Dragaera

Paarfi: useless, quote, sPEcuLation

Sat Apr 12 00:19:57 PDT 2003


On Fri, 11 Apr 2003, lazarus wrote:

> On Fri, 11 Apr 2003 14:22:30 -0700 (PDT), you wrote:
>
> >Paarfi describes Pel in _tPG_ and _FHYA_ as small, beautiful, given to
> >changing the color of his eyes a la Aliera, and clapping in a feminine
> >manner.  Crazy speculation: Pel is female, and is in drag for plot
> >reasons.  Presumably those reasons evaporated with the Orb, but perhaps it
> >was simplest to continue crossing.  Aerich in _tPotD_ points out that he
> >hasn't had any children and they hug. Well, later they do.  The hug makes
> >the "female" theory a bit less likely, though maybe Dragaerans, being so
> >thin and not having beards, have less prominent secondary sexual
> >characteristics than Easterners.  Speculation duo: Pel is gay, and
> >Paarfi's translator has made the wrong assumption about the gender of his
> >conquests.  Or the translator was right _and_ both speculations are right.
>
> Leading to further speculation:  Is homosexuality known in Dragaera?
> Or bisexuality?

Beginning of _Orca_, Vlad yanks Kiera's chain by referring to Savn as his
catamite ("a boy used for sodomy", says my Reader's Digest dictionary).
Kiera feels ashamed of being bothered by the thought - though it would in
our morality be more or less statutory rape - Savn isn't yet a sexual
being.  On the other hand (trying to remember recent interpretation of the
construction of gender in ancient Greece) men having sex with boys can
likely not be construed as what we refer to as homosexuality.  On the
other hand, Kiera might have trouble with the idea of Vlad sleeping with
a human...