Homosexuality in the Cosmere

[Inkthinker]

I'm always a bit amused when it's suggested that homosexuality isn't "manly", considering the historical evidence that our own "warrior cultures" have embraced the practice (notably both the Samurai and the Spartans, arguably the most successful warrior-centric societies in recorded history, considered homosexuality to be pretty normal).

Brandon doesn't touch on sexuality much unless it's relevant to the plot. It's entirely reasonable to believe that there are gay men amongst the warriors of Alethkar, and (as mentioned before) nobody cares. It's just not relevant to the story being told.

Even if there's socio-cultural elements of it in the society, we're not likely to run into them in the canonized story unless those aspects are relevant to the plot.

Edited July 6, 2012 by Inkthinker

[Tazren]

Brandon isn't that explicit about the sexual orientations of a lot of characters, anyway ... His books aren't exactly romance-focused, so it makes sense. In mistborn, there are a lot of important characters whose love interests are only mentioned in passing, if at all.

[Yados]

Brandon isn't that explicit about the sexual orientations of a lot of characters, anyway ... His books aren't exactly romance-focused, so it makes sense. In mistborn, there are a lot of important characters whose love interests are only mentioned in passing, if at all.

Why does homosexuality have to be the focus of a piece for it to exist in it?

Even if, as you say, the cosmere books aren't "romance-focused", there's at least one romance in each book to date. All heterosexual ones. Vin and Elend. Sazed and Tyndwill. Spook and that one girl. Siri and the God King. Saerene and Raoden. Dalinar and Navani. Shallan and Kabsal. Wax and Marasi.

Beyond that, of the supporting characters who have mentioned past or present love interests who never appear, characters such as Ham, Dockson, and Kelsier, where their sexuality either way doesn't affect the story one iota, all are straight.

And yet, as you said, the cosmere books aren't "romance-focused" or as Inkthinker pointed out don't "touch on sexuality much". We don't react to them like BS is trying to ram heterosexuality down our throat.

But what if just twenty percent of those relationships were queer in some way? Would people say the same?

It's not about tolerance so much as cultural assumption.

Much like in TV, no one bats an eye at all-white casts because, for a character to be a poc, there must be a story based reason for them to be a poc. Otherwise, the assumption is that they're white. The people writing and casting these shows aren't racists. They just have it ingrained that white is the cultural default. These shows aren't about race, after all. But that doesn't make the lack of representation less of an issue in how poc in this country see themselves and interact with media.

[Oxinabox]

I'd think "queer" would never be a good term in any good discussion about homosexuality, seeing as it's extremely offensive.

Really? in my part of the world the word Queer has been totally reclaimed.

it's used as an umbrella term for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transexual, transgender, intersex, ...

(Most people I know, myself included are a bit queer).

The group on Campus offering support and looking out for rights, is called the "Queer Department",

and it's not like they had the name imposed on them, they've changed the second word a couple of times.

(I'm in Western Australia)

---

On topic,

I actually had a vague theory that Brandon would leave anything Queer out of the universe. (there is very little romance in the books, mostly we have people missing dead partners. (these to me are more important story points than the living romances)).

Since Brandon is (to my understanding) a fairly involved member of the Church of Latter-day Saints,

it would be the easy way to avoid causing controversy in his community.

Since wether or not he has strong veiws about homosexuality (etc), some people he would be involved with, probably would and, would also read his books.

I guess the argument for having straight relationships, in books where those relationships are not a focal point is that then

readers don't really have to thing so much about them.

They get the whole idea of the deal by pretty quick, and can move on to the actual plot (vs the characterisation)

Edited July 8, 2012 by Oxinabox

[Windrunner]

I can't say that I've seen any queer relationships thus far in the Cosmere. I can attest that Brandon has not left homosexuals out of his books though. Drehy, in Bridge 4 is gay and Ranette is heavily implied to be a lesbian. Brandon has also said he fully intends to have a gay viewpoint character in the future.

[Tazren]

From reading Sanderson's thoughts on same-sex marriage and civil unions, it seems as if he's changed his views on the subject somewhat, so it's not surprising that his later books have characters that are implied to be gay ... As compared to his earlier books.

[Windrunner]

Here's a direct quote, to help answer your question.

W. HEUS ()

How do you feel about the lack of prominent gay characters within the epic fantasy as a genre and do you ever include (or will ever include) gay or lesbian characters in your own work?

BRANDON SANDERSON ()

That's an issue that I feel I should speak about delicately, because it's one of those charged issues that can create a lot of division. But my basic feeling is that a character should not be any more or less sympathetic, or more or less evil, or anything like that, because of sexual orientation or because of basic beliefs or philosophy on things like religion. So there are gay characters in my books, though so far they have been side characters. I don't make a big deal of it, because I tend not to make a big deal of the sexuality of side characters in general. For instance, in The Way of Kings, Drehy, a member of Bridge Four, is gay. He's based on a good friend of mine who is gay. There is a lesbian character in Alloy of Law; again I don't make a big deal of it though it's a little more obvious.

Basically, I just try to write characters and try to have different makeups of characters. I feel gay characters should be included, and I'm annoyed that sometimes there seems to be an association between including gay characters and using that as a means of making them seem like a reprehensible character. You may know what I'm talking about; I've seen it in books before and it bugs me. Just like it bugs me if an author makes a character religious and the tone of the book implies, "Well, obviously, religious people are all idiots, so I'm not going to make this character actively an idiot, I'm just going to represent them as being religious," which by the tone of the book indicates that they're an idiot. That's not to say that there can't be social structures like religions that will push people toward doing things that are questionable or morally reprehensible—there can, of course, and it will happen—but I'm talking about the individuals. I don't know that I have strong feelings on the subject other than that I think people should be represented as people.

I wrote a bit more about the subject in my essay on Dumbledore.

Source

[Yados]

Yeah, I'd read that.

I hadn't heard that he was planning on doing a book with a gay PoV. Where did he say that? Or was it an implication from the "so far" wording in the above quote?

[Commander Spoonface]

Really? in my part of the world the word Queer has been totally reclaimed.

it's used as an umbrella term for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transexual, transgender, intersex, ...

(Most people I know, myself included are a bit queer).

The group on Campus offering support and looking out for rights, is called the "Queer Department",

and it's not like they had the name imposed on them, they've changed the second word a couple of times.

(I'm in Western Australia)

Someone needs to tell the extremely homophobic population of Northern Utah that's not a slur, because they still use it as such...

EDIT: This refers to the portion of the population of Northern Utah that is homophobic. It is not meant to imply that the entire population of Northern Utah is homophobic.

Edited July 8, 2012 by Commander Spoonface

[CrazyRioter]

yeah, in the US and Canada it's still very region by region and even person by person, you can't make any blanket statements about it. That's why LGBT is better.

[Windrunner]

Yeah, I'd read that.

I hadn't heard that he was planning on doing a book with a gay PoV. Where did he say that? Or was it an implication from the "so far" wording in the above quote?

I probably should have found a quote before I mentioned it, haha. I'm virtually certain I read and/or heard it in some interview. I asked a couple of admins and Rubix says it might sound familiar but Chaos isn't sure. I'll keep an eye out for the quote, but if I don't find it, my apologies.

[Morsk]

I know he's putting a gay PoV in the last Wheel of Time book. Most people expect it to be Androl, largely by process of elimination. I hadn't seen any quotes say he was doing it in one of his own books. There's no apparent reason he wouldn't; I just don't remember hearing anything specific.

[Yados]

Huh, when I heard the comment, I kind of hoped it would be Eric from White Sand. It just seems like it would fit his character arc.

[Comatose]

One thought that I had, about the original Mistborn series (since most of the Scadrial discussion seems to be about Alloy), is that it's (loosely) based on Victorian society, where sexuality in general is pretty strictly oppressed. In the Mistborn RP, I've written a gay character, so I tried to do a lot of thinking about what the world he lives in is like, and based on the evidence, I decided that, it might be similar to the attitude before the late Victorian age when homosexuality became a criminal offence, where it wasn't accepted at all, but people got away with leading LGBTQ lives because no one was talking about it. Then of course, with Oscar Wilde's rise to fame, among other things, people began talking about homosexuality. As they did this, they found themselves creating a vocabulary to define it in order to talk about it, creating or re-appropriating many of the terms (both scientific and offensive) that some people still use today when talking about homosexuality. Given what I've seen about the final empire, I feel like homosexuality would be a very private affair that, if exposed, could be very shameful for the parties in question, but I don't think any persecution would be reactionary, as it doesn't seem to be a topic on people's minds. I totally agree though that there are male skaa in brothels in Luthadel, as there have been male prostitutes all the way back to Ancient Greece and beyond.

Speaking of Ancient Greece, it's a good example for how male and female sexuality can be treated differently within a culture. Older male-younger male relationships were pretty much built into the culture serving a sort of mentor-mentee function, while aside from Sappho, we hear very little of female-female relationships. At the same time, men who didn't move on from their homosexual relationships to get married (to women) were seen as weak or effeminate, while Sappho doesn't seem to have any such restriction placed on her. However, her status of a poet might have shielded her somewhat, so it's difficult to say. I do know that female-female homosexuality isn't spoken of nearly as much as male-male relationships are in the ancient world, so that, in the very least, shows that they were viewed somewhat differently.

Anyways, that's just my two cents, thought I'd put it in. Hope you don't mind me resurrecting a dead topic.

[The Count]

Intresting thread...

I think an important point with regard to the in world cultures is that their attitudes will very much be based on cultural history.

In our world, the historic non acceptance of homosexuality in the west stems not only from the anthropological reality (same sex relationships cannot reproduce) but also the strong judeo-christian cultural history.

The moral framework in the west has mostly evolved from traditional (that is historic) catholic dogma (which has always taught that homosexuality is a sin).

Applying this to Vorin Roshar I think we can assume quite significant intolerance for same sex relationships.

As several have pointed out, The Vorin religion very rigidly defines the gender roles within society. This gives the religios techings a much stronger socialogical (and therefore cultural) impact. Practically this has led to a more formalised symbiotic relationship between men and women (in terms of their everyday functioning). That is, women perform the more cerebral functions, men the more aggressive / physical ones. A successful (and pious) partnership will therfore have both of these elements.

This naturally implies both a religious and practical bias toward mixed sex relationships, leading inevitably to intolerance of same sex relationships.

Not to mention that there is already a culture of intolerance / prejudice against physical attributes (lighteyes vs darkeyes). This would naturally make the judgements based on other personal differences (such as sexual preference) more cultually acceptable.

Note that I am talking about cultural bias here and not about individuals. As is all things intolerance will exist on a spectrum with both extremes represented. I think most of the main VP characters would come to the conclusion that homosexuals are just like other men (with the possible exception of Adolin, who is slightly immature and hotheaded).

Disclaimer: I am not a sociologist or cultural historian. These are merely my own thoughts and suppositions and I make no judgements on anyone's religious beliefs.