Genderbending Fanfic

One of the first meaningful posts on this blog was a tangential reply to something Pete Zaitcev wrote, so why not follow that tradition for this soft relaunch?

Over at his new blog, he introduces me to the existence of a fairly significant project to rewrite the Haruhi novels/anime with the genders of all the characters reversed. (Via a link to post on “Moe Check!” ). Pete writes:

I am not amused by the sex swap per se, primarily because I think Ranma squeezed that particular lemon dry back in the 80s…P.S. Truth to be told, Kyonko does play some angles on the swap which Ranma didn’t. Specifically, the favourite joke of Kyonko is how all the relationships and actions become ridiculous after the swap, e.g. Mr. Yuki Nagato inviting Kyonko to his room late in the evening. It’s the schtick advocates of colorblind society enjoy a lot, and it never gets old.

Genderbending fanfic of various sorts is actually one of the more interesting genres to me, and this post made me think about why, which lead into some various thoughts on the different sub-genres of it, which lead to some various thoughts on how I would do it to the Naruto cast (if I wasn’t dreadfully late on finishing the fanfics I’ve actually started). If any readers actually (a) exist, and (b) aren’t completely disturbed by this topic of conversation, then click on the more link for these thoughts. (Minor spoilers for Naruto involved.)

I once read… somewhere I forget… a non-fan of the genre describe genderbending fanfic as an author who wanted to pair up two characters of the same sex, but was too cowardly to actually write a homosexual relationship. While such fanfics do exist, I think there’s substantially more potential to the genre, even if many fics only reach a fraction of that potential.

The simplest type is to take a character of characters and have a plot device change their gender, and this is probably the most common. It can be played for laughs, of course, or - indeed - used to trigger a romance. (Although, this often involves the genderbent character changing his/her sexual preference, which is an exceedingly thorny concept.) It can also be used as a way to give that character a different perspective on life and the other characters - particularly if other characters are unaware of the swap. (Imagine Ranma 1/2 if more of the characters - in particular, say, Akane - didn’t know that “Ranko” was actually Ranma.)

A much more interesting type - to me at least - is to take a character or characters and ask “What if this character was the opposite gender, and always had been?” I love fanfic that posits a single change to canon and explores the consequences, and it’s hard to conceive of a single change of comparable simplicity and universality that has such a wide variety of potential effects. This, apparently, is the nature of the Haruhi fan project that prompted the posts that prompted this post.

Take a case where just one character is genderbent. Suddenly, that character’s relation to every other character is substantially altered. Previous romantic interests are now potential romantic rivals - and vice versa. As much as we might wish otherwise, society is not gender-blind; people are going to expect different things of the character.

Take Naruto, for example.

Switch Naruto’s gender, but don’t change anything else. What changes as a result? Perhaps a young girl is more sympathetic to the people of the Leaf Village than a young boy? Maybe; maybe not. But she might be a bit more subdued than male Naruto is, less likely to engage in elaborate pranks like he does in the first episodes. Most fanfic of this sort I’ve read makes “Naruko” the lone girl uninterested in Sasuke, but what if she weren’t? Suddenly, everything changes. Sakura becomes her main rival; Sasuke her ambition. (Does the Sakura/Ino feud become a three-way brawl?) Imagine the difference in connotation when Sasuke abandons the village, and Sakura tearfully admits that only Naruto has a chance to bring him back! And what of Hinata? Wouldn’t a female Naruto have seemed more approachable to her, perhaps starting a friendship prior to the beginning of the series? How would the female Naruto react to Jiraiya? All in all, it’s a fascinating scenario.

Do the same to Sasuke. Suddenly, Sakura and Ino are probably still friends. Is Naruto likely to be interested in female Sasuke, displacing Sakura? Who else might be? Does Sasuke face pressure to marry into another clan (the Hyuuga perhaps?), ending the Uchiha Clan forever? And so on.

Swapping Sakura alone is less interesting, as without further swaps it removes the romance angle from the triad of main characters entirely. I suppose something could be done on a Sakura/Ino-focused story, but it’s unlikely that Ino and male Sakura would have become friends in the first place. Perhaps “he” might latch onto Naruto instead?

As for swapping all three, or the whole cast (as the Haruhi project does)… well, I’ve toyed with the prior idea in fanfic before, but only humorously. It’s interesting to consider whether the “female Sasuke and fanboys” dynamic would differ dramatically from the “male Sasuke and fangirls dynamic.” Some of the same issues mentioned above would still be around. If you swap everyone - and therefore ninja villages are female-dominated - would that change how ninja are perceived by the greater world?

This would be where my conclusion went, if this post really had much of a point. But then, that “pointless” there in the tagline of the blog isn’t for nothing!