Jaskier, r/Witcher, and Denying Queer Masculinity
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- Опубликовано: 4 июл 2023
- Alternate title: Why Reddit Won't Let Him Cook
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Here's a link to the thread in question: / jaskier_shouldnt_be_bi...
(Thanks to @TSDTalks22 and @KingCanuck2814 for looking over this video's script!)
In "The Witcher", the witcher Geralt, a mutated monster hunter, struggles to find his place in a world in which people often prove more wicked than beasts. The Witcher is a fantasy drama television series created by Lauren Schmidt Hissrich for Netflix. It is based on the book series of the same name by Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski. Set on a fictional, medieval-inspired landmass known as the Continent, The Witcher explores the legend of Geralt of Rivia, Yennefer of Vengerberg and Princess Ciri. It stars Henry Cavill, Anya Chalotra, and Freya Allan. 
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![Sean Rii, Karyon, Sharzkii - Taungule [My Love] (Official Music Video)](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/eJoMuypbSzQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Like a Witcher, I depend monetarily on the generosity and kindness of my community. Toss me a coin! www.patreon.com/pillarofgarbage
do you ever feel like your just wasting your time?
@@isamekailmahmud9302 Not really, no.
The real travesty is Jaskier's hair in season 3, jesus what is that
reject modernity
return to s1 jaskier hair
That part! It's so fucking atrocious
HONESTLY!!! When I first saw it I had to take a minute to mourn his season 2 hair, it’s my favorite😢
the only real tragedy was his casting
@@cloudsombrero Joey Batey is the perfect Jaskier, I’m not sure why you think otherwise
Something that really caught my eye in that comment is this strange notion that "being an Ally does more for the queer community than the character being actual queer representation" I saw a similar line of thought in a short talking about if spider Gwen is trans or not, and that actually having Gwen and her dad as Allies does more for the trans community than you know actual representation. It feels like the "not in my backyard" of self proclaimed allies
The thing about Gwen being trans is that, while I don't mind people subscribing to that theory personally, I think it's a massive stretch. There isn't really enough evidence to confirm it as a fan theory, and a lot of elements feel like reaching.
@@jeremyusreevu237 I respect that I don't personally feel to strongly either way, but what gets me is the claim that her just being an ally is better for the trans community than if she just was actually trans which I find baffling
@@jeremyusreevu237but but her coming out as spider man had parallels to it uwu what's this subtlety you're talking about
Yeah, it's a weird take. Seems to me that being exposed to actual queer characters is going to have more effect on a person's perspective than being exposed to an ally.
It's like exposure in real life. You sometimes hear stories of people who completely changed their minds on LGBTQ+ issues when a close family member (often a child) came out. I haven't heard anyone say they changed their mind because their child came out as "okay with gay people".
@@fishacorn007 Oh yeah, that's stupid. But saying that she's trans simply because she has a "Protect Trans Kids" poster in her room, and the colors of her universe match up with the trans flag are also stupid. Like, I have a Minions poster in my bedroom. Does that make me a Minion?
Last season's main song was his breakup anthem about being so hurt by Geralt lmao. His entire arc was about him feeling passed over and dumped. Come on. People are oblivious. I feel so bad they did that to his hair though what is that?
That's artistic fan fic license from the woke writers for Netflix. That is NOT how the source material is.
@@moosedawg71 define what “Woke” means.
Not what is “Woke,” give me the definition of the word “Woke.”
Not like the clues weren't there since Season 1: ruclips.net/video/gqcyjdXZ0wA/видео.html
4:30 especially! :D
Also ruclips.net/video/4ZpLCTWuz-A/видео.html
Redditors: we should be changing the definition of masculinity so that it describes how men are in our society and not a toxic ideal for men to destroy themselves trying to achieve
Also Redditors: no wait not like that
exactly this
This happened with feminism in the 60s 70s and 80s you know.
I remember reading a Q and A by an author of a feminist book that had a gay male character, about why her female characters were all straight. Her answer was that she didn't want to alienate the majority of feminists, many of whom might feel that the book wasn't written for them if the prominent characters included a lesbian. She wanted to reach a wider audience.
At the time, straight feminist were disparaged by being called lesbians. As an intended insult. Also called wanna be trans, again, as an insult, and a way to scare women away from those dangerous ideas about changing gender norms.
Decades later it would be understood that no, that's not an insult, just dumb to miscategorize people.
This reminds me of that. I hope the guys get all that right a lot faster than most of us did. (Except for the TERFS. They are still stuck in that early defensive wave).
Yes, the way masculinity is defined in our culture is f***d up. Yes, it needs to change. No, wanting to change that doesn't make anyone gay (or any other LGBTQ).
And no, being called gay when you are not just because you understand those things isn't an insult, its just somebody getting confused, miscategorizing, or being dumb.
And yes, gay, bisexual and trans men are part of what it means to be male. And that means that their stories about maleness can still resonate. Their stories are not any less a part of what it means to be a man in the modern world.
@@lionmom7629 I very much agree, until "being called gay... isn't an insult" ...um, well, sort of, maybe online specifically. I went to school in the 80s, and homophobia was everywhere. If you tripped on a step, you were likely to be called gay, queer, fag... not something like a "klutz". Being gay wasn't only associated with everything bad, but everything bad was associated with homosexuality (and the term "queer" wasn't being embraced by anyone). And in the background was that gay men were dying of AIDS, and this being called the righteous wrath of God. That attitude still exists in many places in America, and all over the world. When you're being beaten to a pulp and called "gay", it doesn't really help to know that those people are confused or dumb.
I don't really know what to say about this, just that dismissing it as intellectually wrong doesn't quite match the pure evil forces in society that perpetuate it. I guess it's fine on this particular post, which is about social media stuff. Maybe I'm over-reacting, but I couldn't just leave it there. When being called a name is associated with physical violence, it's difficult to dismiss it.
Basically "the ideal of masculinity should be me"
@@PillarofGarbageWe have seen it done right in case of Newt Scamander in 1rst part of Fantastic Beasts and Hogwarts Legacy. These are mediums that show men using social skills rather than violence. Despite their being shy they still manage to overcome fears and save the day. Spider-Man movies from early 2000s also show a character like that.
Color me surprised that Reddit has some highly upvoted bad takes. Nice video ❤
Color me surprised that RUclips has some highly liked bad takes. Nice video for protecting the status quo and feeding into the idea that bisexual men are always feminine while pretending that a feminine straight man isn't as progressive in politics as the stereotypical bisexual slightly-fruity twink and completely ignoring the assumptions that most straight cis people have on feminine men and how feminine men are culturallly frowned upon and laughed at but completely ignoring that ❤
Wouldn’t being bisexual make sense for a character that doesn’t have preferences? It’s not like there can’t be any other straight non masculine allies introduced.
common sense is not permitted in r/Witcher
somebody in this post told me I am biphobic because I, as a bi person, welcomed this representation.. this comment was written by a straight man. the irony
Wait I assumed Jaskier was pansexual. That hookup lady implied his tastes stretched far beyond the human limitations.
no, everyone is 100% straight until they explicitly kiss a dude onscreen. Then it’s ‘Woke’!
In the games, he is very much into some hot monsters you meet... and more than happy to go into their lairs...
That's called shoe horning.
Joey Batey has confirmed in interviews that Jaskier is, indeed, a sapioromantic (i.e. a greyromantic that is only able to experience romantic desire in response to one's perceived intellect), panromantic and pansexual.
So essentially, Jaskier's "coming out story", in Season 3, is one that's really been written with a queer audience in mind, and reads pretty much as:
""A usually aromantic person, that has always experienced squishes, smushes, and possibly meshes before, finds himself experiencing a (sapio)romantic crush for the very first time, and starts questioning his romantic identity..."
If you are familiar with the language used in the aromantic community to address the different types of attractions human beings can experience for one another (Ex: platonic attraction = squish, sexual attractoin = smush, alterous attraction = mesh, sensual attraction = lush, romantic attraction = crush, etc.), then you'll pick up on how Vespula really makes a point of saying that she's never *ever* seen Jaskier with a crush (i.e. being romantically attracted to someone) before, after Jaskier keeps talking about how "emotionally intelligent and insightful Radovid is" (suggesting that he's mostly attracted to his intellect rather than his gender), with a look of vulnerability and wonder, putting emphasis on how different he feels about him.
And his relationship with Vespula is likely much more complex than a simple hookup. He's sharing his thoughts and being emotionally open and intimate with her as well. So, he might genuinely love her, just not romantically and without desire for exclusivity.
Either way, if that sounds a bit too far-fetched or complicated for anyone reading this, don't worry about it.
You don't have to perfectly understand Jaskier's sexuality to enjoy the character other qualities and connect with other aspects of him.
It's just that queer audiences, especially those that don't emotionally or sexually connect with other people's genders, have someone that they can more strongly relate to.
That's all.
@@TheLostGirl21 wow, you just, in one comment, ended my 7-year time period of questioning my romantic + sexual identity. you described how i feel to a tee and so straightforwardly that, for the first time in my life, i can confidently say that i know my labels. i honestly don't know how to thank you
People seriously need to get off this thing where they can't relate to or empathise with people who don't share their exact physical traits.
Right. I’m straight. I still see a *lot* of myself in Jaskier. I like that next to figures like Geralt, we have a creative, musical guy, who’s strength isn’t in being _yoked_ but is in his mind. I don’t care who he’s into - I relate to that!
I agree. I relate to Marcy from Amphibia a lot due to her neurodivergent tendencies and relatable qualities. I don't care about the fact that she's an Asian Girl, I still relate to her.
As a cishet dude who doesn't really conform to "traditional masculinity" I always like the Jaskier character in the show and more to the point I was surprised that people hadn't picked up on his Bi energy in the earlier seasons.
What on earth is a cishet??
@@sevenheavens-gj9qq cishet is a portmanteau of the words "cisgender" and "heterosexual".
Cisgender means the person identifies as the gender they were assigned at birth. Heterosexual means the person is only sexually attracted to people of a gender that isn't the one they identify as. For example, a "cishet dude" is a person who was assigned male at birth, identifies as male, and is sexually interested in women.
Hope this explanation cleared things up.
I think the problem with this Reddit Post is that there is a hint of a good point buried within, in that yeah we should make it clear that you can be sympathetic to LGBTQ issues without being a member of the LGBTQ, but that shouldn't really come at the cost of erasure for LGBTQ representation. It's essentially kind of like the right train ending up at the wrong station.
The kicker with that top comment is this idea that "metrosexual" (not even sure if that's the proper term anymore) representation in media is somehow so lacking - to the point where they would rather have it than queer representation - when it can be found all over media and you don't even have to look to recent examples for it, it's been there and been there for a while.
The Witcher is also, unfortunately, one of the many fantasy franchises where the portrayal of sexual diversity and overall sexualization among genders is extremely lopsided (party because of when it was first written, but mostly because of the societal misgivings around queer men in action-oriented stories {no bottoms-on-top}, queer male imagery, and the sexualization of men that still persist to this day), where "half" of the named female cast is queer (or alluded to be), but NONE of the male cast are queer.
So, I expected any pushing of that needle to be a shock to the system for many of the fans.
Would personally love more short videos like this on a particular thing.
Why is alot of the discussion centred around representation and not charaters ...is that good storytelling an inferior good to movie representation ?
The comment above is an honest question ... also forgive my english
Great video! I thought Jaskier was queercoded in series 1 and 2, so I was kind of hoping they'd build up to explicit representation.
Apart from that, I'm bisexual and always pumped to see bi rep in fantasy and sci-fi that doesn't fall under the "degenerate/villainous bisexual" trope. I love evil queers but especially with bi characters that gets problematic with stereotypes like them being fundamentally treacherous and unfaithful. This has roots in history: bi people were discriminated against even in queer magazines of the 1920s, where gays and lesbians warned each other about bisexuals being "evil two-faces", it's insane! Not to speak of the villainous corner we were pushed into during the aids crisis. The bottom line is, Jaskier is a fun, complicated and well developed character, which makes me especially happy ❤💜💙
Absolutely. My only fear was that Jaskier might fall into the biphobic "will sleep with everything that has a pulse/is hypersexual/chronic cheater" trope but from what I have seen of the season so far they've done it respectfully. Always happy to see good bi representation, especially bi men
This is such a layered topic for me, because I'm pretty masculine in my expression, metalhead/punk and queer, and I miss those representation so much in media, that it took me a long time to even realize I was queer, because the general portrayal of queerness in media (and even real life) was so far for my own expression. I'd LOVE to see more masculine queer representation, and also to see more softer masculinity of straight men in media.
Both are good things to represent. I'd love a Geralt/action hero type main character to be queer. And to have more kinder representation of men that isn't all 'I have to prove my masculinity'.
(kind of similar, but a bit different, but I also love to see more himbo characters that are actually queer).
Doesn't really change that these redditors just use this as an excuse to be homophobic, they're intent is definitely;
'I like this character'.
He's bi.
'Why, nooooooo'.
There is SO MUCH to unpack here... The thing I want to focus on though, is how this user defines an "ally," as a straight white man.
For myself, I'm white and straight, but I'm also gender-fluid and disabled. But I'm also also masc-presenting and my disabilities are invisible, so I look like a generic white guy. When I worked with Idle No More, I was being an ally to Native people, but when I advocate for queer and disability rights, I'm also advocating for myself, despite the fact that I don't "look" queer or disabled. But that's just my perspective...
When I think of allyship beyond my white guy experience, I think of LeftTube - in particular, how Black youtubers, like F.D. Signifier, and Trans youtubers, like Jessie Gender, have been collaborating a lot recently and how one of the biggest facilitators of that allyship behind the scenes is Bellamy Rea, a Black Non-Binary person. The idea put forth by this reddit post that Jaskier isn't an ally anymore because he's bi, is dumb and bad. Black people can be trans allies and vice versa. Latino people can be Asian allies and vice versa. Anyone can be an ally to anyone... If they put in the work.
Great thoughts - thanks for sharing!
Normalize feminine straight men and hyper masculine gay men.
Just to see what happens, I'm curious.
Yet this is exactly what S3 doesn’t do. Meaning this is the point of the post on Reddit.
@@elck3 Yeah, if anything, Geralt should be bi.
Jakier was straight and shouldn't be changed, he was a womanizer and should remain so, how He treated woman was his obvious flaw and should remain so, having flaws grounds his character and make him more belivable
Nothing wrong with a Bi womanizer, the character could easily be bi and there's no good reason for him not to be
Oh god I can already smell the bi erasure from the title alone
This is gonna be an interesting one
Edit: Some of yall in the comments is proving my point exactly smh 🙄😒
What did they do to his hair dear god
So wierd thing but I'm not surprised Jaskier was bi. Felt in line with the character in the show/game (I've only played Witcher 3 to be very honest).
I still need to get around to reading the books but I was more surprised by Radovid being LGBT+. It was just something I wouldn't have thought about him from the portrail I saw in the games.
And like, this doesn't bother me at all. Jaskier is still my absolute favourite character of the show, he is absolutely entertaining and his bromance with Geralt is great, his gay best friend energy with Yennifer is great and now his teasing uncle role with Ciri is really fun to watch.
Radovid is a child in the books so it's kinda bit weird.
To be fair, the most we interact with him in the games is during the Third Northern War, when he's kinda going very, very, VERY mad
I am pretty sure the Radovid from the show and the Radovid from the game are two different characters. One being king Demawends son and one being his brother. Pretty weird choice to give them the same name tough.
He ain’t gay in the books that’s fs
I find it quite telling that of the many atrocities this show commits towards its source material the internet "fandom" always coincidentally seems to focus on the ones regarding women and minorities
They think having women, poc, and gay people is the reason why the quality of the show’s writing sucks. They think the writers were too focused on making it “woke” to make a proper story. It’s completely stupid, I know. The show would still have the exact same flaws even if every character was a straight white dude. The writers wouldn’t be magically better if they didn’t make a character bi. They’re just too bigoted to have common sense
Ye, focus on that, 1 of 100 issues is this one
Exactly. It's like... there are so many legitimate problems, but you're stuck on THIS? This and "ugly" female characters. To be fair, they're complaining about a lot of other things on this sub, but "why women ugly, why Jaskier bi, ew" is like a constant refrain, it gets brought up again and again, no matter what the initial conversation was about.
Quite telling, that.
That original post does have me wondering if “ally erasure” is a concept worth thinking about. Not necessarily in terms of representation, but in terms of providing good exemplars of allyship.
thanks for this video!!!
i love jaskier being bi or pan. i remember reading a recent survey that indicated that, out of respondents, more women identified as bi than men. i'm inclined to think this isn't because there are more women than men who are attracted to two or more genders; i think it's because if a man indicates an attraction or even a curiosity about other men, romantically or sexually, a LOT of ppl assume that man is gay, ONLY into other men. and it sucks that ppl make that assumption!!!
so i think a lot of bi men either 1) don't know they're bi (some ppl honestly don't know bi is a valid and real orientation, or they think to be bi they need to be "fifty/fifty" in terms of attraction -- that it has to be equal in terms of how much and in what way they're into various genders) 2) don't want to tell ppl they're bi, because they know a lot of ppl will assume they're gay -- including potential partners who are women, and therefore will write them off as dating prospects.
anyway: anything, including media, that shows ppl, "yes, plenty of bi men exist, and if u choose not to date or hook up w/ them because they're bi, that's your loss, and those bi men are gonna go off and have great lives w/o ur prejudice" -- that's something good. and i'm glad jaskier's out there being a part of that message.
5:51 The "All media is being unnecessarily LGBTQified" is especially hilarious with the Witcher series if you have read the books.
Spoilers. Ciri is literally in a lesbian relationship for a while in the books.
@@youtubestayatyourrootsforfsakeit’s not (SA) if it’s gay, duh!
nobody said that about w
The Witcher tho. You're just generalizing every fandom.
Seems to me that LGBTQification is pretty necessary either way.
@@youtubestayatyourrootsforfsake Mistle? You must be getting confused becasuse she was part of a gang Ciri joined for a time, the Rats.
@@youtubestayatyourrootsforfsake Yes, Ciri's first night with the Rats Kayleigh attempts to assault her. Mistle stops him only to take over where he started
Always important to remember, the animating force behind all of the culture war whinging is one simple sentence: "I don't like people who are different than me, and I'm making it *everyone's* problem." Good video as always, Mr. Of Garbage!
Also I feel it's important to let you know that when you said Vilegfortz my android auto interpreted that as "okay google."
Wait... Dandelion wasn't bisexual?
Neither in books or games. Out of main characters characters only Ciri is bi. But if most of people were bi, lesbian or gay like in Netflix show it would feel weird coz you know people like that don't state most of the population. Basicly the show screams "I never got out of my room coz I am a delicate snowflake but I know a thing from internet so I will depict brutal medieval reality so that you will hate wild outside just like me"
The kind of people that want Jaskier to be a straight ally are the same "allies" that considered Not buying Hogwarts Legacy a step too far in their allyship.
Because not buying Hogwarts Legacy for that reason only hurts the developers, it was always an incredibly stupid boycott.
I wonder if one of the reasons they don't mind the one character who you brought up is straight from what I have seen is a soft and less stereotypical manly man. Is because he's a man of color. While Jaskier is who is also a soft and less stereotypical manly man, he is also white.
I was going to make a comment about this! When he mentioned the comment, my brain immediately went to Vilgefortz. We presume he's straight so far as the show is going, and (as a queer person) he's hot as FUCK!!! But I'm not surprised reddit is going to focus on the white character
Let's not divert attention from the real S3 Jaskier problem: the hair.
Best part is that bi men notoriously are hugely underrepresented just about anywhere. Even in real life there are few publicly out bi men to serve as role models, and media very often gets stuck in the gay/straight dichotomy without considering bi people. Even to the point of historically bi men (f.e. Freddie Mercury, David Bowie) being often called gay, straight or whatever. This even though we are the largest group in the LGBT community. Then bi men specifically get some rare representation and this sentiment pops up. So disheartening sometimes.
This is the exact reason why I as a bi/pan man have always known something was "wrong" with my sexuality (and at the same time knew I wasn't gay because I do fall for women as well) but didn't recognise my bisexuality until as late as 27. Wasted years being confused because I genuinely didn't know about or consider bisexuality due to how little representation and how much misinformation there is. How they can be so blind to the underrepresentation of bi/pan men that they can unironically say that it's a shame or even homophobic that Jaskier is not an ally but bi, is beyond me.
Geralt and Jaskier are like Vitriolic Best Buds in a nutshell when they go on a journey of encountering enemies and going around places where the road leads them.
Really depressing to see people online approaching queer representation, or in this case specifically traits traditionally associated with queer people, from the point of societal appeasement in which it has to be marketed in such a way to not offend the sensibilities of potential hetero allies.
I mean hell Jaskier is a bard, so I wasn't surprised that he's bi. In fact, I could've sworn he made some remark about it in earlier seasons.
I'm not the biggest fan of the Prince character he's crushing on, however. It feels like a ruse to get to Ciri, and I will not forgive him for breaking my boy Jaskier's heart.
Aye. Ready yer pitchforks. If Radovid breaks his heart, we break his neck.
We break everything, and then his neck last. You don't mess with Jaskier.
Jaskier was always one of those characters who you know is bi even if it’s not canonically said or shown.
Yeah, enjoyed this video. And the outtro!
This shows the duality of Reddit. You have wholesome subs supporting lgbtq and congratulates when their stories are told and then you have something like this
Reddit is 95% horrific monsters and 5% normal people, it just looks better from a particular angle.
Well, I haven't seen season 3 yet. 😅 I know that he is a bard that appeared in the first season who was annoying to a degree but had noble traits. Hopefully, once I find the time, I can see how his character develops throughout the TV series.
In an article, Jaskier is referred to as sapiosexual, indicating his sexual attraction towards highly intelligent individuals. Additionally, there is a scene where Vespula mentions Radovid, the first person in Jaskier who developed more than just a sexual interest. Throughout the various versions of the Witcher story (books, shows, and games), there are hints that Jaskier possesses greater intelligence than he openly portrays. This suggests that one significant reason why Jaskier starts to develop feelings for Radovid is because Radovid is one of the few individuals who can match wits with him.
Yes. VERY well said. For god’s sake, don’t limit yourself, JUST BE YOURSELF. A guy who loves opera, cats, tea, romance novels, and his wife is just as much of a man as a gay guy who loves gaming, tacos, rebuilding engines and has been celibate for 20 years. It’s like they say - infinite diversity in infinite combinations.
I appreciate you discussing this topic. As a fan of all 3 mainstream forms of the witcher, i find r/witcher to be so hateful and ignorant sometimes and it feels really alienating.
Jaskier's arc so far has been the one interesting and daring aspect of the season so far.
Based
wait... people have known of Dandelion and thought he wasn't bisexual? damn thats so stupid.
I highly disagree and I am a bi dude as I do not see how this is "Expanding masculinity" because he is clearly not masculine in the show, when have you ever seen a feminine straight man in media? The poster is not the one excluding people, you are.
By having a feminine male character be lgbt doesn''t make anyone bat an eye but having a feminine straight male character shows that it is not just "Gay stuff" and anyone should be allowed to be feminine.
Think of the masculine female protagonist of The Hunger Games, if she was lesbian don't you think less people would talk about how it is ok to be a masculine woman? Because that is not how straight people would see it, They see lgbt people as a diffrent catagory of there idea of "Normal People" because a lot of people are not into politics enough to know that that is wrong, By making a feminine male character be bi people will just go "Yeah, I knew he would be" because of him being feminine and people see lgbt men as feminine
I really do not like the "Lgbt men are feminine!" thing because I do not see myself as feminine so it really annoys me, I'd rather lgbt people were seen as people rather then the whole "oh feminine male, must be gay! All lgbt people are the exact same!" that so many people think.
This video clearly shows ignorance and a tiny world view incapable of understanding what is rather then what should be, if you can not understand how society is then you will never change it to make it become what it should be, You point fingers at individuals for being bad rather then support ideas that would prevent people from thinking in that bad way, feminine bisexual men are status quo, Everyone has the idea that bisexual men are feminine, it does not challenge anything, it doesn't challenge the concept of gender roles at all, it only feeds into assumptions people already have.
This is seriously foolish, How do you not understand? I am actually legit angered by your horrible bottom of the barrel opinion. It sounds like you don't actually want any change and just want the illusion of being progressive when it really just status quo. How could you see a feminine male lgbt person as a concept that makes a change in society? Do you not understand how people see lgbt men? Why do you want to keep this idea of lgbt men always being feminine and straight cis men always being masculine? I really do not like your opinion at all because it really feels like you are not trying to understand the reddit person point of view and label them a villain before even thinking about what good intentions they may have and assuming there opinions come from a place of hate.
Like seriously, what the hell?
I'm sorry you're upset, but I think you may be reading some things into the video that aren't there.
This video isn't claiming Jaskier being bi is 'a concept that makes a change in society' - it's not suggesting the decision is 'expanding masculinity' either. The section where I talk about an 'expansion' of masculinity is my describing the consequences of the comment's logic, followed through. The comment seems to support a conceptual detaching of manhood from the 'macho', while keeping femininity and queerness outside the boundaries of this imagined new masculinity. This is the 'expansion' I'm talking about.
You don't like that assumption that 'LGBT men are feminine'? Me neither, and that wrongness is something I point out at 2:40. This isn't something The Witcher is pushing. There are other male characters who present as hetero but less 'macho'. The only thing The Witcher _is_ 'pushing' here is that men who don't act 'macho' are still men - _regardless_ of sexual orientation - and an affirmation of the validity of non 'macho' men isn't automatically a denial of the more traditionally masculine. It's not a zero sum game.
I can't help but weep for the lone hunter in witcher 3 who considered himself a monster for being homosexual and how his loved one decided to commit suicide than to be open about their love. Another example of a gay man breaking the mold in media
I generally agree with your opinions but I'd like to point out maybe Vilgefortz wasn't the best example to give here. I don't think he's feminized, I think he's orientalized. Which is a whole other conversation in and of itself...
I was thinking it was going to be shameless queer baiting, during Radovid and Jaskir first scene 😂
Then I was like, "Jaskir is Bi/pan right?" I guess it was never really shown in the first 2 seasons...it would make less sense if Jaskir wasnt pan xD
I thought Jaskier has been said to swing both ways in previous seasons. Wasn't it stated?
good video! wrt your vilgefortz comment: i think that it's important to notice that his "femininity" or lackthereof is also dependent on the fact that the actor is south asian, and that the character's design echoes south asian fashion, design and motifs, and not necessarily feminine ones.
it's also important to notice that the overall white fan community will have a harder time seeing vilgefortz as "proper" representation of anything (and im not saying this is done consciously or deviously, this is one of the many ways bias operates)
I absolutely adore Jaskier, and I love him more with each season! It's really hard for me to decide if I like Jaskier or Geralt the most!
I wasn't going to go out of my way to click the like button but I'm scared of being turned into a redditor
Great video! That r/witcher thread sucked. I'd love to see more Witcher content from you
Happy Gay Things month, everyone
Not anymore 😔
@@TSDTalks22why the long face
@@TSDTalks22 Don't worry. There's always next year. Plus, we can still celebrate gay people regardless of what month it is!
You can a regular dude, a representation of non-magic people, and indifferent towards what people like, and still be bisexual. I was expecting Jaskier to be bi or pan, my worry was that he'd be so with Geralt. I don't see them having that kind of relationship in canon. They fit better as friends. (I already hate how Jaskier questioned their friendship in S1, when one of the first things Geralt says in the books is "I want to see Jaskier. He's my friend.")
I didn't play the games, but it surprises me that this is getting pushback, since I thought Jaskier's character arc for the first two seasons was falling for Geralt and then getting over him. He's always read as bi/pan.
Good video, thanks btw
Also we’re making videos on Reddit posts now?
Idunno fam. The writers of this post and the top reply seem to be acting in good faith. I don't think they're trying to enforce this idea that queerness is unmanly. The post says it's not a "I don't like gay people" post, signaling that they think that's wrong, and they're trying to be respectful. The comment puts "manly" in quotes, signalling that they understand that it's socially constructed.
I don't think anything in these texts signals that they want masculinity to exclude queer people. It already kinda does. Honestly a good way to change this is to blur the lines between what queer people and straight people look like in media. That means a few more macho gay characters and a few more straight characters who behave like Jaskier.
wow, you missed it! Certainly the "text" was written in 90s Poland, this is about the TV series, and a little bit the games. The Reddit poster not only says that he wants a non-traditional masculine, straight representation in the series, but that making Jaskier bisexual negates that and harms the LGBTQ community. It's not a question of "good faith", we're not piling on because he's a bad person, it's a question of not being self-aware, certainly not LGBTQ aware. If he is the "ally" he wants to be, he can't say the depiction of a bisexual is bad for the community. In a sense, it's that it comes at the expense of his, specific "token straight male". That's not being an ally.
If he just said he wants a straight non-masculine male, and he's sad there's less now, you would be right, that would be in "good faith". The mistake is saying it would benefit the LGBTQ community if they sacrificed a bi male for a straight one. It's the insistence that one makes the other "unhelpful". It's that he speaks for a community that he doesn't belong to, insisting they need a token straight fem male. Don't you see the problem here?
@@squirlmy insisting? All I've seen is one post. Of course if they're making an argument in a post they're gonna write the whole post in support of it. And even if they do defend it further in the comments, I think that makes sense. If it felt like my sense of being a good person were on the line I'd get defensive too. Now maybe further comments do go on to prove that they are trying to hurt people, I don't know. I just don't wanna assume ill intent when it's not warranted.
Honestly, what did you expect?
The Witcher fan base is toxic and Reddit is a hub of toxicity on the internet
Probably not even half of the fanbase. We only hear the loudest, dumbest voices
Reddit is the gay-est social media that ever existed since grindr
At least there are some fun subreddits, like r/technicallythetruth, r/bossfight, r/crappydesign, and r/AJR.
as far as social media goes, Reddit isn't as bad as others, certainly it has it's problems, but it's been easy for me to avoid toxicity by only going to certain subs. It sounds like you have a personal grudge, but would you really argue it's as bad as Twitter or Facebook?
What is toxicity to you? Opinions you disagree with?
No ally… just now gay
And i thought the dragon age fandom was wild
Reddit is a weird wonderland of human iffyness, you know giraffes aren't real.
lol a whole video about debating the types of homosexuality in pop fantasy shows and whether its representative enough, powerful. KIND OF YIKES YKNWIM?!
Love from a Shark3ozeeo and Vaush fan!
Jaskier isn’t a king…
What in the world are you talking about? You accuse the top commenter of projecting yet you do the exact same. The argument isn’t about bisexual / gay men being somehow inferior. It literally means (just purely on sexuality-basis) that straight men *can* be feminine yet making the bard Jaskier bisexual (who is canonically straight) does indeed cause that viewpoint to be invalidated. That’s it. It doesn’t connote anything about bisexuals being inferior, wtf. That’s literally something you bring up.
I agree with the top comment on the Reddit post and disagree with your statement that it’s a “red flag”. It’s not that complicated.
Jaskier being bi does not cause that viewpoint to be invalidated.
Imagine you meet a friend at a bar, and while drinking, he enthusiastically tells you that his favourite beer can now be made without alcohol. When he leaves, though, you see that he wasn’t drinking 0% - he was drinking the standard variety. That realisation doesn’t mean that he was lying, that 0% beer _does not exist_ - it simply means you were mistaken in assuming this moment was a demonstration of that pattern.
I spent about 3 min in r/witcher after watching the new episodes to see what was being discussed and realized I made a mistake and left. It was the comments about how all the white cis men were made to be wimps that was when I knew it was time to leave. As someone who is obsessed with the world of The Witcher it sucks that its so hard to find places to talk about it without it rapidly becoming toxic. At least r/thewitcher3 mostly sticks to just talking about the game itself and can be a good resource for game play and learning more about the story as a whole.
You try to turn anyone into a Redditor, I'll have Amnesty International onto you for attempting Cruel and Unusual Punishment. And that's from a Redditor.
As someone whose only experience of The Witcher is the TV shows, I didn't see any problem with Jaskier being bi. It seems such a silly thing to get upset about.
The Witcher series has always been queer friendly. Witcher III even has a gay character that Geralt meets right at the beginning.
About half way through this video I thought to myself "if tumblr was still a thing (it might be I don't know) they would have gone nuts for a BIcon appearing in this show". To hear that the fandom did want it but changed their minds is... Upsetting but not surprising given our current climate.
tumblr and reddit are two very different communities
@@cacography ah I see. I haven't been on tumblr for almost a decade and have never been on Reddit. I guess to hear that the same subreddit supported this character being queer and then changed their minds was interesting
"if tumblr was still a thing" ksjdskjsl we're literally still right here😭😂
As a tumblrina I can confirm that yes, the tumblr Witcher fandom at large has been absolutely obsessed with Jaskier since season one, and yes we all collectively lost our shit at finally getting canon bi bard content. People also generally agreed that it felt perfectly in line with how Joey has been playing the character all along (which isn't surprising considering he's been playing the pronoun game when talking about where Jaskier's interests lie since literally the first season)
I'm super glad I don't partake in that sub. Gross.
Speaking generally about the reaction of the fan base, im gonna have a quick rant for a second I know the first two seasons of the Witcher aren’t great for large parts, but season 3 is the closest of anything I’ve seen to the capturing the books. It is a great and moving piece of tv. All the Henry Cavill stands review bombing the show need to fuck off, he’s a big reason why this season is great. This is a super faithful and well executed adaptation of a book this time around. its disappointing to see a fandom blind to that. The first five episodes are mostly really great. But from the reviews you think they were the worst shit you’ve ever seen. I’m getting very convinced that most of the people that cry about accuracy haven’t actually read the source material. It could’ve of course still fall apart, but I’m rooting for them. I love this bisexual addition to the character of Dandelion, I thought it was a thoughtful and planned out addition that feels like it slips into the old character seamlessly. It’s an example of a positive change. Give it a second chances the show might just pull it together.
Honestly, I think CDPR needs to be seen under the lense of Polish conservatism and own form of PR before Cyberpunk comedic tragedy. Blood and Wine writing was honestly pretty bad and full of tonal whiplashes and comedy out of 2000s bad parodies, making me expect Cyberpunk being bad, but even I was shocked how bad it got.
For what it's worth, all of Reddit is objectively worse post-blackout.
Many queer and Leftist sunreddits are gone for good, those that remain are considerably smaller, and I'm led to believe that normal people in general seemed to have an easier time leaving Reedit for good, and now there's less _buffer_ to counter out the noise terminally online weirdos make about their masculinities.
If this guy is supposed to be Dandelion they are fucking up
edit: oh hang on, I didn't quite read the comment well enough. No, you have a point. They're equating femininity with gayness. Ignore everything I say here.
I think the phrase" they completely destroyed that" is really the biggest issue with that comment. Without it, the comment could be read much more favorably. Still, I think you may have read too much into it even then. You say the equating of femininity with gayness is a red flag, and that plenty queer men aren't effeminate. But that seems to be exactly the point the comment was making in the first place.
In the eyes of a lot of people, camp men are considered gay, so it's good to see examples where that stereotype is challenged. But to say that making Jaskier bi "destroys that" is a bit much. It's not like it isn't already a common practice to suggest that characters are gay without daring to actually confirm it on screen. Isn't that what "queer baiting" is?
1st: More bisexual representation can only be a net good. Full stop. 2nd: I disagree with your take on the commenter’s meaning/motives. I think they were clearly talking about wanting more non-trad representation for heterosexual, cis men specifically. Our culture has accepted the idea that gay/bi men could be non-trad & even feminine, to the point of stereotyping gay men as such. So that now it’s almost radical to see a ‘butch’, trad-masculine gay/bi man in the media. It’s definitely more surprising. Straight men, on the other hand, rarely have representation that leans towards the non-traditional, or worse, gasp: the feminine! The traditionally feminine persona is encouraged/mandatory for pretty much all cis females, is allowed/expected for gay and bi men, but is prohibited for cis, straight men. Not if they want to be seen as masculine still. And as straight (even if they are). That is what the poster was lamenting the loss of, I think, one of the rare straight, male, characters with some trad-fem traits and who didn’t have to lose their ‘trad-masculinity points’ bc of it. Making such a character gay or bi DOES allow certain viewers to feel more comfortable with the show: those who believe a guy displaying trad-fem traits means he’s more likely to be gay and that he’s now less masculine bc of it. Any time we find ourselves holding up prejudicial stereotypes, even by accident, we should at least take a step back and reconsider. Any time we find ourselves tucked in all cozy with strange bedfellows, we should get the f out of the bed! (Side message for JK!) {Also, I never made it to season 3 of The Witcher, and barely remember the character in question, full disclosure!}
tumblr fans have said this is terrible representation (because jaskier's a known slut) and queerbaiting (because the show only caved after two seasons of stringing fans along). i, with my excruciatingly slowly growing list of scifi shows with queer characters in the main cast, am just happy i get to add a name finally.
My boy is bi and I love it.
My only issue with season 3 Jaskier is that his hair is terrible. They need to either go back to the shorter style or give it some texture.
And more dudes should wear eyeliner.
An incredibly dishonest video, where the narrator takes their opinions to be the unstated or even implied views of the writers. The Reddit writers mostly disliked Jaskeir becoming queer because it was not true to the source material and it was a cliche: Artistic males are queer. The dismissive sneer that men/ Reddit writing males just want to slightly expand what masculinity means does not reflect the views expressed the Reddit writers. It was the view the narrator wanted them to believe so he could sneer at them. Ironically, the narrators dismissing the initial Reddit’s posters views that we bring our own worldview in interpreting TV and therefore having Jackier as queer changes his relationship with others in the mind of viewers, is the main reason people writing in the comment section liked Jaskier being represented as queer.
Good fucking grief.
Well, Jaskier is a bard. So it tracks. Lol.
Do you realize this is literally the bigoted commentary that the Reddit post was about?
@@elck3 you do realize I made a D&D joke, right?
@@dunmwarupreachan4567 no. Guess I’m missing the joke then. Never mind.
Being politically correct is more important then having a good show and making fans of the books and games happy. A large majority of ppl are straight (and religious) and don't want to see this in their favorite TV show. That is why ratings are down and why Cavill left the show. I won't be watching show any longer, esp now that Cavill is gone. Good luck with your ratings since it is catering to the minority and going against the books and games.
This has nothing to do with political correctness, that doesn't even make sense.
I'm a fan of the books and the games, this change makes me happy, or at least doesn't make me mad like the change to the depiction of Dopplers.
Plenty of other book and game fans don't have a problem with bi Jaskier.
Only one group of fans have a problem with it.
The books were always progressive, this change doesn't go against the source material at all.
wait, S3 is out? Damn, completely missed it.
My issue isn't that Dandelion/Jaskier is bi. It's who he's with. The whole thing with Radovid is what disturbed me. Radovid is a monster; in the books, the games all portray him as an absolute bigoted destructive psychopath.
Jaskier's character is already portrayed really bad. Turning him bisexual is just the icing on the cake.
So, yeah... The first comment is bs but the second has a point. As a non traditional straight male, dude we exist and need some media representation too. But also, is not the obligation of a show or any media to do it. We should look for it by ourselves. We should create our own media. We should stop specting the things we like to provide the social validation we are lacking in our day to day life. There are plenty of shows still that do exactly that, like The Office for example. I don't care if the character in the show is queer or not, but I will love more non-traditional masculinity representation. So I open this space for all to suggest more medis like that, any suggestions?
Netflix ruined the main story of the witcher
I'm confused with the conclusion Pillar came to with the top comment as only including non-macho versions of men "not too far off". Where does it say that or imply that? I'm genuinely confused where that conclusion came from, because it feels like Pillar actively taking the worst possible outlook on the top commenter's feelings about this, and assuming that was the point, i.e. "when I say I like Jaskier as heterosexual but non gender normative, I only mean as non gender normative as I personally am, and no further."
Where did the "no further" part come into play?
In the comment, ‘gay’ signifies the non-male. If queer men aren’t included in this idea of how masculinity should be represented, it’s still too narrow. All that’s changed is which privileged few are included within the boundaries.
@@PillarofGarbage I did miss that "or gay" part in the "does not have to be considered feminine or gay". Honestly though, all I could glean from that is that this person either forgot or doesn't realize that gay guys aren't always non gender conforming either. I wouldn't go as far as you did to say they're spouting some anti-woke ideals wholesale.
I think your tirade on anti-wokeness, as great and informative as it is, might've made you paranoid about genuinely innocent seeming ignorance about gender conformity as being against LGBTQ+ people as a whole.
@@norsehorse84 If this weren’t r/Witcher, I might agree with you.
@@PillarofGarbage I think you might be too deep then. This is one of the reasons I never go on Twitter. XDDDD
@@PillarofGarbageyou’re drawing so many weird conclusions. Just chill out. The OP or top commenter on Reddit didn’t mean to attack your sensibilities of masculinity in bisexuals. He was explicitly talking about heterosexual m men. This isn’t about bisexuals or gays.
eh who cares, The Witcher's ending after this season anyway.
Fairly sure there's going to be an S4.
@@Shadowman4710
Not with Henry Cavill. So with many fans this season represents the series finale.
@@theturquoisedream9244y'all too gay for this man
Two more seasons at least and maybe more.
I honestly couldn't care less about what they do to these characters at this point and I don't think most people complaining about this Jaskier's bisexuality would suddenly like the show if he was straight. He'd still be a distorted and diluted sad parody of the original stuff, just like the rest of this show, so they might as well go all the way and turn it all into a new thing that might make some people happy (though I just hope this shit is cancelled so we can have more chances of a proper adaptation sooner than later...).
The witcher is dead anyway. Lol woke people discussing the minutiae of bisexuality in a character from a show everyones already agreed is garbage because of its wokeness. What a joke.
Chuck, please stop respiring.
@@ArvindRajAgnosticAtheist lol suck it bro
The show isn't garbage because of wokeness. It's garbage because of poor writing and directing.
@@BrovarSpirytus yeah basically all woke writing is trite garbage.
@@chuck9483 For me whether the show is bad or not depends on more aspects than just if writing is woke or not. Also even Witcher books could be considered woke due to them having strong feminist themes and one of the main characters being bisexual - Ciri.
Thank you so much for restoring my faith in humanity today and highlighting some legitimate claims in this video!!! I’ll be sure to share this video as much as I can with others.
The bigotry online is RIFE with comments regarding Jaskier’s sexuality (in addition to racial remarks about character casting, of course) and it’s so nice to see someone finally standing up for the quiet voices in the fandom for once ♥️
Read the books he is not like any thing in any way bi in the books so why do it to his character,it is just to much diversity and the show is suffering for it now and the fan base does know better,and that is why it is failing.
books =/= show
@@PillarofGarbage Ok there is a lot of troubled talk and debate about this last season,no one is expecting a super masculine dude all that most of the fans who are not of the lgbtq community are saying is that there is at times a butchering of a very good story for the sake of diversity and it kind of does feel like it is forced just for that alone,and there is 4 different fan bases,the 1st is the Book fans who feel thatis where all the lore comes from,2nd the Games 1,2,3 and 3rd being the tv show,and the 4th fan base is the people who have been a fan of all of these,in all the books or in the games it there is not even a hint of him being other than what he is a bard who womanises,and that is what the main source for the tv show or at least it should have been,and that is what some people found just a wee bit pushed to far,a way from the source material and that was the main reason why Henry Cavill left the show,nothing toxic in feeling the way some folks do,but if they say so their toxic masculinty is showing,sorry but that is pish,I am sorry but if you disagree with the LGBTQ community it seems that you can get called toxic just for that,and I agree with Henry Cavill they ruined this show for the sake of the smaller and more diverse audience.
Or maybe just maybe we should have just keep him as he was in the source material. Seriously why do people bother adapting things if they just want to change everything
But they didn't change everything.
They changed some things, which is a necessary and common aspect of every adaptation.
Source material isn't gospel, it doesn't need to be followed religiously and almost never is.
This is a completely inconsequential change, out of the many weird or bad changes to the source material, this one isn't worth being upset about.
What they did to the Doppler is worth being upset about, and completely undermines the progressive intentions of the source material and show.
My problem with the change is that they pair him off with fucknig Radovid of all people. Ignoring that they aged him up significantly from the books (in which he's barely a teenager) he's a completely irredeemable monster
The ‘monster’ part comes from game canon, no?
@@PillarofGarbage the specifics of the mage genocide yes, but we're given a glimpse into his future as a ruler in the books.
His hatred of mages is from both books and games. As Philippa is responisble for killing his farther (now brother) .
@@PillarofGarbage Maybe read the f-king book?
@@SuperFlik so, your argument is that depicting a teenager as an irredeemable monster is somehow better? Maybe in the series he will also not be such a monster should you should stop watching the show immediately!!! Like, seriously, if you're going to be comparing the two all the time, just don't watch it!
I liked the video... I've been a redditor before, I can't do it again 0_0
*you have been banished to r/dankmemes*