I think what seems like a "change" is likely a change of perspective. Like if you live in a foreign country for awhile, you see the same things, but they seem different as you get to know the culture more and more. So we had assumptions of the Qun based on a sliver of information, and they need to evolve with each sliver as we get it and not cling to our assumptions.
You can't say you're a man because you're not one, you're playing a female character.
Sten asking this question doesn't mean he thinks you can decide your sex by self-identifying, he's just confused by the PC not sticking to the Qun's role for women. He asks ''Why would women wish to be men?'' and I don't see why he also wouldn't say the same to a woman who happens to bind and claims she's a man because once again, you are what you are born as, you do not choose, it's beyond your control, etc. Moreover Qunaris are educated into fitting the role attributed to them since they're children, Tamassrans teach them their their place in the world and how to know themselves. Do you think they ask them if they identified as men or women first? It's clearly assigned based on their sex.
You are missing the point.
Krem is a man and appears as a man and would answer as a man. How do you know how Sten would respond to him?
1. Sten asks the question - meaning he checks for understanding of your nature.
2. It's not about "choosing" as much as embracing your nature. A trans person doesn't "choose" to be a different gender; they naturally identify as a different gender, and they choose to embrace their nature; how does that not fit the Qun.
3. "Your nature" has a different meaning than the word "nature." In the first phrase, it means innateness. Now, to me, a transgender person has an "innateness" of the gender they feel they are; it is essentially who they are. To you, maybe not. But to the Qunari, aside from Bull's comments, nothing addresses this, so you cannot say what makes someone's nature under the Qun. Sten doesn't address this in regard to gender. He merely says you must follow it to follow the Qun.
I know how Qunari are educated. Bull explains this as well. How do we know a Tamassaran cannot even pick out a child who is trans? We don't know anything about the skills of the Tamassaran or how they go about understanding a child's nature. We also know they are NOT put into roles "at birth." They are educated, raised, and evaluated for roles throughout all of childhood, but roles aren't decided then. The Tamassaran clearly evaluate these roles thoroughly and decide them very carefully. Otherwise, it would be a waste and go against the Qun.
If they decide very carefully, why would they not consider the gender the child's nature seems to be, based on his/her nature, aptitude, and actions rather than just the gender of the parts they were born with? No one has answered this. It's just been a lot of "Born with woman parts is a woman" bullshit, which we have no reason to believe the Qunari would believe. We know that the Qunari believe you are what you are, but we have no idea how they arrive at that conclusion except that they give it great importance.
To me, this fits perfectly with my understanding of the Qun because I never believed they were only rigid and totalitarian; based on all I read, and the mixed Codex entries, and the mix of what Sten says, I always believed they were a combination of that and deeply philosophical and wise in some areas. The whole bits with your "essential nature" - they fit into this perfectly. A person's essential nature is important, but in most societies (those the Qunari look down on), it is often not even revealed. People are at the top who belong at the bottom. People are in roles they don't fit into and thus want to change. They are unsatisfied. The idea of the Qun and having a strict role is both to serve society and to derive perfect satisfaction from it. Why would they not accommodate for your very nature and only examine your body parts?
That class was talking about gender as identity and choice. The Qun is based on identity from nature. if nature gave you man parts then it was because nature assigned you the role man. If nature gave you lady parts, then nature assigned you the role of lady.
If the Qun didn't care about sex only gender identity, then Sten would never have been surprised to see a female Grey Warden fighting. He would have simply thought she thought she thought she was a man and would have never brought it up. Sten does bring it up because under the Qun, identity is based on genitals, not gender identification.
Nowhere in any game does the phrase, "gender identity from nature" come in. This is an assumption. The Qun talks about not denying your nature, yes, but that could easily be made to support the argument that, of course, what Iron Bull says makes sense, because Krem in a dress is denying his nature.
Nature =/ body parts. The word doesn't only mean biology.
The way Sten brings it up is literally, "I don't understand. You look like a woman?" He brings it up because she looks and presents as a woman, but he even asks for clarification. The female Grey Warden is not trans, and cannot be used to examine how Sten would view someone like Krem who neither looks like a woman nor would say, "Yep, I'm a woman."
The Qunari also put people into rolls at birth, dismissing any idea for gender to actually form in the child.
Going back 20 pages of arguing in circles, Sten's EXACT QUOTE is questioning is "A person is born. Qunari, or elf, or human, or dwarf. The size of his hand. Wither he's clever or foolish. The land he comes from, the color of his hair. These are things beyond his control. We do not choose, we simply are." and the follow up question of 'but a person can choose to be more' is met with "Can they?" meaning it was never met in qunari society.
1.) The Qunari do not get their roles at birth. They are carefully examined from birth, but their roles are chosen later. Based on their natures.
2.) Right. But you are assuming a trans person is "choosing their gender" which is really not true per se. Krem didn't "choose" to feel he was a man; he merely does. That is part of his nature as well, part of what he is. Why would a group of people who appreciate what you ARE not allow that? Why would they point to body parts instead of your very nature? Why is it not possible they see what you truly are and have a word for it? It does not break the Qun. A baker changing his mind and wanting to be a soldier; someone wanting a role they are ill suited to; someone wanting to live as a woman but fight as a man - these deny the Qun, yes, but someone wanting to live as a man and fight as a man, who happens to have ****** and a vagina, nothing in that quote disparages that. Nowhere does Sten express any notion of what "makes" a woman. (In fact, he has a banter with Morrigan where he says Neither the fact that the females fighting - mage and warrior alike - are women or warriors has been proven to him.) Just that one must be wholly consistent with his/her role. Gender doesn't have to be biological. That is a myth perpetuated by our own understanding in our own society.
The funny thing is I'm not even usually someone who can stand to listen to the Tumblr crowd on stuff like this, but it just doesn't seem so hard to me. Yeah, the Qunari are big on roles. Yes, they have gender roles. But they accept that gender is about more than penis/vagina - this is not a concept unknown to everyone. The concepts of male and female aren't even just applied to people. I don't think it's that weird for the Qunari to apply them philosophically.
Qunari don't care about gender identity, they care about sex. Allowing someone to choose their gender is no different from allowing someone to choose their job. Allowing someone to change their gender (as choosing one's gender involves the process of changing one's gender) is the same as allowing someone to change their job. The Qun would say that if someone was meant to be a man, they would have been born with a penis. Since they don't have a penis, then they can't be a man.
Why do we know that the Qunari base gender solely on your sex parts? Show me that quote.
There isn't one. Because this is an assumption, based upon our understanding of gender (not theirs) that you got from the sliver you saw, but now that you have seen more, you should assimilate the idea that Qunari do not base gender on your sex parts but rather on your innate role and nature. That you can have the nature of a man in the body of a woman, and the Qunari honor your nature, rather than your body. This fits with the Qun and their strict adherence to your nature.
Retour en haut
