I absolutely HAVE to share this edit I made before pride month ends.
I made this a while ago, it was kinda an expression of how I felt about the homophobes trying to say Cole was never gay and coming up with all these reasons he isn’t. I chose to use clips from earlier seasons (the royal blacksmiths is an obvious episode to choose), and especially seasons in which something happens that is often used as “proof” Cole is not gay. I was kinda trying to say something with this edit, I put lots of thought and emotion into it, I wanted to express that being queer is not as simple as being or not being, it’s a journey of self discovery and coming to terms with things, looking back on your life experiences and realising you were always this way, Cole himself may have very well thought he was straight in the earlier seasons, or maybe he did know, it’s all up to interpretation, but what WE know is that he has always been coded that way, and him possibly being in a relationship with another man is not as shocking as the homophobes make it out to be.
I think it’s important for everyone to remember that 1) Cole is fictional and it’s not that deep, and 2) even if he were real he would want us to just be proud of him and not fight each other over it.
I’m watching through the new season of Ninjago (it’s my comfort show) and living for the way the writers and animators doubled down on Cole and Geos relationship and the broader found family Cole developed.
Like ahhhhh the way Geo trusts that Cole will come back for them. The way Cole and Geo will hold eachothers hands and support eachother. (Don’t call me a Victorian lady hand holding can be such a sincere sign of affection)
I see them and I point at the screen screaming YOU, YOU ARE GAY! And then I giddily kick my feet enjoying this show finally being so blatant with the queerness.
The way they refer to their group as a family. Like a… found family because they literally found eachother in the land of lost things.
Bruh the way that even though they don’t say the words queer found family or gay outright but are still so utterly blatant with it makes me so happy for some reason.
Okay, real fast (maybe). So. Cole. He's super gay, I think we can all agree. But why? Why did they make Cole gay?
We always talk about the 'proof' that he's gay, like his true potential episode back in season 1 (about 12 years ago), his lack of true interest in women romantically, and his super homo ass relationship with Geo, but we never talk about the reason he is written as queer.
One argument I see repeated on the 'save my boy cole' side of the internet is the idea that the writers should have written a whole new character to be gay.
And guess what.
They did.
Who? Geo. He's the newly written gay character. He's the new representation.
The problem, though, with making only one new character (or even making a couple or a few) is that we don't have a connection with said character(s). They're reduced to 'the gay character'.
This harms the queer community more than helping sometimes because it reduces queer people to a single type of person. It makes queerness their entire identity when it's only part of it.
So, what's the solution? Write this new queer character into a romance with an old character that could totally be queer.
Cole has kind of always had queer undertones. That's seen most prominently in his season 1 true potential episode. (I won't get too into it here, if you need more information, you can find the episode free on multiple platforms or you can watch/read someone else analyze it.) He's always been able to be queer.
I don't know if Cole was initially written with the intention of being gay or queer. I don't know if he's always been written through that lense or how long he's been written with that idea in mind. But it's there and it's always had potential. It makes sense for his character and doesn't really introduce many plot holes, if any at all.
Him being written with Geo romantically and gay makes their relationship more human and appealing to a lot of people, including queer people.
We're familiar with a whole half of the couple. Many if us have known him for over a decade. He's a lovable character with good morals. He's a hero. Making Cole gay is honestly a wonderful choice for queer representation, especially for queer kids.
Making Cole and Geo a romantic couple makes sense. It would be such a big win for the LGBTQ+ community if they become a thing.
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