First Impressions

[chachic.livejournal.com]

I'm a member of a group in Goodreads called Young Adult Fiction for Adults and they just created a thread for MWT's series. Yay for more people reading the books! Anyway, it's just funny because one of them made this comment:

Also, am I the only one that thought he was a girl? Gen is pretty ambiguous. Just when I was comfortable with imagining him as a girl, they refer to Gen as "he". Oh well! I'm sure if I had read the flap or description that may have been revealed.


I said that I never heard of anyone else who thought he was a girl. Here's more:

It was the way he talked and the bragging thoughts, made me think he was a girl. Like all the guys got to do everything and she was awesome because not only was she a girl, but she could steal anything. And then he referred to Ambiades as handsome. But then they started calling him he and that made sense. He was just young and bragging that even though he was lower in status, his talent was better than even the most noble born - or something like that. And when I said Gen was ambiguous, I meant the name: Jen/Gen.

She said she didn't realize Gen was a guy until page 23 of the book. Isn't that interesting?

Comments

[tiegirl.livejournal.com]

I think? maybe Te Aroha thought he was too? Until the bath scene out in the courtyard of the inn. Kinda hard to reconcile, there.

[chachic.livejournal.com]

Really? That's interesting. This is the first time that I've heard of people who thought Gen was a girl.

[aged-crone.livejournal.com]

Even though I read KoA first, when I read Thief there was so strong an aura of "I'm keeping a secret" that until the bath scene I was wondering if maybe this wasn't the same Gen and it was a girl.

[chachic.livejournal.com]

Maybe that was why there was a bath scene early on? To make it clear that Gen's a guy? Hmm.

[agh-4.livejournal.com]

Ohhhhh, a girl who was pretending to be a boy. Now I can sorta get it.

Nice work picking up on the aura.

[keestone.livejournal.com]

It's been a while, but I think I kind of did. If I remember, it was washing at the pump in the courtyard that convinced me that there was no way Gen was actually a girl in disguise.

[chachic.livejournal.com]

Haha you and tiegirl just said the same thing.

[keestone.livejournal.com]

Great minds think alike and at the same time?

[chachic.livejournal.com]

*nods head*

[empmai.livejournal.com]

I thought that was what the twist was going to be as well the first time I read the book - that Gen was a girl disguised as a boy.

[chachic.livejournal.com]

Most of the people leaving comments have similar thoughts. I wonder why this never occurred to me before.

[spellcoats.livejournal.com]

That sounds like the sort of story set-up Tamora Pierce would use.

[chachic.livejournal.com]

Yes, exactly. Like Alanna, right?

[spellcoats.livejournal.com]

Er...not until the later books.

[zumie-ashlen.livejournal.com]

Except if it was Tamora Pierce we'd all know it was a girl right away. *g*

She loves her main ladies! Not that I'm complaining. *clutches Kel*

[chachic.livejournal.com]

I just started reading the Protector of Small series!

[kitsune-rains.livejournal.com]

Yay! Kel is my favorite! (And there's another ambiguous name, or at least by today's names.)

[magicsandwiches.livejournal.com]

*raises hand* It happened to me and it really put me off when I found out he was a guy. Not that I had a problem with him being a guy, it just threw me for such a loop to have to switch genders like that when I had it clear in my mind that Gen was a girl.

Needless to say, I got over it and I'm really, really glad Gen is a guy because hoo boy.

[chachic.livejournal.com]

Needless to say, I got over it and I'm really, really glad Gen is a guy because hoo boy.

I know! It would've been awesome if Gen turned out to be a girl but then he's awesome just the way he is. We should just look for more Gen-like female characters to satisfy our needs!

[keestone.livejournal.com]

Ever read Lloyd Alexander's Westmark Trilogy?

[chachic.livejournal.com]

Not yet! *goes off to add that to her wish list*

[dannybailey.livejournal.com]

I just have to butt in here, because *yes*! I absolutely love the Westmark series, and I feel like it often gets overlooked. Glad to see that there are some people here who like it. :)

[keestone.livejournal.com]

There's actually a good bit about that trilogy that kind of reminds me of MWT's books. Particularly, I think, the fact that the first book is a fun adventure with politics and depth that you might ignore until you get completely gut punched and worked over by the second book. :D

[zumie-ashlen.livejournal.com]

Lloyd Alexander's Gypsy Rizka is basically a thirteen-year-old female Gen living in a village of mostly dumb people. It's kind of amazing.

[coyul.livejournal.com]

Gen does act like a whiny little girl. But I never thought he was.

[chachic.livejournal.com]

Me too! I mean I thought he was a brat but I never thought he was a girl.

[elle-winters.livejournal.com]

LOL and he loves wearing Attolia's *pretty lacy things* ;)

[tiegirl.livejournal.com]

Per Rrelf: The key word there is act.

[coyul.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

[crienselt.livejournal.com]

I just lent the books to a friend, and she said the exact same thing. She actually had to ask me what his real gender was because she'd gotten it so set her mind he was a girl that she was confused when the others started referring to him in masculine terms. And she'd thought Gen seemed more of a feminine name. She eventually got over it too, but she was pretty weirder out by it for awhile...

Personally, I always read his as guy.

[chachic.livejournal.com]

Hopefully that doesn't affect her reading of the books!

[wanderingdreamr.livejournal.com]

I always read Gen as a guy too, the name sounded masculine and there was something masculine about the way he thought about himself and the way he acted with the guards and the Magus. Then again, I don't think I've ever gotten a characters gender wrong (even in anime!) so I've got a bit of practice figuring it out.

[chachic.livejournal.com]

Is it pretty hard to know character genders in anime?

[wanderingdreamr.livejournal.com]

Anime are INFAMOUS for having very girly looking men. I remember spending the first five minutes of an anime going "That's a dude, that's a dude, no seriously he is a dude!" to a friend who wouldn't believe me until "he" was used three times in the same sentence to refer to the character. XD Girls however are much more straight forward, if they're cross dressing it's usually a plot point (ie, the readers are aware of it) and usually it's the mannerisms that sets them apart from the girly looking men.
And I think I managed to derail a thread again, crud.

[zumie-ashlen.livejournal.com]

Heck, even official translators mess up. A character from Tactics was mistranslated as a girl for TWO VOLUMES. The author of Soul Eater plays with this by keeping one character true gender completely in the dark (for like seventy chapters now!).

The trouble of having a language without gender-specific pronouns...

[coyul.livejournal.com]

Also: I don't know if the Japanese version of Fruits Basket got it wrong, too (it's been a while) but I know the English version has a female character with a deeeeeep male voice. XD I excuse them because everyone thought she was male until much later.

[wanderingdreamr.livejournal.com]

Ah Chrona, it wasn't until I became active in the fandom until it was pointed out that, um, IT had never been gender identified. And I know a few cases were the scanlators made their best guesses on the genders, only to have the anime versions of the characters have very masculine voices. XD

[chachic.livejournal.com]

Sounds really confusing!

[zumie-ashlen.livejournal.com]

HAHAHAHAHA

My icon is a dude. From an anime. (admittedly, a very girly anime)

[zumie-ashlen.livejournal.com]

Ah, here we are -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5t4T_lb8yc Have fun!

[chachic.livejournal.com]

There's even a video for it!

[coyul.livejournal.com]

I like how they went the other way, too. Girls that look like guys.