On Sexuality and Cop-Outs
Recently on Exiern, I starting pulling the threads together on a story line that my predecessor Drowemos started early in the strip’s development. Tiffany (Typhon-Knee’s) sexuality and preference was frequently hinted at, toyed with, teased, and skirted around. At this point, it’s now clear, and I’m ready to discuss it in more detail.
From the beginning, my interpretation of Tiffany’s actions was of a repressed homosexual in denial. I never liked the idea of Faden’s “curse” changing Tiffany in any fundamentally mental or emotional way. This is labeled as a “cop out” by some. To be honest, I felt the “cop out” was to alter her mind along with her body. To me, that makes the change too neat; too clean. The curse then becomes a clean break from what Tiffany was and what she now is.
The thrust of this “Wild North” storyline is to pressure Tiffany into accepting what changed and what didn’t, forcing her to confront her past so that she can move forward with her life. It doesn’t entirely resolve the issues she has with her identity (in fact, I could argue the disconnect between her and her body is worse than it was), but it’s the first of many steps Tiffany will make in coming to terms with her place between two cultures, two ways of life, and where her life goes from here. The events that led to her exile had haunted her, and the guilt is still building. This is just the beginning of her resolution.
Does that mean there weren’t other valid interpretations? No; of course there was. There’s no doubt many more complex and interesting roads that could have been taken. But to me, her sexuality and/or her gender identity is not the twist in this tale. That she wasn’t “normal” in some fashion was rather obvious. This “reveal” is the context for the real “twist” that’s coming next week. Remember those recollections into the death of Raviner-Behr and the boy’s exile? This reveal is what pushes Tiffany to finally set the record straight on what she saw that fateful day.
The reveal is for the sake of the story; the story is not for the sake of the reveal.
I do apologize if this element of the story disappoints some of you. I apologize if the part of the story that most engaged you was not the primary motivation for the story I am trying to tell. I can only hope that you do find that story to at least dampen that disappointment.
Thank you for listening; and thank you all for reading.
Some really great points there that echo much of my own thoughts on Tiffany, even before I got involved in the comic. And regarding “The reveal is for the sake of the story; the story is not for the sake of the reveal,” if the story WAS for the sake of the reveal then we could wrap up EXIERN before the end of the year and be done with it! And I don’t really think anyone wants that.
Although, if we did then I wouldn’t be going into 2015 spending hundreds of dollars each month! 😉
Well said. Out of curiosity, are you saying this was part, or a possible part of Drowemos’ story plan from the start or that this is your own interpretation?
Well done either way. I guess it’s a little sad in a way as we’re departing from the old gags of suggested liking of boys or retention of the desire for women in this female body. Everything becomes serious and real now. The whole anxiety over the sex change even dies a good bit. Still mystery around the curse and certainly gender identity differs from sexuality but much of the tension around the curse that has been a centrepiece of the story wraps up to a good extent here.
The way those opening lines sound makes it seem as though Tiff’s sexuality was first brought up long ago.
@Charles81 – The theme itself was possible with drowemos at the helm, although at the time he handed the writing off to me, he hadn’t decided exactly how it would play out; which was why he had kept the entire sexuality thing rather vague, so that it could be interpreted many different ways.
” But to me, her sexuality and/or her gender identity is not the twist in this tale. ”
I confess, I’m a little disturbed that Typhan’s sexuality, not the murders, is what the audience jumped on.
There’s a fundamental conflict here between civilized and barbarian culture, and I, for one, am looking forward to Tiffany’s resolution of that conflict and her guilt over it.
Another way I think I can put it is like this:
Had the “curse” been a complete change of mind and body; there’s nothing about Tiffany’s past I’m exploring that really digs into her. She’s literally a completely different person because of the curse, it allows her a convenient way to shrug it all off without having to really confront who she was. She doesn’t have that luxury here; she’s the same person that gleefully raided, pillaged, and tried to plunder. Her choices and circumstances changed her life, not some surge of white magic.
This way, she knows that the only agency for her change will be her. If she wants to change her life (for better or for worse), it’s because SHE wants to make those changes, not the compulsion of someone else’s magic.
“This way, she knows that the only agency for her change will be her.”
I am now more interested in the comic than I have ever been before. This is a far deeper question than sexual preference.
Good on ya, mate.
“It doesn’t entirely resolve the issues she has with her identity (in fact, I could argue the disconnect between her and her body is worse than it was)”
First, a disclaimer – I’m not transgender, nor do I knowingly know anyone who is. So I’m happy to stand corrected by anyone who (from actual experience) knows better.
However, from everything I’ve read and heard about people who are transgender, the fact that Typhon-Knee (or Tiffany?) was attracted to men is largely irrelevant. If Typhon-Knee is a gay man, he should still hate the alien body he’s been cursed with. He would still be a gay man, not a straight woman. And the distress caused to him by this alien body would only grow stronger with time, not weaker.
Only if Typhon-Knee was in fact transgender, identifying herself as female but stuck with a man’s body would she be able to reconcile herself to (or even be grateful for) Faden’s ‘curse’.
Everything we’ve seen so far has strongly implied that Typhon-Knee’s gender identity has always been male, regardless of his sexual orientation. Making him accept his current state would seem to me to be a fundamental misunderstanding of gender identity – at least, of real-world gender identity.
Oh, in case it wasn’t clear, I’m encouraged by chemiclord’s hints that he’s well aware of the complexities of the issues 🙂
Ugh, this is really the worst thing you could’ve done. It’s perfectly normal to consider new behaviors after having something drastic happen to you like, I dunno, ending up in an opposite-sex body? It wouldn’t have anything to do with Faden’s curse “affecting Tiff’s mind”, it would be her cultural upbringing being shaken by the event, enabling her to think and act outside the box. It’s also perfectly normal for people to slightly retcon their own history to more neatly align themselves with existing stereotypes. It would’ve been fine if Tiff said something like “I never was that much into girls anyway”, but now you’ve gone and made it blatant. You’ve gone and reinforced the cliché that in order to be a “true” gay, you must’ve always felt that way. There have to have been “hints” in your past, you can’t ever have felt any attraction to the opposite sex, blablabla. Speaking of clichés, the situation you’ve created can be interpreted as illustrating the ancient bigoted cliché that trans people are just gays copping out to heteronormativity.
Another thing that bothers me is that you use the “repressed homosexual in denial” cliché in a world where the idea of ‘men liking men’ seems to be completely unheard of. And yet when Peonie is implying that Tiff liked men all along, she’s worried about Tiff thinking she’s judging her (HELLO, cliché), when in a world where people are completely oblivious to this kind of attraction, the response wouldn’t be condemnation, it would be disbelief. “What is this gibberish? Men liking men? Bwuh?”
The idea of Tiffany as a murdering attempted rapist is more off putting than anything else.
Kind of killed this series for me.
I, for me, am quite happy with what you’ve been doing, because I think it’s important to see more gay heroes in comics (lesbians being often played as eye candy for a male audience).
Andyw’s got a pretty good point, though.
Since I was one of the people accusing you of a cop-out, I feel obliged to elaborate:
To me, the issue never was the implication that Faden’s curse changed Typhan-knee mentally or emotionally (although see below), but rather his being homosexual all along simplified the story, and deprived us of character development complexities that Exiern was uniquely situated to address.
I would rather have Tiff start as a heterosexual man, keep his/her sexual attraction to women after the change and still be drawn to Denver (eventually), not because he’s a man, but because he’s Denver. That would be a serious internal conflict to resolve which could go either way (my personal preference would be for Tiff to come to the conclusion that gender is overrated).
Unfortunately, you chose to make it easy(er) for Tiff: “Now you can act on your sexual attraction to males, and society will accept it thanks to this convenient excuse”. We already have Teresa.
Hell, you could even have Typhan-knee liken gratuitous sex to rape and be turned off by it (because of his mother’s treatment perhaps). His attraction to Denver could be a trigger to have him struggle with his sexual identity, question it, blame the curse and so on.
To summarize, I respect your decision to take the comic in this direction, but I am disappointed because I feel that, by taking the easy way out, you missed an opportunity.
Now, regarding the curse:
1) It does affect Tiff mentally and emotionally, as we saw in the castle.
2) It may not even been Faden’s curse. He did complain about “messing with the book” right after casting it.
Well it certainly explains the insults she threw Teresa’s way. You always use the things you hate worst in yourself as insults against others.
As for the TG thing, I do know T* folks and I know it is controversial ground within their community, but I’m on the side of those who say that until there are magic transformations in the real world we cannot judge whether magic transformations are the same as being Trans* so you can do what you want.
So I think I should jump in here and just confirm what Chemiclord said. The way he is taking the story is very close to something I was considering.
Now keep in mind that Exiern was written more ad-hoc when I was at the helm. I was never more that 8 pages beyond the currently posted script. As such things change quite a bit as I proceeded.
When the comic first started out I had envisioned Typhan-Knee as a typical Conan the Barbarian super macho guy. There was a line in the original comic after Typhan-Knee was transformed:
“This is going to put a dent into my Raping and Pillaging”
“You can still pillage”
“I’m not that fond of pillaging.”
But as I wrote the comic Tiffany became a more complex character than a causal rapist who was getting his karmic punishment. She was thoughtful and caring and was strangely insecure for a barbarian. Granted this is probably because I was projecting a good deal of myself on to the character but she shifted to the point where I could not see her raping anyone. In fact she seemed very sexual inexperienced.
And then I realized she had been riding a unicorn. That she was petting a Unicorn even as a man. Every now an then you find you wrote aspects into a character that you had no idea of at the time. This was the case with Tiffany and her sexuality.
As Chemiclord said I put in many hints about Tiffany’s conflicted nature through out the comic. And while I had not made up my mind for sure at the time of the hand off this was one scenario I was playing with.
So if you want to call cop-out I am afraid you have to lay that charge at my door and Chemiclord is just running with what I gave him.
Note: Lurkers suggestions are also things I was thinking about so in a way he’s right too.
@Drowemos: Consider the blame at your feet then ;P
I can still understand that Typh was a macho, psychotic, running in his father’s footsteps regardless of sexuality before the change because we know the curse does affect him mentally, so I can totally see the alteration. We saw a brief view of the original Tiff when he pyroed and killed the spell singer by breaking her neck.
I guess If I’m to pick an obvious difference in the writing/story style from Drowemos’ then its the growing seriousness of the comic and falling gag humour. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
Sure we had P’s comment to Niel’s as Tiffany stormed off and Denver checking out Tiff’s bum as she searched for the locket in their recent intimate moment, but you would never have a fight without continuous humour and gags on every page. Even the serious moments would contain Sith Squirrels in the background. In fact I cannot find one humourless discussion page in all of Drowemos’ archives.
Again, its not necessarily a bad thing to move from the high-frequency gag humour to a more serious tone with more spaced gags but its certainly an adjustment that can make people reading the story from start to finish notice a difference in the entire mood that reading Exiern puts them in.
Drowemos, since you’re here, can you please shed some light on this question:
Was the curse Faden’s doing or did he cast a different one than intended because somebody “messed with his books”?
Also, is it known who has been “messing with his books”?
Thanks.
Tiffany is going to get some more insight on the “curse” within the next month or so (I finished THAT particular set of scripts last month in fact… Shipeng is in the process of drawing it out as we speak).
I’m wondering how accurate the priest’s description of the curse was. It seems to be the closest we’ve had to some explanation.
Supposedly the “curse” is trying to change her into the ideal woman as she understands it to be. But they also noted it would break or cease if she ever reached her expectations. not sure if that means she would lock in to being permanently female or suddenly shoot back to male.
The Gala seems to be the closest the curse has ever come to winning or loosing as she nearly became completely her ideal female only to suddenly go pyro and appear to almost revert back.
We know the curse also seems to corrupt any magic cast on Tiff and sometimes other enchantments. Faden seemed to hint it was why she survived his death chant but he also hinted that the curse its self may not be the reason Tiff turned female, almost like that was somehow a thing from Tiff’s subconscious. Although its turning of others to female suggests that’s now the locked in alteration.
Hi all – during what we knew would be a controversial reveal we are eager to let everyone voice their opinions and feel that they have been heard. Whether you agree with the direction of the story or not, we do want everyone to have the chance to be a part of the conversation. I think a quick review of what’s been voiced above and on the comic so far certainly proves our dedication to that.
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If you have a post waiting for Approval, please take a second read and consider if any terminology used could be reasonably interpreted as derogatory/degrading. If that was not your intent, and a revised comment is submitted, we will approve it.
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I never thought that Typh was gay prior to the change. I reasoned transgender because she really hasn’t tried that hard to get back to normal and even seems to enjoy it at times. Now I think that maybe she just accepts it as a fitting punishment for past transgressions. I think you have thrown a new twist into the story that could be very interesting. keep up the good work 🙂
BTW, Teresa certainly was a closet transsexual!! And you’ll never convince me otherwise! 🙂
So I’m both glad to see that the incongruity in the story between straitness and queerness is being addressed, but I am still wondering about the gender issues. I’ve been enjoying the story, but its long bothered me that gender has been treated as something that you can shrug into. That suddenly Typhan-knee is girl and therefore begins acting “girly.”
I thank Andyw for his his comments, they are spot on as far as the trans people that I’ve known are concerned. Women who’ve had to live in men’s bodies for 50-60 years before being able to express themselves as their actual gender. They never “settled” into the body, never got used to it, and in fact were in a great deal of pain and self-hatred until they finally could accept and express themselves as transgendered. (And that expression, aka, dressing as their proper gender, was key to their healing.)
So I feel that the story is still in a difficult place in regards to gender identity.
Gender, despite what Lurker suggests, has NOTHING to do with sexual orientation, and is certainly not overrated. More like oversimplified to the point of absurdity. Just because you find yourself in a girls body doesn’t mean that you’re suddenly going to be attracted to one very nice boy. For that, Typhan-knee would have to somewhere in the bisexual spectrum to start with, which given the story so far, I believe has been ruled out.
So perhaps Typhan-knee was gay, but his seeming growing comfort with a woman’s body only makes sense if he was genderqueer to begin with, and severely compensating on the macho man side.
Gender is a fairly complex issue. Before I assumed that you weren’t going to actually address that, and instead continue to use the standard gender binary as a source of comedic effect. It always left a bit of a sour note in my reading, but I could accept it for what it is. By taking this path, I feel that you’ve raised the bar and I really hope that you do a good job in addressing these complex issues. (Though, feel free to be silly and irreverent about it. 🙂 )
copout, if anythign it weakens the theme not strengthens like you think
already gay makes it too neat, not “curse has mental effects”
curse has mental effects is far far far more interesting
Really glad to see the series addressing the sexuality and gender issues that have been there to be explored (or ignored) from the beginning.
As someone who *is* genderqueer (and somewhat genderfluid), gender-swap stories both fascinate and regularly disappoint me. This is a huge step forward for Exiren as a series and Tiffany as a character, and puts some moments that were (for me) cringe-worthy into meaningful context.
I’m very interested in seeing where the series goes from here, including dealing with the distinct issues of sexual orientation and gender identity, as well as how both of these things are constructed in the fantasy world of the story.
If it wasn’t for the curse changing others into women, I’d almost say it just changed Tiff into her Mother. The two look remarkably alike.
…Then again, it may have been changing the others to look like their mothers… But surely the water sprite “Ce” wouldn’t have a mother as it was created by the travelers.
@FDAFDA: Yeah, I see what you mean there. It was quite interesting to see Tiff as a supposed straight male, dealing with the “curse’s” work to change his sexuality as well as his gender and trying to resist those changes, etc. But I still love the reveal as Tiff being Gay which does nicely explain many of the story elements that ChemicLord has set up since his arrival with Tiff’s tribe and exile.
I’m disappointed a the ham handed way this was handled. Someone was overthinking this.
1) A macho hero male becomes a woman biologically (through magic).
2) Former sexuality is completely irrelevant, though funnier if left heterosexual, if unrealized (virgin).
Given that, perhaps the author could read, “I Will Fear No Evil” by Robert Heinlen. He tackled the thorny subject of a hetero man in a woman’s body. He realized that biology does play a factor…as in love often begins with biological attraction.
I miss the tongue in cheek humor. It was what drew me to read the strip once I discovered it. This current change in direction, not only growing ever so serious, but turning the barbarian into a would-be rapist and homosexual in denial (talk about a cop-out), really makes me question wanting to support this franchise.
Please, PLEASE, retcon this nonsense away. I would have purchased these strips had they shown up on DriveThru Comics, but now–I’m rapidly losing interest.
@Disappointed: Even IF I were to be swayed by those who did not like this change of direction in tone and style or any other criticism, due to being nearly two months in the script and potentially three YEARS ahead in terms of story development, it would be asking an awful lot for me (and Shipeng) to go back and retcon this particular element.
That said, I fully intend to stick with the story I’ve developed. I’m sorry that does not meet your standards or what you were looking for.
I will admit that i was disappointed by this turn of events as it was not what I hoped for. However, I will freely admit that that does not automatically make it bad and i will watch the story very carefully to see where it goes before making any conclusions.
HOWEVER, I do STRONGLY feel that you will need to do something positive to heal up typh’s character so that I can stay attached to her. I personally found the shift of vunerable, and a bit earlier badass but noble to seeing the ruthless evil person she used to be was so jarring it shock a lot of my love for her character away. I still WANT to love her character, but it will be hard to redeem her after what, feels like anyways, a total 180 to the dark side.
@fdafda: I partially agree; however, the majority of (fictional) TG material that I’ve seen that includes mental effects has a “bimbofication” flavor to it, something that I find incredibly off-putting. So I am actually pleased with how the story line is turning out, and I have no issues whatsoever with Typhan-Knee having been a pillaging murderer and would-be rapist. We are all of us, for better or for worth, children of our respective society and upbringing, and if you grow up in an environment where the social norm is that males pillage, rape and murder the “enemy”, well, then that is how most people would turn out.
@MeghanCM: You touch upon something that is the essence of what I don’t personally fully understand related to (real-world) transgender people. Gender is first and foremost about biology, right? But most of the _expression_ of gender is purely social, such as a particular society’s expectations on how a particular gender is to dress or behave. Now, I am all for letting trans people heal themselves in whatever manner they personally need in order to feel whole, but how come this so often expresses itself in, as you write, the way they dress? Do we as humans attach so much of the gender concept to the social expression aspects of things?
The existence of so many subcultures (e.g. punks or whatever) suggests that a lot of people indeed identifies themselves with what they wear, or see clothes as an inherent part of who they are; thus I suspect that the failing is mine as I can not myself find my own corresponding emotional connection. But then, I also firmly believe that _I_ am the mental aspect of “me”. I would still be myself if I woke up tomorrow without my legs, or with a female body, or with a different skin color, or sublimed into the strata of the universe or whatever. I’m sure I’d have all kinds of issues with it, but it wouldn’t change who I am… Though, admittedly, I haven’t actually experienced it. 🙂 Nor am I in any way trying to infer anything on anyone else’s experiences, of course.
I guess she was ruthless under Drowemos’ writing but we never really noticed.
She killed some possessed guards.
Was willing to leave the Ctyx to bleed.
Tried to kill Theresa/Father Thomas, stopped only by the sword.
Severely beat a man for trying to hit on her.
Tried to kill Captain Phi and several other guards.
Tried to kill a traveler guard for naught more than insults
Hell, if she didn’t know Denver personally she would have happily beheaded him when she discovered he was a dragon rather than hesitate.
I am happy to see this turn of events. Tiff always was a broken person and now we get to see how broken he/she is.
Clearly she idolize her dad and did her best to be a perfect barbarian warrior and favorite son.
Her violent reaction to Denvers first kiss I think had a lot to do with what happen after he was punished by his father.
I miss the gags too. But this is a important part of Tiff’s story.
Great job and keep up the quality of the story. Don’t pander to the people that want a sitcom ending eere every thing is neaty tied up and every one is happy.
Exxiern was always a delight. Yes, it was sexist, but at the same time it lampooned the sexism common throughout fantasy. It was well written, quirky, it was fun. So it was with trepidation when I read Drowemos was giving up. I was willing to give the new writers their fair due. I was expecting the new staff to re-envision the strip since that pretty standard anymore in comics. However I haven’t really liked the darker tone and the changes in the characters. Exxiern has become more like every other fantasy adventure strip. Well, it’s goodbye. It was a great ride. Good luck.
@chemiclord: All you’d have to do is rewind to the “reveal” of being a homosexual would-be rapist. Change the direction slightly, and start working some of the lampooning back in. The whole charm was how the fantasy and barbarian genres were mocked and now, you’re trying to make this into real literature (and dark literature at that). The sexuality angle would have been difficult enough to write, but to link it to rape, now you’re tackling TWO thorny, unrelated topics. Not all dark-reinventions are a good idea.
I’ll watch where you guys go with this for a little while…but all I can do is give you feedback as a reader. And the strip is rapidly losing what made it fun and charming. I don’t expect “Kevin and Kell,” but the humorous approach to the subject material that the strip started out with was far superior. I enjoy more focus on the material, seeing stuff build with a purpose, but I consider this whole justification for Tiph’s issues to be the copout.
And I do miss the bimbo jokes regarding the princess. Lampooning…great choice of words Darkryu.
I first came across Exiern while browsing through World of TG (Comics) — so, yes, I’m a fan of transgendered comics. I wouldn’t have found Exiern otherwise, and boy, what would I have missed!
I also happen to be transgendered, so, naturally, my opinion might be very biased. Please take that into account!
While most transgendered comics are nothing more than porn — you know, the story is pointless, just like on porn, it’s just an excuse to show nudity, sex, and the inevitable “oh no I’m a woman now but mmmh it feels so good why do I want cock now?” — which soon becomes tiring, no matter how great the art actually is. And you can actually summarize the reasons for turning a guy into a girl with a short list — either it’s some kind of surgery, or it’s nanobots/nanites, or, well, it’s magic. There are however some pearls among TG comics where the actual device is hidden/mysterious or, even if it’s obvious, they come with a twist.
Humour, irony, and sarcasm are popular among several TG comics, and that’s what made me read Exiern. I used to be completely nuts about D&D in the late 1980s, mostly because our gang disbanded (real life and families tend to do that), but the spark is still there. Also, in spite of my intellectual wife frowning about my choices of literature, I’m quite fond of Robert E. Howard’s Conan stories — but I also like humour fantasy a lot: Terry Pratchett being my favourite author.
So, that’s my background: a transgendered D&D and Conan fan, who likes TG comics when they’re well written, have great art, and complex plots that are actually funny to read.
Given all that, no wonder that I like Exiern a lot. I think what actually made me read the whole eight years in just a couple of weeks are a series of small things that, in my very biased mind, made me return over and over again, to see the plot unfold.
The first, of course, is Tiffany. Somehow I would have never come up with the idea of a macho-type barbarian, closely modeled after Conan (just blonde!) in certain details, who turns female. Typhan-Knee has all the typical Conan-ite attributes — strength, fighting skill, but also intelligence (she does, indeed, learn to read in just a few months), knowledge of the world, she’s streetwise, and, when she’s not angry, she shows some humour. The fun bit about Conan the Barbarian is that Conan is hardly anything but stupid; he is indeed quite intelligent. Typhan-Knee is convincing as a character because he’s definitely quite clever, and after becoming Tiffany, she has not changed her mind not lost her skills and abilities.
Now here is where things become interesting and where the plot changes from many, many TG comics and stories. In most of them, the authors “assume” that switching bodies will automatically switch the mindset — so if you get turned into a blonde bimbo, you start acting and behaving like one, and enjoying that a lot. While I can understand that this stereotype might be interesting to many readers, it’s not for me. Why? Because I can imagine that some fans of “bimbofication” TG comics actually enjoy the idea that the main character(s), once turning female, can drop their intelligence and act like stupid brats with a gorgeous body, and competely forget about their past as males. Also, the authors of those comics tend to imply that somehow the way we think and act is fully dependent on the body we have.
Gender, of course, is more complicated. It’s almost exclusively socially conditioned. So it’s not because you were born a girl that you act girlish; it’s because society assigns a certain role to girls which tend to have parents and friends condition a girl to act girlish; and, conversely, boys to act like boys. Obviously there are exceptions. But the point is that the body — the biological sex attributes, primary and secondary — do not really play a major role in defining one’s mindset. Nevertheless, it is now an active area of research that shows that the brain is indeed slightly differently “wired” for (genetic) women and men, and an hypothesis (still requiring more research) has been formulated that certain hormone-triggered processes during maturation in the womb may actually pre-wire guys to think as guys and girls to think as girls. While controversial, this would also explain transgenderity — nothing is ever “black and white” and this process often fails or is incomplete, so that some people might have a differently-wired brain gender than their body’s gender.
No matter what science will find out — as said, there is active research in this field, and in ten years, this hypothesis might be dropped — it’s clear that there are no 100% “male brains” or 100% “female brains”. And it’s also clear that our brain does not work just with neurons. Actually, it works with two messaging systems: one uses neurons, but the other one uses chemical messages — slightly slower than firing neuron, but they have an advantage: they can change the way the brain works. Typical examples are the way adrenaline (a hormone!) completely rewires the brain, temporarily, to give you an edge in stressful situations. Another example is, of course, how alcohol messes up with the brain’s wiring — fortunately also temporarily.
Transsexuals going through hormone therapy are aware of this “chemical rewiring” and actively pursue it. Some are very disappointed in the results, because hormones will not “magically” make them suddenly think and act girlish; but they definitely make a difference. I cannot speak from experience, but you can watch how women go through menopause, and how the lack of hormones will change their moods. Similarly, look how teenagers (both male and female!) react to hormones not only pumping up their bodies, but rewriting their brains as well. We all went through that and know how our personalities can be changed by that — our poor parents have to endure the period of adaptation! Nevertheless, at some point, teenager hormones will have finished their work, and we will get used to what they did to our brains, and our personalities will adapt. It’s mostly the period of change that mixes us up so much.
So… what this means is that, although a magic spell “poof! you’re now female!” will not trigger instant bimbofication — and most definitely not lower IQ, make someone more slutty, etc. — it would definitely make some difference, as suddenly the brain is immersed in a new chemical bath with a different composition (namely, female hormones). Some changes would most definitely happen, but they might be not as coarse as most TG comic artists tend to wish their audience to believe.
In fact, I remember quite well the day I came out to my own wife as a crossdresser. She was a bit worried that somehow I started acting like a bimbo, a s!!t, or a Barbie girl. What she found out is that my basic personality doesn’t change. Gender, for me, is literally just another layer of clothes; and my wife sees beyond the superficial appearance and looks deep inside. I’m really not “a different person” and have no intention to be; I just enjoy the ability to express myself as the gender I would have loved to have been born in, even if I just do that temporarily.
Now let’s get back to Exiern. We don’t know much about Typhan-Knee’s personality before the story starts; he gets turned into a female so early on, that, as a reader, we have few clues on how he thought and acted. We just get a few glimpses, showing through Tiffany, and some flashbacks. But what is interesting — and now I can see this was relatively deliberate! — is that Tiffany doesn’t act like most TG comic characters would act in her situation. She is used at getting wizards casting spells at her. She deals with the annoyance, but we can see that she quickly finishes the fight with Faden and wins easily. And then, well, she’s stuck into this female shape, but makes the best of it, knowing that it might just be temporary. She continues to be an intelligent, quick-witted barbarian, and remains like that for most of the story. At the beginning, we can see that she sees it as a “minor annoyance”. Which would be consistent with a barbarian who has fought most of their lives against all kinds of creatures who might have put all sorts of spells on them. This is just a new kind of spell, and Tiffany deals with its “inconvenience” in a pragmatic way.
At this point in the early story it’s hard to understand (and interesting because of that!) what exactly Tiffany feels and thinks about her new body. From a humouristic point of view, of course her reactions are fun to watch. But from a deeper perspective, the reader has to ask: is she taking this so well because she knows it’s temporary and she’s used to getting all sorts of curses; or is there something more to it?
As the story progresses, we get a few more clues. The unicorn is an interesting case — because he’s present from the very beginning, and we have immediately to think: “Wait! How can Typhan-Knee, renowned barbarian, and probably having gone though ‘raping and pillaging’ over and over again, be still a virgin?” But then we might think that Tiffany — not Typhan-Knee! — is a virgin as a female, and we accept the unicorn because of that.
But of course there is more. Tiffany struggles with her own barbarian stereotypes of how women are supposed to behave, but, later on, we see that women in the North are not objects, as most people in the South tend to believe, but have their own personality and are quite able to commandeer villages and get respected. It’s true, however, that they might not become hunters, renowned warriors, or clan leaders — while they become princesses and queens (or high priestesses) in the South. So there is a difference, even though Southerners tend to think much more in stereotypes about what they believe about Northern women, which makes the story even more interesting. We, as readers, assume that Tiffany is strongly molded by her society’s stereotypes of how a woman should behave and somehow resists those stereotypes — her “male barbarian personality” is overwhelming. But as the story unfolds in the chapters in the North, we can see that, after all, Tiffany doesn’t seem so different from other Northern women — they have strong personalities as well. The difference, of course, is that she has awesome fighting skills and a much broader knowledge and understanding of the world. This is quite interesting as a plot twist: after all, Tiffany, who is constantly angry and with a temper, is not really “fighting” her new condition, but just reacting pretty much as any Northern woman would react. This is surprisingly much more convincing than a plot based on “oh-no-I’m-a-woman-and-I-hate-this-so-I-will-react-as-a-male”. Tiffany is reacting mostly as a Northern woman would react, even though, since most of the story is viewed from the perspective of the South, the reader is tricked to think otherwise. That’s very clever as a plot device!
Unlike most Northern women, however, Tiffany is well-acquainted with Southern society, and she understands the differences (or most of them anyway), namely, on the roles that women play in the South. Peonie, as a typical example — beyond her role in the story for comic relief! — also tries to escape Southern stereotypes, by trying to engage in adventures all the time, which, as we see here and there, is not what aristocratic women are supposed to do (but her father seems tolerant). I think that one of the many reasons why Tiffany respects Peonie is because Peonie, in her way, is a rebel against her own society. Surprisingly, Typhan-Knee as Tiffany is much more aligned with her own society’s rules (as said, Tiffany is not so much different from the other Northern women) than Peonie within Southern society. The relationship between both works well… even after it’s clear that they won’t be lovers, just good friends.
Then we have a twist at some point. Fully immersed in her new role as a woman in the middle of Southern society, Tiffany realizes that she is now a woman — a woman in the South — and not “merely” another barbarian. And definitely not male! So, even though there is a suggestion of a spell, she starts to act (and change) to something more akin to her role in society. Here is where we come across the idea that Tiffany somehow sees women as “weak playthings” and struggles with the idea that she might have to become one.
I think that this section of the plot is incredibly ambiguous! The great thing about Exiern is that we never know exactly what Tiffany is thinking or feeling, we just see how she talks and reacts (just like in the real world!). It’s clearly painful for her to accept her role as a woman — a woman in Southern society — but we also understand that she is not utterly shattered by it. I mean, if in our world and age, a very macho guy suddenly turned into a female, without ever wishing to be one, he would very likely lose his mind — or even commit suicide, unlike what most TG comic artists tend to depict in their stories. On the other hand, just a bit of transgenderity present in the brain (and, as said, there are no 100% male or 100% female brains — we are all a mix) would probably change the attitude enough to allow a certain degree of acceptance and curiosity.
So at that stage I read the story as understanding that Tiffany has never been a “100% macho male”. Typhan-Knee was just socially conditioned to act and perform as such. Tiff struggles not with her own body and her emotions, but mostly with the acceptance of her social role: if she wants to succeed as a Southern woman, she needs to act differently, and become a “weak plaything”. Here we have the stereotypes reversed: Typhan-Knee was used to Northern women with strong personalities, and, now that she is Tiffany, that was a personality that s/he didn’t dislike (because it allowed her to engage in the kinds of activities that mattered more to her: being a hero, fighting for her causes, and so forth). But she sees now the world from the South’s perspective: women are supposed to be flirty, weak, but also manipulative. Teresa, I think, is an eye-opener to Tiffany at this stage, and Tiff despises her because she represents a stereotype that Tiff rejects (because it’s not the stereotype of her own society). Thus the struggle.
If we had some doubts about this, we could go back to the unicorn. It gives a hint that, unlike Conan, Typhan-Knee was not into sexual gratification. At this stage of the story, we don’t understand why, but it seems clear, from the way Tiffany reacts to Peonie, Denver, and others, that “sex” is not at the top of her priorities. It’s just us — viewing things from a Southern perspective! — that imagine that all Northerners are into ‘raping and pillaging’. Typhan-Knee clearly has little interest in the ‘raping’ aspect of things, but, at this point, we don’t understand why. But we can see that Tiffany, even though she’s fond of Peonie — as Conan would be of any rescued princess — doesn’t seem to mind much that, in a woman’s body, she might not have any sex with Peonie. Apparently as Typhan-Knee he wasn’t interested in having sex with her either, but it’s clear that he was fond of her. “Fond” in a non-sexual way.
The mystery is then revealed when they go northwards. I’m quite fond of the way this chapter is turning out. I think what is most masterfully done is the way the Northern society comes out, and how some of it is not as stereotypical as the Southern characters (from which viewpoint we see the story) would think it to be. Sure, there are stereotypes — the fights among the clans, the importance of a leader’s strength, and so forth. The first shattering of stereotypes is how all races in the North work together and worry little about “race”. The second thing is the importance given in having any kind of useful skills: Denver, as a “scholar”, is scorned in the South (except from other scholars, of course), but in the North, because he succeeded so well as a fisherman, is quite respected for that skill. So, unlike the South thinks, a Northerner can be respected not only for hacking, slashing, pillaging, and raping, but also because of useful skills they might have to aid the community. And aiding the community is expected in Northern society.
I think this is marvelously depicted! So we can see that Northerners are not “barbarians” in the sense of “pillaging and raping” and fighting all the time, but, rather, they have a quite distinctive society and social norms who are surprisingly more humane than the allegedly more civilized South. I also think that the way Niels, Denver and Peonie get in touch with the North’s culture was masterfully done. They somehow feared they would be thrown into an incredibly rough backwater. Instead, they find a vivid community, where women actually get much more respect than they thought, and where the community helps each other, and expects each member to do some duty towards the community. It’s not all about blood baths! Rather the contrary. Fighters and hunters have their role to play, but a good fisherman, a good cook, or a good woodcutter earns the same respect.
We can now understand Tiffany’s personality much better. Her curiosity in learning new things — learning to read and even wearing dresses! — comes from her upbringing in a society that values acquisition of skills. As Typhan-Knee, he learned how to fight, because he was of the ruling class of warriors, but he was certainly taught to acquire other skills as well. So a distinctive characteristic of the Northern society seems to be this skill acquisition, and, by acquiring a skill — any skill! — become proficient at it (Peonie sees that at the kitchen, where everybody expects her to do far more than it would have been demanded in the South). Now it might not be so strange to “accept” that Tiffany, in general, does a reasonable job of playing the role as a woman (even if, as a Northern woman, she ight break a lot of norms in the South).
Earlier on, Tiffany wins the fight against the “womanizing” spell, and her usually strong personality comes back in full force. But I think that it’s not a rejection of “being female”. It is a rejection of “being a Southern woman”. Tiffany likes her Northern upbringing, even if she has suffered so much because of her clan’s fights, and she cannot become a “Southern girl”. Instead, she reverts to her own society’s cultural norms instead, and embraces the “Northern girl” with which she is more familiar with. Northern women can be intelligent, cunning, becoming leaders (in their context) — but, in the case of Tiffany, she also has her fighting and hunting skills, and she’s not going to drop them (because Northerners will value any skills). She’s willing to learn Southern rules, customs, and skills (thus she learned to read!), but she’s not willing to adopt the personality of a Southern woman. She prefers to stick with her own idea of what a woman should be.
And this is where we get this “aha!” moment. So, endless pages ago, when Tiffany was somehow struggling with the image of becoming “a weak woman” — and having others worried about the transformation spell, etc. — that was not what worried Tiffany most. What worried her is that the way Southern women behave (like Teresa!) is not how her own image of a Northern woman should behave. Her struggle is not exactly about her gender: it’s about what cultural norms she should adopt. As such, no wonder the spell seemed to have failed. Tiffany, unlike what every other Southerner has imagined, did not have the “weak woman” stereotype that the Southerners think the Northerners have! Rather the contrary! What Tiffany realized is that she was thinking in terms of how a Southern women should act and behave. And that she rejected. She went back to her role image of a Northern woman. And, in a sense — wasn’t that exactly what the spell was supposed to do? 🙂 The irony is that the spell worked, but it didn’t work as the Southerners intended. Tiffany became the spit image of a Northern woman — albeit one with a strange past, and lots of fighting and hunting skills, which are not so common in the North (even if we know that women in the North are not exactly forbidden to learn them!).
Whew. Now we come to the most complex aspect of the plot, which got half of the readers stopping to follow the series. I understand that this was not an easy decision for the writers.
The unicorn has always been a problem, as well as Tiffany’s mild acceptance of her body. Typhan-Knee, while still fully male, fondles the unicorn, and it purrs. And, later on, we see that the unicorn is willing to help Peonie, but does not allow her to ride. So these should be clear hints that Typhan-Knee was a virgin, and Tiffany remains one.
Now we need an explanation of why Typhan-Knee wasn’t interested in sex during most of his life. And, well, we have an explanation now. This explanation has nothing to do with gender, though, but just sexual orientation, and I think that this is what has made so many people angry.
Well, I might, at this point, throw in some of my own cultural background. In my country, until at least the early 1970s, homosexuality was not allowed, but, of course, it would always exist, even during a relatively repressing regime. Male boys were educated to become machists, and this was part of the social background. However, there is an interesting twist. Being a macho man meant that you were perfectly allowed to have sex with other men — what you weren’t allowed to is to be penetrated. But so long as you did the penetration, you were definitely not gay. Rather the contrary: it was even a sign of being “so macho male” that you would not only have sex with women, but penetrate other guys as well. It was just guys who allowed themselves to be penetrated that would be gay.
I know that this complicates things a lot, but, to this day, men who have sex with MtF crossdressers never see themselves as being gay — provided that they are in the active role. As you can imagine, this also means that pedophilia was not so actively condoned, before the 1970s, because, well, it was not seen as paraphilia as it is today. Your maleness could be expressed by having sex with other men. In fact, some (very controversial) research shows that some primate males, to establish dominance over other primate males, force them to sexual submission through anal penetration. This doesn’t mean that homosexuality is prevalent among those primates. It can be conjectured that such traits are present in humans as well: sexual humiliation among males to establish leadership, dominance, alpha-male-ness.
It would be reasonable to assume that Northern society would have those stereotypes as well. So occasionally some Northerner leaders might establish their dominance over other males by forcing them to anal sex. It would be not completely unrealistic, rather the contrary.
What stands out in Typhan-Knee’s story is that he had some frustrating experiences with raping women, so he tried to go for raping men instead — because very likely he saw other males establishing dominance that way — but was caught in the act and condemned for it. But perhaps not exactly for “homosexual tendencies”, but rather because of it being pointless and purposeless to force a weak peasant to anal penetration — the “proof of manhood” was, after all, finding a mate and bringing her back. There was no point in proving “male dominance” through sex, since those peasants had been already subjugated. The “proof of manhood” was not really proving how you can subjugate other males — during the raids, that would be established by fighting, not having sex — but the ability to bring back a female mate. This is where Typhan-Knee failed. He was unable to find a mate. Instead, he got distracted by trying to have sex with a male instead.
In fact, we don’t know if Typhan-Knee would be aroused by having sex with a male — Tiffany didn’t tell. My guess is not, and this is implied by the way she reacts to Denver in this chapter (and, in a sense, to other males). Now that she has the perfect body to have sex with males without raising controversy, she avoids sex altogether, and this makes the story much more interesting — and also quite more believable.
We have to read this story in two contexts. The one is our contemporary, real-world context, where we have transgender psychologists and decades of research on the subject. We also have our own stereotypes; we have homophobia and transphobia in our societies; and we have deluded ideas of what goes on in the minds of people that don’t conform to society’s norms and rules. Denver, in this story, by reacting the way he does — “now that you’re a woman, that sorts out your other issues, right?” This would really be the typical reaction from someone in our society.
But we have also to take in the context of the story itself. In Exiern, it’s unlikely that there are shrinks and studies about transgenderity — much less in the North! So what Tiffany is struggling with is beyond the experience of anyone in Exiern, and that’s why it’s so difficult.
Speaking from a contemporary point of view, the approach to Tiff’s gender issues are actually quite realistic. While crossdressers tend to be hypersexual, and this trait is often shared by some classes of transsexuals, there is a class of transgenderity where the sexual drive is absent, or very low. The low libido comes mostly from a feeling of inadequateness of one’s gender. The struggle to adopt one’s assigned gender based on genitalia would be quite typical — feeling that “something is wrong”, and that the urge to have sex with women is not so great (or even totally absent), one might engage in an exaggerated display of “maleness”, simply to disguise oneself. Experiments with having sex with males might not be unreasonable — “if I’m not hetero, I might be homo” — and be as little fulfilling. In fact, one of the (many) possible diagnosis for “late transsexuality” is precisely the low libido: because one feels a sense of inadequacy with one’s own body, the sexual drive is simply not there.
Late transsexuals also usually keep their sexual preferences; many are happily married before transition, and remain happily married with the same partner after transition. Their sex life might improve, or not; most late transsexuals, even though not all, might not care so much about sex, but just about their gender anyway — and their family, if they have one. While this is not necessarily a “typical” scenario, nor even the “average” one, it’s certainly a large subset of transsexuals which is well-documented.
The name “late transsexual” does not mean that the person wakes up one day in their middle age and just decides to go through transition! Rather, like most transgendered people, this is something that they carry all their lives. The difference is that regular transsexuals (who used to be known as “primary transsexuals”) spend most of their lives in anxiety, despair, frustration and depression (often very deep depression with strong suicide urges) until their condition is “fixed”. Late transsexuals, by contrast, cope. They adopt a role they dislike because society pushes their role upon them, but they struggle to do the best they can. They are perfectly able to constitute families, have kids, become loving fathers. Deep in their minds, they know they would rather prefer to go through transition, but that might not be an option, so that won’t bother them so much. They might occasionally go through some frustration/depression phases. They might do some crossdressing, often with the permission or even encouragement from their partners, just to ease the tension. But, in general, they get along well with their condition. Many would never even consider transition.
Tiffany’s description looks, for me, pretty much like one of those cases, with the difference that, of course, in Exiern, there is nobody to tell Tiffany about that. She had a rough life, of course, but she coped. As Typhan-Knee, he lost interest in sex — both in females and males — but “covered it up”, in exile, by becoming proficient in fighting and hunting. Typhan-Knee has nothing against women — he’s not a gynophobe — but he’s not overly uncomfortable around men, either. In the story, he treats males and females exactly the same way, but tends to be more comfortable with women — that is also a trait of late MtF transsexuals, who tend to make friends with women more easily than with males, without, however, shunning males. Friendship is far more valued than sex. That’s what makes Typhan-Knee’s stereotype as a macho barbarian so curious — he does everything every other macho barbarian does, except, of course, sleep with the princess. Instead, he talks to her and has meaningful conversations with them. Conan would be shocked.
It’s quite clear that Tiffany’s stereotypes and role models are different from ours (or, better said, from the Southerners), but that is quite understandable: because Northern women are intelligent, active, and have strong personalities, Tiffany is used to treat women as intelligent and clever. The whole “raping and pillaging” thing is more logical if Northerners see Southern women as weak, worthless, and objectify them — because they have the contrast of Northern women to aspire. Typhan-Knee’s mother is said to be different — she might also have preferred the Northern woman’s role a much more pleasing one than the Southern woman’s role. All this is part of Typhan-Knee’s background as a male.
Now that Tiffany is female… certain things haven’t changed. She has now rejected the Southern stereotype and adopted the Northern one. But she still struggles with the lack of interest in sex (at the beginning of her change, we can see how she’s so violent against any “advances” — while we can see that Teresa, a more typical transsexual, not only perfectly accepts those, but encourages them). She clearly is interested in friendship, companionship, and intelligent conversation — something that even today, in many parts of the world, is considered “strange”. How much stranger would that be in Exiern!
Of course, being fiction, the question now is what will happen with Tiffany. In the “real world”, she might very likely continue to be just like she was before the magic spell, just a female version of herself, and probably rise to leader of her clan — shattering a few stereotypes in the North, but, alas, we have lots of stories of female barbarians becoming clan leaders. And then she would marry some Southern prince or king (Denver, revealing himself as a dragon lord, might be a good candidate) and establish a degree of peace between North and South. But this would not involve any sex, and Tiffany would choose a mate that wouldn’t be interested in sex, but only in a deep, long-lasting friendship. She would be willing to forfeit any male partner and remain single if she could keep Peonie’s friendship, while unifying the clans as Ash did — this would be consistent with her personality as a (possible) late transsexual.
But because this is fiction, obviously “anything can happen” 🙂
Such a long comment…
Now the question remains if this plot change, and overall change of concept, is “better” or “worse” than before. I think that it might appeal to a different audience, that’s all. In contemporary media, crossdressing/travestism is a typical plot device to enhance humour. Except for a few movies, every time a transgendered character appears in a plot, it’s to make fun of him/her. And this is not new: theatre plays and operas have always introduced crossdressing as a comic device. As such, I can imagine that most of the earliest readers of Exiern, seeing “gender change as a humourful thing”, will be utterly disappointed when it becomes “too serious” (and the humour is moved away from the gender change towards the dialogue and interaction between characters).
As part of the transgender community, of course I have to like Exiern, because it presents a very believable mindset of what it feels to be transgendered, and shows that “switching one’s body” is not the real issue. It’s all that comes with it. I think the progress of Tiffany is masterfully depicted in a very realistic way — even though this is a work of fiction, a story set in a fantasy environment. And of course I love the humour!
The above-mentioned Terry Pratchett started his career just doing fantasy pastiches which were hilarious. As time passed, however, his plots became more serious in terms of content and message, while still keeping enough humour to make his fans laugh. I think that Exiern is attempting to do the same. This is a serious subject, after all, if treated like that. But that doesn’t mean the humour cannot be discarded. The current combination of both is, for me, ideal. But, then again, I’m biased. I often wonder if I would like Exiern so much if I weren’t transgendered too, and probably my answer would be, “not so much”. Still, I think that because the focus of Exiern is not on porn — like, sadly, so many TG comics — but on the internal struggles of Tiffany and the light humour around it, I think that the story has enough appeal to a wider audience.
But we shall see! I, for one, am not only not disappointed, but have started to love the comic more and more 🙂
Keep up the great job.
Sadly, life’s never really clean, ordered, or black and white.
More often that not, even when one chooses an absolute side of the great moral and civil divide, we must take a daily walk in the grey misty world of the shadows.
Growing up and out from one’s absolute is always interesting.
However, becoming a big fish in a small pond is rarely more daunting than becoming becoming a big fish in a big pond, be it by mistake, misadventure or misconceived intent.
However, becoming a legend in the valley of the Shadows, by the same methods, is something else altogether.
What is Typhoon’s eventual destination?
Who knows, but the tale of grand legends are more in the journey, than the destination.
Raw, messy, grand on a scale that unfolds in the telling, joyful, tearful and fearful, but if you were there, it’s just another day, breakfast being optional and clinging to life, such as it is, being optimal, regardless of your state of mind on the day.
After seeing how the curse works, I think the combination of the subtleties of the magic, combined with Tiffeny’s sexual preference, the respect for her father, the shame of disappointing him, the shame of the rather craptastic events of his death, the shame of her gender identity because of cultural pressures leads to a rather compelling character. She shows a rather normal habit of ignoring the complications at hand, because she doesn’t know how to handle the complications. I would say she is reacting in a somewhat normal manner, to a totally bizarre and unnatural situation, making the best of what she can.
After all, she is as flawed as the rest of us poor saps.