Character pronoun and identity discussion

The artbook does explicitely call A a woman. A is described as a 女性 (josei) which means female or woman. The code calls A female, and Rex didn't even say A was non-binary. He said "Ontos was meant to stand somewhere between," meaning Ontos's complete self was the mediator between Logos and Pneuma. (His Japanese line is ウーシアは間を取り持つ存在).

If you can share one in-game screenshot where A is referred to with she/her pronouns, or A says "I am a woman", I'll concede your point.

Why did you change Nikol and Glimmer's ages to 9th Term when they clearly have 10th Term marks in-game? Glimmer makes a big deal about being close to Homecoming, which is at the end of the 10th Term, and her mark is on her arm, so it's not hard to miss.

Edited by PresidentBrit on Apr 3rd 2024 at 9:54:05 AM

That's only half of Rex's line, actually. The full line is "Logos was the male persona. And Pneuma the female one. Ontos was meant to stand somewhere between."

He specifically brings up said characters' genders as the thing Ontos/A is "between". Especially since, in context, he's saying this directly in response to Shulk wondering about A's new androgynous appearance.

I think the fact that the artbook got something as simple as Glimmer and Nichol's ages wrong is enough to show that it's not a reliable source for canonical information.

That should mean stuff like Riku being Riki's son and Fiora being Lucky 7 can't be canonical info either.

Uh, at least for the Riku part, that is mentioned in the game. He says his dad was traveling companions with Melia. That makes him either Riki's son, or grandson via Riki's son Kino, as those were the only two male Nopon that were ever in a party with Melia.

But it really feels like you're dancing around the point of the artbook containing incorrect info about some details by bringing up other random things.

Edited by TheGrayFox on Apr 3rd 2024 at 5:23:40 AM

no? because neither of those new pieces of information are actively contradicted by what the game said. but it is true that the information in the book should be accepted as only dubiously canon (except when it is contradicted by the game itself) due to its unreliability, not being the source material, and aforementioned getting basic details wrong.

but that was a bad faith argument in the first place. at the end of the day the game itself explicitly describes A as non-binary and we've already previously established that source materials take precedence over side materials when it comes to this sort of thing. not to mention, again, that the artbook's unreliability.

Edited by EpicBleye on Apr 3rd 2024 at 9:21:44 AM

The stuff about Riku and Lucky Seven Fiora is different because it comes from the Creator Interview portion. That is direct Word of God that came straight from Tetsuya Takahashi's mouth in response to fan-submitted questions, and is unambiguously his narrative intention with the story, whether it was clearly conveyed by the game or not. If someone asked Takahashi what gender A was and he said that A was female, then while it would still contradict the text of the game, we might at least have an actual discussion point here. But they didn't.

Regarding the validity of the book's information, as mentioned above the character profiles have already shown some other glaring mistakes even when it comes to extremely plot-important details (Glimmer's age is crucial to the narrative in driving her entire character arc and a huge chunk of the plot of the DLC), which indicates they don't have very airtight editorial oversight.

Likewise, just because the Japanese text might use the phrase "female sex" doesn't necessarily contradict that A is also a pronouns-free nonbinary character. The Japanese language contains a lot of vagaries with regard to the distinction between sex and gender and how to talk about trans bodies, not to mention even if we do take it at face value, there are plenty of IRL nonbinary people who may have been assigned female at birth without physically transitioning and still identify as being completely without pronouns, the same way A is treated.

Thus my recommendation as mentioned above by Amonimus is for pages discussing A to avoid using pronouns of any kind to refer to A. The game script notably goes out of its way across all languages, both localized and original, to avoid referring to A in gendered terminology or pronouns of any kind. Not even they/them. It's easier to avoid that in Japanese but it's still implicit within the script as well as A continuing to use a variation of the masc-leaning pronoun that the male-presenting Alvis did. I've tried rewriting entries on A's folder to avoid pronouns and while it might seem clunky at first it is completely doable and is closer in line with the game's script, where any time a character refers to A in the third person they stick with referring to A by name or using impersonal terminology like "this/that person".

On that note, the fact that every single character in the game conspicuously avoids referring to A as a woman or female, to the point of some clumsy wording, is quite noticeable considering how eager they are to gender characters like Glimmer and Matthew even from afar. That indicates that nobody in the game regards A as female in-universe either.

Now there is a slim possibility that A uses it/its pronouns some of the time, but even that's a stretch. I forget the exact wording, but there is a pair of lines from a member of the Liberators talking about A who says "That person seems to be someone who Shulk defers to. It must be someone who he admires". N similarly refers to Alpha as "it" at one point, but it seems to be more in the "It" Is Dehumanizing sense, as Alpha is literally not human due to more-or-less being a malevolent computer program puppeteering the empty shell of a he/him character.

On a related note, Takahashi's translated comments also definitively refer to A as being the same person as Alvis, and thus unambiguously some form of transfeminine. So prior arguments that A is a cis woman separate from Alvis, which was also one of the primary arguments used to justify referring to A as she/her (despite Shulk literally having an Old Friend, New Gender conversation in which he refers to A as psychologically continuous with Alvis, and then later outright calling A "Alvis" at the very end) do not hold water either.

Edited by AlleyOop on Apr 21st 2024 at 9:29:54 AM

I don't know why you're claiming that, I added a Word of God disclaimer to Riku being Riki's son, just like I did with some entries discussing A's gender, and there is no reference to Fiora being Lucky Seven except for an Ass Pull entry on Xenoblade Chronicles 3.

By the way, where's the in-game screenshot of someone using she/her pronouns for A?

Edited by PresidentBrit on Apr 3rd 2024 at 7:15:24 PM

Also, an argument about A having "gender 1" in game code... why does it matter? It's not All There in the Manual, so if it's not noticable in gameplay, there's no point considering it. Maybe the game has some sort of section where gender is relevant and the programmer made an oversight because A never appears in that section.

They bring it up because of Juniper's gender, which made it clear they were non-binary in the code.

People resorted to that because some bad-faith users on different websites refused to acknowledge in-game screenshots where Juniper was exclusively referred to with they/them pronouns.

The souce material never said Nikol and Glimmer were in their 10 terms. Glimmer didn't said exatly how much time was left until her homecoming, just that it was close. They could've been nearing the end of their 9th terms, giving them only a bit over a year left to live, which would make Glimmer's comment about nearing her homecoming still hold water.

Edited by Aipom-pom on Apr 4th 2024 at 3:09:18 PM

I'm getting second-hand embarrasment reading this. Instead of acknowledging that the art book could be wrong about A's identity, you're speculating on Nikol and Glimmer's ages when they are clearly and unambiguously 10th Term.

Do you have a screenshot of A being referred to with she/her pronouns? You can easily settle this by posting that.

Edited by PresidentBrit on Apr 4th 2024 at 8:26:30 PM

you can also very visibly see in-game what their terms are. like. it isn't something that could possibly even be up for interpretation, you can see with your eyes that she's in her tenth term.

and trying to argue that the book is right or somehow takes precedence over game canon (when it is objectively wrong about important plot points) makes me think that you're not arguing in good faith. it's coming across as pretty blatant transphobia if you're willing to double down on very provably incorrect information in order to justify A being a woman.

Edited by EpicBleye on Apr 4th 2024 at 10:41:38 AM

I think it's reasonable to say that the guide book doesn't seem to be remotely reliable enough to contradict anything in the original text (even if it's accurate, we've got precedent for outright Word of God in the Brave Little Toaster example).

okay so—

i haven't seen the game

based on the information in this thread:

A is not referred to by any pronouns in the actual game, right? is this character a main character? can anyone give an example of a case where it would have been easier to use pronouns, but the game intentionally chose not to?

basically, is it obvious that the game is intentionally avoiding pronouns, or is it possible that the character just didn't happen to be referred to in third person?

if the game is clearly intentionally avoiding pronouns, then i agree it doesn't matter what the art book says. Primarily canon comes first— we can use secondary sources for clarification, but not to override the original

(As i mentioned on the last page, we do have precedent for using they/them when the work itself uses no pronouns, which might be necessary if it's a main character)

A is one of the six playable party members, and an extremely important figure in the story, in both Future Redeemed by itself and in the background of the Xenoblade series as a whole (though this is the first game where "A" is used as an identity, having previously been known as the male-presenting Alvis).

The other protagonists are referred to by pronouns all the time, making it rather conspicuous when A isn't, so I'm assuming that was done on purpose.

Edited by TheGrayFox on Apr 4th 2024 at 8:11:53 AM

I think the question was how much screentime A has to ensure it's not a coincidence, and if "they" could be acceptable in any context.

A is a constant presence for the entirety of the DLC. No gendering pronouns are used for A in any language. it's a deliberate choice.

A is in the game from the beginning, is one of six party members and important to the plot (and to xenoblade lore in general).

Aipom-pom's inability to provide a screenshot of A being referred to with she/her pronouns speaks for itself. With how confident they've been about it, you'd think they'd have it on hand.

It was unambiguous for me from the start, but there are just more and more explanations why we can just keep "A" as mentioned here.

yea, sounds pretty clear-cut for using A

i also wouldnt object to they/them, but if the page was avoiding pronouns before without issue then it can just go back to that

Agree on not referring A with pronouns, they/them if that is necessary. The artbook doesn't present itself as good enough of an argument.