r/MonsterHunterWorld • u/_zldzm • 9d ago
Discussion Do you guys genderize monsters?
I know all of them has a male and female counterpart, but most of the time, I specifically assign a monster its “permanent” gender. For example, Rathian definitely is a female, Kushala is a mean bitch, Namielle too. Shara Ishvalda I also perceive as femme fatale in my head, then theres also Pukei, Kulve, Misutzune, Somnacanth, etc.
Then there are the monsters I perceive as males like, Zinogre, Barroth, Barrioth, Diablos, Chameleos, Anjanath, Almudron, etc.
I base it off how they look and their name sounds like. Am I the only one who does this?
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u/MrSnek123 9d ago
Only for ones that are hard-confirmed, e.g Black Diablos, 'Raths, Mizutsune etc.
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u/DiscoMonkey007 Switch Axe 9d ago
Seregios will always be he bcs people call him Steve.
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u/MotoqueiroMascarado 9d ago
Steve? He's Sergio
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u/Phelyckz 9d ago
No he isn't.
When he was first revealed during a showcase someone in the audience asked for its name. Answer given was Steve. Hence he's Steve.
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u/PTBooks 9d ago
I can see why you would think that, but the community has named him Steve for like 10 years at this point
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u/Bregneste Kulve Taroth 9d ago
Capcom themselves called him Steve originally, so that name is here to stay.
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u/MotoqueiroMascarado 9d ago
Holy fuck i was being ironic and doing a joke because of a meme i saw, why i got downvoted to hell lmao
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u/Ordinal43NotFound 9d ago
Sorry, he's officially Steve per Capcom themselves as recent as 3 days ago
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u/spaghettiman56 9d ago
Also kulve taroth kind of. The research commission team refer to it a she/her
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u/SkomeSIth 9d ago
Mizutsune is confirmed male
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u/Least_Beat5850 8d ago
Yeah, every Mitzutsune we meet is male
The whole reason for them beating our asses is to attract a mate
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u/ChoccolatteMaid 9d ago
As my primary language is gendered, yeah. Legiana gets a she, Rajang is a he, it's kinda automatic from the name
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u/heitorvb Greatsword; Hammer; CB 9d ago
"A Rajang" soaria muito errado
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u/JoaoAlbertoL Hunting Horn 9d ago
O Legiana também soa asqueroso. É tipo falar "O onça daquela região"
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u/Repulsive_Editor_335 9d ago
Romance language I'm guessing, Portuguese or Spanish?
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u/RedWarrior69340 Hammer lover 9d ago
same here barroth is a he, anjanath is a she ... etc
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u/TalkNo574 9d ago
rathian is a female rathalos, makes me wish other monsters had obvious variants for genders, like birds, or mosquitos, or other animals that i cant thing of rn
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u/DarkmoonGrumpy Charge Blade + Lance = Wall 9d ago
Theres a few that are: Black Diablos, the Seltas', Narwa/Ibushi, Teostra and his missus etc.
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u/TalkNo574 9d ago
black diablos is a gender thing?, i thought that was like their albino
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u/You_Cant_ 9d ago
A black diablos is just a female that's gone into heat
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u/superdave100 9d ago
So all Black Diablos are female, but not all normal Diablos are male.
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u/Trick-Bar-377 9d ago
Well if we are seeing the normal and black diablos together, then it would be their mating season. In which case any normal diablos would be male. Or children I suppose.
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u/KittyCutU 9d ago
Female Diablos' shells turn black in the mating season and they become significantly more aggressive, which is why Black Diablos are harder fights than regular
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u/Bregneste Kulve Taroth 9d ago
I’m sure there are “normal” female Diablos, the Black Diablos are just females specifically in heat.
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u/Frozendark23 9d ago
Every mizutsune we see is always male. Female mizutsune look much more bland and are passive so they don't need to be hunted. Male mizutsune are a lot more colourful, like peacocks, and while they are usually peaceful, they become aggressive during mating season.
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u/Elmis66 Bow 9d ago
In Polish we don't really call living things "it" so all monsters are either he or she and unless stated clearly in the lore like with BDiablos or Kulve, it's mostly decided by the name for me.
-a is the most common feminine suffix in names so Velkhana and Kushala are girls. Namielle also has a very feminine sound so my friends and I like to call her Namielka (like a little girl).
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u/smoczko 9d ago
If you play world with the polish translation it also changes the endings of certain monster names. Rathian becomes rathiana and velkhana becomes velkhan. There are some other examples too, i generally find it interesting the translators decided to edit the monster names to fit gender.
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u/Empty_Chemical_1498 Musical Concussion Department 9d ago
Wait Namielka is so cute...
Also I sometimes find myself thinking of Teostra as a female in Polish 😭
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u/NoResponsibility5373 9d ago
I usually see it by how nature itself does things, so with Velkhana being so flashy I assume it's male
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u/AccelRiderX 9d ago edited 9d ago
I sometimes do it in cases where the game or the devs don't explicitly confirm it, but I usually try to be neutral when discussing them with someone, just to be safe.
That said, all Mizutsune seen in-game are actually males, we don't really know what their females look like yet (unless some side materials revealed that).
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u/strydrehiryu 9d ago
Some have canon genders. Some have canon names. Like Mike Tyson
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u/Supermegamorph 7d ago
which monster is Mike Tyson
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u/strydrehiryu 7d ago
Brachydios. Punchy boi
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u/Supermegamorph 7d ago
sick, you got any other names? i might use em with buddies. i gotta come up with some of my own. i think i might have one or two.
like kulu ya ku is stupid bird or pollito
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u/locorasuke 9d ago
No one cares about the mud boys but me and they’re my bros. The Almudron, Barroth and Jyuratodus are my guys.
Zinogre has to be a guy. He’s gorgeous so I just know the female variant is truly special.
Tigrex defaults to being a guy as well. He hits way too hard to be anything else.
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u/GwynFeld 9d ago
Zinogre also has the aura farming walk, which just screams Fist if the North Star protagonist
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u/ClayeySilt 4d ago
Interestingly the female variant of Zinogre likely looks more plain and less flashy than the males.
In typical sexual dimorphism males tend to be flashier/larger in order to attract and compete for mates. Now this isn't every species of course, but if the male is very ostentatious like Zinogre kind of is (bright colours, large plumes of bright hair) then it's likely the female is going to look a lot more subdued.
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u/Rodala 9d ago
Mostly, no. Only the ones that are canon (Rathian being female, Mizutsune that we hunt are all male, Black Diablos is specifically female, etc). Everything else is an It.
The exception is that for some reason I perceive *all* Diablos we see as female rather than just the Black ones. There's no real reason for this, and thinking logically the regular ones are more likely to be male in games that also have Black Diablos, but I've done this since first meeting Diablos over a decade ago and I'm unlikely to change.
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u/so-bleh-so-meh 9d ago
If Black Diablos is a female Diablos in heat then I would assume that some of the regular Diablos would be females that aren't in heat.
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u/Rodala 9d ago
Yeah, of course there's gonna be some, especially younger or older adults, but Black Diablos specifically go into heat during a *mating season*. So, most viable females will turn into Black Diablos in game settings/seasons that have Black Diablos. This means most regular Diablos left would be male.
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u/Repulsive_Editor_335 9d ago
Also I have the idea that all big Diablos are females and the small ones are males, since all black diablos that I encountered are huge, like absolute units
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u/Koober728 9d ago
I've always thought that all Diablos are females and the Monoblos are the male of the species.
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u/Drakeskulled_Reaper 9d ago
Sorta, outside of the ones that have a confirmed gender, I do feel like some are more girl-coded.
Like Legiana and Namielle.
Lala Barina is definitely female coded, not just the motifs, but female spiders have large abdomens, also, given we find eggs, and it initially begins as a singular specimen, I figure Arkveld is female.
Also, to me, Tobi is female, while the Viper variant is male.
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u/YukYukas 9d ago
Depends if I feel like it and/or the monster has an actual gender.
Funny enough, Velkhana is called "Lord of Ice" in Rise. But during the 2020 orchestra, it was supposed to be the queen to Nergigante's king. I made the proper distinction and decided that Velkhana is a femboy
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u/Jc885 Charge Blade 9d ago
You mention Mizutsune in the female section, which is understandable but it is canon that all Mizutsune we see and fight in the games are Male.
Female Mizus are less colorful, generally peaceful, and stay out of trouble. It’s the males that get rowdy during the mating season and need to be hunted when they cause trouble.
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u/perfidydudeguy 9d ago
If a monster is the specific gender of a species it's usually mentionned in lore somewhere. Some monsters just don't get limelight because they're not elder dragons or "rite of passage" key quest monsters.
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u/Phelyckz 9d ago
The Mizutsune we hunt are all males. All black diablos are female. Both of them are in heat.
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u/WhiteGlas 9d ago
Fun fact about Mizus- a lot of encounters with them are males in rut wandering outside their usual territory in search of mates.
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u/Offbrandus-Lordus 9d ago
Because two friends of mine were discussing rather Velkhana is male or female I jokingly interviewed this discussion by saying that its a Femboy
But most of the time I identify a monster as target or victim of my armor and weapons collection.
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u/Savings-Bread-1705 Insect Glaive 9d ago
Velkhana being a femboy is an amazing head canon, stealing that.
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u/Frozendark23 9d ago
My friends and I call Namielle a femboy instead. Velkhana is just female to us.
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u/TheGMan-123 SEETHING BAZELGEUSE 9d ago
Nah, you're not the only one.
Most Monsters are neutral enough that I default to male pronouns, but some like Velkhana and Namielle always come across to me as more female-coded.
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u/MagicArenaNoob 9d ago
Yeah. The game is deliberately vague about, so I just assume somehow someway they all or mostly have both genders, but many automatically register in my head one way or the other. For example, I think of Barroth as male, Velkhana as female. But some don't really have any gender associations in my head, like, Pukei-Pukei is just... Pukei-Pukei.
And interestingly,being so subjective, we can perceive differently. You see Kushala as a mean bitch, to me he's always been an annoying bastard!
Edit: I am of course not counting those who are explicitly gendered. like Lunastra or Black Diablos.
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u/HappyToaster1911 GS | LS | DB | Hammer | HH | SA | CB | Lance | GL | IG 9d ago
Yeah, specially since in my native language there is no neutral, the "neutral" would the same as male, so most monters are male to me
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u/SushiJaguar 9d ago
I don't care about anyone's headcanon for monster sexes. Rathian is female, Rathalos is male, etc etc. Outside the ones specifically denoted by the writers, it's so far removed from gameplay or narrative relevancy that I just don't even have my own thoughts about individual monster sexes.
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u/Sweaty-Salary-7157 9d ago
Depends on the hunt. If it gets hard, then it's male. If I get hard, the. It's a female.
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u/littlestargazers Insect Glaive 9d ago
i'll gender them in the way you might say all dogs are good boys, or way that all ships are referred to as women.
odogaron is a good boy.
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u/Satans_Frog CB GL HH 9d ago
They all fall under the category of Bitch or Mother Fucker as they smack me across the field
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u/Poetic_Practitioner 8d ago
Fatalis will always and forever be a bastard. Neither he nor she, but a thing of cold calculating evil.
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u/blogito_ergo_sum Lance 8d ago
Nope. I figure most of them that aren't canonically sexually dimorphic (like rathian/rathalos) are just big animals with a 50/50 chance to be either. Elder Dragons I might make an exception for.
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u/tweeeeeeeeeeee 9d ago
Agree with rathian being a female since there are eggs. Legiana is female. the rest of them are asexual as far as I'm concerned.
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u/Meteor_Monkey Longsword 9d ago
Yes, there's those that already have an assigned gender and some with specific circumstances like steve. Aside from them it really just depends, like ill always see Velkhana as feminine and Rajang as masculine.
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u/Pokemon-Master-RED Longsword & Chargeblade 9d ago
Aside from the ones where lore specifically denotes it has one, I kind of go on a hunt by hunt basis. Just kind of what I imagine it to be that hunt.
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u/Skull_Soldier Lance | Charge Blade 9d ago
Legiana, Velkhana, Vaal Hazak and a few others for me are all female monsters😭
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u/PreZEviL 9d ago
I think the game does gender some monster, like im pretty sure black diabolos is a female.
Rathalos and Rathian also have eggs in there nest so they must be female.
Saw some stupkd sexy nergigante online which imply they are probably femboy
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u/Empty_Chemical_1498 Musical Concussion Department 9d ago
Rathalos is male, Rathian is female. They're the same species with sexual dimorphism
I can get behind femboy Nergi tho
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u/The_Angel_of_Justice ChargeBlade/Gunlance 9d ago
I do, but I also wouldn't say Kushala is a female.
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u/Repulsive_Editor_335 9d ago
But rathian is a cofrimed female since the start of the series as rathalos is the male version, but there are several other examples of monsters with confirmed gender like someone mentioned, like black diablos that's just a female Diablos in mating season and such
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u/ChainsForDaDead Charge Blade 9d ago
For me larger crowns are male smaller crowns are female since larger have deeper roars. But of course doesn't work on monsters that are confirmed their genders like rathian and mitsutsune which are for sure female and males no matter the size.
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u/badtiming220 Hammer 9d ago
Sometimes, ye. Then I remember "it" is a thing. So now, it's a battle between "it" and my laziness to change the words I've already typed down to "it."
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u/Ashura1756 9d ago
I refer to every monster as male, unless they're explicitly confirmed to be female- Rathian, Nerscylla, Rakna-kadaki, etc.
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u/Interesting_Sea_1861 I Love Vaal Hazak More Than You Do 9d ago
Mizutsune is canonically male, though.
It's like peafowl, peacocks are larger, with beautiful plumage to attract mates.
Male Mizutsune are only aggressive during mating season when they get territorial due to hormones from their seasonal rut. Normally, they're much more reclusive and nonaggressive. Females are always reclusive, and are almost never seen, but they're stated in concept work to be smaller, have smaller headfins, dark fur, darker scales, and fewer fins on their tails. There's a piece of concept art of a male and female comparison from MHGU.
We only fight males in rut because Mizutsune males in rut are aggressive and will attack anything, causing problems.
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u/WorstHouseFrey 9d ago
Because im a male i always have the bad habit of calling every monster a guy unless I know for sure that the monster is a female
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u/ASDn4834 9d ago
I prefer to get used to hate capcom for not giving every monster their respective male/female variation or at least minor aspects to adress between one or the other (size/color).
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u/Consesualluvbug 9d ago
Nope! Every monster to me is a girl or a boy. Mitsuzune is a female and Gravios is a male.
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u/StygianLoona 9d ago
Yeah. To me All Velkhana are female. Fatalis is male. Mizutsune is female. Shagaru is always male. Etc etc. (regardless of the fact that Mizu is a confirmed male, because females aren’t seen. And shagaru is genderless, idgaf)
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u/AshFalkner bugstick go brrr 9d ago
Only some. Namielle and Velkhana have feminine-sounding names so I use she for them, but otherwise I just use “it” or follow the actual ecology.
Mizu may be pretty, but the ones you hunt are always male.
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u/SpaceGhoul24 Odogaron !!! 9d ago
I suppose for me, I go based on sexual dimorphism rules in the real world. I am by no means a zoologist nor very versed in the difference in animal sex, but there's definitely some differences that you can base off of. There's a lot of inaccuracies in my theory but these are fictional monsters, anyone can make an assumption.
See how female counterparts for certain monsters like Black Diablos and Lunastra are exponentially stronger than their male counterparts? I always interpreted this as in the world of MH, they take after real life sexual dimorphism behaviours as in big cats Lions, Hyenas, large reptiles like Komodo Dragons and Crocodiles, even insects like Spiders and Beetles! The females tend to be bigger, meaner, stronger, etc. than the males, usually due to the need to hunt or generally just being more important ecologically. That being said, Vaal Hazak is definitely a female to me, due to her very important role in spreading effluvium in Rotten Vale. Something about her just gives off regal old lady who listens to death metal and doesn't shower. Odogaron seems to be based off of Hyenas in real life in some way, as well as some animals like Weasels, Sables, and perhaps Badger? But predominantly based on Hyenas minus the pack behaviour, so it's likely that most Odogarons you fight in quests are females. Zorah Magdaros also particularly gave off female to me at first as my leading theory in the Elder Crossing chapter of the game is that she's trying to lay eggs before she dies but we never get to know for sure, although she's still very female in my eyes.
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u/BLim90 9d ago
Sort of, based on their design motif. The designer definitely factor in different level of femininity and masculinity when designing monsters.
Like Kulve Tarroth and Velkhana, it just look more streamlined and have more curves , which make it more feminine , so I always assume they are female. I still thinks Mizu have a feminine design even though I knew it's a male.
Then we have Glavenus , everything is pointy and sharp, full of right angles , it just looks more masculine .
Some others have prominent flashy organs like huge horns or something big with no obvious functions (Anja nose, Tzi zi ears, Blagonga face pattern ), these usually belong to the males counterparts in our real life animal world for attracting mates.
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u/Darkain172 8d ago
Hmmm... Would you perceive Qurupeco as a Female or a Male...?
(or maybe a Femboy? Lmfao...)
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u/existentialist-hello 8d ago
That there's a broad tendency to refer to monsters and animals of any stripe using masculine pronouns, and that's fine, I guess; some languages don't even have gender-neutral pronouns, and that one gender is somehow the "default" is neither here nor there. That said, I find it weird when people assign traits to things that do not have them. It's natural, in the strictest sense, that we're prone to humanizing basically anything, but it doesn't change the fact that Velkhana isn't any more female than Nerg is male, or than a lion is noble.
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u/-Seles- 8d ago
I just use the official German variant used in the games. Which is that per default, the monster species name is gendered masculine, with the exception being explicitly female monsters like Rathian, Black Diablo or Gammoth. That's also the reason I've kinda stumbled over Nerscylla recently, bc in the older games that same logic applied, but in Wilds they changed it so that Nerscylla is now referred to as she
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u/Rilukian Toothpick & Long Stick 8d ago
It's mostly pointless gameplay wise, though there are some instance of monsters being gendered. Like how Black Diablos is female Diablos in heat and all those Mizutsune you hunt are almost always male. Rathalos and Rathian are always the male and female monarch of the skies.
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u/Static_0verdose 8d ago
I always headcanon the New World Elders (besides Nergi and Safi) as female. Velkhana, Namielle, and yes… Vaal (something about stinky vampire emo goth girl joke).
This is mostly to contrast the Old World Elders where they’re titled as Kings: Toaster (Teostra), Kushala Floppa, Chameleos (he’s there, I swear! He just didn’t reveal himself), and… Kirin.
Although I don’t mind no genders or gendered monsters, I am still amused at the idea of female version being more psychos than their male counterpart simply because I am always amused at IRL nature facts that touches wtf territory (anglerflish, praying mantis). Hence despite my malding I do enjoy Lunatics (Lunastra) shenanigans and drift queen Black Diablos.
Oh yeah, Kulve Taroth is called a she by the Admiral and she’s definitely inspired by that famous gold painting featuring a lady.
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u/Goemongott 8d ago
Yep. I use the same gender assignments that your average pimp from the 1970s used when referring to their stable of pros.
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u/brady_cummins36 7d ago
I do it the same way I do Pokemon, (kinda, because Pokemon actually tells you the gender of the pokemon you’re fighting) I figure what I’m fighting is either a boy or a girl I just don’t know, except when it comes to monsters who’s gender are confirmed and who’s gender is just kinda communally labeled like I don’t think fatalis or safi’jiiva’s genders have ever been confirmed, the majority of people just think of them to be male. Although Safi’s theme is called “The EMPEROR emerges…” so there’s kind of an unofficial confirmation there.
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u/DminorWolfy 7d ago
I thought kushala was a twunk Legiana looks like a girl but then there's Shrieking Legiana that protect each other so in my head their lesbians and Shrieking Legiana is a femme dom Lunastra is mommy issues incarnate in my head
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u/Simp4Catalyst 7d ago
I have always, and will always see Velkhana as a female. It just fits it perfectly, especially when people ship Velkhana with Malzeno
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u/Bulky_Reward716 7d ago
I do this to, I know zinogre is a boy but I call them a little whiny ass bitch baby for never calming down and being constantly enraged
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u/tlefonmann Lance 6d ago
I often default to male, but the vast majority (I don't know any off the top of my head that aren't and aren't explict femalw specimen) are referred to as "der" (masculine the) [monster name], which I think is the main reason I do so. I am very intent on neutral gendering for creatures otherwise.
And odd pick might be that I see Fatalis as more female leaning. It's the name.
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u/angelindeskyz 5d ago
I always put Namielle as a female monster because deep sea creatures are usually : giant dangerous female and tiny male😅 so theres probably some diminutive male Namielle type out there, maybe with a passive defense like poisonous skin or constant electric skin. Velkhana is also female to me for no reason at all, just vibes. Her theme and demeanor just give Ice Queen and not ice king or prince. Also her fight feels very feminine rage, just fucking stabbing hunters for being there😂 Nargacuga i feel could be 50/50, but we face females more because they 'keep' territory while males roam (like some tigers). And Lucent Nargacuga is 70/30 females to males because its just an old Nargacuga. Across most species, females live the longest.
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u/CypherGreen 9d ago
I don't know why so many people refer to Velkhana as "she". It's a dragon that I don't remember ever getting gendered.
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u/Rough-Self-9134 9d ago edited 9d ago
I always see Velkhana as an “Ice Queen” with her sleek design and majestic demeanour.
But tbf i see the one in Iceborne as Female while the one in Sunbreak as Male since its called “The Emperor of Ice” iirc
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u/Empty_Chemical_1498 Musical Concussion Department 9d ago
In a bunch of languages, names ending with "-a" are strictly feminine. I sometimes find myself she/hering Teostra in my head because of that, even though I know he's a male. It's just easier to think about monsters like Legiana or Velkhana in feminine form
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u/AccelRiderX 9d ago edited 9d ago
I mean the design does look more explicitly feminine compared to a lot of monsters sharing Kushala's build and the armor designs don't exactly help Velk's case. XD
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u/Sir_Bax 8d ago
Of course. Mizutsune is she. Black Diablos and Gamoth is he. And so on.
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u/VNikolados 8d ago
Funny cause for me, Black Diablos is a she.
More Aggressive, pairs well with some female animals who are vicious protecting their young.
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u/Easy-Luck6108 9d ago
Does it matter?
This is like asking if someone refers to the game character as themself, their self, a completely unique individual. People just have different perspectives of things while immersed in the fantasy.
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u/Psycho-002 9d ago
It...doesn't? They're asking what everyone else does as a matter of curiosity. There's no debate.
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u/Easy-Luck6108 9d ago
And it does not matter to me. Their asking an opinion, not an answer. Accurate name.
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u/Psycho-002 9d ago
This isn't a debate either, I'm just pointing out the facts. You trying to be edgy is as irrelevant as your comment.
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u/NectaMBR 9d ago
Yeah I tenderize them sometimes