V's gender - released by the giant himself?

First I just want to point out that I've only been reading Oots about a year or two. I joined the kickstarter and got all the books and am re-reading through everything. I'm not saying we could gather from in character mentions the gender/sex (I understand that can be a debate of it's own) of V - but I think we may know from the creators own words...

Now, in Book 2 "No Cure for the Paladin Blues" there is a paragraph (before comic 174a) where Rich is writing about "The Lizard Who Roared". Now I'm not sure if this has been brought up before (there are a lot of threads and a lot of posts) so please forgive me if this has been brought up before. The second and third paragraphs refer (and I'm only using a small bit) to V. "When he's first transformed, he spells out three spells that he can still cast." "...he finds uses for all three..."

Thoughts/considerations? If this has been brought up before, please let me and everyone else who may be looking into this know.

It's been brought up many, many times before. Rich himself said that he used "he" simply because it was easier than using he/she all the time*. He said it doesn't mean anything.

*And I think also because in the English language, "he" is technically supposed to be the appropriate pronoun to use when the gender of a person is unknown.

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Originally Posted by Lira

*And I think also because in the English language, "he" is technically supposed to be the appropriate pronoun to use when the gender of a person is unknown.

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He can be used as a Gender Neutral pronoun yes though it's fallen out of fashion because it's not "PC".

I personally use a singular they in such a role, which has its own history.
That being said, I think of V as male and homosexual.
Though a certain guest strip (likely not canon) seems to suggest they are some kind of hermaphrodite.

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Originally Posted by Tebryn

He can be used as a Gender Neutral pronoun yes though it's fallen out of fashion because it's not "PC".

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And because it's simply a terrible way of referring to a person when you don't know their gender. When someone says "he" we all think "male" not "male or someone whose gender is unknown".

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Originally Posted by Lira

And because it's simply a terrible way of referring to a person when you don't know their gender. When someone says "he" we all think "male" not "male or someone whose gender is unknown".

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Well, not to get into a semantic argument here but I guess I am going to. That's obviously untrue considering that it was used as a Gender Neutral Pronoun up until recently. So at least until recent times, people were able to parse it out as "He" can mean "A male or a gender unknown". It wouldn't have been the popular term if people thought of it as one but not the other. It has only been in recent history that we've started to distinguish that He is meant as exclusively a Male. But it's still in use. I still use He to be Gender Neutral and Male Gender. I understand when you say "All" you don't actually mean every English Speaker in existence but it's not like it's a minority usage even today. Read a teaching manual printed after the 1980's and He is still used to denote the general Person regardless of gender.

In fact. We've got an example of someone who uses He to refer to a person as gender neutral. The Giant. In the example above.

The Swedes started using hen as a gender neutral pronoun.
Giant could always adopt that.

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Originally Posted by Xelbiuj

The Swedes started using hen as a gender neutral pronoun.
Giant could always adopt that.

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Sounds a like a chicken way to avoid the issue though.

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Originally Posted by The Succubus

Sounds a like a chicken way to avoid the issue though.

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He is not avoiding the issue out of shyness, but because wants to let it stay ambiguous. For fun - and also because "gender" should not always define who we are. I find Vaarsuvius makes case makes that very clear.
Male? Female? Homo-, hetero-, bi-sexual? Asexual? Who cares? It is not a defining quality of the character (any character). I find that to be a very good thing.

I do want to thank everyone for their replies, and especially letting me know that it had previously been addressed by Rich himself and what was said.

The other thing, and why this has generally begun such a huge debate, (as I read, there were four other threads - the last closed because it reached over 50 pages) is because we as gamers tend to want to know something that is hidden from us. It's in our blood as "born adventurers" to seek and find the unknown. V's gender is sort of like the MITD except it's more openly mocked that we, the readers, have no guarantee to ever find out. Good job Rich! :biggrin:

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Originally Posted by Winter

He is not avoiding the issue out of shyness, but because wants to let it stay ambiguous. For fun - and also because "gender" should not always define who we are. I find Vaarsuvius makes case makes that very clear.
Male? Female? Homo-, hetero-, bi-sexual? Asexual? Who cares? It is not a defining quality of the character (any character). I find that to be a very good thing.

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I agree with this.
I like the theory that hes in a homosexual relationship and they had to adopt, hence their children's skin tones.
In real life, most people would let this define them or other people would do it for them, not with V though.

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Originally Posted by Winter

He is not avoiding the issue out of shyness, but because wants to let it stay ambiguous. For fun - and also because "gender" should not always define who we are. I find Vaarsuvius makes case makes that very clear.
Male? Female? Homo-, hetero-, bi-sexual? Asexual? Who cares? It is not a defining quality of the character (any character). I find that to be a very good thing.

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A hen is a female chicken. I do believe that the comment by Succubus was a pun or a play on words.