Drifter said:

Out of curiosity, have you read Worm by J.C. Mcrae? 5,000 pages or so, pretty good book, and all sorts of orientations: LGBT, and also straight, as protagonists and antagonists.

I have read his works. Legend was written well enough but among the Triumvirate, or even the greater Protectorate, he wasn't a character who was focused on much. Circus was barely there.

I'm tentatively happier with Capricorn though Wildbow avoided a lot of the bigger (and more politically controversial) possibilities with their story and again not a character who was focused on much after the initial reveal, also very complicated to get into. Jamie and Sylvester... far too complicated to unpack here. Avery is probably the best written LGBT character by him.

[Hoid the Former Drifter]

1 minute ago, Honorless said:

I'm tentatively happier with Capricorn though Wildbow avoided a lot of the bigger (and more politically controversial) possibilities with their story and again not a character who was focused on much after the initial reveal, also very complicated to get into. Jamie and Sylvester... far too complicated to unpack here. Avery is probably the best written LGBT character by him.

i only read book 1 but foil and parian were well written i think.

[Honorless]

9 minutes ago, Hoid the Drifter said:

i only read book 1 but foil and parian were well written i think.

Spoilers for Ward

[Hoid the Former Drifter]

2 minutes ago, Honorless said:

Spoilers for Ward

yeah my friend in school is getting it to give to me

[Friendshipspren]

Ok wow can't believe they already have pics of the ship up. Found this in Renarins gallery on thr coppermind. 

Art by https://rspixart.tumblr.com/

 

 

[Kingsdaughter613]

10 minutes ago, Friendshipspren said:

Ok wow can't believe they already have pics of the ship up. Found this in Renarins gallery on thr coppermind. 

Art by https://rspixart.tumblr.com/

 

 

The art was drawn before the livestream, lol!

[Aon Tia]

@Kingsdaughter613 So now we can expect a lot more then!! 

Edited December 18, 2020 by Aon Tia

[Kingsdaughter613]

Just now, Aon Tia said:

@Kingsdaughter613 So now we can expect a lot more then!! 

I’d expect so.

[Aspiring Writer]

I remember asking for a Parshmanxhuman couple just a week ago. This seems like wish fullfilment.

[Stormtide_Leviathan]

7 hours ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

The art was drawn before the livestream, lol!

Yeah I saw the second one on tumblr a few days ago. They drew a different version without Sja-Anet but I prefer this one personally

[Kingsdaughter613]

17 minutes ago, Stormtide_Leviathan said:

Yeah I saw the second one on tumblr a few days ago. They drew a different version without Sja-Anet but I prefer this one personally

I like the Sja-Anat one too. She just looks so fond of her boys.

Edited December 18, 2020 by Kingsdaughter613

[Stormtide_Leviathan]

57 minutes ago, Kingsdaughter613 said:

I like the Sja-Anat one too. She just looks so fond of her boys.

I know she thinks of her enlightened spren as her children, but what does she think of their radiants? Are they also her children? Her childrens' best friends who come over to the house all the time? Her childrens' pet racoons they found on the street and want to keep?

[LuckyJim]

People probably got into the ship after reading Rhythm of War. Like Brandon said, it wasn't confirmed but it wasn't meant to be a secret either, and a lot of people had already figured it out as we saw in the live chat.

[beejsbj]

well said there @Stormtide_Leviathan, you echoed and expanded my sentiments perfectly!

 

Quote

my ideal would be that Brandon takes the she-ra approach and says everyone is some genre of lgbtqia+ unless specifically stated otherwise.

YES! i  share this sentiment as well. especially since its a world where being queer is not out of the norm as it seems to be with Kal's reaction

[Stormtide_Leviathan]

On 12/18/2020 at 0:41 PM, LuckyJim said:

People probably got into the ship after reading Rhythm of War. Like Brandon said, it wasn't confirmed but it wasn't meant to be a secret either, and a lot of people had already figured it out as we saw in the live chat.

I definitely saw some people shipping them even before row

[Chaos]

I am moving this topic into Rhythm of War boards. This is a bit of an edge case here but I think that will make this easier.

[likehephaestion]

On 2/16/2020 at 10:04 AM, Honorless said:

How do you remember Drehy? 

Okay so i've not read though everything so I might be rehashing things that have already been said or saying things no one cares about anymore but like as a queer person I absolutely remember Drehy as "the gay one." And sure after the first read I know to look out for him because he was THE gay one. I'm notoriously horrible at keeping trititary charterers straight. I'm looking at a list of members of bridge four right now and I promise the only reason I know any of the not main or secondary characters is because Drehy is gay. And....that's the problem. 

And like you can argue he has some plot significance saving the Elhokar's son but to reiterate my point I know that there was another bridgeman with him, who was he? I don't know not the gay one. Just, why do I have to learn to love and care about characters I would not otherwise love or care about? I would not care about Drehy if he were not "the gay one" 

Moreover like they talked about how he has a boyfriend but like, he's not done anything queer and I don't mean I expect (or want) there to be graphic sex. I very much do not want that. But we've not met his boyfriend (that I remember I could be wrong and I'll be glad to be) but like, what's the point? when you make super minor characters "the gay one" it's almost not worth it because it's literally just a label. If you want to be upset about authors trying to "tick off woke boxes" or something that's when that is happening. Not when main characters are being "turned" gay particularly if the character in question never said anything contrary to that. 

[Aspiring Writer]

4 minutes ago, likehephaestion said:

Okay so i've not read though everything so I might be rehashing things that have already been said or saying things no one cares about anymore but like as a queer person I absolutely remember Drehy as "the gay one." And sure after the first read I know to look out for him because he was THE gay one. I'm notoriously horrible at keeping trititary charterers straight. I'm looking at a list of members of bridge four right now and I promise the only reason I know any of the not main or secondary characters is because Drehy is gay. And....that's the problem. 

And like you can argue he has some plot significance saving the Elhokar's son but to reiterate my point I know that there was another bridgeman with him, who was he? I don't know not the gay one. Just, why do I have to learn to love and care about characters I would not otherwise love or care about? I would not care about Drehy if he were not "the gay one" 

Moreover like they talked about how he has a boyfriend but like, he's not done anything queer and I don't mean I expect (or want) there to be graphic sex. I very much do not want that. But we've not met his boyfriend (that I remember I could be wrong and I'll be glad to be) but like, what's the point? when you make super minor characters "the gay one" it's almost not worth it because it's literally just a label. If you want to be upset about authors trying to "tick off woke boxes" or something that's when that is happening. Not when main characters are being "turned" gay particularly if the character in question never said anything contrary to that. 

I agree on a lot of this, But I have to ask, and this is for anyone to comment on, does every character that's gay in that universe need attention? At one point can a side character be gay and not be criticized that the only thing we know about them is that they're gay? There are a lot of non-gay characters that don't get much attention and sort of blend into one another in beige four and other groups, but we don't complain that much about that, as they are side characters and there is only so much room for character development. People want equal representation, and but that means that there will be gay focus character and gay non-focus character that get a passing glance. The fact he's gay and therefore stands out might say more about us (I, actually, forgot Drehy, though I did remember there was a gay member in bridge four. This might have to do more with my terrible memory with names.)

But yeah, how does this actually work, because people will say if you have a gay character that is in story but not focused or developed in any way, that is bad representation, and I agree for the most part, but there is the other side where an author cannot put in a gay character without people asking for details on them, and seeing as we now have two gay character in SA, I think Drehy not getting development should not be looked on negatively, as it's just another element in the universe, as that puts a more slanted standard on gay characters where they MUST be developed and cannot just be there like plenty of side characters. Thoughts?

[likehephaestion]

2 minutes ago, Aspiring Writer said:

I agree on a lot of this, But I have to ask, and this is for anyone to comment on, does every character that's gay in that universe need attention? At one point can a side character be gay and not be criticized that the only thing we know about them is that they're gay? There are a lot of non-gay characters that don't get much attention and sort of blend into one another in beige four and other groups, but we don't complain that much about that, as they are side characters and there is only so much room for character development. People want equal representation, and but that means that there will be gay focus character and gay non-focus character that get a passing glance. The fact he's gay and therefore stands out might say more about us (I, actually, forgot Drehy, though I did remember there was a gay member in bridge four. This might have to do more with my terrible memory with names.)

But yeah, how does this actually work, because people will say if you have a gay character that is in story but not focused or developed in any way, that is bad representation, and I agree for the most part, but there is the other side where an author cannot put in a gay character without people asking for details on them, and seeing as we now have two gay character in SA, I think Drehy not getting development should not be looked on negatively, as it's just another element in the universe, as that puts a more slanted standard on gay characters where they MUST be developed and cannot just be there like plenty of side characters. Thoughts?

No not every gay character needs attention. But like the problem is we only know gay minor characters. There are no gay main characters at the moment. "People want equal representation but-" okay stop because there is not equal representation. You can't say that like "you have to be okay with non focus gay characters" when those are the only queer characters there are. (and like I love WoB stuff but also Word of God does not count as actual representation. so until it's shown/told in the books it doesn't count) 

Gay characters who are the only queer character in a story but is not focused on or developed ARE bad representation. Drehy is bad representation and until its in the books In my opinion he is the only gay character. And yeah people are gonna ask about the gay characters, if you only have one. Partiuclarly if the only "gay" thing about that character is a conversation about "oh yeah he's gay" and that's the end of it, the last time it's brought up. And that's where the bad representation comes in. Drehy is the only gay character but like....what's gay about him? (and again i'm not asking for graphic sex) but a queer person's queer-ness doesn't end at their coming out. They're queer before, and after that as well and the problem with Drehy is....we know he's gay but that seems to mean absolutely nothing and yeah we do want to know about him because uhhh until recently that was the only character we for sure knew we had and even now again until it's in the books it doesn't count as representation. 

But like if you want to write a world where being queer doesn't marginalize someone (which I think is what Sanderson is going for here) you can not just have one queer character it makes no sense because, and not to drag queer theory into this conversation, if being queer doesn't marginalize someone then there would be MORE queer people not less. If there is no stigma to being queer, if being queer doesn't exist then being queer loses its meaning and so everyone can be queer. This would lead to more experimentation which would lead to more people realizing their queer rather than spending their life in the closet married to someone they don't love. If being queer isn't stigmatized then teenagers would treat gender like hair color, or perhaps more adeptly for this specific discussion, eye color. You have a preference but why wouldn't you step out of that preference? Sexuality is a social construct, if a society did not construct it then that society would not live by the same rules. There would be TONS of "queer" people because no one ever had to wonder or worry. 

So like not only is Drehy being the only queer character bad representation it's also just not even close to realistic if Sanderson really is trying to write a world where being queer isn't a marginalization. 

[Aspiring Writer]

2 minutes ago, likehephaestion said:

So like not only is Drehy being the only queer character bad representation it's also just not even close to realistic if Sanderson really is trying to write a world where being queer isn't a marginalization. 

I don't think he is trying to write that world, there is some discomfort from Sigizil and it is clearly considered the 'norm' to be straight. There is still clearly a social construct, but there are cultures that don't care too much, which was a thing in real life, aka, ancient Greece, which was fine with gay men and had plenty of myths about gay heroes and gods. 

[likehephaestion]

1 minute ago, Aspiring Writer said:

I don't think he is trying to write that world, there is some discomfort from Sigizil and it is clearly considered the 'norm' to be straight. There is still clearly a social construct, but there are cultures that don't care too much, which was a thing in real life, aka, ancient Greece, which was fine with gay men and had plenty of myths about gay heroes and gods. 

Okay so you've walked right into my point though. If he is trying to write a world similar to ancient Greece then he's done it wrong because we should know of more gay men then. The construct was different in ancient Greece than it is now (I mean, it was hardly okay for a man to marry another man for love or even to spend a lot of time as gay men in what we would recognize as a relationship, ancient Greek philosophers had whole conversations about Achilles and Patroclus's relationship because men weren't supposed to fall in love like that) And if he wants to write a world where there is a different social construct that doesn't care too much then he's failed. 

If you want a world where people don't care about weather or not someone is queer then there will be more queer people and you've pointed out why. When people care less it's less dangerous and fewer people have to say in the closet. There is a reason it feels like there are more queer people now and there used to be, and it's because we are chaning the social construct. It's more okay to be queer now than it was 20 years ago so it seems like there are more queer people. I had just assumed, until the conversation bridge four had, that it was an incredibly homophobic society...because there were no queer people. What produces a world without queer people? A world that does not accept Queer people. (of course even in a world that does not accept queer people there will be queer people but they will not be visible.)

[Aspiring Writer]

6 minutes ago, likehephaestion said:

Okay so you've walked right into my point though. If he is trying to write a world similar to ancient Greece then he's done it wrong because we should know of more gay men then. The construct was different in ancient Greece than it is now (I mean, it was hardly okay for a man to marry another man for love or even to spend a lot of time as gay men in what we would recognize as a relationship, ancient Greek philosophers had whole conversations about Achilles and Patroclus's relationship because men weren't supposed to fall in love like that) And if he wants to write a world where there is a different social construct that doesn't care too much then he's failed. 

If you want a world where people don't care about weather or not someone is queer then there will be more queer people and you've pointed out why. When people care less it's less dangerous and fewer people have to say in the closet. There is a reason it feels like there are more queer people now and there used to be, and it's because we are chaning the social construct. It's more okay to be queer now than it was 20 years ago so it seems like there are more queer people. I had just assumed, until the conversation bridge four had, that it was an incredibly homophobic society...because there were no queer people. What produces a world without queer people? A world that does not accept Queer people. (of course even in a world that does not accept queer people there will be queer people but they will not be visible.)

Small note, this might be partly because a lot of social structures being overturned because of the desolation that more people are coming out as queer. Just something to chew on. And they may be more gay men, we just do see them or they haven't gone public yet, because I will mention that Rosahr is not universal in how it views homosexuality, it's fine in some places, it's outlawed in others. And even in the modern-day, the population of queer people in the U.S is less than five percent of the population, and in Roshar it would be safe to assume they would be even less, so one out of fifty people would be queer, and Shallan has been confirmed Bi (And there are moments hinting this, so don't bring the 'not in the book' excuse, she clearly appreciated the female body and has no problem with it, she just happens to be in a relationship with a guy... which happens. A lot.) So while there is room to say there could be more queer people, there is nothing outright saying that.

[likehephaestion]

1 minute ago, Aspiring Writer said:

Small note, this might be partly because a lot of social structures being overturned because of the desolation that more people are coming out as queer. Just something to chew on. And they may be more gay men, we just do see them or they haven't gone public yet, because I will mention that Rosahr is not universal in how it views homosexuality, it's fine in some places, it's outlawed in others. And even in the modern-day, the population of queer people in the U.S is less than five percent of the population, and in Roshar it would be safe to assume they would be even less, so one out of fifty people would be queer, and Shallan has been confirmed Bi (And there are moments hinting this, so don't bring the 'not in the book' excuse, she clearly appreciated the female body and has no problem with it, she just happens to be in a relationship with a guy... which happens. A lot.) So while there is room to say there could be more queer people, there is nothing outright saying that.

yeah see "appreciating the female body" does not count as being queer because TONS of people read that and did not think "oh that's queer" and like.....I'm one of those people and I'm one of the first people to jump on "OH THAT'S QUEER." So if that IS representation it's bad representation. But why is it safe to assume it would be less on Roshar? if bridge four was super accepting and they were, that's better than any coming out I have been part of, either coming out or someone else coming out while I was around.

You seem to be either arguing I'm wrong and that is the main goal OR you keep jumping from "Roshar is more accepting" to "Roshar is less accepting" and I don't know why. It might be devils advocate or I'm just reading wrong. But you brought up ancient Greece as an example of how a culture can have a norm of cishet and still be accepting. I guess my question is which is it? Do you think Roshar is more or less accepting (specifically Alethkar) because you keep going back and forth and I don't know where you stand. 

[Aspiring Writer]

12 minutes ago, likehephaestion said:

yeah see "appreciating the female body" does not count as being queer because TONS of people read that and did not think "oh that's queer" and like.....I'm one of those people and I'm one of the first people to jump on "OH THAT'S QUEER." So if that IS representation it's bad representation. But why is it safe to assume it would be less on Roshar? if bridge four was super accepting and they were, that's better than any coming out I have been part of, either coming out or someone else coming out while I was around.

You seem to be either arguing I'm wrong and that is the main goal OR you keep jumping from "Roshar is more accepting" to "Roshar is less accepting" and I don't know why. It might be devils advocate or I'm just reading wrong. But you brought up ancient Greece as an example of how a culture can have a norm of cishet and still be accepting. I guess my question is which is it? Do you think Roshar is more or less accepting (specifically Alethkar) because you keep going back and forth and I don't know where you stand. 

Well, first off, it's not Roshar, because like I said, it depends on which culture on Roshar. that's like saying if earth is accepting, where in certain places, yes, in other places, they are hated vehemently and despise their existence. So, no point in answering that, it depends on the place.

Mostly, I am neutral, I tend to see certain things from both perspectives and understand and even agree with point to some extent, so this is more for discussion. The examples I provide are meant to see how you respond and add to the discussion. I'm sure people will see this tomorrow and have their own comments to share. So your reading someone who justs wants to talk and curious about something that may or may not have clear answers. You will notice the first post was mostly asking where is the line rather than trying to counter you.

However, I do have a position on the shallan one, because I can speak in some respects of my own experiences and actually was going through the LGBTQ+ club and saw a very similar issue/topic. Because Shallan is confirmed Bi, and has seemed comfortable with the concept of having sex with girls, ava Give me the dumb girls line. However, she is married to a man and does not want to cheat on him (Yet. I'm still crossing fingers. Maybe Radient has eyes on someone.) and so I see how they wrote Shallan as perfectly fine and quite realistic. The fact she doesn't actually 'do it' with another woman should not discard the fact she is Bi, as this is something that happens. If you disagree, how would you have done it while keeping Shallan's character intact?

Edited December 21, 2020 by Aspiring Writer