I love Nott differentiating between how it feels for other people to accept you, how it feels not to like your own body, and how it feels to feel wrong in your own body. Because those are, each of them, three different things, which I think is at the crux of everyoneâs interpretation of Nott/Vethâs situation. The Mighty Nein, and Yeza, see a personâa loved oneâfull of self-loathing that often locates itself onto her physical form. Understandably, their response is always to comfort and refute her own negative self-talk: youâre not ugly, youâre very pretty, not all goblins are evil, i accept you no matter what, etc. And thatâs all very well and good! Itâs important! But it doesnât in and of itself solve either problem two or three. Other people can find her goblin form attractiveâor at least non-repulsiveâbut because a lot of Nottâs self-loathing actually has very little to do with her appearance (her appearance is more a reflection of her internal self-loathing, in her eyes), it doesnât get too far past the surface.
But sheâs been traveling with the group for a long time, and one of the two people she was most scared of rejecting her did not. Sheâs also met a few more goblins, and as such has received a wider perspective of who and what they can be. Sheâs met goblins who are nice, goblins who are just doing their jobs, and, goblins who are a little bit strangeâbut hey, so is she. For so much of her life, goblins were associated with fear. Either fear of them, or fear of othersâ reactions to her. Being in Xhorhas has not only expanded her idea of goblinhood, but also provided her first opportunity since being turned into a goblin to live and exist in the world without (as much) fear. She doesnât have to hide her face just to leave the house. She doesnât have to worry about being killed on sight for the body she was forced into.
And I think itâs sometimes under-appreciated (in the world at large), how much being forced to hide some part of who you are can itself turn into hating and fearing who or what you are. Nott already hated herself, and hated being a goblin, but even with the Mighty Neinâs support, the culture of the Dwendalian Empire as a whole taught her, and continued to reinforce, the idea that goblins were nothing but monsters to be feared. Being in the Dynasty has helped Nott accept her goblin form, not just because her understanding of âgoblinâ is wider now, but because she was able to live as one without shame there.
But as much as Nott might accept or at the very least not loathe her appearance as a goblin any longer, that doesnât been that her current body feels hospitable or right to her. Her issue with being a goblin isnât just one of self-hatred or insecurity, it is a more fundamental matter of who she is. She is not a goblin. She was born a halfling, in a halfling community, in halfling culture, with a halfling husband and son. Maybe she was born and grew up in a town of people who didnât accept her, but itâs still a community she feels an affinity toward. And just on a pragmatic level: halflings and goblins have very differerent lifespans. Sheâs effectively had three quarters of her potential life stolen away from her. Nottâs desire to return to Vethâs body isnât about being pretty or acceptable or attractive again (she never thought she was any of those things to begin with). Nottâs desire isnât even fully to become something more âpalatableâ to her family (though thatâs certainly part of it for her). Nott wants to become a halfling again because anything else does not feel like herself.
Nott giving her mask to Yeza was a big thing. It was a promise of her (intent to) return. It was a declaration of her moving toward a specific goal that she felt she needed to accomplish. It was a reflection of her making steps toward accepting the parts of herself that arenât âeasyâ or âpalatableââthe parts of her that are weird, that are Nott. But I love that her giving up the maskâand her giving it to Yezaâis not about her suddenly being okay with being a goblin. It marks an important step in Nott claiming who she is, without shame, but it is also her proclaiming that she is not fully her true self yet. And it is okay for Nott to be locating a sense of self-hood and personhood in her body, and her bodyâs appearance. Our corporeal forms inform a lot of how we move through the world, and understand the world, and interact with the world. It may not be all of who Veth is, but it is an important part of who Veth is, and if she has the opportunity to get it back, than of course she should be able to pursue that.
There are important stories to tell about monstrosity in stories, and what it means, and how it is attached (through metaphor, allegory, or otherwise) to various other identities. There are important messages to be conveyed about monstrous characters, and how they choose to exist in defiance of conforming to a non-monstrous norm. Those stories are importantâand we actually are seeing it played out with Fjord. But Itâs notâand never really has beenâNottâs story. And I love that too. I love that here we have a story of dysphoria, and self-loathing, that is dislocated from any one neat analogy for our world. None of this is possible in our worldârace, and species, and death donât operate in the same ways, so when all three of them get mucked around with at once, all of our metaphors and allegories become confused. It makes perfect sense that both trans fans and fans of color connect with Nott so much. So many of her experiences map onto our own experiences of dysphoria or internalized racism. But itâs also impossible for her narrative to fall neatly, and completely, into either paradigm, because the story sheâs living just canât happen in our world. Instead we get something in the messy middleâwe get someone who is (slowly) unlearning their own racism and oppression (which has suddenly become something akin to âinternalizedâ racism); who is also working through issues of self-loathing, and self-image; who is also still seeking to be changed into a form that feels more like them. And in all of that I think there have been a couple of narrative/representational missteps. But on the whole, Nottâs story has continued to provide a kaleidoscopic view of the complexities of identity and selfhood. And within it, I continue to find my own messy middles.
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