Vaarsuvius's gender..

[TheWatcher]

After about a year of trying to work it out-- I think Vaarsuvius's gender is literally unknowable. Going back through all the sources for Vaarsuvius, and all the places I have seen the elf appear, and in all the places where the elf could act... and the fact that Vaarsuvius's children are adopted by Vaarsuvius...

I actually think there is *not* a canon gender for the token-elf-of-the-party. And it's pretty obvious to me that The Giant has made it that way on purpose.

I also think this is a completely amazing statement about a complete lack of gender role, making Vaarsuvius... just a person. A potent wizard -- but? A person to identify with or to regard.

This is pretty epic to me. Nothing Vaarsuvius does can be acreditted to gender bias, or gender stereotyping or anything outside of elf-stereotyping. It's kinda freeing, and I just.. totally had to comment how cool I think that is, and how relevent going along with, or swinging against gender roles in roleplay was whenever I was writing; how overtly I was either intentionally following, walking between, or going against them with individual characters.

But Vaarsuvius really struck a cord with me because.. Vaarsuvius simply doesn't acknowledge it in his/her/its actions. It's a non-issue. Going for them, or going against preconcieved stereotypes is neither worthy of consideration, praise, worry or even notice in the elf's mind.. where Haily may giggle, or do the big hair thing or Belkar may kiss the girl, or Roy make big tough-guy 'Grr, Roy Smash Puny Kobold' jokes.. I like this method for Vaarsuvius, and elves in general.

All of the order are pretty amazing characters in my eyes -- but Vaarsuvius is something I haven't seen before. Maybe I just haven't been reading enough, but I like this character, and The Giant's take on elves.

What I like most about Vaarsuvius ... is that ... the elf isn't even *militantly* gender neutral.. it's like-- gender doesn't even exist. It's.. alien without being alien. lol. And it's funny how this character is resistant to automated filing and error-checking when I go back to see if my pre-conceieved assumptions were correct--

On a completely unrelated side note?
"This shirt is forshadowing for something later" is... totally epic, and I am totally buying that. Haha.

[NerdyKris]

Actually, the Giant has stated that Vaarsuvius does have a gender and he knows what it is. However, it is a well known fact that he also deliberately makes it impossible to determine. There's no "hints" like with the identity of the MitD. He just makes it impossible to determine short of asking the character "Hey Vaarsuvius, are you male or female?".


I agree that I like that it's a non issue. It just is. And it makes people question why they need to know a character's gender when they start asking why it hasn't been revealed.

[Jormengand]

"What is V's gender?" may be the wrong question to ask. V probably identifies as androgynous. "What is V's sex?" is a question whose answer hasn't been hinted at deliberately by V or Rich. Were V a real person, you could take accidental hints into evidence, but accidental hints in a fictional work are useless when trying to determine the character's gender or sex - or almost anything else, indeed.

[Morquard]

Actually what he said was that V had a gender when he started, but he was suprised people couldn't tell.

So by around strip #10 he started dropping hints to confuse his audience. When the forum seemed to think that V was primarily female he dropped a hint that he was male, like the V-man comment, or the other way around.

So whatever hints you find, they're most likely the giant messing with us.

I'm fairly sure by now V doesn't have a determinable gender anymore.

[NerdyKris]

No, I mean he just stated on twitter the other day that he did know Vaarsuvius's gender. (https://twitter.com/RichBurlew/status/435654459780108288)


@RichBurlew do you actually have a set answer to "the big three" questions

Rich Burlew ‏@RichBurlew Feb 17
I might, if I knew what they were. RT @weso12 do you actually have a set answer to "the big three" questions

Wesley Toma ‏@weso12 Feb 17
@RichBurlew V's gender and The monster in the dark's identity I forget the third (ed- Belkar's death)

Rich Burlew ‏@RichBurlew
.@weso12 Yes, I know all three.

[ti'esar]

Of course, Vaarsuvius's gender could well be "elf".

[TheWatcher]

Of course, Vaarsuvius's gender could well be "elf".

Well played, sir. Well played.

[Shale]

My bet is that it's "mwa ha ha".

[TheWatcher]

"What is V's gender?" may be the wrong question to ask. V probably identifies as androgynous. "What is V's sex?" is a question whose answer hasn't been hinted at deliberately by V or Rich. Were V a real person, you could take accidental hints into evidence, but accidental hints in a fictional work are useless when trying to determine the character's gender or sex - or almost anything else, indeed.

I was under the impression that I was using 'gender' incorrectly when you said this, but chose to look it up in the marriam webster dictionary -- as I had heard that online before, although I do not believe the net's use of 'gender' vs. 'sex' has become the primary definition yet.

"Gender: the state of being male or female"

So the question was still valid, although I understand what you were getting at. If you were using the other definition of gender, then I'd think V wouldn't have a gender at all though, even if V had a sex, which is largely the point of the topic.. haha~

[An Enemy Spy]

Personally, I'm in the opinion that V isn't even aware that nobody knows his(I assumed V was a guy before I realized he was supposed to be androgynous so I've always thought of him as male) gender, and the reason he hasn't said anything to reveal his sex is purely rule of funny.

For example, I hold the belief that if V were to put on the Belt of Gender Changing, he would become... an equally androgynous member of the other sex, and loudly complain using entirely gender neutral terms, never even considering the possibility that it isn't obvious to everyone else.

[Keltest]

Personally, I'm in the opinion that V isn't even aware that nobody knows his(I assumed V was a guy before I realized he was supposed to be androgynous so I've always thought of him as male) gender, and the reason he hasn't said anything to reveal his sex is purely rule of funny.

For example, I hold the belief that if V were to put on the Belt of Gender Changing, he would become... an equally androgynous member of the other sex, and loudly complain using entirely gender neutral terms, never even considering the possibility that it isn't obvious to everyone else.

V mentioned that he turns invisible when he goes to the bathroom specifically to annoy Belkar.

[Socksy]

Perhaps V thinks Belkar wants to ogle their elf-parts?

[oppyu]

After about a year of trying to work it out-- I think Vaarsuvius's gender is literally unknowable. Going back through all the sources for Vaarsuvius, and all the places I have seen the elf appear, and in all the places where the elf could act... and the fact that Vaarsuvius's children are adopted by Vaarsuvius...

I actually think there is *not* a canon gender for the token-elf-of-the-party. And it's pretty obvious to me that The Giant has made it that way on purpose.

I also think this is a completely amazing statement about a complete lack of gender role, making Vaarsuvius... just a person. A potent wizard -- but? A person to identify with or to regard.

This is pretty epic to me. Nothing Vaarsuvius does can be acreditted to gender bias, or gender stereotyping or anything outside of elf-stereotyping. It's kinda freeing, and I just.. totally had to comment how cool I think that is, and how relevent going along with, or swinging against gender roles in roleplay was whenever I was writing; how overtly I was either intentionally following, walking between, or going against them with individual characters.

But Vaarsuvius really struck a cord with me because.. Vaarsuvius simply doesn't acknowledge it in his/her/its actions. It's a non-issue. Going for them, or going against preconcieved stereotypes is neither worthy of consideration, praise, worry or even notice in the elf's mind.. where Haily may giggle, or do the big hair thing or Belkar may kiss the girl, or Roy make big tough-guy 'Grr, Roy Smash Puny Kobold' jokes.. I like this method for Vaarsuvius, and elves in general.

All of the order are pretty amazing characters in my eyes -- but Vaarsuvius is something I haven't seen before. Maybe I just haven't been reading enough, but I like this character, and The Giant's take on elves.

What I like most about Vaarsuvius ... is that ... the elf isn't even *militantly* gender neutral.. it's like-- gender doesn't even exist. It's.. alien without being alien. lol. And it's funny how this character is resistant to automated filing and error-checking when I go back to see if my pre-conceieved assumptions were correct--

On a completely unrelated side note?
"This shirt is forshadowing for something later" is... totally epic, and I am totally buying that. Haha.
Agreed, V's gender has been one of the best things in the comic. It may have started as an accident, but it's awesome having a casually gender neutral main character. It would actually be disappointing if V established a gender before the end of the comic.

[snowblizz]

Perhaps V thinks Belkar wants to ogle their elf-parts?

Sort of. Belkar is as curious as most of the forum about it, but unlike us he has the means to find out. If that blasted elf didn't turn invisible of course... or Belkar had enough ranks in whatever knowledge help identifying the sex/gender/whatever of a lizard.

[Cicciograna]

|V's sex> = (|Male> + |Female>)/√2

[Chantelune]

Vaarsuvius
Race : elf
Class : Wizard
Gender : yes
Familiar : when remembered.

[Iruka]

|V's sex> = (|Male> + |Female>)/√2

Ok, you'll have to explain that notation to me. :smalltongue:
What does "| >" mean?

[Cicciograna]

Ok, you'll have to explain that notation to me. :smalltongue:
What does "| >" mean?

That's a ket (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bra%E2%80%93ket_notation). In Quantum Mechanics it's used to indicate the vector representing a particular state of the system and it's properties.

In QM an observable (that is, a physical quantity) can be represented as a combination of its possible values, each one with its probability to be actually found should a measurement be preformed of the observable itself, and only the actual measurement process can make it collapse into a defined outcome.

The specific example I used means that the system "V's sex" is a linear superposition of the "Male" and "Female" states, with the √2 indicating that each state has a 0.5 probability to be found upon measurement.

To quote a famous experiment, the status of the notorious Schroedinger' cat would be (|Dead> + |Alive>)/√2.

[Grogmir]

To me V was intended to be Male. When I look at the first few strips (before Rich realised people were confused) V just strikes me as male, there is nothing feminine about the drawings. And while The Giant has shown he is one of the most sensitive writers of female characters, I find it hard to believe that as a man, he naturally drew a female character without any "features".... But then I could be doing Rich a great disservice and projecting my own sexist assumptions onto him.

Tl.dr... I always thought V was male.

[CardboardPizzas]

Vaarsuvius could be a male because Roy calls him/her V-MAN on several occasions and Roy should know seeing as he is the leader of the party and V's boss.

On the other hand, V could be female as Inkyrius (V's mate) has the body shape usually reserved for males. This could make V a gay/bisexual male, though, seeing as their children are adopted and simply refer to them both as 'parent'.

I personally see V as a male, but others will probably disagree. Please share your opinion in the comments! :smallcool:

[NerdyKris]

Opinions were already shared eight months ago.

[YossarianLives]

I always thought V was female just because I found it implausible that there could be only one female character in the party.

[137beth]

First I thought V was female, then male, then genderqueer. I like the third answer best, so I'll stay with that one.

[Oracle_of_Void]

Vaarsuvius could be a male because Roy calls him/her V-MAN on several occasions and Roy should know seeing as he is the leader of the party and V's boss.

On the other hand, V could be female as Inkyrius (V's mate) has the body shape usually reserved for males. This could make V a gay/bisexual male, though, seeing as their children are adopted and simply refer to them both as 'parent'.

I personally see V as a male, but others will probably disagree. Please share your opinion in the comments! :smallcool:

I don't think Roy being V's boss would entitle him to that information. Roy probably doesn't care about his teammates sexes as long as they stop driving him crazy with their antics.

Personally, I like to think that Elves in OOTS are similar to Discworld dwarfs where finding out your potential mate's sex is an important part of the process. Of course, Rich has said he has never read Discworld but I like that as my head-canon.

[137beth]

I don't think Roy being V's boss would entitle him to that information. Roy probably doesn't care about his teammates sexes as long as they stop driving him crazy with their antics.

Personally, I like to think that Elves in OOTS are similar to Discworld dwarfs where finding out your potential mate's sex is an important part of the process. Of course, Rich has said he has never read Discworld but I like that as my head-canon.

Also I only remember one occurrence of "V-Man", in strip 9, which the Giant later said was a mistake (because a majority of his gaming group though V was female, so he was trying to make things less clear, but in hindsight he said he should have just gone for ambiguity directly.)

[ChristianSt]

I don't think Roy being V's boss would entitle him to that information. Roy probably doesn't care about his teammates sexes as long as they stop driving him crazy with their antics.

Actually Roy did ask for the gender of his future party members. He gave them a form to fill out before hiring them, and that was one of the questions.

V had an ink malfunction, making her/his answer unreadable. Roy did ask for it, and V said Roy can correct it. Roy then dropped the topic :smallwink:.

[oppyu]

I always thought V was female just because I found it implausible that there could be only one female character in the party.

Do you hail from a magical land where women have roughly equal representation with men in media and 'The Smurfette' is an antiquated concept? How do I get there?

[hamishspence]

5E PHB had what may be a nod to Vaarsuvius:

p121: Personality & Background

You don't need to be confined to binary notions of sex and gender. The elf god Corellon Larethian is often seen as androgynous or hermaphroditic, for example, and some elves in the multiverse are made in Corellon's image.

[Darth Paul]

The most interesting thing to me has been watching how the Forum identifies V. It varies member by member, and says more about each of us than it does about Vaarsuvius. I (and many others) call hir "hir" because the Giant hasn't made it clear which gender V is, and there is no logical reason to impose my opinion on the character by saying "his/her", "he/she"; so I stick with neutral terms ("s/he" being awkward but accurate).

For those who are convinced Vaarsuvius is either male or female; I ask, "Based on what evidence?" Maybe it's because I'm an agnostic/atheist, but until there is empirical proof- in V's case, either in the strip or by Word of the Giant- I don't have enough evidence to believe V is anything other than "Elvish". "I just know it" does not convince me.

[ti'esar]

Speaking personally, while I usually try to word sentences referring to Vaarsuvius in a way that I don't have to use gendered pronouns, when forced to make a choice, I refer to V as female as I'd prefer that if I ever had to make a choice. As I said much earlier, I actually think V's gender is "elf", but there really aren't any good, non-forced terms for that.

[Jaxzan Proditor]

The most interesting thing to me has been watching how the Forum identifies V. It varies member by member, and says more about each of us than it does about Vaarsuvius. I (and many others) call hir "hir" because the Giant hasn't made it clear which gender V is, and there is no logical reason to impose my opinion on the character by saying "his/her", "he/she"; so I stick with neutral terms ("s/he" being awkward but accurate).

For those who are convinced Vaarsuvius is either male or female; I ask, "Based on what evidence?" Maybe it's because I'm an agnostic/atheist, but until there is empirical proof- in V's case, either in the strip or by Word of the Giant- I don't have enough evidence to believe V is anything other than "Elvish". "I just know it" does not convince me.

I try to refer to Vaarsuvius as "they" although occasionally I'll type he or she by accident.

[evileeyore]

Vaarsuvius is obviously an elf.





What? Elf is a gender.

[Gift Jeraff]

I used to always consider V a guy (and still generally do) but in the last year or two I find myself using female pronouns to refer to him/her.

[ChristianSt]

Speaking personally, while I usually try to word sentences referring to Vaarsuvius in a way that I don't have to use gendered pronouns, [...]

Yeah, I try to do that as much as possible, too. :smallwink:
Sometime it is a bit awkward, because it kinda forces to use "V" or "Vaarsuvius" more often than I would like, because I don't use that many pronouns for V.
I don't really like "hir" or "they" and others, so I'm stuck with "him/her", though that isn't really sexy either. :smallfrown:


One odd thing I noticed is how I react to pronouns used by other posters. Depending on context I sometime have a harder time understanding that "him" or "he" refers to V, while it is easier for me to connect "her" and "she" with V, though "hir" and others are also unproblematical. [So it should be rather easy to guess what gender I would choose for V :smalltongue:]

[Bad Wolf]

I always thought of V as a female. But I guess the real answer is that sometime a long time ago, she/he had a bad day with two Girdles of Feminity/Masculinity...

[Rogar Demonblud]

I peg Vaarsuvius as female for a simple yet meta reason. To date, all of the lousy parents and spouses have been male. To paraphrase the Giant, the crappy parenting brigade needs some female energy.

[Onyavar]

It's really interesting.

Yeah, V-man in the first strips appears pretty male (to me! - Although V wears a robe, making things unclear. Also, Vaarsuvius is drawn with a male face sprite (i.e. eyes higher on the skull).

Darth V however looked pretty female (again, to me!), as does the after-Darth V with V's ponytail.

Vaarsuvius rooms with Haley. Ah-hah!

Vaarsuvius is perceived by Belkar as potential lust object... Ah-hah!

Inkyrius also appears as a male sprite... Ah-hah!

Vaarsuvius is a crappy parent, only focusing on career, while Inkyrius focuses on the family... Ah-hah!


Result: Inconclusive.

And I agree with other posters: V's gender is pretty unimportant to the story (unlike the other characters, who are essentially defined by their gender and romantic sideplots).
V is above romantic sideplots - V has other issues.

[zimmerwald1915]

Also, Vaarsuvius is drawn with a male face sprite (i.e. eyes higher on the skull).
V's eyes are actually somewhat lower than Elan's and higher than Haley's.

[Sartharina]

I believe that Vaarsuvius is NOT Genderqueer. (And, honestly, I believe is also male - masculine name, male body type, and 2005-era Giant wasn't as socially-conscious as 2014 or even 2008 Giant.) Only one female in a group is a pretty common trope in stories.

[brian 333]

Vaarsuvius is female, because she inherited her mother's gems just like Haley, though hers are not so large and round.

Haley knows V's gender, and is constantly surprised at the things the guys do not know about V. Girls talk about stuff.

[Darth Paul]

Haley knows V's gender, and is constantly surprised at the things the guys do not know about V. Girls talk about stuff.

Unless the surprise is because V, as a guy (assuming that's the eventual reveal), talks about these things to Haley but not to the other men.

Which would not be so surprising. There are a lot of things I am more comfortable talking to a woman about than to another man; which is why I go to female doctors whenever possible. They seem less judgemental to me and less like they're secretly smirking on the inside.

[LibraryOgre]

The Mod Wonder: Durkula thinks this thread will be useful in his army of undead. He has commanded it closed to further discussion. Start a new thread if you like... he'll command his undead as they fall!