Character pronoun and identity discussion

My only experience with the show is a review praising it as good (ish, from a science fictiony alien lens) intersex representation, but from that she/her on non-recap pages seems appropriate.

This topic is reminding me of Quina Quen in Final Fantasy 9 who is referred to by other characters as s/he, when they are genderless and by today's standards should really use the they/them pronouns

Edited by Ultimatum on Aug 17th 2022 at 2:49:22 PM

We follow what the work uses with rare exceptions. Nothing about Quina would warrant such an exception as we won't override the work's choice of gender-neutral pronoun with our own.

Right,but it's out dated terminology,plus its pretty awkward way to refer to a character like that when we perfectlu serviceable pronouns available,if they do a remake its definate something they'll update

Even in 2000, the singular they was accepted when referring to an individual of unknown gender by nearly everyone except for the occasional stodgy prescriptivist. "S/he" was already outdated.

The options of "they" and "it" were known to and available to the translators, both of which sound far less awkward in a sentence than "s/he." However, the translators chose to use "s/he" anyway and we should abide by that.

I don't agree frankly,s/he is not the correct way to refer to someone

If that's what the work does, then it is the correct way to refer to that character.

I mean, I'd agree that it's the wrong way to refer to a real life person, but a character who's pronouns are explicitly stated to be s/he then we need to put our discomfort aside. We don't prescribe here, we just describe; we don't say how we think a character should be referred to, we just describe who they are according to the work.

It's not the ideal, of course, but it's not our job to make media less offensive.

But it is within how the game does it. Till a remake happens, that's more accurate to the game.

It's outdated, but so is the game. They might not even be what the character would use, anyway. I have known someone who goes by he or she sometimes. It can actually depend the person, not just the "more proper way to say it nowadays".

So I'm with Rallybot here. Stick with the game's own version in this case.

I would agree to defaulting to what the work uses, but update away if a remake or new translation changes it. We don't trope prescriptively, but descriptively.

One example of the latter is Desire on Characters.The Sandman The Endless, who was originally written with "it" (the source is from the late 80s). The 2020 audio play has since gone with "they/them" and the new show has followed suit. So in that case I think going with they/them in the character sheet is fine.

Wow I got very 'd

Edited by Synchronicity on Aug 17th 2022 at 4:21:40 AM

@Quina: Has Quina even appeared in Final Fantasy spin-offs? I remember how when Fire Emblem Heroes added Kyza and Limstella, both of their pronouns were updated to reflect how FEH refer to the two. If any later games has used different pronouns for Quina, then they can be considered. If not, s/he is probably the best option even if it isn't the preferred one.

Quina is (was?) in Final Fantasy Record Keeper, if that helps. (Given the nature of the game, it probably doesn't.)

i found this page describing where Quina has appeared in other works, which led me to this, which uses they/them pronouns and seems to quote text directly from Final Fantasy Record Keeper. can anyone check to see whether Record Keeper actually uses they/them? that would change things.

The text in the page seems to avoid using any pronouns when specifically talking about Quina. The rest of the text seems to be standard skill description talk.

Edited by TPPR10 on Aug 17th 2022 at 1:31:20 PM

That FFRK page is a dud. Looking at the rest of the site, no personal pronouns are ever used for ability descriptions ("the user" is often redundantly used in place of a pronoun, with the generic "they" being used on occasion.)

i think i misread it anyway - "themselves" refers to a group, not to Quina.

Could we actually get the resolutions for characters like Yamato and Snapdragon included in that top banner as well? Just because if this is intended to be a catch-all thread it'd help to be clear that we're not relitigating those just because they're not "officially" marked as Resolved.

EDIT: Saw the update

Edited by Watchtower on Aug 21st 2022 at 10:08:08 AM

That's done.

Did that too.

Edited by MacronNotes on Aug 21st 2022 at 10:23:36 AM

Could we put the resolved in a folder ala what the CM and NB thread do with the never again list. So its not taking up too much space?

Would this be an apt place to discuss how to write examples for characters that go by multiple pronouns? It doesn't come up too often, but there's quite a few ATT threads about the topic.

I believe the last few times it's been discussed we've had a soft rule of "keep it consistent through a single example", but I think it'd be good to actually nail down an official consensus.

How often do we seen an example switch pronouns in the middle?

honestly, i would rather handle that on a case by case basis. characters with non-standard gender expression are becoming more common in media and, as in real life, trying to paint them all with a single brush is inevitably going to end up erasing some of their identities.

I think there's a consensus ATM to make sure a given pages is consistent with the pronouns it uses, if someone uses more than one (just for readability).

But as has been said, that might not be a one-size-fits-all policy.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/article_history.php?article=Characters.GuiltyGearXX#edit34175748

Re:Bridget

Someone submitted this trope entry for She's a Man in Japan; I recall that we concluded Japanese pronouns we're not a definitive gender signifier due to their fluid nature. The post also contradicts itself by adding "Both the original Japanese and English localized versions of -STRIVE- have Bridget's story conclude with the character choosing to be referred to as female", which is a bizarre way to preface a trope about a character's gender.