Remember that post I did about dwarven gender?
If you haven't read it--you're in luck. You can be just as confused as Podrick, below.
It occurs to me that dwarves would also struggle to understand human genders, and would ask us as many stupid questions as we would ask them.
So this is some fiction about that.
Some Dwarves Learn About Human Gender
Featuring:
- Podrick, human, age 41, male, father of 2, knight of the realm
- Snorri, dwarf, age 191, blacksmith, 3288 total lbs forged, total debt 2400 silver
- Osto, dwarf, age 284, blacksmith, 5910 total lbs forged, total debt 10,500 silver
Snorri
Look, I don't want to be rude, but Osto says its not rude to ask a human this, but, eh, what are ye?
Podrick
Am I a what?
Snorri
Are ye, hmmmmm, are ye . . . a blacksmith? Or a miner?
Podrick
. . . what?
Snorri
And don't say that humans don't have blacksmiths and miners. I know they do. I just can't tell what ye are. No offense! Of course.
Podrick
Er, I'm a knight of his majesty the king. I've never mined nor smithed.
Snorri
Yeah, sure, sure. But what are ye really? You got a bronze belt buckle but your boots lace all the way up. Little bit of cross-dressing, eh? I'm not against it! No judgement here. I know a few dwarves that enjoy the same.
But how were ye raised? Did yer parents dress you in bronze buckles or did they lace your shoes all the way up?
When ye were little, I mean, on your name day. Not what ye decided for yerself later.
Podrick
Have you gone mad? Explain yourself.
Snorri
Calm your heels, man! I apologize. Osto said that humans weren't shy discussing stuff like this so I thought I could ask ye without being a prat. 'Pologize if I made ye feel a bit tetchy.
Podrick
You asked me if I've ever been a blacksmith? And then if I wore bronze? Is this something dwarves do?
Snorri
Yes, but not usually at the same time. *laughs*
Look, let's try this a different way. When does your heart sing? When yer getting something? Or when yer making something?
I'm sure you've done both. (Hell, even I've done both, but don't tell Osto.)
Y'know. What was your body born to do?
Podrick
I feel most at home when I pray in the House of the Authority, before the nine icons of the Prophetessa (may she live again).
Snorri
*tugging his beard* Okay. . . hmm. There are two genders, right?
Podrick
Right.
Snorri
And which one are ye?
Podrick
I am male. I have--
Snorri
That's not what I asked! Who cares about yer pisser?
Osto
*entering the room* Humans are always talking about their pissers.
Lad, why are ye asking the man about his pisser? I told ye to mend the tent.
Snorri
I asked him if he was a blacksmith or a miner.
Osto
Humans don't have--
Snorri
Yes, they bloody do! Who makes their armor, then? Who pulls their ores out of the earth?
Osto
All of them do both. Each one is 50/50, right down the middle. The Authority saw fit to make them all the same. Don't know why, but I'm sure it was done in wisdom.
Snorri
That makes sense. Then why's he talking about his pisser?
Osto
*straightening his monocle* Well, humans divide everything into field and seed. It's because they're obsessed with breeding. Breeding children, breeding livestock. It's the accumulation of things, see? Can't have money without cows to sell. Can't have land without children to work it. That's why they always pair off, a seed with a field, every time.
Plus, they don't have much time to breed, so they have to start early. Makes sense when you think about it that way.
Podrick
Do dwarves always talk so coarsely? I have children of my own, but their purpose is not to work my fields. And my wife's purpose is not to bear children.
Snorri
I'm sure your "wife" is a nice lad, but if he were here I'd ask him the same questions.
Podrick
My wife is a woman! She is referred to as "she" not "he".
Snorri
Why are ye bringing yer wife's pisser into the conversation? No one's talking about his pisser.
Osto
Snorri, at least try to use the human's pronouns.
Snorri
Okay, I'll bloody well try, but I don't know if I can remember them.
Osto
Good lad. You'll sound less ignorant when we get to human lands.
Snorri
I'll try! But it's a bloody infuriating thing to ask of me. Does this mean I don't know how to refer to someone until I know what kind of a pisser they have?
Podrick
*sighs* I'm going to go tend to my horse. Good day, dwarves.
Snorri
Angels below, I hope I didn't offend the boy. There's really nothing wrong with being half and half. I'm not prejudiced! I'm not.
Do you think the human thinks I'm prejudiced now?
Osto
Snorri, yer a good lad, but you ask too many questions. Go fix the tent, and then I'll tell you about the two kinds of human bathrooms.
Snorri
What? Two? Do they expect me to go into a different bathroom based on what kind of pisser I've got? That's none of their bloody business!
Osto
Nah, all dwarves use the bathroom for seed. They all get huffy if you ever go into the one for fields. Don't know why, but I guess only human pissers matter.
Snorri
It's still another hundred miles to the human kingdom, huh? This is a long fucking trip.
Damn, I wish we had some miners with us.
*not a Patreon post, just for fun.
❌ Gender is a construct, so it doesn't matter.
ReplyDelete✅ Gender is a construct, which means men and women are blacksmiths, while non-binaries are miners.
Dwarven response:
DeleteGender is NOT a construct. Gender is an essential part of the soul. Even in the afterlife, you will have the same fixed gender.
Gender is also biologic fact. All dwarves are either blacksmiths or miners. While there are some physical determinants (e.g. finger shape) the fact is that everyone is either better suited for mining or for blacksmithing.
"Non-binary" dwarves don't exist. If they did, they would be shunned and denied honest labor and debt until they ceased such foolishness.
How do the Elves handle it?
ReplyDeleteI've been thinking about that one!
DeleteI have two candidate ideas.
1. It's okay to be straight as long as you act gay in public and don't force your heterosexuality down anyone's throat. (This feels a little too IRL political though).
2. Kinda how dwarves are just bisecting sex/gender along a different axis, it'd be nice to do something similar with sex/romance, but I'm not quite sure how I want to do it.
DeleteI think whatever elves have got going on would be somewhat comparable to art movements... aesthetically-based, fashions changing with the times, somewhat-political... and because they're elves everything would be couched in euphemisms and evading the topic of messy, smelly fluids... "Ah, a supine sculptor, with those fingernails? Ahaha, perhaps a century ago... perhaps two... nowadays many would say you'd be better suited to marble-block chatelainery..."
DeleteThat could work.
DeleteI still have the urge to go further afield, though, to places where humans can't follow.
3. Maybe denying sex altogether? Like sex just doesn't exist for elves? Gametes are extracted magically, surrogacy is required (since elven uteruses are so fragile), and the whole thing is treated like commissioning art?
A friend and I ran a world where elves don't often feel love and their detachment kept them immortal but getting to heavily invested in anything (falling in love being the worst version of this) makes them start aging.
DeleteIf I wanna play ball I start there, and give elves sex for hedonism and artistic expression, they're pretentious about how good they are at pleasure and will brag about it making humans some combination of uncomfortable and curious.
Downstream I get janky ideas like elven conception isn't probabilistic, their organs let them choose conception. And their gender is all about the kind of first impression they make/are expected to make/how they react to others first impressions.
Elves are the *originators* of the masculine/feminine binary. they were the ones who taught humans this shit, originally as a joke, and then the humans took it way too seriously while also misunderstanding it completely and it got fucking weird. to the elves, pretty much every human looks like a garish drag queen, exaggerated and grotesque, but some elves are into that, yk? ergo, half-elves.
Deletesome elves believe all human gender is cultural appropriation, actually, considering that the elves originally got THEIR gender system from Elvish ancestors-gods and humans are mocking essential Elvish ontology with their expression. many human universities' gender-studies departments dedicated to "deconstructing gender" or what have you are secretly funded by these idealogues. some of these elves go even further, kidnapping particularly egregiously-gendered humans into underground forced-degendering facilities.
The comments on the original post felt to me like they were getting a bit too far into real world gender politics, but this concept honestly feels to me like the Spanish language taken to an extreme.
ReplyDeleteAs much as real world gender politics are important, I think something like this just serves the good purpose of making a fantasy race feel distinct. Instead of comparing them to humans, you can actually understand the Dwarf's perspective well enough that the Human in this story is the one who actually seems weird.
That takes some talent, honestly.
Thank you!
Deletethis made me laugh uncontrollably on the subway, thanks for this
ReplyDeleteAwesome couple of posts. Still thinking. Does a lot to create a deep world and get you thinking about ours. I don't think you should do elves until you've got some distance - if at all... With elves, it kinda feels like cheating, even knowing!
ReplyDeleteThe funniest part of this is by the end of it, I was actually understanding the Dwarven POV and it finally occurred to me that, to the supposedly 'all male' (I know its more complicated, but they look male to us) that humans would look all weird and androgynous. We'd be to dwarves what elves often are to us. Once you factor in the complexity of language and culture (and all the translation issues), humans come off as an entire race of weirdoes. The manliest of men in human society might still look like weirdly 'feminine' (again, abstracting terms) or like some comical mish mash of random traits because we don't have the same associations in culture, clothing and manners.
ReplyDeleteSo all in all, it has worked in making the Dwarves and Humans appear utterly alien to each others. That and the idea human culture is this way because we're obsessed with 'breeding'. This shit's hilarious xenofiction if you think about it.