Can I talk for a second about Lup?
Specifically about how the language in TAZ represents her.
Because here’s the thing: trans characters in media are almost universally tragic. Trans characters do not get happy endings. Once in a blue moon, you get a narrative that’s trying to actually have a trans character instead of a trans caricature, and the moral of the story ends up being “even though I’m cursed with this terrible affliction that materially affects my quality of life, I have hope that someday I can achieve something resembling suburban mediocrity.” That’s the happy ending that trans characters can hope for. That’s what I’ve learned to treat as a happy ending.
She’s an incredibly skilled wizard with a brother who loves her more than anything
Our first interaction with her is her announcing at a press conference for a high-level mission that she “did this world and kind of crushed it” before mic-dropping
The most incredible love story in the narrative belongs to a trans woman and her lover. Let me say that again: this monologue, one of the most beautiful falling-in-love stories I’ve ever heard–
“Our capacity for love increases with each person we cross paths with throughout our lives, and with each moment we spend with those people. But, too often we neglect that part of ourselves in favor of others. And by the time we realize just how important it is, we find ourselves with fewer folks around to practice with. But the seven of you have something that nobody else ever had: time. All the time in the world. Time enough to grow indescribably close. Time enough to learn how to care for each other, how to allow yourselves to be cared for. And in the case of Barry and Lup, time enough to fall deeply and truly in love”
–is about the love relationship between a canonically trans woman and her partner, a man whose identifier is “the lover.” His role literally revolves around the intensity of his love for Lup. Trans characters never get love stories like this. I’ve literally never seen it before.
And when Lup returns? That monologue? I can’t even with the language that Griffin uses.
“If this truly was the last cycle, she had already burned her corporeal form. But that was the cost of undoing the damage she had done to this world”–she’s selfless and heroic; she doesn’t give a damn about herself as long as she can save this world
“She put on a fiery show of force just to remind herself how powerful she could be”–Griffin’s voice at this point just kills me; he’s reminding us, too, how fucking powerful Lup is
And then, of course, everyone’s favorite part: “Lup, phantasmal and resplendent, her outstretched palms still coated in flame”
PHANTASMAL and RESPLENDENT
“Hear that, babe? We’re legends”
These are words that describe HEROES. These are words for the SAVIOR OF WORLDS.
I cannot stress this enough: I literally do not know one other narrative in which a canonically trans character (or even a strongly trans-coded character) gets this kind of hero’s treatment
Not to mention she survives. She gets her happy ending, with her brother and her lover and her family and all the world knowing her name, knowing what she did
Griffin McElroy, thank you. Thank you for giving me a character who is incidentally trans who is the farthest possible thing from a tragedy. Thank you for showing a trans woman who is idealized, glorified, even. Thank you for demonstrating to every other content creator what it means to write a trans character who gets to shine in the spotlight, who earns and rightfully gets her happy ending.
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