#what i'm getting at: thistle is dressed in a way that in-context is decidedly male | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

shippofuri · 1 month

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very funny realization I'm having as i work on the highly ambitious "thistle is girl-coded" essay (which started out as a joke but the more i look into it the more real it becomes) is that a lot of people seem to be under the impression thistle's clothing is feminine, when it is very much not (unlike every woman in the kingdom, we never once see thistle in a dress.) it just reads as feminine to us because it's styled in a very flamboyant way (because he's a jester!)

but this actually plays into my theory. soon... you will all understand...

#cicada's thoughts #tissel #what i'm getting at: thistle is dressed in a way that in-context is decidedly male #to cement that he would be understood as male by the characters in-universe #thus avoiding some of the bigger problems in story flow that would be posed by thistle being a girl #but the experience of misogyny is still able to be conveyed through his treatment as an elf #the representation of misogyny is kind of the tip of the iceberg though #the flashback in chapter 68 has a part that symbolically frames him as a mother in a way that seems extremely deliberate #like when i realized it i was like holy shit

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