Deciding on Snapdragon's Pronouns

It's not on the level of the AnimatedFilm/ namespace crowner. That thing was ping-ponging back and forth for weeks before it eventually got called.

True, though there were several times during that one that we could've called it had anyone been paying attention I think we all sort of stopped watching it for a while.

This one, we're all invested in.

Edited by WarJay77 on Aug 2nd 2022 at 1:09:05 PM

See, the thing that sets this apart from the Brave Little Toaster case is that it's not just a case of the author contradicting something that was said in the work. From everything I've been able to gather, this character's character arc is about discovering her gender identity, and it isn't exactly subtle about it, either. With that context, the creator's confirmation isn't contradicting the text of the work, but rather reinforcing it.

But either way, they/them looks to be in the lead now. While I still think she/her is the best option in this case, they/them is an acceptable compromise all things considered.

Edited by Mahoxy on Aug 3rd 2022 at 4:08:02 AM

I feel like this situation is more analogous to Yamato than Toaster, because Yamato both a) has a gender-dependent story arc, and b) isn't a household appliance.

(And because someone needs to bring it up, Yamato and Toaster are far from our only previous pronoun debates. Stop!! Hibari-kun! also had one, but that was a rare instance of She's a Man in Japan from a work not released in English, which is completely non-applicable to Snap.)

The main problem I have with putting too much stock in Word of God over the text of the work is that creators can and have changed their minds about things. What if the writer decides years later "actually Snapdragon figures out they're comfortable with being assigned male but doesn't want to conform to traditional gender roles and indulges in feminine things." We would have to change the pronouns back again based on the results of the crowner.

I think the Toaster precedent does apply here: text of the work trumps Word of God. While Snapdragon is questioning, it sounds like they do not make any definite steps towards transitioning and end the work still considered male.

Edited by Karxrida on Aug 3rd 2022 at 11:29:03 AM

While that's true, Raye Rodriguez himself is trans, and judging by how the show ended it's clear that the intent was for Snap to undergo a transition in a future season, cut short by bad ratings, but that's where the arc was headed as proven by the tweet. I'd agree if the show was intended to only be a season long, as the tweets would be making a statement on something long after the fact JKR style, but it obviously wasn't.

Considering the circumstances I can say that such a 180 isn't technically impossible, but is extremely unlikely.

and if it did happen, we could revisit the consensus with the new information. we're not inscribing things in stone here. it's always up for discussion if there's a good reason to bring it back up.

As a general rule we trope what IS in the work, not what we want to be in the work, or what we hope will be in the work, or what the author intended to put there but didn't.

• Word of God may say that Evil MacEvilson is a Complete Monster, but if the actual work shows him as a Tragic Villain with understandable motives, who respects his enemies and takes good care of his underlings, then we trope that. If in a sequel the character becomes an unrepentant Complete Monster, then we trope it accordingly
• Word of God may claim that Alice is a badass Action Girl, but if the actual work shows her losing every single battle she participates in and having to be saved by her boyfriend every time, then we trope her as a Faux Action Girl, If in a sequel she decides to Take a Level in Badass and becomes a genuine Action Girl, we trope it then. Same if a sequel reveals that “Alice” kept losing because she is a fake who was impersonating the real Alice
• Charlie may seem like he is headed for a Face–Heel Turn, but if that never happens in the work - we don't trope it as if it is a fact. Instead we wait for a future work where the Face–Heel Turn actually happens

Same here: We should trope what is actually in the work. In the future we might get a sequel or a spin off that provides additional info, and when that happens we will trope the new info then. Besides, Snapdragon could officially transition into a woman, but decide to not follow traditional gender norms and stereotypes, and stick with "he/him" instead of changing to "they/them" or "she/her". Yes, this is speculation - but so is assuming that Snapdragon will use "she/her" after transitioning.

I understand that trans representation in media is currently... very limited, to put it nicely... but wanting more trans representation is hardly a good reason to ignore the rules of TV Tropes.

I mean, the She/Her part is no longer speculation since the creator used those exact pronouns to talk about Snap in the tweet about their gender identity.

The other examples you bring up are all cases with very specific criteria where the author contradicts what the work says. Technically, nothing is contradicted here, the work just didn't get to the part where Snap transitions, but because that's what their arc was about Raye was just confirming things.

Look, I totally get the desire to stick to the official product's canon and have a Death of the Author stance when it comes to external sources, but it's not like we don't use WOG to fill in the gaps in other scenarios. The show didn't confirm how Snap identified, but it did imply there was dysphoria and have a set up to lead into a transition; it just didn't have time to continue that subplot. I think there's a difference between this scenario and the other cases you brought up for this reason. You may not agree with that — fine. But that's why we're discussing this.

Yes it is still speculation because a random tweet is not the work.

no it's not, there's a difference between word of god and completely speculative additions. if those tweets didn't exist and someone had tried to change Snap's pronouns just because she's implicitly trans-coded, the discussion never would have reached this point.

The tweets are being used as the excuse, but it's still not a valid reason for our purposes.

Is Dumbledore straight, then? Those tweets came after the series was finished with no time to elaborate on the implications in the books; is it speculative to say that he's gay just because the info came from a tweet? (And yes, I'm aware of the irony of bringing up a Rowling tweet situation on a discussion about whether or not we should consider a character trans... but it's the best example I can think of)

I can see why people would think the Snapdragon issue is speculation, but there's already precedent elsewhere for us to accept WOG as canon when it doesn't contradict the work. This isn't necessarily a contradiction since Snap's subplot is about their gender identity and their very likely case of gender dysphoria. Had that plot not happened, I'd be more inclined to say that the tweets shouldn't be canon since nothing in the work would suggest otherwise, but since it did, the tweets were just confirming the direction Snap's plot was intended to go in.

Like, I can accept that there's ambiguity here. I just don't want people to boil it down to a black and white "canon vs speculation" issue since it's a case of the creator confirming something the work didn't have the opportunity to explore, not one of the creator just tweeting out random facts with no basis.

Edited by WarJay77 on Aug 3rd 2022 at 5:31:46 AM

Word of Gay is Trivia, which is to say, it's based on something not in the work. (Regardless, any claim that Dumbledore was not gay would be lacking a citation, because DD's sexuality was never stated in the books.)

And Snap's gender isn't stated, either. What we do know is that the plot was very heavily implying they'd transition, and that the use of they/them and she/her pronouns in the tweets makes it clear what sort of pronouns would be used after the transition.

Dumbledore's sexuality was implied at certain points, just like Snap's gender identity was. Right now, the only thing left ambiguous is whether or not the tweets should be taken as canon, not what pronouns we'd use if they are.

and the reason Dumbledore's Word of Gay isn't troped is because there's no point at which it's relevant to the plot of the books or to his character arc (him being in love with Grindelwald adds a layer of meaning to his actions at the time but is not in itself necessary to understanding them). that also isn't the case here.

I checked out episode 11 of High Guardian Spice.

A student named Cal mocks Snapdragon for having dressed as a mermaid in a previous episode; Snapdragon beats him up. Professor Caraway has a talk with Snapdragon. Snap flashes back to having been bullied in childhood and pushed to be strong. Caraway says:

It cuts away, then back a couple minutes later with this scene (video clip). Transcript:

It cuts away from them, then back a couple minutes later.

Uh... yeaaahhh, there is nothing "ambiguous" about this. She/her it is.

The thing that makes it unclear is that Carroway points out that transitioning isn't necessarily the right choice for Snap, and the fact that nothing is said about it afterward. It's a strong implication for sure, it's just that the work itself never actually confirmed if Snap does end up deciding to transition, which means it's technically ambiguous by virtue of being left unanswered by the work itself; it's possible to interpret this as Snap just being effeminate or not deciding to transition if you don't read the tweets, hence why someone had to ask in the first place.

Edited by WarJay77 on Aug 3rd 2022 at 9:04:55 AM

Wait, wait, can we go back to the part where Word of God has been used in pages and is treated as legitimate? Could you give a specific example? Because if there are specific examples of word of god being acceptable for pages, then I can look through those and see exactly how word of god interacts with the pages.

Because before now I thought word of god was generally not supposed to interact with the pages beyond being trivia.

Well... The Dumbledore case, for instance. Here's a deleted example from YMMV.Fantastic Beasts The Crimes Of Grindelwald (cut for being part of a cleanup effort for UI, not for involving WOG)

"Grindelwald's characterization has caused many fans to interpret him as "wizard Hitler," which becomes very awkward when taking into account the fact that he's gay and is advocating for the liberation of a minority group that has been forced to live in secrecy. It's also been pointed out that the depiction of Grindelwald's revolutionary approach to (what he sees as) social progress as evil, versus the depiction of Dumbledore's more gradual, status-quo-supportive approach as good, plays into the unfortunate idea that radical, outspoken queer people are bad while queer people who keep quiet and assimilate are good."

AFAIK, the movies don't make it clear that Grindlewald and Dumbledore are gay, much like the books didn't. You know what did? JK's tweet. And yet here it is being treated as canon because JK was clarifying something she implied in the work... same with the Snapdragon thing.

And this is just one example. I'm sure there are others. Word of God might be trivia but that doesn't mean we abide by a strict Death of the Author rule here. There's really no set in stone policy; what matters more is what people agree to be canon. As explained before, the precedent set by the other two pronoun cases is that if WOG contradicts the work with no basis for doing so we ignore it, but that doesn't mean we can't listen to WOG when it abides by the work.

Edited by WarJay77 on Aug 3rd 2022 at 11:47:10 AM

Is it mentioned on any non-Audience Reaction tropes though? I did a search on his character page and didn't find anything about it, and Audience Reactions are a different beast from the rest of the wiki.

They're still held up to canon, though. Like, that example wouldn't have lasted as long as it did if people didn't consider their sexualities canon. Someone would've said something by now. And again, this is just a random example off the top of my head. (Oh, and if you dig into the history of Characters.Harry Potter Albus Dumbledore you'll find things like Badass Gay, cut again because of TRS and not the canonicity issue... and there's still tropes now that reference him loving Grindelwald...)

Natsuki from Doki Doki Literature Club! contains another example because while the game makes it seem like she's younger, Dan Salvato clarified that all the girls are 18... so lo and behold examples from her folder like Kid-Appeal Character and Older Than They Look make reference to this otherwise unstated fact.

The only difference here is that it's a pronoun and not just a factoid, so it shows up more often, but like... eh?

Edited by WarJay77 on Aug 3rd 2022 at 12:29:40 PM

From the tweets quoted earlier, it appears that even Word of God explicitly states that the character has not changed pronouns as of the story's "present."

For me, that is the sticking point. Whether or not we should accept Word of God as canon (where it does not contradict actual in-work canon) is debatable regardless, but this wouldn't just be accepting Word of God, it would be troping the "future" of the story. Based on the tweet, it sounds like Snap will in the future identify as a trans woman, using (presumably) they/them or she/her pronouns. But as of the point the canon story has reached, that has explicitly not happened yet.

I (as a nonbinary person who is not out in offline space, since that seems to matter to other tropers) am strongly in favor of using the pronouns the character is using as of the present. If the character's preference for a different pronoun were revealed to the audience in the course of the work (e.g., internal monologue), then absolutely I'd see a justification for us as the audience to use those pronouns even if the character wasn't out to other characters. But in this case, it sounds like the character has not indicated (and per Word of God has not yet decided) that they want to switch.

So Word of God says there's no in-universe decision in the present of the show?

Okay that makes things even weirder, because the question is, do we retroactively trope the show's hypothetical-almost-certain-if-it-were-to-have-a-future future, or do we trope the present which we know and the creator seems to be saying that the he/him pronouns are correct in the specific context of the first season.