Referring to characters who transition in the middle of a story (Umbrella Academy and others)

This post was written about The Umbrella Academy (2019), but if this discussion amounts to anything it can serve as precedent for other cases, hence the broad title.

On the discussion page for Characters.The Umbrella Academy 2019 The Hargreeves Siblings it was suggested that more discussion is needed to finalize how to deal with Elliot Page's character's transition and subsequent name/pronoun change (from she/her "Vanya" to he/him "Viktor") in the third season should be handled. The character is an adaptation of a cis woman named Vanya, and the creators have confirmed his transition was an Actor-Inspired Element after the actor came out.

If this were an actor, then absolutely we would go back and change everything, noting only credit changes where necessary. But he's a character, not a person, and we need to consider how the casual reader/viewer would react to an entry. Onscreen text and dialogue still refers to them as the previous name for (as of this writing) 2/3s of the show.

Affected pages would be Series.The Umbrella Academy 2019 and all its subpages, including Recap.The Umbrella Academy 2019. Many of the subpages have already switched over. The character transitions in this episode, it and everything after it use masculine pronouns and "Viktor", while most if not all of the pages before it use female pronouns and "Vanya".

1. Would the appropriate approach be to change all the subpages to the new identity and note the transition where necessary (eg. dialogue preservation, like if they are referred to as a "sister"), and simply note the transition at the top of the page (eg. "Viktor, formerly Vanya", as the main work page does). Heartwarming.The Umbrella Academy 2019 already does this, using "Viktor" everywhere with the exception of dialogue saying "Auntie Vanya".
2. What about recap pages? Is it fair to say that episodes before the transition can keep the old identity, since those should not refer to future events?
3. Pre-transition WMG, Drinking Game/, Headscratchers can be left alone as for-fun 'archive'?

"Surely this isn't the only case of this happening ever", you might say, and you would be right. ~mightymewtron had previously brought up the case of a character from Rocko's Modern Life who was also not likely 'conceived' as trans, which is even fuzzier (since the character was revealed to be trans in a sequel) that didn't really solidify a consensus. Glee had a character come out as trans in the last season (6), his entry on Glee Other Major Characters lists the birth name and the character is often referred to with Last-Name Basis anyway, but the work's pages are still inconsistent on pronouns.

Tagging ~Eagal and ~Gregzilla from the discussion page as well. Thoughts?

1. I mean, we don't try and keep Samus's gender ambiguous on Metroid, even though it's treated as a secret in the game itself and someone who had only played it and not the more recent games would likely be surprised to read it on our page. We ideally want to refer to the character consistently, and given that Viktor and 'he/him' are how offical sources and most recent episodes now refer to him, that's how we should IMO.

2. As for recap pages, they're unique in that they're not meant to refer to anything beyond the episode they're talking about (unlike other subpages, where it's expected that you'll see content from the entire work's run). Given that, it seems reasonable that Vanya and 'she/her' would be used to refer to the character on recaps for episodes before he transitioned.

3. Headscratchers, WMG, etc. aren't archive pages that are forbidden to be edited and it's fine to correct spelling/grammar on them. I don't see updating the name/pronouns as much different than that, unless the original poster would for some reason object to referring to the character by his new name/pronouns. In which case... should we really care what such a person thinks?

Personally, I think we should use the names according to when the events happened.

For example, Harold/Leonard is stated to be in love with (for lack of a more cohesive term) Number Seven in season 1, with the notation saying he is in love with Viktor. There is no indication that he is not heterosexual within the show itself as far as I can tell, and calling him Viktor gives the wrong idea about a different character altogether.

Now then, if it is an event in Season 3, that is another thing altogether. But as is, there was no intention to make him out to be a man in prior seasons, and writing it as if it were gives the wrong impression in my opinion.

As noted in the original poster, this is not a real life person, but a character in an ongoing series. It is not the same thing, and I do not feel it should be treated as such.

Edited by Gregzilla on Jul 8th 2022 at 4:29:31 AM

The baseline rule for Recap pages is absolutely no information whatsoever from future episodes.

We can either make trans characters a special-case exception to this rule, or not do that.

We can see potential problems with it either way, but we're currently leaning towards "not do that".

Trouble Cube continues to be a general-purpose forum for those who desire such a thing.

I just noticed a similar thing with High Guardian Spice and the character of Snapdragon. Now, Snapdragon is a trans woman, and their main subplot in the show involves them exploring their gender identity and breaking away from toxic masculine stereotypes. The thing is, they don't actually transition at any point during the show, so I'm not sure if the she/her pronouns we're using now is actually accurate. From what I can tell, Snapdragon's gender identity was revealed by the voice actress, not the show itself, because the show left open the possibility for Snapdragon to just be an effeminate, non-traditional man.

This isn't a case of "transitions halfway through", obviously, more a case of "currently in the process of figuring out their gender identity during the show" without actually labeling their identity in-universe. In the show, Snapdragon only uses male pronouns AFAIK.

Sorry if this is a bit of a hijack, wasn't sure where else to take this topic.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jul 9th 2022 at 6:24:47 AM

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

To be clear, when I mentioned about the character seemingly being attracted, it was not about recap pages, but about character pages. With said page being the one that was not the same one as said transgender character. As such, one would need to jump to a different page to even know who was being talked about at all, especially if they had only seen the first one or two seasons.

Got another one for you, was forwarded from the Snapdragon thread.

Topa from The Orville, and I apologize in advance for any spoilers. Born female, gender-reassigned to male as a baby because the Moclans are terrible people, but through the next two seasons the show referred to them as male. But now in episode 3x05 "A Tale of Two Topas", Topa turns out to have been experiencing gender dysphoria for a while and finally transitions back to female, complete with Easy Sex Change.

Currently the Recap page for the episode uses she/her exclusively, but should we go back through the various Orville pages now and switch out all mention of Topa's pronouns to she/her?

If you want to follow Umbrella example, he/him for all pre-transition recap pages and she/her afterwards would be the precedent.

^Yeah, but what about the main page and its subpages? That's more my question: where does that intersect with handling spoilers? ETA: For example, on the character sheet and could imagine going fully over to feminine pronouns to avoid confusion, but what about things like the YMMV page?

Edited by StarSword on Jul 25th 2022 at 11:40:31 AM

The character sheet is just an extension of the main page, so use whatever you're using for the character is my vote.

This thread reminds me, near the end of the Dæmorphing series, Tobias transitions from male to feminine and changes their name to Toby. However, I kept all the examples referring to Tobias as male the same, because no-one else edits the page except when doing wick cleanups he keeps the same identity throughout the entirety of canon, so it's less confusing for people who haven't read the fanfics.^note It's similar to how the author refers to the Dust as the Dust in the guide and other meta-posts, even though it's never called that in Daemorphing. Of course, I'm just one (cis) person, so others may disagree.

However... my line of reasoning definitely doesn't apply to original works. And since The Umbrella Academy is an official adaptation, it doesn't require familiarity with the source material like a fanfic does.

Edited by NitroIndigo on Aug 11th 2022 at 9:55:02 AM

I mean... that's like saying that you wouldn't report on a fanfic's AU plot because it's non canon and could confuse people. All that matters when writing a page on a fic is the fic's own canon, same as anything else. So you shouldn't use masculine pronouns, that makes no sense.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Umbrella Academy is a special case because real life wrote the plot. Most mid-series transitions aren't like that; perhaps Glee should be the baseline instead.

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

Wait, I didn't word my point very well. I was saying in an over-complicated way that I kept references to a character's former gender in entries that describe events in the story pre-transition.

Good point.

Following up on the Character pronoun and identity discussion posts on this...

I think we have some useful precedents, and I'm personally leaning towards:

• If the character transitions within a work and that is not a plot spoiler, we use their latest name and pronouns everywhere except instalment-specific recap pages for episodic works, which use the pronouns and name the character used at that point in time.

• If the character transitions within a work and it is a major spoiler to acknowledge that they do so, references to their new name and pronouns should be spoiler tagged and, outside of tagging, we use the details they had earlier in the work. Declaring their Characters page spoilers off may be an option in some cases.

• If a character transitions in a sequel that's considered a separate work, with its own pages, we treat each independently. So if they transition in Book #3, Books #1-2 don't get Literature page rewrites to cover this (but shared Characters pages would)

Workable? Imperfect, but as others have previously stated on this thread, all of the options are imperfect.

Edited by Mrph1 on Jun 23rd 2023 at 3:37:06 PM

I'm not sure what would be considered a landmine to step on, but makes sense to me.

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

Seems reasonable for me.

Also, for pages that are spoiler off like moments pages, should we use their latest ones even if it happens later?

If they are already spoilers off then I think it's fine to adjust them accordingly.

TroperWall / WikiMagic Cleanup

I think Recap is an exception just because it has such limited scope within an episodic work.

For Moments, my immediate thought is that we use their latest name and pronouns, but then clarify it was before they changed if that's relevant to the example?

---

One other thing that's just occurred to me - although it might be stating the obvious.

We can trope Reality TV contestants as if they're fictional characters, due to the manipulative editing used to build a narrative for these unscripted shows. But that's just a handy conceit for troping purposes, as they are still real people.

If a contestant on a show like Big Brother or RuPaul's Drag Race transitions during/between seasons, we should treat that in the same way as any other case where the performer, not a fictional character, changes their name and pronouns. Which means we prioritise the person over the work, using their latest pronouns and avoiding deadnaming them. Even if that means going back to earlier instalments to make changes.

(i.e. it should be consistent with the way we treat creators like the Wachowskis or Eliot Page)

Drag Race has at least 10 contestants who've transitioned since initially competing, for example (more than I realised, to be honest), which is something we can address in the upcoming cleanup, if there's a consensus.

Edited by Mrph1 on Jun 23rd 2023 at 10:10:18 AM

I agree