V's Gender Debate IV [Official]

[DBJack]

Or maybe wearing a mage's robe covers up possible curves.

A curvy robe wearer

Sorry. Also, in the first few strips, V is referred to as male by everyone. If I remember correctly, it was 'V Dawg' that someone was upset about, and Rich then decided to make it ambigious.


*Edit* Oooh, I forgot about the Boots of Speed conversation. Could be a crack at elves, but...

[Optimystik]

A curvy robe wearer

Sorry.

Irrelevant. Sangwaan is not an elf.

[Olo Demonsbane]

What about in the inn scenes where V and Haley share rooms but with no one else?

[TDG]

What about in the inn scenes where V and Haley share rooms but with no one else?

So? At the time they were friends with eachother more than the others. Additionally when camping in the wilderness or in the dungeon the whole group had roomed together so its not like a big taboo for guys and girls to share the room.

[Prak]

I'd say that V was originally meant to be male. Why? Rich originally meant for the gender to be certain, and only decided to make it a running joke after people (apparently) couldn't tell the gender. What would lead to that confusion? Long hair and mage robes. V has long hair, on an otherwise neutral body form (which gender is otherwise neutral if you take away hair and put clothes on it? male). Elves don't have body hair (in D&D) including facial hair*, so no real secondary sexual characteristic there. Mage robes are, to the... less than discerning eye, hard to distinguish from a dress, especially in this style. It all goes back to the fact that the average person is pretty stupid, now think about how dumb one has to be to be below average.

However, to be honest, this is just my thinking. I do think it's supported by V's personality and attitude, he's a type of person more commonly seen in men than women.


*I only realized a month or so ago that that means elves don't have eyebrows...

[Espresto]

Person: OMG is V a boy/girl transvestitic hermaphroditical elephant monkey?
Forum: Hurk hurr, HLOOORF *regurgitates blood and organ tissue*
Guy: Oh dear what terrible illness afflicts our beautiful forum?
Forum: Redundant threads with no particular point are invading my nervous system, growing...dark...
Guy: Person, how dare you, you have committed foul murder.
Person: I am asking a valid question regarding the gender of a character.
Guy: Yes, but that question has been asked many times, and has no valid answer so it degenerates into repetitive speculation
Person: Maybe so, but I'm still not breaking any rules, and still wish to know the answer, thus the easiest way to relieve myself of the desire would be to ask, and find out first hand.
Guy: Yet there is no point anyway because each and every thread becomes a madhouse of the aforementioned speculation and ones such as myself who berate you for your frivolous use of bandwidth, and ones who merely quote the almighty Giant's statement that V's gender is ambiguos. For a question with no answer the statement of ambiguity is answer enough.

Meanwhile:
Forum: Anybody, help, anyone HLURK HLOOORF, I-I'm d-d-d-dying here.. *collapses*

In the hospital:
DoctorGuy: The patient is going into cardiac arrest, THREAD PURGE! *ZAP* THREAD PURGE! *ZAP*

The moral of this story: Ambiguity is good enough for me

[amuletts]

Lets turn this into a thread about Vs sexuality rather than h** gender. *evil grin* After all, that is the thread title.
So, what gender do you think V. is attacted to. s/he obviously isn't asexual since s/he is married.

[Prak]

hey I was hoping shi was a dracophile... as for gender attracted too... well, maybe V rooms with Haley because shi's attracted to guys (whichever way you want to call that). Then there's the fact that shi seems immune to the charms of Belkar, although that could just be the immunity of a traveling companion...

[Optimystik]

Lets turn this into a thread about Vs sexuality rather than h** gender. *evil grin* After all, that is the thread title.
So, what gender do you think V. is attacted to. s/he obviously isn't asexual since s/he is married.

Unfortunately, that's as ambiguous as his gender. All I can read on that subject comes from his advice to Elan (#161) and Sabine (#385), which shows he understands women more than the average male. But that could come from being an elf, being wise (odd given his low WIS), being female, being sensitive and straight, being sensitive and gay, the moon and stars aligning properly at the time the discussions took place... you get the picture.

[LurkerInPlayground]

Unfortunately, that's as ambiguous as his gender. All I can read on that subject comes from his advice to Elan (#161) and Sabine (#385), which shows he understands women more than the average male. But that could come from being an elf, being wise (odd given his low WIS), being female, being sensitive and straight, being sensitive and gay, the moon and stars aligning properly at the time the discussions took place... you get the picture.

Well, V is considered non-threatening enough to room with Haley.

Not that this really changes anything.

[The Minx]

I think Vaarsuvius probably was originally intended to be male, for what (that is, nothing at all) that means about what sex Vaarsuvius is now.

OK, but then we have that once upon a time V was meant to be male and now V's gender is indeterminate, so if we were forced to pick one or the other, we would presumably pick male by default, since further evidence has been deliberately made contradictory.

I do, however, feel obliged to point out that back when certain people (me among them) pointed out that the gender of the entity the forum community was dubbing "the blue guy" was unknown, certain other people whose names I do not remember asserted that "he" was obviously male because "his" body lacked curves...

(If you didn't follow that, "the blue guy" turned out to be named Miko.)

Well, to be fair, she was wearing a bulky cloak at the time, and unlike V, she was pretty clearly meant to be mistaken for a male bad-ass rather than a female one up until her revelation, after which all doubt was dispelled. (This being a classic trope.)

Or maybe wearing a mage's robe covers up possible curves.

The fact that V was not intended to be ambiguous negates this possibility, as I pointed out.

If Rich had intended V to be unambiguously female, there would have been curves, robe or no robe. We know that V was not meant to be ambiguous, therefore, V was intended as male.

[Mr. Pin]

If you don't want to talk about V's gender, don't.

My money is on female, not because of anything quotable, but because until I started reading the strips where it was a joke, I assumed V was female because she just... seemed to be. in a very female way.

You know what they should do? they should put three options in your profile as to gender: male, female, and Vaarsuvius.

P.S.- The name Vaarsuvius is definitely masculine- I know that in latin the ending "-us" is 2nd declension, which is masculine. female would be 1st declension, the nominative case of which is "-a". hence, Julius and Marcus are male names, while Julia and Marcia are female. This does not, however, preclude V from being a girl- Sylvan is not Latin.

[Assassin89]

The most humorous way to determine gender is to kick V in a certain area.
A different way is to set up an anti-magic field and directly touch V.

Both of these methods will result in retaliation later, meaning that the knowledge of V's gender will be lost.

[Shadowbane]

I can see V's response now:

"My vengeance shall be prolonged, impertinent ninja."

And then...

"I prepared Explosive Runes this morning."

I could deal with that, I suppose. :)

Still, I think V's male. He just comes off that way to me.

[Person1123]

I think s/he's male too, just because I do.
I sort of found "he" easier to say, so I just think of V as a he. However, I have no real knowledge of this.

I am also inclined to believe that V is genderless(I know for a fact that there is an AD&D effect that does this, and if Haley's dad was a first ed theif than V could very well have been around in 1st ed).

Oh, and the effect is Belt of Femininity/Masculinity, which has a 10% chance of removing gender.

[Prak]

The most humorous way to determine gender is to kick V in a certain area.

actually, that wouldn't reveal hir gender, it hurts just as much for a woman to get klicked in the crotch as it does for a man. If you don't believe me, go ask a woman. The reason why it's painful for a man to get kicked in the crotch is because it is a non-protected area meant to receive sensation, and thus has a lot of nerve endings, A woman's crotch is the same way, just with a different structure.

[Occasional Sage]

Lets turn this into a thread about Vs sexuality rather than h** gender. *evil grin* After all, that is the thread title.
So, what gender do you think V. is attacted to. s/he obviously isn't asexual since s/he is married.

Well, marriage doesn't preclude asexuality; there are lots of reasons to marry that have nothing to do with physical attraction or possible procreation. I don't remember what V said about the subject though, so maybe they're deeply in lust.

However, my personal belief is that V's spouse is either 1) completely androgynous, or 2) of an obvious gender, but openly hits on every race and gender in the area. Regardless, it won't give any more information when we meet that individual than we have now.

[mockingbyrd7]

I mean...if she was a he, he wouldnt care for anyone seeing his pênis and Belkar wouldnt care to go watch it.

Yes. We men love going around waving our penises at people. We have no modesty at all.

[TDG]

actually, that wouldn't reveal hir gender, it hurts just as much for a woman to get klicked in the crotch as it does for a man.

No its not. The testes (which take the most pain in a swift slap to the goolies) are in the middle of the firing line when the boot connects, whereas the female equivalent (ovaries) are snuggled nicely up away from any kickable area.

[The Minx]

No its not. The testes (which take the most pain in a swift slap to the goolies) are in the middle of the firing line when the boot connects, whereas the female equivalent (ova) are snuggled nicely up away from any kickable area.

The ****oris, being full of nerves, is a pretty sensitive structure. As for whether it hurts as much as a shot to the testes... well that's a mite hard to determine unless someone consents to a gender change and being kicked both before and after. Suffice to say, a kick would hurt V even if it's a female, and would therefore be useless as a test.

[Greep]

The ****oris, being full of nerves, is a pretty sensitive structure. As for whether it hurts as much as a shot to the testes... well that's a mite hard to determine unless someone consents to a gender change and being kicked both before and after. Suffice to say, a kick would hurt V even if it's a female, and would therefore be useless as a test.

Yeah if V were female it will still hurt somewhat more than other areas, and with V's low constitution, it may hurt way more than it would for other females to the point where it'd be like a male getting hit in the balls.

[Malacandra]

No its not. The testes (which take the most pain in a swift slap to the goolies) are in the middle of the firing line when the boot connects, whereas the female equivalent (ova) are snuggled nicely up away from any kickable area.

"Ovaries". The "ova" are the actual egg-cells, the ones that get fertilised by the sperm; the "ovaries" are the glands that whack 'em out.

/pointless nitpick

[TDG]

"Ovaries". The "ova" are the actual egg-cells, the ones that get fertilised by the sperm; the "ovaries" are the glands that whack 'em out.

/pointless nitpick

Shhhh - don't let my anatomy lecturer see that *hides mistake and goes to shower to wash away the shame*

Though in my defense, uni doesn't restart for another week, so I'm allowed to make callous mistakes

[The Minx]

Shhhh - don't let my anatomy lecturer see that *hides mistake and goes to shower to wash away the shame*

Though in my defense, uni doesn't restart for another week, so I'm allowed to make callous mistakes

Well, if it makes you feel any better, I should have been the one to call you on that.

On another note, why is "penis" not blocked by the word filter but "****oris" is blocked? Gender inequality, says I! The Minx is not happy.

[Gandal]

Sexuality != gender...

[OITS]

It's fairly easy. The probability of 6 random people, being 4 men and 2 women ist - given that the chance of either gender ist 50% is 15/64, while the chance for them being 5 men and 1 woman is 6/64, so it is two-and-a-half-times more likely, that V's a she.
The odds, of her being female are 71.43%

Yeah...I hope, nobody believes this bull****. Confusing people, using numbers and maths is pretty funny^^

[The_Void]

You're confusing two things here: V's gender, and V's sexuality.

Gender refers to the physical characteristics of the body: possession of/lack of a uterus, which of the visible bits you have whose names are likely to be filtered by the boards, et cetera.

/pedantry

Actually, that is biological sex you have described there. Gender refers to the gender role the individual percieves of themselves (eg. a mtf transexual would have a male sex but a female gender)

[/even more pedantry]

I think that V is biological male, but doesn't see hirself as having any gender. V seems gender-blind (note his failure to recognise that Roy had turned into a woman), so I doubt he's either homosexual or heterosexual.

[Animefunkmaster]

You're confusing two things here: V's gender, and V's sexuality.

I believe you are also confusing the terms.

Sexuality can be used in three different contexts. Namely: Gender identity, Sex (biological), and orientation. Gender identity is in reference to behavioral traits, either masculine, feminine, or androgynous. Sex is in reference to either having dangly reproductive organs, internal reproductive organs, or a mix. Orientation is your attraction to either members of the same sex, opposite sex, or Both (sex=reproductive organs).

The term gender can also mean *kind* or sex (male-female-both), but is more accurately reflecting one's identity as either masculin, female or androgynous.

((It seems to me that there should be a qualifying word for those attracted to a gender rather than just attracted to a sex, but that's just me).

Damnit for paying attention in my gender comm class!

So I think V's sex is Female, while her Gender seems androgynous, but leaning toward masculin.

[Milcho]

These debates continuously remind me of Shrodinger's cat.

So, yeah, that's my solution, V's gender is in quantum flux until determined by a recognizable observer.

Well, then again, comes in the principle of changing results by observing them. Well, that only applies to sub-atomic proportions....or so we think.

Ultimately, speaking from a different point of view, V's gender will either be revealed to be whatever is most convineiet for the plot/story or be revealed in a completely nonchalant manner as to leave the readers somewhat confused.

[Trebuchet]

It's fairly easy. The probability of 6 random people, being 4 men and 2 women ist - given that the chance of either gender ist 50% is 15/64, while the chance for them being 5 men and 1 woman is 6/64, so it is two-and-a-half-times more likely, that V's a she.
The odds, of her being female are 71.43%

Wait a minute. These are not 6 random people, they are 5 people with known genders and 1 person with an unknown gender. Assuming elves have two genders, in equal numbers, I say it is 50/50. If elves can have a third option, like hermaphrodite, then there is no telling the odds. Besides, they are an adventuring party. Party make up is not random.

I don't actually care what V's gender is, but I didn't think the math here could be correctly applied to the Order of the Stick.

And I agree [with your hidden text in white]: using math here is pretty funny.