Hm, would love some day to write up a big post about why non-binary Jon is so beloved. Like I know the things that kickstarted it for fandom reasons but there has to be in-text things that drew people to that conclusion as well, but I don’t know enough about actual gender theory and media analysis to talk about it properly? Is there anyone with knowledge about that or anyone just like. Real enthusiastic about the topic that would want to discuss it?
I’m definitely not awake enough for proper analysis atm but would absolutely love to talk further at some other time if u want to! BUT
I think aside from like... the whole “Entombed” giving the archivist they pronouns thing (which I didn’t even know abt when I started viewing Jon as nby) & the whole “most MAG fans are queer and boy do we love projection” thing, I think there’s something to be said about Jon’s story and character just feeling very... queer I guess? The self-inflicted stifling professionalism and repression of s1 Jon, the grappling with his own identity as a Human or as Something Else and that feeling of being caught between two different, seemingly binary identities (the Avatar and the Human) of s3 Jon, being a person who the rest of the world seems to insist is inhuman as he so desperately tries to prove his humanity in s4, etc etc. I don’t think any of this is intentional on the writers’ parts per se, but there is a lot of his story that just always felt very Gender for me even before I ever really engaged with the fandom, or before I got to Entombed and its description.
Again I’m not super coherent right now but. I would always be down to talk more about Jon and gender. Jender, if you will
Oh man, I hadn’t even thought about it in terms of broader story context, I was more thinking about it in terms of his individual actions as a person? And to what degree they could be considered gender non-conforming.
Like I know it isn’t unique, but it is still rare enough these days to get a male character, especially a protagonist, who is as openly weak and scared as Jon is. Jon admits himself, he isn’t brave, he’s stubborn. He’s constantly terrified and while it might be a stretch to call him emotional since he rarely shows it openly, I think underneath he’s a lot more vulnerable. Specifically I’m thinking about the scene with Daisy in the woods and how he just breaks down stammering and crying, and it feels weird to call that GNC but it kind of is, if we’re talking in terms of perceived gender roles and especially gender roles in media rather than actual gender as it appears in real life which is, Y’know, fake.
I do think there’s a difference between him and Martin though, where Martin is also openly terrified (and a lot more emotional) he’s not interpreted as nonbinary often? And I have a lot of thoughts to throw at the wall about this because I’m trying to figure out why that is, and I think it’s because Martin is maybe more obviously queer coded earlier on in the show than Jon is? Just through being more anxious and softer and, yeah I guess you could say “effeminate gay” in a way that Jon is Not but I think that might be a stretch, I need a better word. And all that is very ironic seeing as both are confirmed queer in the same episode, 106, Jon as ace and Martin as mlm. And NOW I want to examine the relation between gender and sexuality or lack therof.
But also it’s 3am so I will probably be annoying in your DMs about this tomorrow if that’s okay
op's mind is galaxing. anyway, i don't have hot takes myself but this is so fucking interesting. like, the wahs in which jon opposes the classic (male) protagonist in nowadays media are so much broader than i first thought. and it absolutly effects everything in the way we as an audiance view him!
also jon doesn't perform a lot of classic toxic masculine traits, like a tendancy to violance or anger. (funny enuogh, it's the girls in the show that deal with them. the thing op said abt him being weak is absolutly the cruxe of it in my opinion, and it IS rare - especially him not being the butt of the joke; not in-universe, not for this.
ALSO this may be a bit of a coup out but the fact we hear him every episode doing a preformance of both male and female characters (the statement givers) also possibly plays a role in this. i know for me it all kinda started to blurr in the middle of season 1, like, i was listening to an ep of jon reading a statement of a woman and it all just became Gender, you know? idk how to describe it but you get it right? half way through the season it became rather hard to tell when jon was what gender, espically given the statement givers rarely refer to themselves in a gender revealing way. so it kinda nakes sense to me that this feeling bled into jon's character as a whole.
Okay i got out of bed to write this so hopefully it manages to be borderline coherent, but like for me it was very much the Inhumanness of Jon, especially as the story continued, that rly hit jon as nonbinary for me. I once wrote a WHOLE ESSAY specifically about the trans connection with the inhuman, pulling in like, genderwrecked by ryan rose acae and like, all this shit, so rest assured i have many Thoughts but it boiled down to:
Separation from the gender binary can lead to disconnection with ‘normal human things’ (leaning towards a more ‘choose ur own expression of self’ thing)
the lack of representation (and comparative wealth of scifi, inhuman representation) can lead trans folks to connect with alien species and characters
and like this RLY hit true for me with jon. He has to sort of grapple with the fact that he’s just NOT going to be able to be human (cisgender) anymore, that he can’t suppress the inhuman (non cis) parts of himself, and that this will be something that will stick with him. And for me, personally, the fear of becoming inhuman that jon expressed just RLY hit me as a nb feeling. To be short, ‘thats gender babey’.
and it does definitely help that jon doesnt Perform (American) Manliness a lot. For me it’s that lack of like, super intense CISGENDER MALE feeling that allows me to connect so strongly with Jon and Inhuman Humanity. The narrative gives room for the interpretation, and personally speaking i’m prone to just Eat That Up. It just felt very...i don’t know, just nonbinary, to have jon go from this p typical man to this overpowered, inhuman beholding creature, who was still very capable of Love and Humor and Feeling. It felt like a transition story. It felt like growing up queer. Up to the last second, he felt Human without being perfect at performing human. And that’s just It for me.
I think what might also be adding into things is that, in s1 at least, Jon is performing masculinity, in some sense. Maybe not the alpha male type, but one thats been more popular in the past decades; the nerd or scientist, who might not be popular but who's calm and sceptical, and doesn't get bogged down by emotions.
That this is shown to be basically just a performance out of fear of whatever is watching him... idk, it feels gender to me. Add to that the way his voice acting changes over the seasons to be a bit softer and higher pitched, also feeling a bit less forced.
As for Martin, a quick theory of what could be playing into the disrepency, is a bit of audience awareness of tropes. Martin is, at least in the first seasons, portrayed as more effeminate than Jon - so, in his case, it's refreshing to have that and still have him be a man.
Oh I love that, thank you for putting words to that whole idea of like, academic masculinity? From how Jon deepens his voice at the start, to how he tries to cut himself off emotionally, both on a personal level and in an academic detachment sense, not allowing himself to sympathise with the statement givers despite very literally empathising with them due to being able to feel their terror.
So obviously he was putting on a performance in season one (and we will never know if this was for the tapes or in general, and that fact will haunt me) but I keep thinking about that quote from Abigail Thorn in her newest video, “if a tree falls in and woods and no one is around to hear it, what are its pronouns”. Who was Jon performing this gender for? There’s two levels here to me - one goes with the probability that he was also acting like this throughout his life in season one, not just on tape, performing this way to try and put up the appearance that he was this stoic academic who was qualified for his job when he deeply wasn’t, in the same way Martin tried to cover his own shortcomings with the opposite of Jon - compassion and care. They’re doing these actions as a way to fend off terror based on capitalism.
And THEN you have to think about why he acted that way on tape when he was alone, and he told us himself he did the whole sceptic routine because he felt he was being watched, which we of course know now was by the Beholding. Which AGAIN comes around to capitalism because the fears, the eye especially, are an allegory for capitalism. So we have here the branch of fear-based capitalism god that feeds on your terror of being perceived, and thus you put up a hyper-traditionally-gendered front so it doesn’t see the real you. Well fuck dude, that is deeper than I was expecting it to be
Jesus H Christ and Co. there’s so fucking much to unpack here so it’s a good thing i’m full of chaos and procrastinating exam work. We’re gonna tackle these ice cold takes in order of reading just for the sake of organization. Also let me make it very clear that this is NOT me saying that Jonathan Sims isn’t nb. Headcanon whatever you want, make characters queer to your hearts’ content. I’m only discussing the reasoning behind that headcanon given by the people in this post.
the whole “Entombed” giving the archivist they pronouns thing
Hey, I get it, this was definitely a ‘hey what’ moment and not actually an ice cold take but I have to point out that the cast DID clarify that this was a mistake and not an intentional pronoun change.
Jon’s story and character just feeling very… queer I guess?
Yeah, it’s probably the ‘being queer’. Jon’s character feels queer because...he’s meant to. He’s a queer man.
Human or as Something Else and that feeling of being caught between two different, seemingly binary identities
Alright let’s get down to it. Whatever your personal feelings toward this situation are, comparing being nb or queer to being inhuman isn’t a cute fucking look. I didn’t think I’d have to say this in the year of our lord 2021 but here we fucking are I guess. This is an old narrative that’s been used to dehumanize queer people for a long time and it’s super inconsiderate. Don’t do this. Again, if you feel some kind of connection to the story of slowly succumbing to the reality that you will become an inhuman monster without your consent, that’s your own therapy session to deal with. Stop pushing the idea that feeling inhuman is an inherently queer narrative.
Jon admits himself, he isn’t brave, he’s stubborn.
There’s a reason that self-report data is taken with a grain of salt. People are notoriously bad at self-reflection and just because someone says something is true of themselves doesn’t mean it is. Now, that’s not to say that people are character-blind idiots that know nothing about their own personalities. I agree, Jon is stubborn, and yes he admits to being terrified all the time, but he’s also brave. You think he made it through the apocalypse because he sat in a corner and cried? Jon handles shit that I wouldn’t touch with a ten foot pole, not without fear, but in spite of it. Yes, Jon is brave AND terrified AND emotional. These things are not mutually exclusive. Which leads me to the next point:
it feels weird to call that GNC but it kind of is
It is. It is weird to call that GNC because showing emotion isn’t a gendered trait it’s a human trait. And it’s kind of wild to watch you simultaneously admit that gender is fake and also attempt to reinforce gender stereotypes in the same sentence?? How do you go from ‘gender is fake’ to ‘crying is shown in media to be a feminine trait so seeing a man cry and get emotional makes it GNC’ what?? By agreeing with the media portrayal of gender roles you’re
1. Assuming that Jonny Sims is also writing from a stereotypically gender-enforced point of view, and
2. perpetuating the idea that being emotional, crying, and showing fear are inherently feminine traits and that any AMAB person experiencing these things is GNC as opposed to just... being a person with feelings.
Martin is maybe more obviously queer coded earlier on in the show than Jon is?
Hey I’m not trying to be a dick here, I’m genuinely confused as to what point you’re trying to get across. I’ve read this paragraph like 30 times and all I’m getting is that Martin isn’t perceived as nb as often as Jon is... because people thought he was gay earlier than Jon? I’m so lost. Please help me understand.
jon doesn’t perform a lot of classic toxic masculine traits
Just because someone doesn’t perform toxic masculinity doesn’t mean they’re nb. There are a lot of men in the world who are cis and not ‘classically’ masculine. It’s great that Jon isn’t mocked for not being ‘traditionally’ masculine but let’s not reduce the male experience to how well they perform masculinity. That’s the entire problem we’re trying to solve.
hard to tell when jon was what gender
I get what you mean by the whole ‘non-gender bleeding into the entire character’ but also. He only has one voice box. He doesn’t differentiate between gender in statements because the only potential way to do that would be to pitch his voice differently for certain statements in some strange mockery of what a ‘woman’ and a ‘man’ sound like. which would be worse tbh because of the implication that certain genders inherently sound different, as if people of all genders don’t have a variety of vocal patterns and tones.
the Inhumanness of Jon, especially as the story continued, that rly hit jon as nonbinary for me
STOP 👏 EQUATING 👏 BEING 👏 NONBINARY 👏 TO 👏 BEING 👏 INHUMAN 👏 I’ll pull out the spray bottle like i’m punishing a misbehaving cat, do not push me.
the lack of representation (and comparative wealth of scifi, inhuman representation) can lead trans folks to connect with alien species and characters
Yes, this is true. A lot of queer (and neurodivergent!) people often connect with the “alien” narrative because for a lot of our history, this is how non-queer and NT people referred to us. We were the ‘other’, the ‘outsiders’, the ‘abnormal’, the ‘freaks’. It makes sense that people relate to a story that has been pushed on us for decades, but remember that just because something is relatable doesn’t mean it’s positive representation.
It felt like a transition story. It felt like growing up queer.
Again, if you relate growing up queer to forcibly transforming into an inhuman monster, that’s your own journey to take. But I urge you to take a deeper look at why exactly that might strike a painful cord for a lot of people. There are a lot of transition stories with a more positive outcome for those transitioning. I’m not saying you shouldn’t relate to Jonathan Sims, I’m just asking that you take a step back and think about what stereotypes are being reinforced here.
who’s calm and sceptical, and doesn’t get bogged down by emotions
Please... please stop insinuating that being unemotional is a masculine trait. It’s just perpetuating media enforced stereotypes.
Add to that the way his voice acting changes over the seasons to be a bit softer and higher pitched, also feeling a bit less forced
Having a higher-pitched voice doesn’t equate to femininity or gender identity. I would argue Jon’s voice changes over the course of the show as he becomes more comfortable with the people around him, the same way people start cursing in front of coworkers they’ve known for a while. He’s not trying to be as professional anymore because these people aren’t just co-workers anymore. I’m not going to use my customer service voice on my brother, you know what I mean?
not allowing himself to sympathise with the statement givers despite very literally empathising with them due to being able to feel their terror
Jon isn’t cutting himself off from the statements as some kind of masculine performance for the beholding. He literally states that he pretends to be a skeptic of the supernatural because he’s not ready to deal with the supernatural experience that traumatized him personally as a child. This isn’t an anti-emotional, toxic masculinity performance piece, it’s a coping mechanism for paranormal-based trauma.
They’re doing these actions as a way to fend off terror based on capitalism.
Okay I understand the whole ‘beholding as a metaphor for capitalism’ thing. But this has nothing to do with Jon pretending to be a skeptic in season 1. As mentioned above, Jon isn’t ‘performing a gender’, he’s repressing his past trauma. Still sad, but I have no idea how you got from ‘repressing spooky trauma’ to ‘pretending to be masculine so that capitalism doesn’t hate you’.
Anyway, I don’t want to come off as being the asshole that doesn’t want Jon to be seen as nb. That’s not at all what I’m saying. As a genderqueer person I love that we’re claiming characters as our own. But hey, sometimes the reason really is just because we saw someone we liked and went ‘yeah. that one.’ And when there’s a broader narrative that is relatable, that’s great. I’m glad you really resonate with this character. But I’m begging you to put some real consideration into what parts of that experience you relate to and why, as well as the history behind that kind of representation. Because this post is just example after example of super toxic and frankly misogynistic stereotypes about queer people.
TL;DR - Sometimes queer people headcanon a character as queer simply because they like them. Just because some narratives are relatable doesn’t make them positive or erase how damaging they can be.
Look i am literally nonbinary and so are most of the people on this post; a bunch of nby people saying “hey how this person behaves resonates with me” and“hey this character resonates with me because I’m also used to being treated as inhuman just like they are” isnt... a bad thing??? It’s not us equating being nby with being inhuman; it’s us saying that we resonate w how the character is treated. I really really don’t appreciate you telling me, a nonbinary person who has regularly been told I’m inhuman, that my seeing Jon’s similar experiences with being told he’s inhuman as relatable is somehow... toxic? Or playing into stereotypes? It’s not “equating” his inhumanity with his queerness; it’s equating his experience of being treated horribly with my own. (Also some nonbinary people Are cool with leaning into the whole voidpunk thing as an act of reclamation; it’s fine if you’re not, but we’re not... ‘hurting’ ourselves or anyone else if we are)
like yeah if this take were coming from cis people sure I’d be mad, but there’s literally no need to antagonize a bunch of nonbinary people projecting onto a character and seeing something of themselves in his story.
there are a bunch of plausible explanations for Jon’s behavior in mag! It can be a lot of things! I don’t know why you’re taking issue with nby people being like “hey he does this thing that I also do sometimes bc I’m nby; maybe he does this bc he’s nby too.” Pointing out that Jon deviates from toxic masculine norms — sure that doesn’t mean he has to be nby (none of us are saying that), but it could be a reason to read him as such! Performing “professionalism” when that very concept is wrapped up in colonial and western concepts of race and personality and gender could absolutely be read as a performance of masculinity. (Hello, nonbinary MENA person here; when I feel like I have to act “professional” that definitely affects how I’m performing my gender, especially as a visibly nonwhite queer person in white cishet dominated spaces like academia. Like i personally imagine Jon is!)
it rly seems like you’re taking a lot of nby ppl just looking at our own traits and behaviors reflected in media in the most bad faith ways possible and like... leave off. Queer ppl pointing out stuff that feels queer to them in media isn’t your enemy. actual real life queer people cannot be stereotypical bc we actually exist beyond stereotypes created by cishets; us viewing ourselves in a character’s behavior and mannerisms does not a rampant toxic environment create.
At what point did I say you can't relate to a character for those reasons? I believe my exact sentiment was that you can relate to a character however you want, my point is that you should probably be critical of the idea that being 'inhuman' is inherently a queer narrative.
And again, I'm not saying you can't relate to certain traits Jon has and project back onto the character. That's great! Have fun! But as I literally said in my reply, perhaps think about how you discuss those feelings because sometimes it comes off as hurtful to people that don't relate to those things specifically because of the history behind those correlations.
And hey, I'll agree to step back on the professionalism thing. That's an interesting take and something I hadn't considered so I apologize if that came off as racially insensitive because that wasn't at all my intention.
I'm not mad that people are seeing themselves in Jon and relating. I'm asking that you be critical of the reasons you relate to certain things and realize that just because they're relatable doesn't mean equating them to queer people isn't hurtful to a lot of other queer people. The entire reason I replied to this is because I had a LOT of nb friends send this to a chat discussing how immensely uncomfortable they were with the implications of the connections that people were making in this post, as am I.
And as for your tags, you do realize I am ALSO nb correct? I'm well aware that all nb people relate to different aspects of things in media, but claiming that the things you personally relate to aren't hurtful to others just because you relate to them is bullshit. As I said, relatable representation isn't always positive representation. Also, good for you for knowing that the entombed thing was a mistake. I literally said that I wasn't including that in the cold takes, as just wanted to mention it because some people don't know that. If you wanna headcanon it as a reason for Jon being nb then go wild.
At no point did I say you can't relate to Jon. I'm asking you to realize that the comparisons being made are hurtful to a lot of nb people and with good reason. Reading comprehension, indeed.
Yeah, I'm gonna be honest @pocketsizedquasar, you either didn't actually read what @poggyschuyler wrote (re: them being nb), in which case your whole "reading comprehension" comment in the tags is... Ironic. Or, you chose to ACTIVELY IGNORE the fact that they said they were genderqueer, in which case you saying things like "ACTUAL NB PEOPLE" and shit is... Super transphobic.
Also?? Sorry but like 5 nb people on the internet don't get to decide that something isn't toxic. If I'm in a group of people and I say something that upsets a few of them, I don't tell them they're wrong to be upset because the rest of the people aren't. The idea that "reclaiming a narrative" makes it okay for you to perpetuate stereotypes about nb and gay people is a lot like that toxic gay who calls me the f slur but it's okay because "we're taking it back". No, I'm still uncomfortable and you don't get to tell me I'm not.
Frankly, @poggyschuyler was just saying (and very explicitly so) that you can headcanon a character however you want to, but justifying it publically by relying on stereotypes is harmful to all non-binary people. You don't get to decide it's not just because you don't feel hurt by it. And they weren't even saying it very harshly? They just asked you to think critically and take responsibility for your actions?
Anyway, I'll make sure to put it at the end since you're glossing over people's gender identity but I'M ALSO NON-BINARY. AN ACTUAL NON-BINARY PERSON. And so are lots of people I've seen interacting with this post talking about how uncomfortable being told that non-humanness and monstrosity is equatable to being nb.
Listen to ALL non-binary people. Not just the ones who agree with you.
