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What is your opinion about Jormag's gender?


Terter.4125

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Anet can make a character with a beard and masculine structure, with a male voice, and people in this game would still question if the character is a guy.

It is literally voiced by a guy guys. Come on.

@"Gopaka.7839" said:

@videoboy.4162 said:I voted for female presenting, because it's been confirmed that Jormag's VA is a woman.

If you are familiar with the anime franchise. Many male characters are voiced from a female VA. For example: Naruto is voiced by a female, Goku from Dragon Ball is voiced by a female, Dexter is voiced by a female, Pikachu also is voiced by a female and yes Pikachu is a male before you argue because of his tail being sharp and not round like the female pikachues, even Bart Simpson is voiced by a female VA. So yeah... it doesn't matter who voice him... what maters is how does he sound and look like at the end.

Also about this, the people who voiced those characters are chosen because their voice sounds like the characters they fit, but it's because they're trying to convey that illusion; women are used to voice little boys because adult male vocal chords can't emulate anything near the pitch that little boys use in their voices. The reason they don't use actual little boys is because it is illegal to employ kids for jobs in America.

Also using the Japanese Goku voice to describe a male one is laughable at best, my initial reaction to hearing him the first time is that he sounds like a complete whimp. Pretty sure a bunch of other people thought so as well; literally not a single guy in Japan sounds like his Japanese counterpart.

With Jormag, there is no question about it; they're not trying to make him sound like a woman at all, there is no illusion there, they're literally using the voice of a man. With your logic we may as well say Glint was probably a guy, and we know that's not true at all. Try not to be naive about it.

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@"Aridon.8362" said:It is literally voiced by a guy guys. Come on. [...] With Jormag, there is no question about it; they're not trying to make him sound like a woman at all, there is no illusion there, they're literally using the voice of a man. With your logic we may as well say Glint was probably a guy, and we know that's not true at all. Try not to be naive about it.

Actually, Jormag is voiced by a woman. No idea who yet, though.

https://twitter.com/tomabernathy/status/1167709836890345473

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@Batel.9206 said:

@"Aridon.8362" said:It is literally voiced by a guy guys. Come on. [...] With Jormag, there is no question about it; they're not trying to make him sound like a woman at all, there is no illusion there, they're literally using the voice of a man. With your logic we may as well say Glint was probably a guy, and we know that's not true at all. Try not to be naive about it.

Actually, Jormag is voiced by a woman. No idea who yet, though.

Then the producers tried so hard to unnecessarily make it sound like a guy. That's pretty dumb in my opinion. Mordremoth was a guy; it was pretty clear that he was too. Aurene is a female, we even refer to Aurene as she. Her brother was obviously a male. And somehow Anet decided to make a dragon whose gender is unknown? Then if it's voiced by a woman, even if by a manly woman, then that means Jormag is a female.

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I'm not sure how much sense it makes to talk about the gender identity of an asocial creature like an elder dragon. Sure, Jormag can self-identify as non-binary, but who is it self-identifying to? Not to the Sons of Svanir - they refer to 'Dragon' as male. Perhaps to our player characters, later in the story, but it hasn't done that yet - and I'm not sure why it ever would.

Apart from Kralkatorik - who seems to be male on account of being referred to as Aurene's grandfather - I think the other elder dragons have consistently been referred to not only in non-gendered terms, but as 'it' rather than 'they'. That's certainly what Trahearne does when talking about Zhaitan, and how the Wiki pages refer to them. The dialogue sometimes skirts around this issue grammatically, referring to them by name or as 'the dragon' instead.

I agree that we can't draw any conclusions from the gender of the voice actor, especially since Jormag is pretty far from being human. There's no reason why a deep voice would indicate maleness in an elder dragon. (As I understand it, males having deep voices is primarily a human thing and isn't the case in many other animal species. That said, biology really isn't my area...)

@Danikat.8537 said:In a way it should fit with their view that Jormag is Dragon and a Spirit of the Wild, since the other spirits are a representation of all animals of that species, not just the males or the females.

The Spirits of the Wild are given genders by the norn though: Bear and Snow Leopard are female, Raven and Wolf are male (based on the dialogue from the Speakers of Hoelbrak). And, of course, the Sons of Svanir refer to Jormag as male - though it seems that, without any information, they'd make that assumption.

@Aridon.8362 said:

@"Gopaka.7839" said:

@videoboy.4162 said:I voted for female presenting, because it's been confirmed that Jormag's VA is a woman.

If you are familiar with the anime franchise. Many male characters are voiced from a female VA. For example: Naruto is voiced by a female, Goku from Dragon Ball is voiced by a female, Dexter is voiced by a female, Pikachu also is voiced by a female and yes Pikachu is a male before you argue because of his tail being sharp and not round like the female pikachues, even Bart Simpson is voiced by a female VA. So yeah... it doesn't matter who voice him... what maters is how does he sound and look like at the end.

Also about this, the people who voiced those characters are chosen because their voice sounds like the characters they fit, but it's because they're trying to convey that illusion; women are used to voice little boys because adult male vocal chords can't emulate anything near the pitch that little boys use in their voices. The reason they don't use actual little boys is because it is illegal to employ kids for jobs in America.

That's commonly the reason, but there are examples that don't fit into that. For example, in Adventure Time, Lumpy Space Princess is female but is voiced by a man, and BMO is ungendered but is voiced by a woman. In both cases, the voices are chosen to fit the characters - and, like Jormag, both characters are non-human, so there's less reason for their voices to fit in with human biology.

All of these posts about Jormag are making me realise that, when I see it written down, I always mispronounce it in my head (i.e. I pronounce the j the germanic way). For some reason I find it quite difficult to think of it as being pronounced the way it's pronounced in the game... (Of course, they mispronounce jotun, golem, krait... but I think we can assume that they're pronouncing 'Jormag' correctly, since it's their word.)

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I agree with the "does it matter?" sentiment. I think it is very cool that Jormag is portrayed as androgenous. Think of the lore implications for the overtly mysogynistic Sons of Svanir, as one point. Think also (if you dare) about the reflections on our society and how we see and tolerate (or not) gender, gender definitions and gender roles. I think this portrayal is a good thing.

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In most cases, gender doesn’t matter in a story unless the story somehow has to do with romance or reproduction. But considering jormag has an all male cult, I could see it being revealed that he is a she, or at least in our generalized terms for elder dragons, qualifies as a she - which would basically just be voice. And that sounded more male to me...

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I put down "idunno.derp" mostly because I'm not sure that the conventions of gender/sex apply so much to these dragons. They may be hermaphroditic, like the dinos in Jurassic Park for example (dang frogs). However, the fact that Kralkipoo is a "grandpappy" and that Aurene and Glint know that he is in fact a "he"... Welp, the jury is out on it for me, but the good news is that either way, they're gonna have to go through the mulcher ;)

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Yeah, where is the 'why does it matter' option?

What I latched on to was the commander being addressed as champion. AFAIK only Aurene has used that title. So we could have a situation where all the dragons are linked somehow.

As an aside, I know someone who once did an art presentation in a virtual world using a VR setup and a dragon avatar. One of the questions was 'what does it MEAN if you say your gender is dragon?' (google becoming dragon). What does gender mean to a dragon?

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@"Donari.5237" said:I have no opinion, though that's not an option. Jormag's gender is flat-out irrelevant to me :) I hadn't even started to wonder until I saw this poll. I know ANet is pushing the story along so that the Elder Dragons are more than just forces of nature, but to me it still isn't something I think about in regards to them any more than I wonder if a hurricane or earthquake are male or female. Or a stampede of elephants -- there might be male and female elements inherent in the stampede, but the main concern is "is this going to trample important stuff?"

They're definitely more than natural forces, since their alternate spheres are related to mortal psychology. Why would a living blizzard on a planet without sapient beings need the power of Persuasion?

The second spheres seem a little vague, though. Aren't fury and persuasion both part of mind? "Madness" seemed better and more precise for Mordremoth.

The pattern is also a little off. Three of the four have a sphere of mental/spiritual trauma or corruption. Madness, Seduction, Fury. Bubbles is probably related to Dread or Terror. Primordus is anyone's guess, though I think despair would be an interesting choice that would explain nihilistic destruction. As the firstborn, pride might be another good one -- it doesn't relate to corrupting mortals, but that actually works, with Primordus mostly just making his own minions.

But then there's Jormag, breaking the pattern. I guess Shadow could be treated as a mental thing -- ignorance, blindness, secrets, etc. But it's a stretch.

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Some people in here ask “why does it matter”. But it could have major implications for the narrative that could be pretty neat. I don’t think the speculation is a bad topic to explore, especially when you consider Jormag’s main followers.

As for the whole non-binary thing, I mean... At least akin to genderless legendary Pokémon by analogy, I think an immortal dragon who probably can’t/doesn’t conceive through conventional means, and is likely something more akin to focused energy via sheer will power; doesn’t fall into either camp for how we as simple mortals define sex and/or gender.

Identity aside, doesn’t really matter what label you would put to.. let’s take mordemoth; who is literally a jungle:If you believe genders are binary, well what is a jungle supposed to be?If you believe it’s a social construct, well again what is a jungle supposed to be?

Lol

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The OP question assumes gender essentialism, but we know that this is a myth (at least since Simone De Beauvoir wrote on the topic): gender is a social construction. So the question should be read in a sociological way. This allows for two answers. First, we ask the dragons (although they seem to lack any robust sense of society so it is likely that they lack these identity markers). Or second, we rephrase the question. We investigate who is asking the question (e.g., the people of Tyria, the Asuran researcher, etc., etc), what are the gender roles or determinants of gender identity in that society or group (keeping in mind that there might be disagreements or struggle within these groups as to what gender is), and then we give a sociological response.

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