Read-in-Progress Wednesday

[geraineon]

This is your weekly read-in-progress post for you to talk about what you're currently reading and reactions and feelings (if any)!

For spoilers:

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Comments

[ehyde]

Welp, it's period-typical transphobia o'clock in The Smiling, Proud Wanderer (actually I shouldn't say that, I don't actually know what's period-typical). Dongfang Bubai is fine! And Linghu Chong's reaction to them has me going hey, wait, you're supposed to be a good guy aren't you, please stop. Sigh.

(This is in chapter 31 for anyone else who might be reading. Douqi warned me in an earlier post and I appreciated the warning).

[geraineon]

ah /pats/ I think anne is reading but I don't remember if she's been warned...

[larryhammer]

Ah. Yes. That chapter. I wasn't warned. I wasn't surprised, given the author's time and culture, but still.

[douqi]

Yes, sigh.

In fairness, I think it's genre-atypical for the time period. I only remember one other canonically queer character in a wuxia novel from the period, and that's a secondary character who is the worst caricature of a mean-spirited gay man.

The mainland adaptations do NOT know what to do with Dongfang Bubai. The 2013 one makes her a cis woman, and the 2018 makes her, as far as I can tell, a cis man (and seems to make Yang Lianting a cis woman). The adaptations that interrogate gender, gender identity and identity perhaps the most are Tsui Hark's Swordsman trilogy, especially the second and third films.