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thefroggAlien (and supernatural) bonded partners create issues. Not just the consent issues I talked about here, but other things, like gender identity and others that arise from it.
...and these aren't entirely human issues.
I have no idea how to introduce this...thing. So I'll just kind of ramble around and see if I can get it across in the process.
I get a lot of story ideas that I just plain don't want to write, some because they're squick-worthy, some because they'd take more time and attention than I have patience for, some for other reasons.
Usually, the more I don't want to write something, the more it takes over my brain.
Such is the SG-1 fic I've been brainstorming for the last week or so.
In the process of building the society/world most of that story takes place in, I realized that gender identity (and related stuff, like sexual orientation and reproduction and so on) gets really rather confusing, complicated, and downright squicky.
Yes, I'm talking about anyone with a snake in their head, specifically Tok'ra, or symbiotes with Tok'ra-like ethics. And a few specific Goa'uld.
I'm not, how shall I say, as thoroughly indoctrinated in SG-1 as I probably should be, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here. I'm making a lot of suppositions/assumptions based on what I've seen in the show (first seven seasons, anyhow).
Goa'uld/Tok'ra are not a hive-based society.
That said, only the queens are capable of reproduction, and can be assumed to be 100% female. They overwhelmingly prefer female hosts (Ammonet, Nirrti, Hathor), and among the System Lords at least, great lengths are taken to ensure that a maturing queen has a host that is pleasing to her.
Does that mean that all non-queens are therefore male?
I don't know, and what I've seen in the show confuses the hell out of me.
We know that the Tok'ra do not have a queen among them, since Egeria was lost and no other Tok'ra queen was ever mentioned (and would have been).
This is where the whole gender identity thing comes in.
Martouf (host)/Lantash (symbiote) were romantically involved with Rosha (host)/Jolinar of Malkshur (symbiote) for more than a hundred years, before Jolinar took refuge in, and subsequently sacrificed her (?) life to save Samantha Carter. The show has gone out of its way to put across the idea that the relationship involved all four entities involved, instead of being limited to the hosts, or some limited combination of host and/or symbiote. While I'm uncertain as to whether or not there were definitive declarations of gender for Lantash and Jolinar, they come across as male and female, respectively, despite Jolinar's not being a queen.
Selmak's (dying, previous) host was Saroosh, a woman, who then blended with General Jacob Carter. I'm not sure if it's simply that Saroosh was female or not, but Selmak has always 'read' as female to me, despite the fact that because the Tok'ra don't have a queen, Selmak can't be one, either.
Then there's Freya and her symbiote Anise. While Freya's attracted to Jack, Anise prefers Daniel (Divide and Conquer).
Even among the Goa'uld, it seems pretty much a rule that queens take female hosts and non-queens take male hosts.
With the notable exception of Osiris, who took Sarah Gardner as his host - I'm pretty certain Osiris was male, considering he had a queen (Isis) who'd died when her stasis jar was damaged.
For all of the host-gender-swapping, and the non-queen 'female' symbiotes...there isn't a single instance of there being any conflict of gender identity between host and symbiote, or conflict in sexual orientation (possibly as a result).
Do the non-queen symbiotes actually have a gender identity of their own?
Do they take on the gender identity of their hosts?
Is the concept of male/female in human terms so alien, and vice versa, that it doesn't actually matter?
Do host and symbiote read as neuter to one another?
Is there perhaps a third gender among symbiotes, male and non-queen female?
Do non-queen symbiotes not develop a gender identity of their own unless/until presented with a queen?
For a Goa'uld in an opposite or unequal gendered host, it's a non-issue, given enough time to become accustomed to the host body. But to a Tok'ra?
I honestly don't know.
Freya/Anise demonstrates that there's room for conflict, though theirs is portrayed as a difference in taste rather than a conflict of gender identity and/or orientation.
There's another piece to this puzzle, though I don't know where/how it fits in.
We knew early on that Hathor (and assumedly other queens) can reproduce without the presence of a male Goa'uld. While she raped Daniel Jackson for DNA material to ensure her larvae would be compatible with Taur'i Jaffa/host bodies, I don't get the impression (and quite frankly it doesn't make sense, even pseudo-scientifically) that he actually sired the larvae seen in the episode Hathor.
Given how power-hungry, suspicious and jealous the System Lords are, it's unlikely that an established queen Goa'uld such as Hathor or Nirrti would ally with another System Lord for the purpose of procreation.
Does this mean that male symbiotes are only needed to sire another queen? Or gendered symbiotes?
Are most larvae spawned through parthenogenesis?
If so, would such larvae be gender-neutral, giving rise to the possibility of a non-preference in gender of the host body due to a lack of gender identity?
Are the queens capable of 'storing' sperm in order to gain reproductive independence?
I'm not even going to speculate on the...how shall we say...mating process, given that Goa'uld enslave their hosts and would lose control if they left their host bodies in order to procreate.
My current problems arise strictly from SG-1, but it can be applied to other fandoms, at least in some aspects, such as Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey and Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series. Even something like demonic possession a la Supernatural could apply, what with Ruby's apparent preference for female bodies, and Samhain's non-preference when it came to a host body.
Does anyone else have any ideas/thoughts/opinions on this?
...and these aren't entirely human issues.
I have no idea how to introduce this...thing. So I'll just kind of ramble around and see if I can get it across in the process.
I get a lot of story ideas that I just plain don't want to write, some because they're squick-worthy, some because they'd take more time and attention than I have patience for, some for other reasons.
Usually, the more I don't want to write something, the more it takes over my brain.
Such is the SG-1 fic I've been brainstorming for the last week or so.
In the process of building the society/world most of that story takes place in, I realized that gender identity (and related stuff, like sexual orientation and reproduction and so on) gets really rather confusing, complicated, and downright squicky.
Yes, I'm talking about anyone with a snake in their head, specifically Tok'ra, or symbiotes with Tok'ra-like ethics. And a few specific Goa'uld.
I'm not, how shall I say, as thoroughly indoctrinated in SG-1 as I probably should be, so feel free to correct me if I'm wrong here. I'm making a lot of suppositions/assumptions based on what I've seen in the show (first seven seasons, anyhow).
Goa'uld/Tok'ra are not a hive-based society.
That said, only the queens are capable of reproduction, and can be assumed to be 100% female. They overwhelmingly prefer female hosts (Ammonet, Nirrti, Hathor), and among the System Lords at least, great lengths are taken to ensure that a maturing queen has a host that is pleasing to her.
Does that mean that all non-queens are therefore male?
I don't know, and what I've seen in the show confuses the hell out of me.
We know that the Tok'ra do not have a queen among them, since Egeria was lost and no other Tok'ra queen was ever mentioned (and would have been).
This is where the whole gender identity thing comes in.
Martouf (host)/Lantash (symbiote) were romantically involved with Rosha (host)/Jolinar of Malkshur (symbiote) for more than a hundred years, before Jolinar took refuge in, and subsequently sacrificed her (?) life to save Samantha Carter. The show has gone out of its way to put across the idea that the relationship involved all four entities involved, instead of being limited to the hosts, or some limited combination of host and/or symbiote. While I'm uncertain as to whether or not there were definitive declarations of gender for Lantash and Jolinar, they come across as male and female, respectively, despite Jolinar's not being a queen.
Selmak's (dying, previous) host was Saroosh, a woman, who then blended with General Jacob Carter. I'm not sure if it's simply that Saroosh was female or not, but Selmak has always 'read' as female to me, despite the fact that because the Tok'ra don't have a queen, Selmak can't be one, either.
Then there's Freya and her symbiote Anise. While Freya's attracted to Jack, Anise prefers Daniel (Divide and Conquer).
Even among the Goa'uld, it seems pretty much a rule that queens take female hosts and non-queens take male hosts.
With the notable exception of Osiris, who took Sarah Gardner as his host - I'm pretty certain Osiris was male, considering he had a queen (Isis) who'd died when her stasis jar was damaged.
For all of the host-gender-swapping, and the non-queen 'female' symbiotes...there isn't a single instance of there being any conflict of gender identity between host and symbiote, or conflict in sexual orientation (possibly as a result).
Do the non-queen symbiotes actually have a gender identity of their own?
Do they take on the gender identity of their hosts?
Is the concept of male/female in human terms so alien, and vice versa, that it doesn't actually matter?
Do host and symbiote read as neuter to one another?
Is there perhaps a third gender among symbiotes, male and non-queen female?
Do non-queen symbiotes not develop a gender identity of their own unless/until presented with a queen?
For a Goa'uld in an opposite or unequal gendered host, it's a non-issue, given enough time to become accustomed to the host body. But to a Tok'ra?
I honestly don't know.
Freya/Anise demonstrates that there's room for conflict, though theirs is portrayed as a difference in taste rather than a conflict of gender identity and/or orientation.
There's another piece to this puzzle, though I don't know where/how it fits in.
We knew early on that Hathor (and assumedly other queens) can reproduce without the presence of a male Goa'uld. While she raped Daniel Jackson for DNA material to ensure her larvae would be compatible with Taur'i Jaffa/host bodies, I don't get the impression (and quite frankly it doesn't make sense, even pseudo-scientifically) that he actually sired the larvae seen in the episode Hathor.
Given how power-hungry, suspicious and jealous the System Lords are, it's unlikely that an established queen Goa'uld such as Hathor or Nirrti would ally with another System Lord for the purpose of procreation.
Does this mean that male symbiotes are only needed to sire another queen? Or gendered symbiotes?
Are most larvae spawned through parthenogenesis?
If so, would such larvae be gender-neutral, giving rise to the possibility of a non-preference in gender of the host body due to a lack of gender identity?
Are the queens capable of 'storing' sperm in order to gain reproductive independence?
I'm not even going to speculate on the...how shall we say...mating process, given that Goa'uld enslave their hosts and would lose control if they left their host bodies in order to procreate.
My current problems arise strictly from SG-1, but it can be applied to other fandoms, at least in some aspects, such as Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey and Mercedes Lackey's Valdemar series. Even something like demonic possession a la Supernatural could apply, what with Ruby's apparent preference for female bodies, and Samhain's non-preference when it came to a host body.
Does anyone else have any ideas/thoughts/opinions on this?
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no subject
Date: 2009-03-20 02:07 am (UTC)I've always taken the goa'uld/tok'ra host gender thing as a sort of generally neutral absorption that happens as hosts are gone through, like a newborn(?) symbiote would be pretty much a blank slate as far as gender identity goes, and as they go through hosts it grows, like Selmak reads as a woman because she recently spent almost an entire lifetime (as far as her host was concerned) living as a woman.
so Lantash and Jolinar would accept the gender identity of their hosts and accept the sexual identity as well
so it's not a full meld of opinions though clearly so things like Anise/Freya happens; she accepts/absorbs her hosts gender and sexual identity but has opinions of her own about what she prefers within those bounds
when I've thought about it. my main thought about the acceptance of identity as sort of an aquescence to the host for letting them be a part of them(at least as a Tok'ra. so if there was a symbiote headstrong enough it would be possible to have the effect happen in reverse (but not nearly as strongly since humans are not neutral) like a normal girl getting tomboyish when implanted wit a male identifying symbiote...
but this is all supposition, most or which I just assumed.
I'll stop babbling now ^_^