Gender and Sexuality Representation in OOTS

[oppyu]

Disclaimer: This is purely observational. No judgment or statement here.

Someone who did more work than me and understands how to use the table function... and knew that there was a table function on this board.

Order of the Stick

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Roy Greenhilt: Male, straight, protagonist, leader, love interest of Celia. (459)
Elan: Male, straight, protagonist, love interest of Haley Starshine, Therkla. (432)
Haley Starshine: Female, straight*, protagonist, second-in-command/leader, love interest of Elan. (423)
Belkar Bitterleaf: Male, straight, protagonist. (384)
Vaarsuvius: Androgynous, protagonist, love interest of Inkyrius. (345)
Durkon Thundershield: Male, straight, protagonist, love interest of Hilgya Firehelm, killed. (328)

Team Evil

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Xykon: Male, straight, major antagonist, leader. (94)
Redcloak: Male, straight, major antagonist, second-in-command/leader. (94)
MitD: Male, major character. (66)
Tsukiko: Female, straight (necrophiliac), supporting antagonist, killed. (28)
Jirix: Male, supporting antagonist, leader. (21)
Hobgoblin General: Male, minor antagonist, killed. (5)

Linear Guild

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Nale: Male, straight*, major antagonist, leader, love interest of Sabine. (100)
Sabine: Female, bisexual, major antagonist, second-in-command, love interest of Nale. (72)
thog: Male, major antagonist, killed. (67)
Zz'dtri: Male, supporting antagonist. (43)
Yukyuk: Male, supporting antagonist, killed. (14)
Pompey: Male, straight, supporting antagonist. (11)
Leeky Windstaff: Male, supporting antagonist. (11)
Yokyok: Male, supporting antagonist, killed. (5)
Yikyik: Male, supporting antagonist, killed. (17)
Hilgya Firehelm: Female, straight, supporting antagonist, love interest of Durkon Thundershield. (18)

Azure City

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Shojo: Male, major ally, leader, killed. (35)
Hinjo: Male, major ally, leader. (76)
O-Chul: Male, major ally. (42)
Lien: Female, straight, supporting ally. (38)
Daigo Da-: Male, straight, supporting ally, love interest of Kazumi Kato. (36)
Kazumi Kato: Female, straight, supporting ally, love interest of Daigo Da-. (26)
Miko Miyazaki: Female, straight, major ally/antagonist, killed. (68)
Daimyo Kubota: Male, supporting antagonist, leader, killed. (13)
Therkla: Female, straight, supporting ally/antagonist, love interest of Elan, killed. (20)
General Chang: Male, minor ally, killed. (8)
Sangwaan: Female, minor ally, killed. (6)
Grand Larcenist: Male, minor character, killed. (7)

Team Tarquin

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Tarquin: Male, straight, major antagonist, leader. (66)
Malack: Male, major antagonist, second-in-command. (48)
Empress of Blood: Female, minor antagonist, patsy. (17)
Kilkil: Male , minor antagonist, lackey. (24)

Greysky City

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Bozzok: Male, supporting antagonist, leader. (12)
Hank: Male, supporting antagonist, second-in-command. (9)
Crystal: Female, supporting antagonist, killed. (13)
Jenny: Female, straight, minor antagonist. (6)

Azure City Resistance

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Ho Thanh: Male, supporting ally, leader, killed. (23)
Niu: Female, supporting ally. (18)
Eye-patched leader: Female, minor supporting ally, killed. (7)
Knot-topped leader: Male, minor supporting ally, killed. (6)
Team Peregrine Leader: Androgynous, minor supporting ally, leader, killed. (7)
Team Peregrine Lieutenant: Androgynous, minor supporting ally, second-in-command, killed. (6)

Other

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Celia: Female, straight, supporting ally, love interest of Roy Greenhilt. (71)
Qarr: Male , supporting antagonist. (42)
The IFCC: Males, major antagonists, leaders. (13)
The Oracle: Male, minor character. (10)
Gannji: Male, supporting character, leader. (25)
Enor: Male, supporting character. (23)
Eugene Greenhilt: Male, straight, supporting character, killed. (28)
Julia Greenhilt: Female, supporting character. (16)
Sara Greenhilt: Female, straight, supporting character. (7)
Horace Greenhilt: Male, straight, supporting character. (5)
Ian Starshine: Male, straight, supporting character. (22)
Inkyrius: Androgynous, minor character, love interest of Vaarsuvius. (8)
Mr. Jones: Male, minor character. (17)
Mr. Phil Rodriguez: Male, minor character. (14)
Ancient Black Dragon: Female, straight, supporting antagonist, killed. (11)
Shadowdancer: Male, minor antagonist. (11)
'Kaboom' Redaxe: Male, straight, minor antagonist. (10)
Amun-Zora: Female, straight, minor character. (8)
Chief: Male, minor ally, leader, killed. (10)
Rookie Cop: Male, minor ally, leader. (9)
Greysky Priest: Male, minor ally. (6)
Samantha: Female, straight, minor antagonist, leader, killed. (10)
Samantha's Dad: Male, minor antagonist, second-in-command, killed. (11)

Order of the Scribble

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Soon Kim: Male, straight, minor character, leader. (9)
Lirian: Female, straight, minor character, second-in-command, love interest of Dorukan, killed. (4)
Dorukan: Male, straight, minor character, love interest of Lirian, killed. (4)
Serini: Female, minor character. (3)
Girard Draketooth: Male, minor character. (12)
Kraagor: Male, minor character, killed. (2)

*canonically shown as being heteroflexible or homoflexible, or otherwise interested in broadening their sexual horizons.
Summary
Most important group lead by a woman: Azure City Resistance
Most important group led by a man: Order of the Stick
Most important woman still alive and not a love interest: Lien
Most important man still alive and not a love interest: Belkar Bitterleaf
Most important demonstrably gay person in strip: Sabine
Most important demonstrably straight person in strip: Roy Greenhilt
Gender balance: M: 51, F: 22 (28.57%), A: 4
Not Killed Gender balance: M: 35, F: 13 (26.00%) , A: 2
% of Women Killed: 42.86% (9 killed, 13 not)
% of Men Killed: 31.37% (16 dead, 35 not)
Unattached Gender balance: M: 45, F: 15 (24.19%) , A: 2
% of Unattached Women: 68.18% (15 unattached, 7 attached)
% of Unattached Men: 88.24% (45 unattached, 6 attached)
Leader Gender balance: M: 15, F: 2 (11.11%), A: 1
Appearances Gender Balance: M: 2840, F: 890 (21.73%), A: 366
Non-PC Appearances Gender Balance: M: 1237, F: 467 (27.07%), A: 21

Adjustments
-Sabine is now classified as bisexual, and therefore the most important gay character (since she is the only demonstrably gay character).
-Kilkil is definitely a dude.
-I've included Haley as a leader, considering how she was the on-panel leader of the Azure City Resistance. While the knot-topped and eye-patched were also leaders, they never led on-panel (and frankly, including them as 'characters', let alone leaders, is pretty generous.)
-Xykon is straight as far as we can tell from SOD.
-Azure City Resistance would now be the most important organisation led by a woman.
-According to bonus material, Lien is also straight.
-Added in appearances, as well as appearances gender balances.
-Added in Ian Starshine, Eugene Starshine, Gannji and Enor (characters important enough to have 20+ appearances) and adjusted ratios accordingly.
-Took Shadowknight12's advice and posted % of Wo/Men dead, and % of Wo/Men unattached.
-Added a lot of characters, changed 'dead' to 'killed', readjusted ratios (went more in favour of women with one or two exceptions), added Inkyrius as V's love interest, moved the bandits to 'other', yadda yadda yadda.

[Mutant Sheep]

Does Haley's Latent Bisexuality not count?

[TaiLiu]

Does Haley's Latent Bisexuality not count?

Good point! I had forgotten about that.

[oppyu]

Does Haley's Latent Bisexuality not count?

True, but if I accepted that then we'd have to go into whether or not Nale's experimentation counts, and then it just gets messy.

[Shadowknight12]

This is an excellent thread. Thank you for taking the time to compile and calculate all of this!

My only observations to add:

• Sabine has demonstrated attraction for Miko (while they're both in jail, it's the strip where she offers her to become a blackguard), so that would make her canonically bisexual.
• When Nale is impersonating Elan and V catches him making out with Sabine (but is fooled by Sabine's disguise as a male Cliffport cop), Nale says "must resist urge to assert heterosexuality" to which Sabine replies "I'm a shapeshifter, it's not like we never tried..." which would seem to indicate some bicuriosity in Nale's part.
• Then there's Elan's reaction to a man (can't remember who it was) he thought was flirting with him, with the implication that he'd had some same-sex encounters during bard camp. That would fall under bicuriosity as well, I think.
• And wasn't one of the secrets Haley contemplated in the Azure City dinner during New Year's Eve that she had had a same-sex fling at one point? My memory's a bit fuzzy on that. And didn't she have a bisexual side during that bit with her multiple ghostly facets?

I'd provide links to the strips in question, but my search-fu is horrible. I have no sense of how the story is structured, so I often waste time looking for a strip in the wrong places.

Oh! Also, V is married, so s/he technically has a love interest.

EDIT:

True, but if I accepted that then we'd have to go into whether or not Nale's experimentation counts, and then it just gets messy.

As an LGBT+ person, I take what I can get. While that sort of thing is nowhere near the level of representation I'd like to see in the strip, I'd really like to give the Giant credit where it's due for at least acknowledging that same-sex flings happen. Baby steps and all that.

[Bird]

Cool thread.

True, but if I accepted that then we'd have to go into whether or not Nale's experimentation counts, and then it just gets messy.

You could have some note/symbol/link for characters like Haley and Nale who challenge the hetero-normative mold in some way with respect to sexuality. You wouldn't have to make a judgement as to what their sexuality is.

[SowZ]

This is an excellent thread. Thank you for taking the time to compile and calculate all of this!

My only observations to add:

• Sabine has demonstrated attraction for Miko (while they're both in jail, it's the strip where she offers her to become a blackguard), so that would make her canonically bisexual.
• When Nale is impersonating Elan and V catches him making out with Sabine (but is fooled by Sabine's disguise as a male Cliffport cop), Nale says "must resist urge to assert heterosexuality" to which Sabine replies "I'm a shapeshifter, it's not like we never tried..." which would seem to indicate some bicuriosity in Nale's part.
• Then there's Elan's reaction to a man (can't remember who it was) he thought was flirting with him, with the implication that he'd had some same-sex encounters during bard camp. That would fall under bicuriosity as well, I think.
• And wasn't one of the secrets Haley contemplated in the Azure City dinner during New Year's Eve that she had had a same-sex fling at one point? My memory's a bit fuzzy on that. And didn't she have a bisexual side during that bit with her multiple ghostly facets?

I'd provide links to the strips in question, but my search-fu is horrible. I have no sense of how the story is structured, so I often waste time looking for a strip in the wrong places.

Oh! Also, V is married, so s/he technically has a love interest.

EDIT:



As an LGBT+ person, I take what I can get. While that sort of thing is nowhere near the level of representation I'd like to see in the strip, I'd really like to give the Giant credit where it's due for at least acknowledging that same-sex flings happen. Baby steps and all that.

There are gay characters. Shoot, the CP Police has a character who is gay, otherwise fairly masculine, and it doesn't seem like his coworkers/friends make a big deal of it. Most people we meet don't have an established sexuality because it doesn't matter to the story. Thanh could be gay, for example, I don't know.

The priesthood of Thor, while very conservative, seems to think homosexuality is normal in OtoPCs.

As for male-female representation, a lot of the characters tend to be military persons. Men tend to gravitate towards those positions more, so it makes sense we see a few more guys. Of course, that imbalance would probably be less then we see in RL in a world without strength differences between genders. (But we do see a lot more military women than one would see in a RL military, so it's fine.)

[Hendel]

Durkon Thundershield: Male, straight, supporting protagonist, love interest of Hilgya Firehelm, dead.

Actually the status should be undead, not dead.

[oppyu]

This is an excellent thread. Thank you for taking the time to compile and calculate all of this!

My only observations to add:

• Sabine has demonstrated attraction for Miko (while they're both in jail, it's the strip where she offers her to become a blackguard), so that would make her canonically bisexual.
• When Nale is impersonating Elan and V catches him making out with Sabine (but is fooled by Sabine's disguise as a male Cliffport cop), Nale says "must resist urge to assert heterosexuality" to which Sabine replies "I'm a shapeshifter, it's not like we never tried..." which would seem to indicate some bicuriosity in Nale's part.
• Then there's Elan's reaction to a man (can't remember who it was) he thought was flirting with him, with the implication that he'd had some same-sex encounters during bard camp. That would fall under bicuriosity as well, I think.
• And wasn't one of the secrets Haley contemplated in the Azure City dinner during New Year's Eve that she had had a same-sex fling at one point? My memory's a bit fuzzy on that. And didn't she have a bisexual side during that bit with her multiple ghostly facets?

I'd provide links to the strips in question, but my search-fu is horrible. I have no sense of how the story is structured, so I often waste time looking for a strip in the wrong places.

Oh! Also, V is married, so s/he technically has a love interest.

EDIT:



As an LGBT+ person, I take what I can get. While that sort of thing is nowhere near the level of representation I'd like to see in the strip, I'd really like to give the Giant credit where it's due for at least acknowledging that same-sex flings happen. Baby steps and all that.

1: True, that combined with the fact that she's a literal incarnation of illicit sex is enough to classify her as bisexual. That 'N/A' besides most important gay person was depressing.
2: While there may be bicuriousity on Nale's part, from the evidence at hand he would still definitely classify himself as a heterosexual.
3: Elan would be the same situation as Nale, plus some Early Installment Weirdness.
4: Haley is a close one actually. I'm still learning towards heterosexuality though, as we've never seen herself self-identify as bisexual. At best, she could qualify as heteroflexible.
5: When I say love interest, it's not so much romantic attachment as 'romance depicted in comic'. Inkyrius is a sparsely-mentioned minor character/one-scene-wonder we see in two or three strips, and we never see any courtship or attachment. On the other hand, Therkla, while never being with Elan, was often shown on-panel with him and had an emotional subplot regarding her feelings for him.

[Gift Jeraff]

Elan was also curious about the gender-swap belt.

[skim172]

I would point out that Haley was the organizer, commander, and primary operative of the Azure City Resistance. And among the trio of her, Belk, and Celia, Haley was not just the leader, but also the problem-solver, the "expert", and the "cavalry" - the "knight in shining armor."

Eye-patch (who I think is a paladin? Think she was identified as such in one of the bonus strips for the book) was the leader of one of the other resistance groups.

[Bird]

By the way, since you had a question mark, Kilkil is indeed male -- Tarquin refers to Kilkil as "him".
http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0863.html

[MaximKat]

Since when is Roy the main protagonist?

[SowZ]

Since when is Roy the main protagonist?

It seems fairly clear to me. The story is centered around his ancestral quest, after all.

[B. Dandelion]

I'm surprised you have Redcloak as straight due to SOD but not Xykon? He was pretty plainly interested in girls. He had a relationship with Yydranna, hit on a girl in the bar, and made obviously sexual commentary regarding a cute demonic waitress. You might consider him asexual as a lich (he's "not one of those disgusting biophiliacs"), but in life he was never gay and never showed any bi-tendencies.

[Mike Havran]

Belkar's little "adventure" with Jenny could be mentioned.

BTW, what does the ''A 1" part mean?

[oppyu]

I'm surprised you have Redcloak as straight due to SOD but not Xykon? He was pretty plainly interested in girls. He had a relationship with Yydranna, hit on a girl in the bar, and made obviously sexual commentary regarding a cute demonic waitress. You might consider him asexual as a lich (he's "not one of those disgusting biophiliacs"), but in life he was never gay and never showed any bi-tendencies.

Ah, missed that. I'll edit that in now.

Belkar's little "adventure" with Jenny could be mentioned.

BTW, what does the ''A 1" part mean?

That marks him as straight, but it's a little too one-sided, shallow and with a meaningless character to count as a love interest.

A 1 means there's one vote for ambiguously gendered characters; Vaarsuvius.

[WoLong]

Most important group lead by a woman: Those Bandits From A Really Long Time Ago
Most important group led by a man: Order of the Stick

What constitutes as 'important'? Important to the story, or most powerful in the story world?

Also, it might be better to list what gender(s) each character is attracted to, rather than label them straight/bi/gay. Someone who has been shown to be attracted to the opposite gender may be attracted to their own gender as well.

[B. Dandelion]

Lien said she had a boyfriend in a bonus strip in DSTP, when Elan tried to hook her up with Hinjo. She brings up the boyfriend again in one of the "Stick Tails" in SSADT.

[Kish]

Since when is Roy the main protagonist?

Strip #1.

Most important group lead by a woman: Those Bandits From A Really Long Time Ago
Most important group led by a man: Order of the Stick

What constitutes as 'important'? Important to the story, or most powerful in the story world?

If it was the latter, the most important group led by a man would be Xykon's group.

[hamishspence]

Dungeon Crawling Fools commentary said Elan was thought of first, and Roy was his "straight man" (in the comedy sense- with the rest of the group having wacky antics that Roy reacts to).

I think that it was very shortly in, that Roy became primary though.

[Bird]

1: True, that combined with the fact that she's a literal incarnation of illicit sex is enough to classify her as bisexual. That 'N/A' besides most important gay person was depressing.

The only unambiguously non-straight character being a "literal incarnation of illicit sex" is still pretty depressing. Though it is nice, as others have mentioned, that several important characters have been indicated to be at least bi-curious.

[Souju]

There's one thing that kind of irks me about threads like this.
I want to be very, VERY clear that I do not condemn LGBT in any way. It's not freaky, it's not weird to me. I see people every day who fall somewhere within those 4 letters. Someone's orientation is really their own business. However, I can't quite grasp why people want it to be EVERYWHERE.
I mean, sure the numbers and ratios are low, but does the story ever try to paint LGBT or women as any less capable or important than "heteronormal" men?

[Bird]

There's one thing that kind of irks me about threads like this.
I want to be very, VERY clear that I do not condemn LGBT in any way. It's not freaky, it's not weird to me. I see people every day who fall somewhere within those 4 letters. Someone's orientation is really their own business. However, I can't quite grasp why people want it to be EVERYWHERE.
I mean, sure the numbers and ratios are low, but does the story ever try to paint LGBT or women as any less capable or important than "heteronormal" men?

OotS, low numbers and all, is better in this respect than the great majority of works of its genre.

Which is what makes this important. The fact that even OotS, more tolerant and respectful than most works of its genre, has low numbers like this.

As an aside, I was concerned by Haley's early installment "tee hee my top fell off" shenanigans, though I recognize that they were parodic. I'm very glad that they were dropped from her characterization.

[oppyu]

There's one thing that kind of irks me about threads like this.
I want to be very, VERY clear that I do not condemn LGBT in any way. It's not freaky, it's not weird to me. I see people every day who fall somewhere within those 4 letters. Someone's orientation is really their own business. However, I can't quite grasp why people want it to be EVERYWHERE.
I mean, sure the numbers and ratios are low, but does the story ever try to paint LGBT or women as any less capable or important than "heteronormal" men?

The leader of the Order of the Stick is a straight man. The leader of the Linear Guild is a straight man. The leader of Azure City is a man, who replaced another man when said man was killed by a crazy woman. The leader of Team Evil is a straight man. The leader of the Empire of Blood is a stupid woman being controlled by a straight man. Even those random bandits led by a woman were in a situation where they were better off being led by the responsible, relatively decent man she replaced. Team Peregrine, the Order of the Scribble, the Cliffport Police Department, the town Belkar visited in the Kickstarter special, the Azure City priests led by the male high cleric, the Greysky City thieves guild, the nation of Gobbotopia, the evil adventuring party that invaded Lawful Good heaven, even the random 'military geniuses' shown conquering people in the Western desert for one panel each before being driven out were all men.

I'm not saying that Rich goes out of his way to show men in authority positions, but it's a societal ill that goes through pretty much every piece of media with the odd exception.

EDIT: Actually, the evil adventuring party had no shown leader. Scratch that example.

[AngryHobbit]

Shouldn't most important organization led by female be Azure city resistance?
Resistance is certainly more important than some random bandit group.
Haley was de facto leader, and strategist after all.

I don't see any implication with Miko and Redcloak that they are straight. They both looked asexual to me, especially Miko, since there is maybe a reference in SOD that I missed about Redcloak's sexuality, but Miko is (at least to me) clearly asexual.

[hamishspence]

Miko expresses that she would not be dismissive of the possibility of a romantic relationship with Roy in the future, if he approaches it correctly, here:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0250.html

[AngryHobbit]

Miko expresses that she would not be dismissive of the possibility of a romantic relationship with Roy in the future, if he approaches it correctly, here:

http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0250.html

Yup, forgot about that.

[oppyu]

Shouldn't most important organization led by female be Azure city resistance?
Haley was de facto leader, and strategist after all.

I don't see any implication with Miko and Redcloak that they are straight. They both looked asexual to me, especially Miko, since there is maybe a reference in SOD that I missed about Redcloak's sexuality, but Miko is (at least to me) clearly asexual.

Regarding Redcloak,

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Right-Eye seemed to think that Redcloak would be interested in a night out with a pretty girl. Although it is possible that Right-Eye was misinformed.

[hamishspence]

And also, in SoD:

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after Redcloak's retrieved the Monster and met up with Right Eye- he suggests he invite that girl back so he can apologize for turning down the opportunity to date.