#im actually using zesty in my phd dissertation

[lnkedmyheart]

Mini rant about sormik canonicity

Disclaimer: This is a very chaotic post because I have a migraine and my thoughts are jumbled but bear with me.

As someone who works with literature and old texts and had to learn to read texts from different perspectives, I don't give much weight to the idea of the canon. However, I have spent years researching the changing trends in lgbt rep in media. But first:

What exactly is the canon? Well according to the dictionary, "...the literary canon is often understood to mean the group of authors or works that a consensus of academics, historians and teachers recognise as worthy of study". Going by this we must consider two things when analysing a text for lgbt love. The time period it originated in and the author's intent. Typically. However, we also know that a lot of texts are created as a means to rise AGAINST the grain of time and once enough time is passed, a lot of additional sources get lost and all you have to rely on is the actual text itself. No creator to confirm anything via Word of God, no supplementary text to support certain ideas and so on.

As to why I don't always like the idea of canonicity, its quite simple. Researchers, historians and academicians will never be free from bias. I once wrote a poem about someone being saved from drowning and posted it on a creative writing site and I got flooded with comments about how deep it was and how it was all a metaphor for losing oneself or faith. It wasn't. The authorial intent here had been entirely my personal experience about nearly drowning. But without my word, that was how people chose to view it.

Its a historical fact that a lot of ancient texts were altered and read in a way to insist that intense mlm and wlw bonds were reduced to just super extra intense friendships. But reading all these texts now we KNOW there was atleast an element of homosexual love in the texts and that is honestly all that matters right?

Finally onto sormik and whether or not Sorey and Mikleo are actually canon. Its such a contested topic that its honestly hilarious at times. On one hand there is an argument that they don't kiss or confess and are therefore not canon, which is a very flawed idea based on several factors which everyone already knows of. And then there is the whole insistence that just cause two men are friends doesn't mean they are in love. On the other there is so much extra information and vague creator confirmation that sormik was infact intended to be read as romantic to some extent and that Sorey shows no real interest in women.

But is it really canon? Here's a comparison. Achilles and Patroclus. It is a unanimous belief NOW that those two were deeply in love. They were brothers in arms, close friends and were willing to die for each other. Their descriptions and the way they interacted was never explicitly sexual but it was extremely heavily implied to be driven by love of a romantic kind. Atleast that is what we read it as today. We don't have any creator confirmation for this, we don't have supplementary material to support this belief. They never smooch on paper. All we have is the text to interpret. 100 years from now, when someone looks at Sorey and Mikleo free from the creator confirmation and extra material regardless of which source they use, would they be inclined to see it as romantic?

I argue yes. Like Achilles and Patroclus, Sorey and Mikleo are brothers in arms, they value each other the most, wish to spend the rest of their lives together and we literally have Mikleo wait several centuries for Sorey to return. These tropes are heavily associated with romance, these tropes are the very reasons why so much historical text is now being looked at from a non heteronormative lense regardless of authorial intent but why do we insist on drawing the line in modern media when the exact same tropes are being used? Why is it that lgbt romances cannot be chaste and innocent like heterosexual romances? I would LOVE an onscreen kiss between wlw or mlm pairs but why is it compulsory to be read in any way other than a dudebro bonding moment? There is a tendency to hypersexualise lgbt love, and yes, being gay or lesbian or bisexual is a sexuality but that doesn't inherently make it sexual.

So whether or not sormik was intended to be romantic and whether or not Sorey was intended to be gay is irrelevant in the long run. To me personally, it is as canon as can be because I know for a fact that if Sorey existed in an ancient text with no change to his character and story, he'd be treated like a gay icon by modern lgbt historians.

Would it be nice if it was intentional? Yea. Would it not being intentional change the fact that a large part of Sorey's bond with Mikleo mirrors the queer experience of several young lgbt people? Not at all.

Anyway.

Rant over.

SorMik canon as can be y'all.