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Thread: Vaarsuvius's gender..
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2014-02-20, 01:33 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2013
Vaarsuvius's gender..
After about a year of trying to work it out-- I think Vaarsuvius's gender is literally unknowable. Going back through all the sources for Vaarsuvius, and all the places I have seen the elf appear, and in all the places where the elf could act... and the fact that Vaarsuvius's children are adopted by Vaarsuvius...
I actually think there is *not* a canon gender for the token-elf-of-the-party. And it's pretty obvious to me that The Giant has made it that way on purpose.
I also think this is a completely amazing statement about a complete lack of gender role, making Vaarsuvius... just a person. A potent wizard -- but? A person to identify with or to regard.
This is pretty epic to me. Nothing Vaarsuvius does can be acreditted to gender bias, or gender stereotyping or anything outside of elf-stereotyping. It's kinda freeing, and I just.. totally had to comment how cool I think that is, and how relevent going along with, or swinging against gender roles in roleplay was whenever I was writing; how overtly I was either intentionally following, walking between, or going against them with individual characters.
But Vaarsuvius really struck a cord with me because.. Vaarsuvius simply doesn't acknowledge it in his/her/its actions. It's a non-issue. Going for them, or going against preconcieved stereotypes is neither worthy of consideration, praise, worry or even notice in the elf's mind.. where Haily may giggle, or do the big hair thing or Belkar may kiss the girl, or Roy make big tough-guy 'Grr, Roy Smash Puny Kobold' jokes.. I like this method for Vaarsuvius, and elves in general.
All of the order are pretty amazing characters in my eyes -- but Vaarsuvius is something I haven't seen before. Maybe I just haven't been reading enough, but I like this character, and The Giant's take on elves.
What I like most about Vaarsuvius ... is that ... the elf isn't even *militantly* gender neutral.. it's like-- gender doesn't even exist. It's.. alien without being alien. lol. And it's funny how this character is resistant to automated filing and error-checking when I go back to see if my pre-conceieved assumptions were correct--
On a completely unrelated side note?
"This shirt is forshadowing for something later" is... totally epic, and I am totally buying that. Haha.Last edited by TheWatcher; 2014-02-20 at 01:43 PM.
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2014-02-20, 01:46 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2012
Re: Vaarsuvius's gender..
Actually, the Giant has stated that Vaarsuvius does have a gender and he knows what it is. However, it is a well known fact that he also deliberately makes it impossible to determine. There's no "hints" like with the identity of the MitD. He just makes it impossible to determine short of asking the character "Hey Vaarsuvius, are you male or female?".
I agree that I like that it's a non issue. It just is. And it makes people question why they need to know a character's gender when they start asking why it hasn't been revealed.Last edited by NerdyKris; 2014-02-20 at 01:48 PM.
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2014-02-20, 01:51 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2012
- Location
- In the Playground, duh.
Re: Vaarsuvius's gender..
"What is V's gender?" may be the wrong question to ask. V probably identifies as androgynous. "What is V's sex?" is a question whose answer hasn't been hinted at deliberately by V or Rich. Were V a real person, you could take accidental hints into evidence, but accidental hints in a fictional work are useless when trying to determine the character's gender or sex - or almost anything else, indeed.
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2014-02-20, 01:51 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2009
Re: Vaarsuvius's gender..
Actually what he said was that V had a gender when he started, but he was suprised people couldn't tell.
So by around strip #10 he started dropping hints to confuse his audience. When the forum seemed to think that V was primarily female he dropped a hint that he was male, like the V-man comment, or the other way around.
So whatever hints you find, they're most likely the giant messing with us.
I'm fairly sure by now V doesn't have a determinable gender anymore.
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2014-02-20, 02:15 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2012
Re: Vaarsuvius's gender..
No, I mean he just stated on twitter the other day that he did know Vaarsuvius's gender.
@RichBurlew do you actually have a set answer to "the big three" questions
Rich Burlew @RichBurlew Feb 17
I might, if I knew what they were. RT @weso12 do you actually have a set answer to "the big three" questions
Wesley Toma @weso12 Feb 17
@RichBurlew V's gender and The monster in the dark's identity I forget the third (ed- Belkar's death)
Rich Burlew @RichBurlew
.@weso12 Yes, I know all three.Last edited by NerdyKris; 2014-02-20 at 02:15 PM.
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2014-02-20, 02:23 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2012
Re: Vaarsuvius's gender..
Of course, Vaarsuvius's gender could well be "elf".
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2014-02-20, 02:58 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Oct 2013
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2014-02-20, 03:03 PM (ISO 8601)
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- Jun 2007
Re: Vaarsuvius's gender..
My bet is that it's "mwa ha ha".
Originally Posted by The Giant
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2014-02-20, 03:04 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2013
Re: Vaarsuvius's gender..
I was under the impression that I was using 'gender' incorrectly when you said this, but chose to look it up in the marriam webster dictionary -- as I had heard that online before, although I do not believe the net's use of 'gender' vs. 'sex' has become the primary definition yet.
"Gender: the state of being male or female"
So the question was still valid, although I understand what you were getting at. If you were using the other definition of gender, then I'd think V wouldn't have a gender at all though, even if V had a sex, which is largely the point of the topic.. haha~Last edited by TheWatcher; 2014-02-20 at 03:05 PM.
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2014-02-20, 03:33 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2008
- Location
- Right behind you
- Gender
Re: Vaarsuvius's gender..
Personally, I'm in the opinion that V isn't even aware that nobody knows his(I assumed V was a guy before I realized he was supposed to be androgynous so I've always thought of him as male) gender, and the reason he hasn't said anything to reveal his sex is purely rule of funny.
For example, I hold the belief that if V were to put on the Belt of Gender Changing, he would become... an equally androgynous member of the other sex, and loudly complain using entirely gender neutral terms, never even considering the possibility that it isn't obvious to everyone else.
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2014-02-20, 03:42 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2013
- Gender
Re: Vaarsuvius's gender..
“Evil is evil. Lesser, greater, middling, it's all the same. Proportions are negotiated, boundaries blurred. I'm not a pious hermit, I haven't done only good in my life. But if I'm to choose between one evil and another, then I prefer not to choose at all.”
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2014-02-21, 02:38 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Dec 2013
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- Red Dragon Territory
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2014-02-21, 02:56 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2012
Re: Vaarsuvius's gender..
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2014-02-21, 04:50 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Aug 2013
Re: Vaarsuvius's gender..
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2014-02-21, 05:08 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2008
- Gender
Re: Vaarsuvius's gender..
|V's sex> = (|Male> + |Female>)/√2
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2014-02-21, 05:39 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2012
Re: Vaarsuvius's gender..
Vaarsuvius
Race : elf
Class : Wizard
Gender : yes
Familiar : when remembered.
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2014-02-21, 05:46 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2006
- Location
- Germany
Re: Vaarsuvius's gender..
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2014-02-21, 06:14 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2008
- Gender
Re: Vaarsuvius's gender..
That's a ket. In Quantum Mechanics it's used to indicate the vector representing a particular state of the system and it's properties.
In QM an observable (that is, a physical quantity) can be represented as a combination of its possible values, each one with its probability to be actually found should a measurement be preformed of the observable itself, and only the actual measurement process can make it collapse into a defined outcome.
The specific example I used means that the system "V's sex" is a linear superposition of the "Male" and "Female" states, with the √2 indicating that each state has a 0.5 probability to be found upon measurement.
To quote a famous experiment, the status of the notorious Schroedinger' cat would be (|Dead> + |Alive>)/√2.Last edited by Cicciograna; 2014-02-21 at 06:15 AM.
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2014-02-21, 06:50 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2010
Re: Vaarsuvius's gender..
To me V was intended to be Male. When I look at the first few strips (before Rich realised people were confused) V just strikes me as male, there is nothing feminine about the drawings. And while The Giant has shown he is one of the most sensitive writers of female characters, I find it hard to believe that as a man, he naturally drew a female character without any "features".... But then I could be doing Rich a great disservice and projecting my own sexist assumptions onto him.
Tl.dr... I always thought V was male.
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2014-10-11, 04:25 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2014
- Gender
Re: Vaarsuvius's gender..
Vaarsuvius could be a male because Roy calls him/her V-MAN on several occasions and Roy should know seeing as he is the leader of the party and V's boss.
On the other hand, V could be female as Inkyrius (V's mate) has the body shape usually reserved for males. This could make V a gay/bisexual male, though, seeing as their children are adopted and simply refer to them both as 'parent'.
I personally see V as a male, but others will probably disagree. Please share your opinion in the comments!
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2014-10-11, 04:28 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jul 2012
Re: Vaarsuvius's gender..
Opinions were already shared eight months ago.
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2014-10-11, 11:00 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2014
- Location
- Vancouver, Canada
Re: Vaarsuvius's gender..
I always thought V was female just because I found it implausible that there could be only one female character in the party.
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2014-10-11, 11:06 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2009
Re: Vaarsuvius's gender..
First I thought V was female, then male, then genderqueer. I like the third answer best, so I'll stay with that one.
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2014-10-11, 11:07 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2013
- Location
- Springfield, Ohio
- Gender
Re: Vaarsuvius's gender..
I don't think Roy being V's boss would entitle him to that information. Roy probably doesn't care about his teammates sexes as long as they stop driving him crazy with their antics.
Personally, I like to think that Elves in OOTS are similar to Discworld dwarfs where finding out your potential mate's sex is an important part of the process. Of course, Rich has said he has never read Discworld but I like that as my head-canon.I prefer Pathfinder to D&D but we can still be friends if you don't
Always eager to help. Send me a PM if you need help with a homebrew/world building thing. I'm no master by any means but I can try my best.
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2014-10-11, 11:20 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2009
Re: Vaarsuvius's gender..
Also I only remember one occurrence of "V-Man", in strip 9, which the Giant later said was a mistake (because a majority of his gaming group though V was female, so he was trying to make things less clear, but in hindsight he said he should have just gone for ambiguity directly.)
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2014-10-12, 02:23 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2012
- Location
- Germany
Re: Vaarsuvius's gender..
Spoiler: OtOoPCsActually Roy did ask for the gender of his future party members. He gave them a form to fill out before hiring them, and that was one of the questions.
V had an ink malfunction, making her/his answer unreadable. Roy did ask for it, and V said Roy can correct it. Roy then dropped the topic .
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2014-10-12, 02:35 AM (ISO 8601)
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- Jan 2012
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2014-10-12, 02:47 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2007
Re: Vaarsuvius's gender..
5E PHB had what may be a nod to Vaarsuvius:
p121: Personality & Background
You don't need to be confined to binary notions of sex and gender. The elf god Corellon Larethian is often seen as androgynous or hermaphroditic, for example, and some elves in the multiverse are made in Corellon's image.Marut-2 Avatar by Serpentine
New Marut Avatar by Linkele
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2014-10-12, 03:29 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2014
- Location
- A Michigan Far, Far Away
- Gender
Re: Vaarsuvius's gender..
The most interesting thing to me has been watching how the Forum identifies V. It varies member by member, and says more about each of us than it does about Vaarsuvius. I (and many others) call hir "hir" because the Giant hasn't made it clear which gender V is, and there is no logical reason to impose my opinion on the character by saying "his/her", "he/she"; so I stick with neutral terms ("s/he" being awkward but accurate).
For those who are convinced Vaarsuvius is either male or female; I ask, "Based on what evidence?" Maybe it's because I'm an agnostic/atheist, but until there is empirical proof- in V's case, either in the strip or by Word of the Giant- I don't have enough evidence to believe V is anything other than "Elvish". "I just know it" does not convince me.
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2014-10-12, 04:03 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2012
Re: Vaarsuvius's gender..
Speaking personally, while I usually try to word sentences referring to Vaarsuvius in a way that I don't have to use gendered pronouns, when forced to make a choice, I refer to V as female as I'd prefer that if I ever had to make a choice. As I said much earlier, I actually think V's gender is "elf", but there really aren't any good, non-forced terms for that.