This is a short video about a weird comment on a weird post in the Witcher subreddit.
Hot on the heels of Netflix releasing the first batch of Witcher season 3,
a post rocketed to the top of reddit s r/Witcher, titled Jaskier shouldn t be bisexual .
The general gist of the post is an argument that this third season shouldn t have included
Jaskier sucking dude face because it moves him from ally to part of the minority . The idea
is that Jaskier-Dandelion, throughout the books and the games, is essentially the only non-magic,
straight, human, man who is a consistent ally to every kind of person in the Witcher universe he
doesn t care about your race, your magical talents, your mutations, your sexuality,
crossdressing, whatever and that this is an angle we lose if Jaskier ceases to be straight.
As the post notes, we have seen a fair amount of gay things now - which, when s that T-shirt
coming out, right so it might be the case that in the world of Netflix Witcher being queer
doesn t marginalise you in the same way being an elf does, and that Jaskier s alleged role as
perennial ally remains. Against this, however, the user writes that since TV always reflects our own
world back at us, and we reflect our experiences of the world onto TV , Jaskier s being bisexual
still fundamentally shifts his position in the show. Personally, I think that s a fairly flimsy
and very simplistic counterpoint, I think using context as a cudgel like this does a disservice to
both art like this and its surroundings, I think conceptualising the relationship between fiction
and the real like this is a horribly limiting way to go about it but that s not really the point I m
looking to make here. Nor is the idea expressed in one reply, that OP might be conflating the
books with CD Projekt Red s games, as r/Witcher is wont to do, because book Jaskier is certainly
not an ally to the women he creeps on. No, I want to talk about the top reply, a user agreeing that
Jaskier shouldn t be bisexual, because, quote: He was one of the only characters that behaved
not traditionally manly how media/society would define it. He showed that not acting
tough and manly does not have to be considered feminine or gay. They completely destroyed that
and I think many heterosexual men that are not traditionally manly (and don t want to
[be]) could ve used a little representation too There is a worthwhile point here it s valuable to
make men aware that they don t have to chase that traditional masculine ideal,
that you can be a man, can be a good man, without acting as this user puts it
tough and manly but that worthwhile point is buried utterly by the rest of this comment.
The comment s equation of femininity and gayness in men is an obvious red flag. Some gay men,
some bisexual men, are effeminate but plenty aren t. Vice versa, there are plenty of straight guys
out there who exhibit tendencies society views as more feminine being well-groomed,
being in touch with their own emotions, being heavily fashion-conscious, and so on. So, contrary
to what the top reply to this reply contends, Jaskier liking a guy doesn t push some stereotype
that men who aren t traditionally manly must be queer . Consider the show s take on Vilgefortz,
particularly in seasons 2 and 3, who often presents in a non-stereotypically masculine way,
wearing silky, floral robes, sporting long, styled hair, and adorned with eyeliner and there s no
suggestion whatsoever that he s queer here. No, the only idea it pushes is that men don t have
to be traditionally masculine to be valid, to be men and that heterosexuality is included within
that bundle of ideas bound up with traditional masculinity that can be eschewed here. And it
seems, for r/Witcher, therein lies the rub. The comment s equation of femininity and gayness
is telling, but perhaps more telling is the way that both femininity and gayness in men
are the comment s shorthand for the non-male. The commenter s point here seems to be that figures
like the Jaskier of seasons 1 and 2 show that men are still men when they don t act macho and the
use of feminine and gay as shorthand to signify the alternative to still being a man , as well as
the despair shown toward season 3 for changing this, for completely destroying this model of
non-macho but non-queer maleness, points to what s really being said and agreed with here. This user,
and the thousands of r/Witcher denizens who upvoted them, wants to broaden manhood beyond
that traditional masculine ideal but not too far. Masculinity should be made to include
not just the action hero, the athlete, the businessman, but also the gamer, the Redditor,
but that s where it ought to stay. Should it keep expanding, start to include too many other modes
of being, well, things just get too confusing. So male heterosexuality can and should be divorced
from stereotypical masculine ideals, but only to imagine a new, slightly wider manhood which also
ends there. That is what this sentiment amounts to pulling the ladder up. What we re seeing here,
what we re seeing in a lot of other negative responses to Jaskier being a bi king, is the
idea that being bi makes you less of a man and so the accusation no, that s what the show thinks,
actually, feels a lot like projection. And that s less surprising than it should be.
The rest of this subreddit is fairly yikes at times. I ve been a visitor,
albeit an infrequent one, for years, since well before the Netflix show but for the last couple
of years I ve not spent much time with the games, and have only really checked in around the times
each Netflix series dropped. And each time, the atmosphere there has seemed worse than the time
before. A deep-dive on this subreddit is probably best saved for another video, probably by another
creator, but - it was initially filled with fans of the fairly male-gazey game series I m all for
maturity in media, but those sex cards were kinda grody before the Netflix adaptation came about,
and turned out to be a mixed bag in terms of quality, while also diversifying things a bit,
two things which, naturally, were often taken to be linked when they weren t. See, y know, gamers.
The result is a space where anti-fandom abounds, is almost the norm, and walks hand-in-hand with a
good deal of the anti-woke nonsense we ve talked about before. Again, this is barely scratching
the surface, and it s definitely not everyone there, just a sizeable minority, but it does
mean the conditions were ripe for the culture of r/Witcher to ferment over time, to become
generally permissive of modern internet bigotry, to allow ideas like this to be taken at face value
and their implications swallowed whole. In the aftermath of season 1, this same community was all
for a queer Jaskier. Indeed, the idea that Jaskier should be confirmed as queer was widespread this
broad fan demand for this was probably a big part of why Jaskier s season 3 ended up the way
it did. But, no, 3 years on? R/Witcher s tune has changed, and gee, I sure do wonder why.
The fact that this is one of the major hubs for discussing Netflix s Witcher online means
that plenty of well-meaning Witcher fans aren t going to question posts or comments like this,
when they probably should. They re not going to step back and realise that, no,
a queer Jaskier isn t homophobic, actually. They re not going to think about Vilgefortz,
consider the wider picture the show paints. And they re not going to realise that limited,
exclusionary expansions of masculinity only serve to displace the pressures those stereotypes
generate onto other shoulders shoulders that are probably carrying enough already.
This is a bad comment being celebrated by a fanbase that should know better,
and that s all I ve got for you today. Like this video, or I ll turn you into a Redditor, and let
me know what you think of Jaskier in Season 3 down below. Thanks as always to my Patreon
supporters you re seeing now, especially Daniel Goldhorn, Ryan Emerle, Thomas, and WeirdyBeardy,
and here s a little ending jingle I ve not had occasion to use in a while. Cheerio.