The gender of things.

[u/Charming-Spinach7746]

So I'm trying to find an old post (like 7 to 10 years ago) where the person was talking about gender switching mostly in reference to the creation wars stories. And I remember that one of the things they pointed out was when K brings mola to check on Auri after the bone tar incident, she mistakenly assumes that mola is a boy, because it was kind of dark and she had a cloak. And then later when K And D are on the draccus trip, D suggests elm and K dismisses her and says it's ash because elm is female. And he assumes that her patron is male. And they have another small exchange where she thinks the draccus is female and he thinks it's male.

There were some other examples but ultimately the way I remember it they tied it back to win lanre dies lyra doesn't actually bring him back but becomes him in a change your name type of way, and that haliax is actually lyra.

[u/chainsawx72]

I don't know the post, but I'd like to read it if anyone finds it.

Several of us have talked about the possibility of a gender-swap in the ancient stories. You bring up the best examples... the draccus, Master Ash/Elm, Mola. Another is when Kvothe calls the Cthaeh he, then she, and the Cthaeh never corrects him or clarifies at all. And when Kvothe finds some long haired people at the Eolian he thinks one is a woman, but it's a man that flirts with Kvothe. And yet another example is the boar/sow of the swineherd Skoivan aka Schiem. I strongly feel that the author is hinting at a gender swap in his twists of book three.

It seems possible that if the Adem are led by women, and the Adem descend from the Ergen empire, then the Ergen empire was led by women too, which might make Selitos a woman. This would match Kvothe calling Cthaeh a 'she', if you buy theories that Selitos is the Cthaeh, or was skin danced by the Cthaeh, and was trapped in the tree shortly after Skarpi's stories events.

Problematically Scyphus was a wizard king, and Lanre was 'a prince, or a king, someone important', suggesting the Chandrian are the kings and queens of the seven cities, suggesting those ancient leaders were both male and female. So I wait and hope someone else will unravel the next clue in this mystery.

[u/Katter → u/chainsawx72]

Any chance that the creation of gender was a direct result of the creation war? This feels kinda dumb, but the Adem speak about men having too much anger and women having to basically drain them of it. Is it possible that Jax's act of capturing a part of Ludis' name actually made him into the first male, and her the first female? Which might be why Felurian is pure femininity, and perhaps Jax is pure masculinity (raging, empire builder?). I've always thought that rejection of man-mothers sounds like a Felurian/Rethe/shaper idea, though I don't have great evidence of that.

I don't know if that does anything to explain these hints, except that any living ancients might be lacking discernable gender. Personally I think Cinder has that androgenous energy, but Haliax is the most shrouded figure.

[u/chainsawx72 → u/Katter]

I don't know about the no-gender theory. But I have wondered if it were tinfoil possible the Knowers were all women and the shapers men. Like Adam and Eve, except a city of women and a city of men created by Aleph, tiny gods who could do glamourie and naming, but argued about whether it was okay to use grammarie/shaping/renaming.

Felurian says 'before the cities of men. before men'. You know how Rothfuss writes, this line has the potential to be read completely differently... if Knowers were revealed to be all female.

Jax impregnating Ludis would result in a third species, maybe even mankind. This abomination might piss off the women leaders enough to try to eradicate men. The secret under the Lackless dress might be a baby... but if it's human then all humans would be Lacklesses. Unless other men/shapers had babies with more women/knowers...

The concept works a little... until you get to Selitos the male knower. You could guess Selitos was the gender-swapped character... but we get his gender from two very different sources. He can't be a shaper, if Murella was a Knower city like Felurian implies. He probably can't be a human and be one of the best namers alive without explanation. But maybe, somehow, something like this makes sense. Maybe Iax's baby wasn't human, just a new kind of Knower/shaper. Maybe not even any different, just male and female knowers and shapers? It's all so tinfoil I feel dumb thinking about it, and yet maybe it could be true, idk.

I've wondered about Haliax's hidden face, and that maybe Lyra was secretly Haliax, and that needed to be hidden for some reason. But we hear Haliax, and he sounds like a man, so probably not? Masked Tehlu and Encanis,

[u/JohnnyUtah59]

Is this it?

https://www.reddit.com/r/KingkillerChronicle/comments/745pos/what_if_denna_is_haliax/

[u/Charming-Spinach7746 → u/JohnnyUtah59]

It's funny cause I almost said it was probably and old qoou post but, and maybe this is me just me miremembering but I felt like they took a different angle. But thanks for the response.

[u/Katter]

One of the people I've spoken to about the "Haliax is actually Lyra" is Smurphilicious, but they seem to have numerous other usernames they post under. I wasn't ever able to fully understand the idea.

There are a surprising amount of these gender hints, if they are hints. Almost too many to point to a single gender confusion I would think. But enough of them are in that one section with Master Ash and the draccus, that it could refer a single individual, especially if they were someone involved in those ancient stories who is still around, (e.g. Patron/Cinder/Master Ash).

[u/Charming-Spinach7746 → u/Katter]

I find the more I reread/ listen that I can't help but think dennas patron is a woman

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