Life Before Death, Vibes Before Thoughts

Don’t get me wrong, I do love the idea of a society where nobody blinks at two women falling in love, or the classic “what if you were my sister’s widower and I married you and we raised your children as ours (and we were both boys?)”, or the way Master Kipron is immediately accepted without question by the gang- who were expecting a woman.I absolutely adore how much queerness is woven into the fabric of the world to the point that bisexuality is the social norm- as it is in The Locked Tomb, and several other queer fantasy books. Queerphobia is not a part of any society in these worlds and that’s absolutely wonderful- 10/10. But as someone who’s identity as a queer person is so close to my own heart and so entangled in my identity- it’s sometimes a little bit alienating that characters don’t see any difference at all between marrying a man or marrying a woman or falling in love with a non binary individual. I get why- often, the importance of these identities is moulded by a community in the face of prejudice, so in a world without such prejudice, why would the distinction matter? But it can sometimes feel a bit like “everyone is allowed to be bisexual, so everyone is” (This is not a bad thing, necessarily, but I sometimes think it can lose nuance- for instance the fact that their often referred to as“the lesbian dragon books” when Sabran at least is bisexual)

Which is why I ADORE that we have characters in ADOFN that care? I love that both Demaie and Tunova get to have little moments where they’re like “actually, I only like women”. Wulf is a hopeless bisexual who doesn’t realise he’s in love with his best friend, nor that the feeling is mutual- and that the first time he has feelings for Thrit he’s like “wtf are these???” despite the fact that he’s got two dads, at least one of whom is bi. I love the fact that Glorian is aroace and how much that means to her, and how heavily it influences the tragedy of her arc. And I love that some characters do fall into the category of not caring about who they are- because that’s real as well