Shot in the dark, but has anyone else been noodling on the depictions of gender in the Radiant Emperor duology (She who became the Sun / He who drowned the world)? Curious what others think.
There are a number of characters either struggling with their sexuality or gender. That isn’t really surprising, but I also noticed that they are all men who feel like their manliness is challenged by their appearance, personality, or sexuality. There is a lot of exploration of how they feel and why they feel that way and how it motivates a their decision making. On the other hand, I don’t see the same introspection in female (?) characters. For example, Zhu pretends to be a man, but I can’t tell how much of that is convenience vs their identity. I noticed that the pronouns switch depending on the perspective of that chapter, with “she” being used for Zhu’s perspective, but not sure how much that is meant to signal gender vs just a change in perspective. Then there is Ma, Zhu’s wife, who doesn’t seem to reflect on her relationship with Zhu anywhere near as much as the male characters dissect their attractions to other males. My best guess is that gender is less important to the non-male characters and so they don’t spend time thinking about it. Is that a coincidence? There is a lot more to the books than gender, of course, but for some reason I keep wondering about it.
by kusunokidweller