just a little bit of tenderness

Now, this isn't an end all be all argumentative essay. This is more the beginnings of what I mean, I'm sure there's more to add but this is the first dive into this point. (Also this is not meant as an attack or besmirching of any of the characters or players' reputations or the like. I have no ill feeling towards any of them, and this is simply a character analysis spawned from things I've noticed, not the start of a hate campaign. Anyways!)

There's three main reasons for this whole "Egbert is treated like a woman" feeling I have: 1) he's not respected as much as his peers 2) they use him for his looks but are completely comfortable criticizing the way he looks when the situation doesn't call for him to be attractive 3) he is not part of the "boys club" for a lack of a better word.

With the first point, he is typically the butt of the joke- Sometimes literally, like in Legacy of Dragons where a character that is helping the guild to avoid detection makes Egbert the literal butt of the joke when they make the claim/start a rumor to the townsfolk that Egbert is shopping in the market square with his butt out, robbing him of his dignity, which is also a common theme among the jokes and bits made about him and filters in with the thesis of this post. There's many other examples of this, but the one that I thought of first is how they joke about cooking and eating him like he's a big livestock beast instead of a humanoid just like them. There's a pretty big moment like that that also deals with how they treat his religion and goddess, and it's after he's been kidnapped by Liliana and they don't know if he's alive or dead so they just start making jokes that preparing him like a big Christmas lunch roast is how they prepare the body for funerals and wakes in his religion instead of something respectful or potentially worldbuilding-y.

It's also always a surprise to the other characters when he has a smart idea despite the fact he's had good and smart ideas before and is actually an intelligent person. A big example of this that comes to mind is the fact Johnny had to remind them that Egbert had already tried to break out the golden dragon from underneath Mistimire before so he would be the best person to ask/lead the mission on how to get the golden dragon out in Legacy of Dragons. However, a smaller example is also in Elf Hazard when Egbert has the rigged tombola plan that everyone thinks is a good idea and is surprised that he came up with (including Mike/Egbert who says this is his "first (smart) moment just now" (which speaks to a lack of self-confidence for Egbert and also Mike viewing Egbert the same as everyone else)), so much so that Corazón pins him against a tree and demands to know where this doppelganger has hidden the real Egbert while holding a knife to his throat.

There are also times where they just dismiss his ideas and his genuine questions and concerns and act like he's being ridiculous. For example, Dob's "uh, yeah" to Egbert really wanting the guild to have the key to the door the dragon egg crate is behind so The Order of Le Dragon D'or can't just steal the dragon eggs in Legacy of Dragons or literally whenever he asks if something is "like those parties where the rich people eat the poor people" and they all act like there's something wrong with him instead of concern- Or! With the whole Victor Dietrich thing, where they (mainly Corazón) act like he's a disgusting, evil, and vile monster for doing something in a panic and where the person he did it to actually prefers being a seal because he can eat whatever he wants, yell whenever he wants, and didn't have to die for his home to be a museum. And all of this reminds me of how women are constantly disrespected. How their ideas are often dismissed (despite the fact it will be accepted if it's repeated by a man), how they are easily villainized for even just mistakes, and treated like they're less intelligent than their male counterparts just because they're women.

Women are also often upheld to unfair and impossible beauty standards, always being pressured to chase the ever-moving goalpost of being beautiful but never being able to grasp it. How they can be considered attractive one day then repulsive the next, much like how Egbert is treated. His attractiveness completely depends on what helps the guild at that moment. Like there are multiple times where Corazón offers up Egbert as a romance option, like to Johnathan Bennett so he has someone to kiss, the widow in the magic book episode so her wish for a new husband is completed, others that I can't remember at this exact moment, and there's often jokes about how Egbert is attractive and hot (pun-intended) for the sake of selling the idea that Egbert is someone these NPCs want to romance/be with. But on the other hand it's also easy for them to call him ugly without anyone batting an eye. The most recent example and the example that's stuck with me is in Funfair Dismissal where Corazón says, to Egbert's face, "Yes, Egbert, it looks like there's two big, weird reptiles that everyone finds repulsive now." which is very sad and speaks to Corazón having a hard time adjusting to being a Tortle now but like he is telling Egbert that he is not pretty or handsome or cute to literally anyone, but instead everyone finds him repulsive when he had previously touted him as being good-looking. Simialirly to how men will treat women like shit when they don't strive to fit under their label of attractive or good-looking.

Also! I don't mean to hate on Corazón, but him offering up Egbert as a romantic interest also reminds me of when stories use an all dolled-up woman as just eye-candy and make her a stereotype to follow a bland trope, like it would not surprise me if Corazón made Egbert act all into some guy both as an attractive distraction and as a way to get some information out of him much like how crime movies have the female lead act like they're attracted to the target or a connection to the target for information and a way in.

There is also a character that comes to mind who is attracted to Egbert, but it seems to be primarily for his body, and potentially how "exotic" he seems. That character is Adhrel, Merilwen's cousin. Adhrel is very sheltered, having never left The Old Thicket and presumably only knowing other elves her whole life seeing as there are no other humanoid species mentioned in her village. So it is extremely unlikely that she would have seen someone that differs so much from her normal, like Egbert, especially since she seems to not know what Egbert is, calling him "the lizard man" instead of his actual species name of Dragonborn. In the end, she drags Egbert off to the forest to avoid Corazón's performance and to go do something, maybe sex, maybe making out, who knows. But her attraction seems to stem from his body and it being something new she's never seen before, what with her main comment about him being "at least he's handsome" and, somewhat because she doesn't have a lot of screentime with him, it seeming like she has no intent on learning about his personality or opinions or anything like that and is instead content on just appreciating his body like how women are often viewed just for their bodies and not their minds.

But back to the guild, and again, I don't want to paint Corazón as the bad guy, but in, I believe, Mule Be Sorry, Dob says he's been trying to mimic Corazón's stealthy rogue ways, so it's implied he looks up to Corazón and I think that that has impacted the way Dob talks to Egbert (and Merilwen, I don't get why they're so mean to her), which brings me to my third point, the boys' club!

So if you separated the guild via gender, like girls on one side and boys on the other, technically Egbert would be on the boys side, but it doesn't feel like it would work or click since Dob and Corazón don't really include Egbert in their things. It's moreso Dob and Corazón hanging out and doing bits and also I guess Egbert is there, too. Like I know Mike likes to shut up and that's why Egbert doesn't talk that much but also the only other two men don't (really) ask for his input, much like how men don't typically ask women for their input. Instead, they sort of only talk dude stuff/all the other stuff and their schemes with each other while Egbert usually goes off to do his own thing or possibly tags-a-long with Merilwen or Prudence. It feels almost as if Egbert is in a different group than them.

On the other side of it, though, Merilwen and Prudence love Egbert. They definitely find him endearing and Merilwen especially likes when he does the occasional pun, but specifically I recall two moments. The first is a moment in a liveshow (that I unfortunately can't pin down) where Egbert makes a pun and Merilwen (I'm pretty sure) says "I can't top that" and then (I think) says that Egbert is her favorite now (and I remember getting excited about it). Then the second moment is at the end of Squid Pro Quo where Prudence says that the guild are all warlocks to her in her heart and that she appreciates every one of them, but she then turns to Egbert and says "I appreciate you most of all, Egbert, but don't tell anyone else.". It's all very sweet and supportive, sort of like girls supporting girls. Like the women have more time for Egbert than the other men on the team. (I'm really not trying to villainze Corazón and Dob I promise)

All of these things together, the not being part of the "boy's club", the focus on his looks, and the way he and his thoughts are dismissed along with being disrespected, puts in mind women and how they are egregiously mistreated, both in media and in the real world, so it makes it hard not to compare Egbert to women and feel like he is being treated like one.

Sometimes, I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion!

Its for a good reason but it's kind of also undeniably funny. It really looks like that.

Tell you what… the truth is… sometimes I miss you so much I can hardly stand it.

For context, my mom is the one who taught me to forage, and it was and is just part of life. She regularly added foraged foods to our everyday meals. I knew how to identify huckleberry before I learned the alphabet. Foraging was just another part of feeding ourselves, along with gardening, raising chickens, and going to the store. And the firmest rule was that you didn't eat a plant unless you were willing to bet your life on it being what you thought it was.

So to watch my coworker see a berry, say 'strawberry!' and then pick it and have it three quarters of the way to his mouth before I could point out that it was actually an unripe blackberry...

Well, it was a striking moment. Because while that particular mix up would not actually hurt you, the lack of paying attention it takes to mistake an unripe blackberry for a strawberry and the lack of caution it takes to put a plant that you've hardly looked at into your mouth- no wonder some people think bittersweet nightshade is a look alike to red huckleberry!

And it explains a lot about how secretive most people are about their foraging spots. If you don't care enough about your own health and well-being to actually look at the plant you're eating, how could I trust you to care for the health and well-being of the plants you want to forage and the ecosystems you want to forage from? I want my foraging spots to be better off for my interactions with them. I want to be able to go back to the same spots year after year and decade after decade and see the native plants thriving, the invasive species losing ground, and the biodiversity increasing.