#(kalo)

Coryn is definitely a trans coded character. Besides the obvious name change, dead naming by his mother, and rejection of his family’s conservative ideals, I also like his tendency to gravitate towards communities that exist outside of the norm (staying with Mist, living with burrowing owls who are generally considered strange by the rest of the owl world, and going to beyond the beyond).

Anyways, I was thinking about different trans Coryn headcannons, and I have thoughts.

Trans fem Coryn: this probably diverges from cannon the least. Her childhood would stay pretty similar. The question of how gender roles play into the pure one’s ideology would definitely be relevant. For example, both of Nyra’s previous mates were The High Tyto. Coryn is also being trained to accept this position. Nyra, however, is called general. If it’s a question of only men being able to take that title, you get loads of fun Coryn angst as a kid, where she knows she’s not a man, and that’s not really a title she’s comfortable taking, but not understanding quite why. It would also be interesting to see play out in later books. Coryn already kinda feels very separate from Hoole (because of Nyra being a demon and all) and this would further separate the two. You get fun parallels between Nyra (who’s overcoming gender norms to take over the pure ones) and Coryn (who is also a woman in the position of power). You’d also get a Queen of Ga’Hoole, rather than a king. We already had Barran, so it’s definitely something you can do, but we haven’t seen a queen rule the tree alone.

Trans-masc Coryn: super fun idea to mess around with. First, an AFAB Coryn who can’t serve as a replacement for his father (at least at first) in the eyes of Nyra. Not to mention, his deadname would literally be Nyra. So we could get a Nyra ‘I can have all the power to myself’ arc earlier. It would also be interesting to see how Nyra reacts to a kid she sees as a daughter. Nyra isn’t really close to a lot of female characters in cannon. She tends to latch on to male characters and use them to gain power. There’s the Shattering, where she does pretend to be Eglantine’s mother. She doesn’t seem to be horrible at it, but I still think it’s interesting to play with Nyra having a kid who she sees as a daughter, who shares her name, and was born under the same lunar eclipse. it’s just fun. Does Nyra see this kid as competition, or a second chance to get everything right? Either way, LOADS of pressure on little Coryn.

His abusive parent projecting heavily on him for herself, and him eventually realizing that he’s not even the same gender as his mother. A situation where all Nyra sees is a version of herself, and all Coryn can see are all the differences. It’s not that far from cannon actually, but instead of seeing Kludd in Coryn, Nyra sees herself.

There’s the question of how he comes up with his new name. I like the idea that he’s trying desperately to please his mother, so he starts by changing his name to the one she would’ve given him (maybe starting to use it with just Philip), and later realizing people still associate that name with his mother. He still has attachment to the name because it’s the right gender, so he just reverses it to get his new name.

(If you’re making the pure ones okay with gender stuff it could be a situation of ‘Mom… I’m not like you. I’m a man.’ ‘Cool, you can be like your father.’ ‘I’m also… not a white supremacist’ ‘HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME???’)

Non-binary Coryn: cool possibility. could be interesting depending on how strict we assume gender roles are, especially within the pure ones. Very strict gender roles could leave a non-binary Coryn feeling even more disconnected from the pure ones in a sense of ‘I will never be able to fit into any role you’d try to give me’ way.