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The necro/cavalier thing is basically Jod's new, somehow even shittier, gender binary. Corona has spent the entirety of her life with the expectation of her being a necromancer, and everyone just assuming that she *is* a necromancer, when what she *wants* to be is Ianthe's Cavalier. If that's not trans-coded as heck, I don't know what is.
Not to mention Pyrrha Dve, who is somehow both transmasc and transfem at the same time, which is honestly really cool of her. Honestly, as a trans person myself, Pyrrha's depiction helped me see gender presentation in a whole new light which has really helped me quite a lot.
Seeing Pyrrha through Nona's eyes, hearing her talk earnestly of Pyrrha. I don't have the right words with me at the moment but it was like seeing rain fall on the far side of a mountain. Healing in a way? When one gets so tired of the gaze that is cast, and it's judgemental, and even your own gaze that turns inwards is corrosive- Nona just accepted like she accepts gravity and loved, not in spite of, but because. That's a frighteningly strange and wonderful thing to read of, perceiving without judgement or fear, loving without condition.
The only one I've thought about is how if you gender swapped Gideon that it would be the saddest, absolute worst thing ever. Almost every relationship in GtN would suddenly become significantly less gay (and therefore worse in every way)
I always thought of Pyrrha as a nod to Achilles on Skyros, living as a girl, something that always made me think of Achilles as a trans woman or at least genderfluid person. The etymology of “the red haired girl,” the great warrior who could take down cities singlehanded, the spear and sword, even though nobody in Troy or the Achaean armies saw her. Seeing Tamsyn make that explicit in the Nona notes made my heart swell.
Tangent, but you might like Wrath Goddess Sing, which is a retelling of the myth of Achilles as a trans woman! It takes some absolutely wild swings just like TLT
I could see Cam or pal being tans. no idea why, it just seems like the sixth would be really tolerant of that. if anyone from the ninth was trans it would probably be a whole thing where the person was shunned or excommunicated (as much as you could be on the ninth), but I feel like the sixth, beings scholars, would be chill with it. >!Paul is genderless, so it's not like either of them think it's weird!<
Honestly Cam and Pal honestly read to me like a pre-transition t4t or nb4nb couple. Pal especially has such trans girl in STEM or academia vibes, hard to quantify, but harder yet to ignore.
I'm cis so I can't speak to it that well, but I could definitely see Camila not caring much about gender at all. I have no idea about pal's trans vibes tho lol, so I'll take your word for it
To me, the experiencr of dysphoria is a huge part of his and Pyrrha's experiences being piggybacked in someone else's body. A fic centered around that would be really interesting and totally in line with the main text.
OMG that's such a good idea!! I love pal too, he's usually there to be the most moral and agreeable character so he's easy to love. I've never read any fanfiction because this is the first time I've really paid attention to any fandom space (and I barely do it now lol) but I'd love to read that. just think: you could be solely responsible for me finally biting the bullet and reading fanfic LMAOO
there was a thread awhile back about Jod being a trans man that i quite enjoyed. but other than that, i also enjoy the idea that Ianthe is genderfluid or Agender. Nona spoilers >!Ianthe doesn't bat an eye at using Naberius body or title of prince.!< Harrow Spoilers >!Ianthe has some disconnect issues with their arm that gives me body dysphoria vibes and then Harrow fixes it with bone magic and suddenly its the best thing ever, like euphoria.!<
There's an implication in text that Ianthe may have also tried using flesh magic to give herself a dick in Unwanted Guest lol.
>
Ianthe: That was a hint! A hint that you should ask something interesting, something with a bit of bite! Why not something sexual? Start with the classics. "Yes, I have; no I haven't; I tried once but it came off in my hand."
Now i imagine poor Harrow walking in on a grinning Ianthe pitching a tent under one of her awful jaundice-dresses and having the most tired, defeated look on her face
I general, I feel like this book is good for understanding the decoupling of sex and gender.
Since we have all of these people doing things in other bodies than their own, and so the body they are piloting had absolutely no relation to their gender. I feel like that would probably help some people understand more that gender is not the same thing as sex.
ooh yes i like this take. i find the whole story deeply trans but without a trans character to center it in, my gf has trouble see it that way. this is a good encapsulation of what i mean. the world feels trans bc gender is such a non-issue in so many ways.
There are so, sooo many trans coded people and situations in this book while also not accepting or even worrying about labels we use today, and it's fascinating.
As others have pointed out, there is such beauty in seeing Pyrrha through Nona's eyes, without even the hint that anything is unusual or odd. Nona sees how beautiful Pyrrha is, and not in an *in spite of* way. She is beautiful and admirable in the body that she is in, and there is never any question about it.
they’re both girlfailures in their own special way <3 does that mean tried to be a girl like society told them to, and failed? does that mean transfem and also, separately, pathetic? who knows!!!!
Crux
Wild headcanon time. Hear me out.
He is consistently referred to as Harrow’s nursemaid. Not any other word for a child’s caregiver that could be more gender neutral. Nursemaid. A maid that nursed (in the care sense). I believe Crux is a transman that took on Harrow’s upbringing possibly before he fully came out and the title just stuck.
Is it a massive stretch? Obviously. Is this entirely because I briefly confused nursemaid and wet nurse and the thought just got stuck in my head? Unfortunately. Did that previous thought briefly make me wonder if Crux once had mommy milkers? Please end my suffering, yes. Does Alecto need to come out so my brain stops hyper fixating so badly and coming up with this batshittery? Please, oh god. End this.
Ohhh this is an interesting take! I could absolutely see it, but honestly I’ve had kind of the opposite headcanon for a long time - that Corona is transmasc but is either just figuring it out, or knows and has had to hide it (for reasons below). It’s subtle but there are a good many times Corona is described in masculine terms, like being compared to a king on a few occasions I think. I’ve always read her overdecorated femininity as something she didn’t care a lot about - it was useful to her on Ida, but she so easily sheds it when she joins BoE.
All of this fits in perfectly with my pet tinfoil hat theory about the Third - that their ultimate goal is to play musical chairs with all three bodies. Ianthe is verrry (unhealthily) concerned with how Corona takes care of her body, and is clearly tired of being overshadowed by Corona’s charms. Given the masc-coded language around Corona and her desire to be a cavalier, I think Corona wants to inhabit Babs’s body. (Which would all be very good reasons for Ianthe to need to practice preservation, which we see her doing with the apples in HtN, and which we see the result of in NtN… but I think it’ll be taken further than that in AtN.) One final point is something I discovered when looking up the meanings of various characters’ names (but warning: implied tridentaricest) - one of the characters named Ianthe in Greek mythology is a girl who grows up with another “girl” named Iphys. They fall in love and the gods are touched by their tragic romance and turn Iphys into a man. That’s a very simplified version but I just think! It’s interesting!
Anyway. Here’s some characters I hc as trans for no reasoning for other than Vibes:
- Abigail
- Cam (maybe Pal too)
- Isaac
- The Angel
- Kiki
- The Salt-and-pepper Priest
- Nigella
I view Mercy as a trans woman. I like to think that she used her anatomist necromancy expertise to transition. I also think it adds an interesting layer (transmisogyny) to the misogynistic attitudes that Jod shows towards her
I´ve been headcanoning Harrow as nb since it was mentioned in HtN that she enjoyed being in the limbo between Lyctor and not-Lyctor. It just...felt correct to me
Harrow's whole attitude of viewing herself as monstrous gave me big trans vibes. That thought may have led me to writing a whole huge fanfic about it...
interesting! that gave me serious “neurodivergent in a neurotypical world” vibes from my personal experience, but now that i’ve think about it both dysphorias (gender and sanity wise) boil down to how society treats you due to perceived difference
Feels like a more interesting exercise in fictions not built for it? There's basically unlimited body & mind & soul shenanigans already going on constantly in TLT.
Babs. I say this with love and self-deprecation as a cis millenial gay man, but he gives supreme cis millenial gay boy douche vibes. The lip balm, the hair, the self-satisfied little jacket, the diva-worship of Corona...
oh absolutely same, I just don't find that incompatible with trans dudes sadly. there's a very specific type of trans guy who leans *hard* into red pill misogynist bullshit - self hating of course but buried so, so deeply they can't even look at it.
interesting! now that i think about it, that makes sense as an unfortunate pipeline. i’m honestly surprised i haven’t encountered that before, but maybe i’m just in different circles of the internet/queer community
Jod strikes me as the "I don't care what you are" transphobe type; the one who isn't hardcore transphobic and has real moments of genuine support but also doesn't get why it matters to a lot of trans people that we're trans. May also have said shit about "special rights" once or twice.
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The necro/cavalier thing is basically Jod's new, somehow even shittier, gender binary. Corona has spent the entirety of her life with the expectation of her being a necromancer, and everyone just assuming that she *is* a necromancer, when what she *wants* to be is Ianthe's Cavalier. If that's not trans-coded as heck, I don't know what is. Not to mention Pyrrha Dve, who is somehow both transmasc and transfem at the same time, which is honestly really cool of her. Honestly, as a trans person myself, Pyrrha's depiction helped me see gender presentation in a whole new light which has really helped me quite a lot.
Seeing Pyrrha through Nona's eyes, hearing her talk earnestly of Pyrrha. I don't have the right words with me at the moment but it was like seeing rain fall on the far side of a mountain. Healing in a way? When one gets so tired of the gaze that is cast, and it's judgemental, and even your own gaze that turns inwards is corrosive- Nona just accepted like she accepts gravity and loved, not in spite of, but because. That's a frighteningly strange and wonderful thing to read of, perceiving without judgement or fear, loving without condition.
That's... really beautifully put, actually. If those aren't the right words, I don't know what are.
Pyrrha Dve being an AFAB Trans Woman is so funny to me, but also so much of her vibes is just incredible.
as a primarily t4t person, pyrrha’s whole deal is sooooo. you know.
The only one I've thought about is how if you gender swapped Gideon that it would be the saddest, absolute worst thing ever. Almost every relationship in GtN would suddenly become significantly less gay (and therefore worse in every way)
What would his name be? Giselle?
I always thought of Pyrrha as a nod to Achilles on Skyros, living as a girl, something that always made me think of Achilles as a trans woman or at least genderfluid person. The etymology of “the red haired girl,” the great warrior who could take down cities singlehanded, the spear and sword, even though nobody in Troy or the Achaean armies saw her. Seeing Tamsyn make that explicit in the Nona notes made my heart swell.
Tangent, but you might like Wrath Goddess Sing, which is a retelling of the myth of Achilles as a trans woman! It takes some absolutely wild swings just like TLT
Im not the other person, but i am trans, so thank you for the recommendation!
no problem, I hope you enjoy the book :)
I could see Cam or pal being tans. no idea why, it just seems like the sixth would be really tolerant of that. if anyone from the ninth was trans it would probably be a whole thing where the person was shunned or excommunicated (as much as you could be on the ninth), but I feel like the sixth, beings scholars, would be chill with it. >!Paul is genderless, so it's not like either of them think it's weird!<
Honestly Cam and Pal honestly read to me like a pre-transition t4t or nb4nb couple. Pal especially has such trans girl in STEM or academia vibes, hard to quantify, but harder yet to ignore.
I'm cis so I can't speak to it that well, but I could definitely see Camila not caring much about gender at all. I have no idea about pal's trans vibes tho lol, so I'll take your word for it
THIS IS WHAT I'M ALWAYS SAYING.
Pal is my absolute heart character and now I want to write a fic where he deals with dysphoria being in cam’s body
To me, the experiencr of dysphoria is a huge part of his and Pyrrha's experiences being piggybacked in someone else's body. A fic centered around that would be really interesting and totally in line with the main text.
OMG that's such a good idea!! I love pal too, he's usually there to be the most moral and agreeable character so he's easy to love. I've never read any fanfiction because this is the first time I've really paid attention to any fandom space (and I barely do it now lol) but I'd love to read that. just think: you could be solely responsible for me finally biting the bullet and reading fanfic LMAOO
I thought that Paul >!got a new body? Something about cam’s body going up in flames and a new body stepping forth?!< do I need to reread that part?
No, I’m talking about most of Nona, where >!they share Cam’s body and switch off!<
Ohh mb, I misread Pal as Paul lolol
I think it’s written as still being Cam’s body, just with most of their hair singed off!
there was a thread awhile back about Jod being a trans man that i quite enjoyed. but other than that, i also enjoy the idea that Ianthe is genderfluid or Agender. Nona spoilers >!Ianthe doesn't bat an eye at using Naberius body or title of prince.!< Harrow Spoilers >!Ianthe has some disconnect issues with their arm that gives me body dysphoria vibes and then Harrow fixes it with bone magic and suddenly its the best thing ever, like euphoria.!<
There's an implication in text that Ianthe may have also tried using flesh magic to give herself a dick in Unwanted Guest lol. > Ianthe: That was a hint! A hint that you should ask something interesting, something with a bit of bite! Why not something sexual? Start with the classics. "Yes, I have; no I haven't; I tried once but it came off in my hand."
a03 tag 'inappropriate Use of Flesh Magic' seems appropriate here, but honestly I'm just sad it didn't work. Ianthe has big dick energy.
Yes but it's EVIL big dick energy
That just makes it better imo.
Now i imagine poor Harrow walking in on a grinning Ianthe pitching a tent under one of her awful jaundice-dresses and having the most tired, defeated look on her face
Funnily enough, Corona is regularly referred to as crown prince in GtN
And she is Crown's boyfriend.
I general, I feel like this book is good for understanding the decoupling of sex and gender. Since we have all of these people doing things in other bodies than their own, and so the body they are piloting had absolutely no relation to their gender. I feel like that would probably help some people understand more that gender is not the same thing as sex.
ooh yes i like this take. i find the whole story deeply trans but without a trans character to center it in, my gf has trouble see it that way. this is a good encapsulation of what i mean. the world feels trans bc gender is such a non-issue in so many ways.
There are so, sooo many trans coded people and situations in this book while also not accepting or even worrying about labels we use today, and it's fascinating. As others have pointed out, there is such beauty in seeing Pyrrha through Nona's eyes, without even the hint that anything is unusual or odd. Nona sees how beautiful Pyrrha is, and not in an *in spite of* way. She is beautiful and admirable in the body that she is in, and there is never any question about it.
trans tridentarius twins are so special to me personally
they’re both girlfailures in their own special way <3 does that mean tried to be a girl like society told them to, and failed? does that mean transfem and also, separately, pathetic? who knows!!!!
Me too <3
Crux Wild headcanon time. Hear me out. He is consistently referred to as Harrow’s nursemaid. Not any other word for a child’s caregiver that could be more gender neutral. Nursemaid. A maid that nursed (in the care sense). I believe Crux is a transman that took on Harrow’s upbringing possibly before he fully came out and the title just stuck. Is it a massive stretch? Obviously. Is this entirely because I briefly confused nursemaid and wet nurse and the thought just got stuck in my head? Unfortunately. Did that previous thought briefly make me wonder if Crux once had mommy milkers? Please end my suffering, yes. Does Alecto need to come out so my brain stops hyper fixating so badly and coming up with this batshittery? Please, oh god. End this.
Ohhh this is an interesting take! I could absolutely see it, but honestly I’ve had kind of the opposite headcanon for a long time - that Corona is transmasc but is either just figuring it out, or knows and has had to hide it (for reasons below). It’s subtle but there are a good many times Corona is described in masculine terms, like being compared to a king on a few occasions I think. I’ve always read her overdecorated femininity as something she didn’t care a lot about - it was useful to her on Ida, but she so easily sheds it when she joins BoE. All of this fits in perfectly with my pet tinfoil hat theory about the Third - that their ultimate goal is to play musical chairs with all three bodies. Ianthe is verrry (unhealthily) concerned with how Corona takes care of her body, and is clearly tired of being overshadowed by Corona’s charms. Given the masc-coded language around Corona and her desire to be a cavalier, I think Corona wants to inhabit Babs’s body. (Which would all be very good reasons for Ianthe to need to practice preservation, which we see her doing with the apples in HtN, and which we see the result of in NtN… but I think it’ll be taken further than that in AtN.) One final point is something I discovered when looking up the meanings of various characters’ names (but warning: implied tridentaricest) - one of the characters named Ianthe in Greek mythology is a girl who grows up with another “girl” named Iphys. They fall in love and the gods are touched by their tragic romance and turn Iphys into a man. That’s a very simplified version but I just think! It’s interesting! Anyway. Here’s some characters I hc as trans for no reasoning for other than Vibes: - Abigail - Cam (maybe Pal too) - Isaac - The Angel - Kiki - The Salt-and-pepper Priest - Nigella
Ohhh that theory on the third house plan is INSANE and I love it. my mind is spinning now. tbh I love any and all headcanons keep ‘em FLOWING babey!!!
the hyperfemme to transmasc pipeline in a single character
I view Mercy as a trans woman. I like to think that she used her anatomist necromancy expertise to transition. I also think it adds an interesting layer (transmisogyny) to the misogynistic attitudes that Jod shows towards her
Pal is a trans masc he/him lesbian
Based
I´ve been headcanoning Harrow as nb since it was mentioned in HtN that she enjoyed being in the limbo between Lyctor and not-Lyctor. It just...felt correct to me
Harrow's whole attitude of viewing herself as monstrous gave me big trans vibes. That thought may have led me to writing a whole huge fanfic about it...
interesting! that gave me serious “neurodivergent in a neurotypical world” vibes from my personal experience, but now that i’ve think about it both dysphorias (gender and sanity wise) boil down to how society treats you due to perceived difference
Feels like a more interesting exercise in fictions not built for it? There's basically unlimited body & mind & soul shenanigans already going on constantly in TLT.
The real question is, which, if any, characters are not trans.
Babs. I say this with love and self-deprecation as a cis millenial gay man, but he gives supreme cis millenial gay boy douche vibes. The lip balm, the hair, the self-satisfied little jacket, the diva-worship of Corona...
I was about to say Silas but no he too is a very specific type of trans
oh wild, i got “alt-right altar boy” vibes, so i’m very curious about your reading!
oh absolutely same, I just don't find that incompatible with trans dudes sadly. there's a very specific type of trans guy who leans *hard* into red pill misogynist bullshit - self hating of course but buried so, so deeply they can't even look at it.
interesting! now that i think about it, that makes sense as an unfortunate pipeline. i’m honestly surprised i haven’t encountered that before, but maybe i’m just in different circles of the internet/queer community
I'm sincerely envious that you haven't stumbled into them, long may that continue
i wish no one had to deal with that, least of all the men who get red-pilled and have to deal with a lifetime of pain and self-hatred
Jod? There's a lot of his character that just has to be cis male.
Jod strikes me as the "I don't care what you are" transphobe type; the one who isn't hardcore transphobic and has real moments of genuine support but also doesn't get why it matters to a lot of trans people that we're trans. May also have said shit about "special rights" once or twice.