I discovered Vaarsuvius' gender!

[Stef]

Page #650 panel 11. Roy says "him"!

And in page #664 panel 1 Durkon says " 'im" meaning HIM.

Granted both times Roy and Durkon could have meant "him" in a (lazy) universal sense. Like addressing a group of people as "guys" even if there's a couple of women in the group.

But the geek in me had to post this in the forums.

[denthor]

Nice try!

Rich has said in the comments of the comic books that even the order is unsure of the gender.

Also in one of the main comics V has a habit of casting invisibility to infuriate a comrade of hers (Belkar)

[Keltest]

Per Rich's own statements, characters referring to V are doing so based on their own thoughts and should not be considered a definitive canon statement.

[littlebum2002]

I discovered what gender Roy and Durkon think Vaarsuvius is!

FTFYyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

[Themrys]

Per Rich's own statements, characters referring to V are doing so based on their own thoughts and should not be considered a definitive canon statement.

Gender is a social construct, and which one you are is decided by other people. Who if they can tell what sex you are, will force onto you all the cultural expectations they have of that sex they perceive you to be. That is gender.

Therefore, if most people perceive V as male and treat V as male, then V's gender is masculine. At least as long V travels with those people. V's gender might change in different circumstances. Apparently, Belkar wants to treat V the way he treats people of the female sex, so when interacting with Belkar, V's gender is feminine. (Arguably. Considering that Belkar does not usually get to force himself on V, one might consider that to not count)

V's sex, of course, is still unknown.

(And if you mean gender as in "gender identity", then V clearly does not have one, so we know that, too. If you consider gender to mean "grammatical gender" then we know that, too - in Elvish, V does not have one, in Common apparently he is male. Can't remember V being referred to as "she" anywhere. But I might be wrong.)

[Keltest]

Gender is a social construct, and which one you are is decided by other people. Who if they can tell what sex you are, will force onto you all the cultural expectations they have of that sex they perceive you to be. That is gender.

Therefore, if most people perceive V as male and treat V as male, then V's gender is masculine. At least as long V travels with those people. V's gender might change in different circumstances. Apparently, Belkar wants to treat V the way he treats people of the female sex, so when interacting with Belkar, V's gender is feminine. (Arguably. Considering that Belkar does not usually get to force himself on V, one might consider that to not count)

V's sex, of course, is still unknown.

(And if you mean gender as in "gender identity", then V clearly does not have one, so we know that, too. If you consider gender to mean "grammatical gender" then we know that, too - in Elvish, V does not have one, in Common apparently he is male. Can't remember V being referred to as "she" anywhere. But I might be wrong.)

I'm going to assume that this is a followup to my statement rather than a contradiction, since I didn't use the word gender at all, but I'm not entirely certain.

[Goblin_Priest]

V's a homosexual male, that's my prediction!

[Peelee]

V's a homosexual male, that's my prediction!

"Prediction" is a funny word here.

[DaggerPen]

Vaarsuvius is genderqueer.

Spoiler: Blood Runs in the Familiy commentary

Show

In this way, Tarquin is also symbolic of an older time when stories were likely to be more formulaic or cliched - and less diverse. It's no accident that he's a wealthy old straight white man losing his marbles over the fact that the tale he is experiencing doesn't focus on the other straight white man at the expense of the black man, the woman, the genderqueer person, and even the Latino guest star.

People have assumed various genders for V - you can see Belkar referring to vir as "she" here. Durkon further isn't sure, either.

I strongly suspect V was originally intended to be male, just because ve follows the male body shape, Giant at the time put clear boobs on every female stick figure including those with robes, and Giant did not initially design vir to have an ambiguous gender, but I'm not convinced that's canon - after long enough with the joke plus the Giant referring to vir as "genderqueer", my guess is that ve is, well, canonically genderqueer.

[Liquor Box]

I strongly suspect V was originally intended to be male, just because ve follows the male body shape, Giant at the time put clear boobs on every female stick figure including those with robes, and Giant did not initially design vir to have an ambiguous gender, but I'm not convinced that's canon - after long enough with the joke plus the Giant referring to vir as "genderqueer", my guess is that ve is, well, canonically genderqueer.

I think that the Giant has clarified that he originally intended V to be a particular gender/sex, and had not even realised that the gender was ambiguous, but then when he was discussing his early comics with his friends he found out that they had different opinions as to what V's gender/sex was, so he decided to make it part of the theme.

If I remember rightly, the Giant said that when he felt that general opinion was swaying toward V being a particular gender/sex (because of unintentionial clues) he would put a clue suggesting the opposite. So at one stage Roy called V "V-man" or similar, so Rich followed that with the scene wit V and Hayley in room together comparing their 'globes'. I'm a little bit more fuzzy on this though.

It was all laid out in the previous "what gender is varsuvius?" thread, with links.

[littlebum2002]

Therefore, if most people perceive V as male and treat V as male, then V's gender is masculine.

Wow, that is not even slightly true. One of my best friends is female and constantly gets called "he" by strangers. I'll tell her that this apparently means she's a male and find out how well she takes the news.

[ironkid]

This thread promises to go to very dangerous places sooner than later. I've always perceived V to be female, just for the fact that in early strips she and Harley shared a room and the rest of the Order another. But rich has made it clear that people reffer to him/her as they perceive her/him.


Like I've said, this thread seems to be sailing to very dangerous waters.

[DemonRoach]

That which will never die: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...gender-spolier

[Centaur]

Both Vaarsuvius and Inkyrius are clearly male.

Because V’s Linear Guild counterpart was Pompey and that is a reference to the Vesuvius volcano and Pompei city and a volcano is obviously masculine.

Also, -us is a Latin ending of second declension nouns, which are mostly masculine. Yes, Latin grammar is relevant because of the above reference.

[Yuki Akuma]

V's name is Elven, not Latin. Any similarity with Latin is purely a coincidence.

[Shades of Gray]

Both Vaarsuvius and Inkyrius are clearly male.

Because V’s Linear Guild counterpart was Pompey and that is a reference to the Vesuvius volcano and Pompei city and a volcano is obviously masculine.

Also, -us is a Latin ending of second declension nouns, which are mostly masculine. Yes, Latin grammar is relevant because of the above reference.

Fourth declension nouns also can have -us endings, and are sometimes (but infrequently) female (e.g. manus) or neuter (e.g. genus).

[137beth]

Page #650 panel 11. Roy says "him"!

And in page #664 panel 1 Durkon says " 'im" meaning HIM.

Granted both times Roy and Durkon could have meant "him" in a (lazy) universal sense. Like addressing a group of people as "guys" even if there's a couple of women in the group.

But the geek in me had to post this in the forums.

I--what? I'm pretty sure people have periodically used incorrect pronouns to refer to me at various times. It's not an indication of my gender.

Fourth declension nouns also can have -us endings, and are sometimes (but infrequently) female (e.g. manus) or neuter (e.g. genus).

If V is 4th declension, then that is proof that OOTS has converted to the Fourth Edition Dimension!

[SavageWombat]

Would you say that V's preferred pronouns are "don't care"?

[Shades of Gray]

Would you say that V's preferred pronouns are "don't care"?

V might not take too much stock in pronouns, as perhaps OOTS elvish doesn't use them or has entirely gender-neutral versions.

[Vinyadan]

Beside the social sciences stuff which I won't talk about...

#1: V has also been referred to as a chick by Tsukiko when he was fighting Xykon.
#2: Haley is supposed to be the only one to know his gender, and she's never used a pronoun for him. (I don't know if it's because of fan theories, they were roommates and she knew V was married, so she'd been at least the most likely to know).
#3: I personally use "he" because I would never had noticed the ambiguity if it hadn't been pointed at.
#4: I think V was designed as a male, because he lacks elements characterizing females in the early strips (especially mouth-eye-chin proportion, a detail that was later made ambiguous). I also remember the Giant saying that he smurfetted Haley, which to me implies that V was a male, but I don't have a source and so that's just my memory.
#5: Genderqueer is in no way a clear definition, and will have a different meaning according to which web page you open. It can also be a collective definition arching over a collection of different meanings. Until the author clarifies, we must accept that the label can have different meanings.
#6: Second declension names in -us simply aren't neutral; as already said, they can be feminine. See many tree names, with e.g. malus being the apple tree (feminine), and populus (f) being the poplar tree, while populus (m) is the people. It's just adjectives that have such limitations. Concerning the third declension, I thought that no feminine had an -us nominative, then someone noticed "Venus".

If you consider gender to mean "grammatical gender" then we know that, too - in Elvish, V does not have one, in Common apparently he is male.

How do we know that there is no gender in Elvish?


EDIT: Latin has a few II decl. neutral names in -us: virus, vulgus, pelagus.

[martianmister]

He's a female.

[GrayGriffin]

Both Vaarsuvius and Inkyrius are clearly male.

Because V’s Linear Guild counterpart was Pompey and that is a reference to the Vesuvius volcano and Pompei city and a volcano is obviously masculine.

Also, -us is a Latin ending of second declension nouns, which are mostly masculine. Yes, Latin grammar is relevant because of the above reference.

Hilgya was female. By that logic, Durkon is also female.

[littlebum2002]

Rich did once say (not sure where, it's not in the Index so I'm assuming it's in the commentary for a book) that he "Smurfette-d" Haley. This is pretty common terminology for "made her the only female member of a group". So he clearly originally intended for V to be male. However, as was pointed out before, when he discovered that this was not clear among the readers, he thought it would be funnier to make V agender, and added jokes accordingly.

[Vinyadan]

Rich did once say (not sure where, it's not in the Index so I'm assuming it's in the commentary for a book) that he "Smurfette-d" Haley. This is pretty common terminology for "made her the only female member of a group". So he clearly originally intended for V to be male. However, as was pointed out before, when he discovered that this was not clear among the readers, he thought it would be funnier to make V agender, and added jokes accordingly.

Found it:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...6#post15058416

[2D8HP]

He's a female.

She's a male.

[DeliaP]

I--what? I'm pretty sure people have periodically used incorrect pronouns to refer to me at various times. It's not an indication of my gender.

Yep, I too have been taken for either of the binary genders from time to time. That doesn't affect what my gender actually is. At most, it might be described something to do with how I present. (Although I don't think that at all - I think I pretty clearly present as the gender I identify with.)

Beside the social sciences stuff which I won't talk about...
<snip>
#2: Haley is supposed to be the only one to know his gender, and she's never used a pronoun for him. (I don't know if it's because of fan theories, they were roommates and she knew V was married, so she'd been at least the most likely to know).
<snip>
#5: Genderqueer is in no way a clear definition, and will have a different meaning according to which web page you open. It can also be a collective definition arching over a collection of different meanings. Until the author clarifies, we must accept that the label can have different meanings.
<snip>

Haley might know V's biological/anatomical sex, but that's not the same thing as knowing V's gender. Actually, at this point we all know V's gender:

Vaarsuvius is genderqueer.

<snip>after long enough with the joke plus the Giant referring to vir as "genderqueer", my guess is that ve is, well, canonically genderqueer.

When, early in the days of the strip, the Giant decided that V's gender would be ambiguous, the ideas of non-binary, genderqueer and genderfluid identities were less well known than they are now. So the running gag and associated fan discussion about V's gender appeared in that context.

The emerging understanding of alternatives to the traditional cisgender and transgender description has changed that context. It may be true that, as newly emerging concepts some like non-binary and genderfluid might seem clearer (rejects identification as either male or female; and changes how they identify over time), and some like genderqueer might seem less so (when I first encountered it, I understood it to mean a collective term to refer to any gender identity that rejected a fixed identification of male or female). But the Giant clearly took this on board and came to the rather obvious conclusion that V would identify with one of them.

Vaarsuvius has clearly at times indicated that V doesn't regard their anatomical sex as important, and has displayed no desire to identify as a particular binary gender, and avoids gendered words when referring to themselves (and to Inkyrius). Under my understanding, I'd say that counts as genderqueer. But it's not up to me to decide: I don't get to tell other people what their gender is. The Giant has effectively stated that V is genderqueer. That should settle it.

Now, I'm cisgender, and generally think I present as the gender I identify with. But I recognise that my appearance does run counter to some cultural norms associated with my gender, and as a result, people who don't know me sometimes get my gender wrong. That doesn't bother me (it largely makes me laugh). However, if someone who does know my gender continues to refer to me as being of the other gender, then they're likely just plain being rude and insulting.

V is genderqueer. Continuing to try to identify V as being some other gender, or to enquire about V's anatomical status, after V's gender has, in fact, been settled, is kind of being rude and insulting about the genderqueer identity (as it implicitly denies the validity of V being genderqueer).

TL;DR: V is genderqueer. 'nuff said.

[Ruck]

Both Vaarsuvius and Inkyrius are clearly male.

Because V’s Linear Guild counterpart was Pompey and that is a reference to the Vesuvius volcano and Pompei city and a volcano is obviously masculine.

Also, -us is a Latin ending of second declension nouns, which are mostly masculine. Yes, Latin grammar is relevant because of the above reference.

"A volcano is obviously masculine"? Geological formations have obvious gender now?

It's stated in-strip that Pompey's clear gender identification is something that makes him an opposite of Vaarsuvius.

And as others have pointed out, Elvish isn't Latin.

I dunno, I think the Giant has pretty clearly answered this question, so I don't get the posts that try to come up with a conflicting opinion based on scant evidence (which can be contradicted by other evidence).

[Peelee]

"A volcano is obviously masculine"? Geological formations have obvious gender now?

You didn't know? Volcanoes are obviously masculine, cliffs are obviously feminine, and glaciers are obviously my ex, with her cold, cold heart.

[Fey]

[Kish]

Latin doesn't have the double-a form or the ky form. Therefore, neither Vaarsuvius nor Inkyrius has, or could possibly have, a Latin name.

But man (so to speak), the people who think Vaarsuvius is male are way more often arrogantly dogmatic about it than the people who think Vaarsuvius is female.