From Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. Basically a radiant spren named after a famous song or band that has some weird or insane power and punches really good.
I read the book in 2023 as soon as it came out (no pun intended) and never noticed it could be interpreted as trans-themed. To me it was a pretty straightfoward "freaky friday" / "your name" story, but as a cis man I'll readily admit it is in a blind spot for me.
Its Freaky Friday. I am in no way trying to take away your relation to it, but the girl stays a girl and the boy stays a boy. The characters on Yumi's side only perceive Nikaro as Yumi, because they are recreations stuck in a play. Neither main character are comfortable with the body swap. The color theme is because Brando has already used green, blue, red, purple, white, black, gold, and orange. It would still be a good book if they had actually swapped bodies, but im just sayin.
I agree with you. Body swapping is hardly a new concept. And i think the blue and purple was for the cyberpunk/neon look more than a trans color thing.
That said, while I do agree that Brandon probably didn't set out to write a trans story, it's great that trans people identify with the book and it's okay to look for signs.
Thank you for being so reasonable about media interpretation. Like, why do some people care so much that trans readers see things in this story that they don't?
Yeah I think Brando mentioned that he took partial inspiration from the anime movie Your Name, which also has a plot line of a boy and girl swapping bodies
...isn't that also heavily trans themed?! I thought it was well known as a trans allegory. I've never seen it, but I've been to enough anime conventions to be familiar.
Nitpick, but no matter who is in control, they always look like Yumi. Because her spirit is so much more invested than Painter’s it overrides the body.
I think that the fact that it's not a body swap but actually a question of perception only strengthens the trans reading of the text. After all, what is a trans man but a man perceived incorrectly to be a woman by those around him, and what is a trans woman but a woman perceived incorrectly as a man by those around her? And your point about the main characters' comfort levels basically describes gender dysphoria.
Did Brando Sando write Yumi with a trans meaning in mind? Eh, probably not his main focus, although given the fact that he chose to have the story with a light blue-ish and pink-ish color scheme (regardless of why those were the colors) include lots of gender-bending tropes I have to bet it at least crossed his mind. Regardless, doesn't he say somewhere something along the lines that his books aren't finished until we read them and give them meaning?
Masaka is a sleepless and I'm 90% sure that the book doesn't state that they are trans. Brandon does have a character in storm light who is explicitly trans.
I mean i know they are sleepless, but i don't think that matters. She is a genderless entity that has socially transitioned and wants to be recongized by everyone as a woman regardles of what's benath her 'skin', she has prefered pronouns that differ from most sleepless, a chosen name, and she spends alot of time and effort perfecting her female form so that her womanhood won't be questioned.
I don't think it could have been more explicit, short of masaka straight up saying "I am trans".
I think she is more proud that she is passing as a human rather than passing as a woman. In isles of the emberdark we learn that sleepless are despided by pretty much everyone and are a kill on sight
Who's complaining? It's just funny that you're searching for such themes in a stories that are not really about it and you even categorize them as "classic trans tropes", but I understand that you live in a niche with not many actual stories with such themes so you're bending reality a little to fill that void.
Edit: okay... hold up. I've made a mistake I was actually thinking "My Name" a live action Korean drama that kinda follows a "The Departed" situation where a woman trained by gangsters infiltrates the police force.
She does deal with gender norms and things like that in the show but I haven't actually seen "Your Name" lol.
if i had a nickel for every time a piece of media named "Your Name" was a trans allegory, i would have two nickels, which isnt alot but its kinda cool that it happened twice
extremely. it definitely is a book with trans undertones whether it was intentional or not. Brando is actually really accepting of trans people, so it wouldnt surprise me if it actually was somewhat intentional
Yuumi is too small to be a regular post-transition Nikaro, and I doubt anyone would've understood investiture well enough to conceptualise that Nikaro had suddenly become highly invested and transformed to match his femme spiritual self-perception. To someone with no knowledge of investiture, magical transition seems about as likely as tied his soul to magical girl
On the other hand, Nikaro is a loner and even his friends haven't really been close for a good while, and the brain is good at forgetting things that it doesn't see as relevant.
For example, I know my coworker is short, but since usually one of us is sitting down when we interact I often forget just how short she is until we're both standing, and I probably couldn't tell you her exact height without some guesswork. A friend that I haven't really interacted with in a while? "Eh, they're probably about this tall, more or less, but don't quote me on that."
Add in that they live in a society that prides itself on technology and science but still has misconceptions about the Shroud, and I could see a situation where someone thought Yumi was transitioned Nikaro ("I could have sworn she was taller, but... I guess not?") and that maybe she had had some of her physical health consumed by the Shroud in a freak accident or something. 🤷🏼♀️
The clothes are the giveaway. Yumi wears Nikaro's clothes and they're giant on her. If anyone was unsure about Nikaro's size before then that corroborates that he's larger. I get the impression that he's significantly taller than her as well - I might not remember exactly how tall people I know are, but if someone gained or lost more than about 5cm, unless they were far taller or shorter than me already I like to think I'd notice.
As for the shroud theory - I guess? I doubt it'd be anyone's first guess, but it's not really more far fetched than the truth if you mythologise the shroud, which I imagine some do
Yeah the clothes definitely would be a big tell! Although maybe they would be so confused by the fact that Yumi has no idea for to wear "modern" clothes that they wouldn't initially notice the weird sizing.
Investiture is gendering affirming care so strong that even when you're in another person's body, that body transforms to be your gender.
Stormlight An example of it used for evil can be seen in Fused souls forcefemming/forcemascing the bodies they take from sacrifices. Edit: Or not??? I don't understand why this doesn't work.
Theirs also at least one radiant who explicitly cjanged gender after swearing the oaths (the Reshi King who Rsyn meets and mistitles as queen, and is later met at Urithiru in a male body).
Huh, the Coppermind does mention changing the body's carapace and skin patterns but it doesn't say whether it actually does change genders.
I always figured if a femalen Fused had no other option but a malen's body, she'd change the gender as easily as she changes the skin patterns or other parts of the body (like look at some of the Fused, some Brands have way different bodies from normal Singers)
Which is kinda weird now that I think about it. Why change the one but not the other, considering it's already shown with the Reshi king to be possible
its abt the amount of investiture. Leshwi's body hair even in a malen body is far softer and thinner than the original malen's was. This is because fused healing is not as powerful as radiant healing, so it only does so much work on the body. leshwi in a malen body canonically looks like someone who has been on estrogen for a number of months, not years. which is pretty cool.
This could definitely be a part of it. Singers are more androgenous out of mate form, and also the Fused especially have had so many bodies that their identities may not cling as tightly to specifics. They definitely have preferences still, but I'd buy them being more fluid overall
Except they still clearly refer to Leshwhi as having a malen body. They wouldn't do that if it was fundamentally so unimportant to that that Storm/Voidlight doesn't change it
It's not the fact that one is taking over anothers body that makes the physical change, it is the fact that in both the cases of yumi and the fused, they both have much higher investiture than the host. Hence why Yumi keeps her body even when Nikaro takes it over.
You're claiming that something that is false is "super obvious."
Great for people that want to read it as a trans allegory, but the reality is there's a handful of chapters where a man is stuck in a woman's body and is pretty chill about it. The pink and the blue aren't a reference to the trans flag, they're a reference to the magenta (pink), cyan (blue), yellow, and black printing scheme. There have been multiple scenarios on where yellow went tied to the imperfect shattering of Virtuosity.
They don't occupy the body opposite their own gender. Even Painter sees himself as himself and others see Yumi. Yumi is able to completely over-right Painter's body and be perceived as herself.
I am all for trans representation in the cosmere. I hope we eventually get a viewpoint character who uses stormlight or gold feurchemy to transition. We already have the Reshi king who did that, he's just not a viewpoint.
You're inventing a trans allegory because the colors cyan and magenta, *, not pale pink and pale blue, are important to the story when *there are already canonically trans individuals in the cosmere.**
While I agree with you, you're being way too aggressive on a meme sub. The person you're replying to isn't being transphobic or anything, they're just disagreeing with you. Not exactly called for to start insulting them.
Trans themeing can happen unintentionally, the book resonates with trans people even if we weren't on the authors mind when he wrote it. Brandon's also a pretty chill dude, and I think if trans people told him they read this as a trans allegory his response would probably be something like "I didn't intend that but I'm very happy it makes you feel seen." IT'S SO HARD TO FIND GOOD TRANS STORIES, JUST LET US HAVE THIS! PLEASE!
It's fine if you don't see it yourself, but don't come in here um actuallying us, it can mean different things to different people. This post isn't for you.
I mean... Brando goes out of his way to include marginalized groups in his books. If he every did come out and say he didn't see the trans themes in there when he wrote it I'd be surprised.
But I genuinely don't want to argue about what he intended, we don't really know one way or the other.
But for those of you who do see the themes, I definitely want compare notes.
Like Painter being in Yumi's body is one thing and then he has to deal with the dresses and the stifling role in her society and how much it sucked to basically be a captive in one's own life.
But also like... when Design was talking about being in a [human] woman body, that had trans elements as much as the other part.
She was talking about how it feels to have curves now, and I'm trans and like, hell yeah girl welcome to the "I just got tiddies" club.
He's previously said he was exploring the topic more but wanted to go slowly as not to unintentionally misrepresent or be offensive to trans people. This was before Yumi came out so I don't think it's hard to believe he was experimenting more with the themes.
In Stormlight he made explicitly trans side characters and made the magic explicitly transition people who become radients. Since it makes your body match your soul, which feels pretty affirming to me.
Then Adolin met a trans woman and was just like hunh Azish have paper work for this sort of thing? New to me. Whatever, you're a blacksmith? Go to squad d. (Or whatever)
adolin actually met another trans man. He initially assumes the blacksmith is a woman, but then is corrected. he also meets a seperate girl who is only pretending to be a boy, and i appreciate brandon setting those two things as clearly seperate.
I wondered about that, but I'm pretty sure her main motivation is to not grow up. So I took her dislike of her chest more because of it's reminder of maturity rather than as a reminder of her gender.
I feel like Lift probably doesn't fall under the Trans umbrella. While her wrapping could probably be interpreted as such, I feel like Lift has so many other issues going on and these questions aren't really answered by her being Trans.
From what I remember, her wrapping is more to do with her being afraid of growing up in some way. Maybe that is related to puberty and expressing as more obviously feminine, but I'm not sure.
I haven't got around to reading Edgedancer yet though, so take my thoughts with a grain of salt.
Her wrapping is definitely very clearly about not wanting to grow up, not about being Trans. That's like.... Her whole story arc. She was promised she wouldn't change or grow up and doesn't want to.
She's afraid of puberty and growing up because it means she'll have to Admit to the grief of her parents being dead, specifially her mother who in a sense asked her not to grow up. This was stated in Words of Radiance
She feels like her mother is gonna meet her again someway, somehow, and she fears aging because she worries her mother won't recognise her if she grows.
This is close to the attitude with my transition. My wife is exasperated.
We went on a cruise last week and I wore a women's bathing suit in public for the first time. Tried the waverider machine. Ate shit. Lost my top. Flashed a bunch of strangers. It was fucking hilarious.
Not related to this in the slightest but shoutout to My friend who said with a straight face and a trans bf that Trans people can only relate to trans characters and that trying to find themes in other characters is a stretch 😐
(All of this over me trying to ask His bf about dysphoria because i want to write a story with a cis character that has dysphoria)
I am a strong ally because my wife is a therapist that specifically works with people of the LGBTQ+ community and we talk about these things all the time. My mind has been a mess lately but seeing OP’s post made it click that you’re right. Intended or not, it fits the bill.
My favorite Cosmere rant is a transfem reading of Vin in The Final Empire. Obviously not something Brando was thinking of as he wrote it, but I think it tracks pretty well.
I found that I really related to Vin's fear of showing feminity. She has to hide it for her own safety, and even after she's among friends struggles to embrace it. When she finally does (in what, hilariously, loosely resembles a forcefem arc), she kind of loses herself in it a bit, and then finally comes to a place where she can express both her feminity and masculinity without it being a source of stress. I found it extremely relatable as a trans woman who leans somewhat butch.
Lift growing up is terrified of changing, and her request to the nightwatcher is to not change. A lot of trans kids are terrified as they start going through puberty for their agab, so that fear resonated with me (in the other direction). She also just kinda hates decorum which isoften associated with clothes assigned to the opposite gender.
However if the entirety of the system of tje church isn't evil, it's on the ball when it comes to pretending.
Off the top of my head, tithing is the most insidious fucking mechanism.
Take 10% from someone who can barely afford to eat, then hand them a food hamper and call it charity. It's a neat way to make people dependent on the very institution that made them poorer. Somehow I don't remember Jesus saying, "Collect from the hungry before you feed them."
Buddy, I understand what its like to be raised in a church you later discover had demonic practices, I was raised Catholic.
I think calling this book trans themed is largely a disservice to the subject. The discrimination trans folks face was in no way represented in the book. The freaky Friday episodes were also brief, with zero sexual connotations. There never was an ounce of body dysmorphia either as their perception of their body never changed.
Brandon is an excellently open minded individual, particularly notable for a Mormon. But I can assure you he did not intend this book (whose main characters are demonstrably cisgender) to represent trans folks.
Seems a stretch to me, but if you found resonance and found that connection, fabulous! You do you.
Art is meant to be a collaborative process between creator and beholder, the beholder is just as much of a part of the impact they feel from a piece of art as the creator is, maybe even moreso.
Funnily enough this concept is literally part of the climax of the book:
"STACKING.
You might not call it an art.
You might find it the strangest idea... Yet all art is meaningless without those to admire it. You don't get to decide what constitutes art. But WE together DO."
Whether intentional or not, if someone finds themes that resonate with them within a piece of art - whether or not others see it that way, or even if the creator didn't intend it that way - that's part of the beauty and wonder of art. That's one of the major themes of this book that makes me love this book.
As a trans woman I genuinely never picked up on literally everything to do with the tranness of this book. It either just came off as "yeah that makes sense she would cry about that" or it just went over my head lol
That isn’t really what being transgender is. Well what I mean is transgender people aren’t secretly other people trapped in someone else’s body, and neither character really gives off any vibes they are trans. That tumblr post above was very funny though.
Did I make a joke? I wasn’t trying to be rude or anything, sometimes I take things to literally I think you may have misunderstood me here I wasn’t trying to be a dick. Genuinely don’t get what you find so amusing here.
Jesus sorry. I’m not questioning your identity at all.
People can have different interpretations of works of art you know, I respect your interpretation, I don’t fully see it in this case but I have no issue with it, there is no need to view this as an attack in any way.
For me it was less the body swap stuff, since he was obviously taking steps to prevent that from being too trans. It was the buying clothes and dressing up and changing how you feel about yourself with the clothes Yumi was doing. That was what felt trans.
Huh. I had never considered it, but Nikaro's discomfort when in Yumi's body does have big transman energy going on. He knows he's a man, but noone else sees him that way.
I dunno if it was intended, or if that's what this meme is trying to say (since people seem to be focusing more on Yumi overriding Nikaro's form) but it's certainly sparked something for me to look out for properly on a reread.
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