Bookworm's Crossdresser Jokes (mild spoilers)
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Hey, all. I've been a big fan of Ascendence of a Bookworm since the anime came out, so much so that I picked up the light novels as soon as the anime ended and I'm now completely caught up with the English releases. But lately the books have been making me feel pretty awful.
In the last book, it was revealed that Justus occasionally crossdresses for the sake of gaining information, and he was repeatedly talked about like some kind of disgusting pervert for it. There was even one scene that I think was supposed to be comical where Rihardya was yelling at him for being in a dress and how disgusted she was, and it's pretty upsetting.
I'm someone who identifies as Nonbinary, so seeing this character be treated like a freak for not conforming to gender roles was pretty crappy for me. I understand that Erenfest isn't the most woke place, but when Myne, who is from the modern era, is equally disgusted by Justus, it feels like just a really cruel running gag
I was going to let it be, but then the most recent book brought it up again and Myne even started pointing out physical traits and why a character wouldn't be able to pass as a another gender and it was just hurtful. I'm not asking for a trans revolution or anything like that, I'm just wondering why this gag even needed to exist in the first place. They very easily could have just not done that.
I love this series to death, but if it's going to keep having scenes like that where people who don't conform to a specific gender are considered freaks, I don't think I can keep reading. Not even out of protest, but because I don't want to deal with characters I like acting like people like me who exist outside the gender binary are inhuman or disgusting. It's just not something I can deal with.
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I think it's totally valid for you to feel discomfort about reading it, if you wish to stop, that is completely acceptable. I'm cis, and don't feel those some issues, so I approach the issue differently because I don't personally feel attacked by the stance.
I personally don't view the characters as being transphobic because it's presenting crossdressing solely for men to intrude into women-only spaces at this point. Cultural norms mean it's not as easy to argue though, and I personally just see it as non-inclusive to it even existing. The characters who wish to cross dress don't wish to do it for gender non-comforming reasons, but for subterfuge. In future, we hopefully don't have to worry about "passing", but for these characters they're trying to be in the background and not be noticed at all, so they have different goals. Kazuki has written a series which has a strict division of tasks based upon gender roles, that may cause issues for people who personally do not.
I will also note that it's a translation, so the author isn't from the same culture as myself, so they have likely grown up with very different ideas behind these things. The fact that the main plot was also complete in the WN form long before the individual LNs were published add a couple of years to the awakening that still isn't anywhere near complete today.
Only you can decide if these issues are minor or major to you.
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Yeah, I wasn't really a fan of those scenes either.
The silver lining is that all of the intolerance in those scenes comes from the other characters (including the PoV character), not Justus's own characterization. Justus themself is still a believable, even sympathetic, character. I personally read them as not primarily crossdressing for infiltration purposes. However, the society that they're in has entrenched enough gender binaries that "I'm doing this to gather information" is a more acceptable justification than "I'm doing this because I'm tired of living as a man all the time," so that's what they tell their colleagues and superiors. That's entirely my own interpretation and trying to redeem those bits, though.
From a death-of-the-author perspective, we know that Myne's a flawed, inconsiderate character in other ways, so the way she reacts toward Justus is just another character flaw. I hope she grows out of it.
But from a realistic perspective, I'm not holding my breath. if this turns out to be another Harry Potter in that respect, I'll be disappointed, but not entirely surprised.
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Ascendance of a Bookworm is fictional work set in fictional world with different cultural norms and views on different things. If you project this world stances you will just spoil your enjoyment of books. I suggest you deep dive into world of AoB and just enjoy.
If you project this world morals then there are much bigger problems than crossdressing. I mean they kill their own kids just because they do not have enough mana and cannot support them in temple. No to mention they purge entire cities because of offenses of few.
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@sekki said in Bookworm's Crossdresser Jokes (mild spoilers):
If you project this world morals then there are much bigger problems than crossdressing. I mean they kill their own kids just because they do not have enough mana and cannot support them in temple. No to mention they purge entire cities because of offenses of few.
The difference between those situations and this one lies mostly in Roz’s perspective. When those things occur and Roz thinks “This is awful,” we are able to align our morals with hers and think “Well yeah, this is awful and we can acknowledge it, not much we can do about it though.” When the Justus and Hartmut crossdressing stuff comes up and Roz agrees with the worldview, though, we lose that, and their reaction is perceived as the sole “norm.” People who now disagree with Roz’s perspective compared to before feel more isolated. I’m not trying to rank this stuff in terms of uncomfortableness or anything, but I don’t think it’s fair to say “They do bad thing X so why are you upset over bad thing Y.”
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@masterlillyclaw said in Bookworm's Crossdresser Jokes (mild spoilers):
@sekki said in Bookworm's Crossdresser Jokes (mild spoilers):
If you project this world morals then there are much bigger problems than crossdressing. I mean they kill their own kids just because they do not have enough mana and cannot support them in temple. No to mention they purge entire cities because of offenses of few.
The difference between those situations and this one lies mostly in Roz’s perspective. When those things occur and Roz thinks “This is awful,” we are able to align our morals with hers and think “Well yeah, this is awful and we can acknowledge it, not much we can do about it though.” When the Justus and Hartmut crossdressing stuff comes up and Roz agrees with the worldview, though, we lose that, and their reaction is perceived as the sole “norm.” People who now disagree with Roz’s perspective compared to before feel more isolated. I’m not trying to rank this stuff in terms of uncomfortableness or anything, but I don’t think it’s fair to say “They do bad thing X so why are you upset over bad thing Y.”
Everyone is free to think what they want but this reminds me of ppl going to Jimmy Carr (one of most offensive standup comedians) standup and complaining about one speecific joke. I mean either accept all or reject all. Nitpicking is just petty imo. Everone has their own expiriences and some do not like one things or another.
There was one time when once I was out in Germany and one of ppl there made joke about starvation and I it hit me rly hard because year back I went through Serbian death camp where I was litteraly starving (barely survived it) but I did not complain. I said nothing. I know that person ment no offense since they just met me. When writter writes a book which is read by thousends there is bound to be someone that gets offended by something.
My problem with whole thing is that it is getting out of hand. Everyone is offended by everything which is killing creative thought. I stopped watching western movies because of it. Everything must be "politically correct". Call me old fashioned but I like good old jokes where ppl could say what they want.
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Hello,
This is not a topic for the political correctness of literature, so lets avoid going down that alley here, feel free to open a new topic if you wish to discuss that specific line of topic.
This topic has been more extremely civil, let us all keep it focused on the topic at hand, and not start branching out.
Thank you
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Those passages made me cringe when I read them. I don't see the protagonists world view on this matter as an essential part of her character or the storyline, but I have actually dropped a JNC series because the author's politics were getting in the way of the story so I fully appreciate people making that decision to stop reading because an element ruins their enjoyment of the series or means they feel that they cannot support a series with such content.
I thinks this volume was published in Web Novel form in around 2015. I would hope that the author would not have written it that way if she had written it today and I hope that if the story point is featured in the anime that they do a far better job of handling it.
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I don't know whether others will consider this a positive, or just a reflection that it's not that kind of story, but from the descriptions and illustrations Justus pulls it off; when presenting as his sister, it works.
No one sees through it.
It is a successful stepping into the role, the presentation is spot on, if you didn't know it was actually Justus you wouldn't have a clue.How others react once they're aware of what's going on may be bothersome, but that Justus could do it successfully is undisputed.
I'm not going to make any guesses at this point in the story as to whether Justus has any reason for doing this other than what he has stated.
Whether he enjoys crossdressing for itself.
Whether he has gender dysphoria.
Or whether it's just an additional string to his bow as an investigator.
It is canon that he does it well. -
My understanding was that it's a joke not about gender but about how much of an information gathering freak Justus really is. I think he is very thrilled to have occasions to challenge his skills, whether playing the role of a commoner in his lower city infiltration, or a woman to infiltrate a girls only tea party, it's just the same for him. At least I've always read it this way.
As for Rozemyne, being one of Justus' favorite information gathering target, it is of course a bit off-putting for her. He's tried to get as much information about her as possible for ages, now Hartmut is following too...
So now, with them wanting to crossdress to follow her everywhere at the RA, that is very intrusive, hence her disgust. That's my feeling about it.
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@cherrycottonfluff said in Bookworm's Crossdresser Jokes (mild spoilers):
So now, with them wanting to crossdress to follow her everywhere at the RA, that is very intrusive, hence her disgust. That's my feeling about it.
Very good point.
I'm not going to argue against a certain level of disapproval of crossdressing being displayed, and that certain tropes aren't coming into play in how various folks react and things are phrased. Because that is there.
But crossdressing so that you can gather information in venues that are specifically not for men?
So that you can stalk Rozemyne, in the case of Hartmut taking it under consideration?
For those two instances, yeah, it's tots legit for the women assembled to think this is not acceptable.
That doesn't change that the concern for something awakening in Hartmut, etc., is very much a trope thing, and one which is legitimately distressing to those for whom it's not a laughing matter; that it can be thought of as a laughing matter by some in itself would be stressful for those who have gender dysphoria or honestly enjoy crossdressing.
The trope treats it as a 'kink' of a questionable kind, something abnormal in a negative sense.
And... it'll probably show up again from time to time in-story.
Too much effort was involved in setting up the whole 'Justus crossdressing' thing for it to just go 'poof!'
Hopefully it will be a minor enough theme that it doesn't totally ruin the story for some.All your libraries are belong to us. | Aub Rozemyne | Those who do not read shall not eat.
Help me, Satomi-san. You're my only hope. | Fight! Yurika! | WW[R|S]D
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@weasalopes There's also the added wrinkle that his preferred "model" is his own real-life flesh-and-blood sister, which is off-putting to his mother and nephew for other reasons. And at least part of his attitude does seem to be wanting to make his boneheaded nephew uncomfortable.
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If you're thinking of dropping the series, it might be worth it to repost this to a community that has a lot of webnovel readers and request spoilers about if there are more crossdressing jokes in the future, what chapters they're in and how frequent they are. I think it would help you make the decision whether to continue reading or not. There might be people willing to pinpoint the exact locations of these jokes allowing you to skip only the jokes if the issue is preserving your mental health.
I don't think the author meant to be trans-phobic. Japan is also not the most woke place in the world and gender dysmorphia is not something cis people think about if they're not heavily involved in the LGBT community.
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Are you asking for spoilers (i.e. will there be any more cross-dressing jokes)? Or are you looking to drum up a discussion on the topic?
Regarding the former:
I can only speak up to the latest weekly release, but I see little evidence that cross-dressing jokes will be a major part of Bookworm. It hasn't come up again so far. If it does come up again, I would be surprised if it were more than a paragraph or two.Regarding the latter:
It's OK if this bothers you. You don't have to read something that you find upsetting. It may be that you will simply not enjoy Bookworm.But I really struggle to sympathize with the idea that a mere political misalignment with the author can completely ruin an entire series. This strikes me as a prudishness more than progressiveness. I'm reminded of my born-again-Christian friend who stopped listening to Smashing Pumpkins because one of their songs contains the lyrics "God is empty". In my opinion, this kind of self-censorship hurt him more than it protected him.
I could understand more if Bookworm were a vehicle for pushing a particular anti-LGBT narrative (e.g. in the same way that Atlas Shrugged is a political philosophy masquerading as a story). But it is not. The worst you could say about it is that the author is more socially conservative than is currently fashionable and has made some jokes that will age poorly. I actually think a lot of Japanese LNs are surprisingly conservative (i.e. much more supporting the status quo than subverting it), and that this doesn't really get discussed very much.
The closest thing I might be able to relate-to is the JNC series Sexiled, which basically depicts people like me as two-dimensional unsympathetic caricatures. There isn't a single redeemable male character anywhere in the series. That series is very much pushing a particular pro-female narrative (albeit humorously - it's part of the shtick). I imagine it would have been easy to take it personally and to stop reading in disgust. Indeed, looking through some of the Sexiled forums, I think there were readers who couldn't stomach it. But for me, although I occasionally rolled my eyes, I nevertheless pushed through and was rewarded with a silly, fun, and satisfying read.
Anyway, not sure if any of that is interesting or appreciated. Just my thoughts.
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You do got to remember that the culture of their society is like a couple hundred years before our time where tradition is very important . Regardless of their culture, we can't put our views into their world and the same goes for them for our world. It is a fantasy genre in a different world, so I never ever use my own view points to fit into their world. We are the "weird" ones to them.
Also, if you want to ignore everything in my first paragraph, Rosemyne is from Japan and their culture is different than U.S culture also.
The joke isn't needed, but it is something that would happen at history, so it is accurate. Back in the Shakespearean era, we did have performers who could do either of the sex role, it wasn't common, but it did happen.
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@Acronymianomanom-0 said in Bookworm's Crossdresser Jokes (mild spoilers):
Back in the Shakespearean era, we did have performers who could do either of the sex role, it wasn't common, but it did happen.
My understanding is that in England at that time, all roles were played by male actors.
There weren't any female actors.
None.This made Shakespeare's tendency to write plays where female characters crossdressed to disguise their true gender as a plot point even more humorous for those viewing the play, as it was a male portraying a female somewhat inexpertly crossdressing as a male...
And hopefully doing as convincing a job as those playing the female roles who didn't crossdress as males. -
@Reddibeddi Thank you for sharing your perspective. I had not thought anything in particular about the scenes when reading them, but looking back, I can see from your explanation why they would be hurtful. Whether you choose to keep on with the series or not, your feelings are valid.
I have not read further than JNC's translation, so I unfortunately cannot offer any advice beyond what has already been stated about how to avoid these segments in the future, if there are more. I do not think they would be super frequent, and I hope any small segments that might crop up in the future will not be enough to ruin the rest of the series for you, since I think it is a good story and you have said you otherwise really enjoy it, but we each have different tolerance levels for things, and I think it is important that we each respect the boundaries others set for themselves. I personally have dropped series I otherwise enjoyed because there was too much sexualization or fanservice for my tastes, for example, and I would hope that others would respect that.
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@Weasalopes
Oh yea, you are right! I was mixing up our lore with other fantasy genres of that same period. oops haha
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Kabuki is male only. There are kabuki actors that specialize for female roles. They do it very good and it is not considered as crossdressing or offensive. It is form of art. Justus female disguise could also be called art of spying. There is nothing malicious in it.
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We've tossed out all these lovely examples of crossdressing in theatre, etc. having a long well accepted history, but I must admit that doesn't address the actual concern of the OP, being how people were reacting in-story.
In-story... the reactions by various folks is not the best.
Then again, from certain perspectives the only positive reactions should be from folks in the espionage profession, as Justus is crossdressing so he can infiltrate women-only gatherings to obtain information.
He's not doing it from prurient intent, he doesn't appear to be doing it because he enjoys it, nor due to having gender dysphoria, but because his job can best be accomplished by doing so at certain times.
It is completely unacceptable behavior because of the reason he's doing it; to spy upon women unawares. As I said, not for those reasons, but that really doesn't matter, does it?But the reactions of various folks make it fairly clear they consider it deviant behavior, which bothers the OP.
And the concern Rozemyne has that Hartmut not go down that path and awaken to anything... yeah, part of that is the whole Hartmut as fanatic bit, but.Although I must concede that it does appear Justus enjoys the reaction of his relatives when they are aware he's doing it.
Justus takes amusement from the oddest things.
