Character pronoun and identity discussion

The Pixar wiki says she/her, along with the promotional materials. I watched Soul a while back—can't quite remember myself what the movie said.

I'll go with she/her for now, barring any arguments convincing me otherwise.

Dark Sun Gwyndolin's Glass Cannon entry has the only "they" on page while the rest uses "he". I take it's unabmiguous enough and should be changed to "he"?

Might just be a "they" in the casual sense and not as an actual pronoun. Like, I call people "they" all the time just because it's how I talk.

I'm not really sure how to "casually they" describe a someone in documentary way when their idendity is known, especially when the same example uses "he" prior four times.

I mean, maybe it's a difference in dialect or something but to me "they" has always been an acceptable pronoun not only when you don't know someone's gender (or if it's their preferred pronouns, obvi), but also just as a placeholder for He/She when you don't want to be repetitive. Again it might just be my personal speaking patterns but I find nothing all that confusing about it. This sentence, for example:

"I saw Bob at the market today. He's doing well. Got a new job, said they're getting a new house soon too"

Or:

"Bob walked across the room to grab the apple he left on the counter. On the way, he stopped by the mirror to admire the shirt their grandfather gave them a year ago."

Like... Either I've been grammatically incorrect my whole life or it's not a big deal lmao

Not going to argue further then unless someone else can weight in, because it's literally the first time I hear something like that is okay and I don't know any dictionary to reference.

Gwnydolin is pretty unambiguously male.

Not only does Yorksha in Dark Souls III call him a brother (and she is someone who was very close to him, and he cared deeply for), her ring (which did not make it into the game, to be fair, but survives in the game files) has the description "Ruined finger of Dark Sun Gwyndolin. The young crossbreed girl loved her brother, of whom all that remains is this ruined finger. Even so, her love for him will never falter".

Not that the page was really up for dispute, but wanted to have this here in case Gwyndolin came back up sometime.

Yeah, if it needs to be clarified at all I'm not claiming that this character uses "they/them"... it's really more of a debate on a grammar quirk that may or may not be correct. And it might actually warrant ATT or something since the discussion isn't about what pronouns to use but about if the use of "they" is grammatically correct.

Edited by WarJay77 on Sep 20th 2022 at 9:53:56 AM

I'm not familiar with Dark Souls lore, but from a previous twitter furore that sprang up when Noah Caldwell-Gervais used he/him pronouns (and admitted to not being able to beat the boss fight), I get the impression there's lore that suggests the character may be transfemme (which wouldn't preclude being gendered as a cis man by other characters that didn't know or accept this).

Perhaps someone who knows DS lore better can weigh in?

Edited by Bisected8 on Sep 21st 2022 at 4:54:28 PM

From what I understand it's the other way around.

Gwyndolin was AMAB, but gender-nonconforming. Because he was born with moon-related powers compared to his conventionally manly father and oldest brother, his abusive father forced him to present as female by imposing a magic ring on him that made him "sullen and brooding", and which players who do want to transition can equip in-game to change their gender animations. Perhaps Gwyndolin presents with she/her pronouns to the public out of duty, but it seems like he continues to identify with he/him pronouns in private.

Which honestly sounds like the kind of story Edit: FTM transmasculine folks can identify with.

Edited by AlleyOop on Sep 21st 2022 at 1:30:48 PM

transmasc folks are FtM (female to male). "MtF transmasc" is an oxymoron.

Edited by ChloeJessica on Sep 21st 2022 at 10:15:00 AM

Yeah, that was a typo.

Any resolved characters to add to the list? I think multiple characters have been discussed these past few days.

Edited by MacronNotes on Sep 21st 2022 at 4:24:51 AM

The thing about Gwyndolin is that the "forced to present as female" is mostly fan interpretation. Like most things in Dark Souls, it's left ambiguous what Gwyndolin's feelings on the matter were, which is why "transfemme Gwyndolin" has become such a popular reading of the text.

It's explicitly stated by an item in Dark Souls that he was raised as a daughter. I think it's at least heavily implied that being forced to present as female is part of that.

Edited by Karxrida on Sep 21st 2022 at 11:52:50 AM

I also want to reiterate that the reason the character was brought up at all (to my knowledge, assuming there was no previous discussion before this) was because of the word "they" being used in one example once, which again may or may not be improper grammar. But there's no actual conflict over pronouns.

~MacronNotes:

• Takatsuki from Wandering Son: He/him except for when discussing the end of the manga beneath spoiler tags. In that case, she/her. Discussion begins here

• Prized Isshin Blade from Genshin Impact: He/him. Discussion begins here

• Arval from Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes: They/them. Discussion begins here

Terry from Soul and Street Fighter Seth were also brought up, but I'm not sure if enough people chimed in for it to count as consensus.

Edited by Orbiting on Sep 22nd 2022 at 3:01:59 PM

Gwyndolin seems male from the above context, especially given the "brother" line. This wasn't really a serious debate over pronouns anyway; it was about whether to change a throwaway use of "they".

In context, the "they" wasn't even directly about Gwyndolin; it was about his projectiles.

It has occurred to me that I've misread and this whole conversation wasn't really necessary, and now I'm dying because I've made a deal from failing to recognize the subject in the sentence.

To be fair, I could've researched the example myself to see the context instead of going on about grammar stuff. We're both at fault. Let's just try and move on to actual issues now, ok?

Well, at least we have consensus now, even if the initial discussion stemmed from a misunderstanding. (And given the incident with Caldwell-Gervais, Gwyndolin's gender was at one point contentious, so it makes sense to list him alongside the other characters we've agreed on.)

I think we can still discuss and list him for the record because his deal is a bit unusual story-wise.

Fair enough, it seemed like something that could be controversial so this just covers us for the future.

I added Orbiting's list since I'm not sure if Macron is online right now (I'm only online because my sleep schedule is screwed up).

The ping wasn't done properly. The markup won't display properly but @ and / go right after ~. I did see the list but I was half asleep and got distracted by something else.

Anyways, the Gywndolin thing sounds like a misunderstanding so I guess we don't have to add him to the resolved list.

Edited by MacronNotes on Oct 6th 2022 at 3:55:19 PM