Consider: Turtle is a trans woman
Listen ok not to get too attached to this idea but like. A lot of Turtle’s arc is about self loathing, escapism, and family expectations and I think Turtle being a transwoman and/or transfem compliments Turtle’s character arc.
(just a note: I switch around pronouns from he/him to she/her in this post, partially because I wrote this in segments and partially to reflect my analysis of Turtle (who uses she/her) vs what the books tell us more explicitly about Turtle (he/him). hope that helps!)
First off: it makes sense with how Turtle percieves herself
Turtle’s book is at its core about trauma, neglect, and anxiety/self loathing. And I don’t necessarily want to take away from that but I also feel like her being trans could be hella interesting with that taken into consideration.
So, Turtle thinks of herself through the lens of a book character. This is consistent throughout the book- first as a dragonet as the hero of her story, then later as essentially worse than a side character, completely insignificant or actively detrimental to the “real heroes”; throughout the book, she tries to figure out how other dragons percieve her, what role she fulfills for them, like the sidekick of a detective, or the messenger, or the spy. She doesn’t view herself as a real person, but more as a trope or a tool. This seems like it could be gender dysphoria to me. It’s the fact she’s always disconnected from who she is, she’s always someone else other than herself. Qibli is similar, but Qibli is more specifically trying to make himself useful and someone worth space, Turtle just wants to be someone at all.
If Turtle takes herself seriously, if she considers herself a real, tangible, important dragon who’s not just a role in a story, that means she has to have a real identity, one that isn’t just whatever other people have decided she is. And when you don’t want to admit something about yourself, it’s a lot easier to just pretend you don’t have an identity than that you have one that scares you. And I feel like a lot of her talking down to herself as being insignifigant and not interesting, while fed by trauma, also speaks a lot of repressing herself- She continually shoots herself down whenever she tries to establish herself as a person.
Plus the whole idea of being a hero is undeniably intertwined with masculinity. You can so easily read “being a hero” as being a stand-in for “being a man”. (which is also why transmasc Turtle rocks as a hc considering he creates his own definition of hero, but I digress). And I think the way Turtle tries to shove himself into the box of heroism really speaks to me as a trans person trying to force myself into gender roles.
With that said though, my main point is: it makes the story more interesting imo.
I really like the ending of Talons of Power already tbh, that scene with him, Coral, and Auklet is heartwarming and lovely. But I also think Turtle being trans, and realizing she’s trans, really makes it a really powerful story. As Turtle’s whole perception of himself is falling apart with what Queen Coral’s told him, I think it’s interesting if you have Turtle consider “what else have I been thinking about myself that’s wrong,” and having her put together the pieces she’s been trying super hard to bury the entire book.
The books, to their credit, don’t end with the conclusion of “Turtle was the hero after all actually!”, but I want to take the ending where Turtle realizes he never had to be anyone other than himself even further. I like the idea of Turtle just going “this version of me I’ve created isn’t true and hasn’t ever been true. I’m not any of these things. I’m not useless, or a side character, maybe I’m not even the hero at all.” and then “But I am still me, and that’s good enough. It’s always been good enough.”
Turtle is essentially stripped bare even further than in canon, and that means it hits so much more when she then puts herself back together, especially then to go confront Anemone (who’s less so in the same boat, but the same pond). It’s a cool end of a character arc is all I’m saying (and a great segueway into a new one, she doesn’t even need to realize immediately who she is, just that she isn’t who she was before, and it still really hits).
Speaking of which: it adds another layer to the complicated cake of Anemone/Turtle’s relationship.
in the book, Anemone and Turtle are already foils: Anemone believes she’s the protagonist of the world. She has been, for most of her life, the sole recipient of Queen Coral’s undivided attention/affection- she’s the animus princess who will save her tribe. and Turtle is the exact opposite: another faceless prince in the crowd, untalented, unrecognized, and basically nonexistent to his mother. Turtle both wants to be Anemone and is terrified of being Anemone and I feel like if you throw Turtle being trans onto that it gets even more intense. Anemone is now even closer to Turtle, and I genuinely feel like that would upset Turtle even more; especially with the weight that being a princess in Wings of Fire carries. It’s also even more fuel for Turtle’s self-loathing and repression (how could she ever be a princess, after she’s failed already she could never serve her people like Anemone does, it’s better that she’s a boring prince with no responsibilities, that way she can never fail). But she still feels like she sacrificed Anemone to Coral instead of her, and now with the added feeling of it being more personal considering Turtle could’ve been The Animus Princess(tm).
They both crave approval and recognition: Anemone feels babied, while Turtle feels ignored. They both feel like their life has been laid out for them: Turtle as a useless side character, Anemone as an evil animus (tbh Anemone’s story is really interesting and worthy of its own post, but I digress). It gives Turtle’s speech to Anemone about how she doesn’t have to be evil more weight again: Turtle is essentially living proof that their destinies aren’t set in stone and that people can be more than their past. It’s a tidier ending.
Other relevant things from the text:
-A lot of Turtle’s notable relationships in the books are with other women (Peril, Kinkajou, Moonwatcher, Anemone).
-And the inverse is also true with like. Turtle feeling different from his brothers + feeling rather disconnected from Qibli and Winter.
-It’s also notable a lot of those girls are also dragons who are very sort of. loud and expressive, in the line of Kinkajou, Anemone, and Peril. They know who they are and what they want, and that’s especially something Turtle admires about Peril in particular, as well as Kinkajou.
-Speaking of which you really could argue Turtle’s crush on Kinkajou being wanting to be her as much as it is wanting to be with her.
-No seriously he wakes her up because she’s much more suited to heroism than him, he loves her specifically because she’s “not like him”, like I def think that’s romantic feelings and self-hate mixed in but also. bro. When I get crushes on people my first instinct isn’t “I wish I was more like them, that would be so much better than being me, they could be me so much better than I could be me.”
-This bears a lot less weight since it’s a hc but Turtle does find a lot of escapism in Queen Coral’s books: there’s no textual evidence for Queen Coral favoring female protagonists but it is a fun headcanon to tack onto this existing headcanon.
Most of this is pure speculation and me wanting to put my own take on the story: Turtle is definitely not trans in canon (as much as he should be, seriously even without this long post so many hcs him as some flavor of trans) But I think it helps give even more room for Turtle to grow and opens up exciting new possibilities
I just also think if Peril is also trans it just becomes really sweet, like imagine: Turtle comes to Peril with her head in a whirl, all anxious and unsure of herself unsure if she’s really a girl or what this means for her place in the royal family and what if she’s wrong or stupid or she’s gonna fail somehow, and Peril’s like “well who cares, you can always just BE a girl if you want to be. That’s what I did anyway and it turned out pretty great for me.” and Turtle’s anxiety just crashes to a halt because, yeah, I guess it doesn’t actually change much does it, and Peril seems to be doing great, so if it worked out for her I should be fine too.
Just also the sweetness of her being validated in that other dragons like her for her, and not for some character archetype she fulfills, her friends don’t have any reason to accept her but of course they do, because they’re her friends and they love her.
I think there’s a lot of ways to incorporate this headcanon, especially since I think everything I’ve said still applies as being an interesting character arc for Turtle even if you give it to her as a continuation of canon rather than a rewrite. This is one version, but Turtle’s a dynamic character, and I can see a lot of different storytelling possibilities with this.
Tl;dr: Turtle’s story gets really interesting if you read her as as a transwoman
