Well, anime has been doing crossdressing men forever, with various explanations for why they crossdress. "Abusive family forces them into opposite gender role" isn't even unique itself. Bridget was basically that in Guilty Gear XX from 2002 lol (though it wasn't her parents but rather the rest of the village)
Now that I think about it though, there is an interesting read of it that Gwyndolin is actually an AMAB trans man. If he (she?) ever transitioned at all. The reason I always read Gwyndolin as a man is because his follower refers to him as "Lord Gwyndolin" but I have no idea whether that sounds the same in Japanese or whether "Lords" in this setting are exclusively men as we would expect in real life. After all, all the gods are "Lords" in that setting arguably.
Honestly, with how ambiguous dark souls lore always is, there are some really interesting reads of this. Maybe Gwyndolin isn't even considered trans in Anor Londo, but the other way. Like maybe gender and sex aren't considered to be that closely related in Anor Londo and Gwyn wasn't being abusive like "oh, you're into the moon? not MY son!" and it was more like "oh, you're actually a girl? neat."
I always took Gwyndolin as a trans masc metaphor, no clue if it's the dev teams intent but:
He's always referred to by he/him pronouns.
Gwyndolin sealed himself away in darkmoon crypt because he's unable to bear the changes that happened to him as a result of the illusions that make him feminine.
The next you hear of him is in Dark Souls 3, since Gwyn has died he's abandoned the reversal ring (which is what was used to make him feminine) and left the crypt.
So you have this bloke that wants to present as male being forced to live as a woman because of the superstitions of this patriarchal authority, gaining control of his own life again and choosing to lives as a man. And I stress again that this is just my reading of the lore but that screams trans allegory to me.
So you have this bloke that wants to present as male being forced to live as a woman because of the superstitions of this patriarchal authority, gaining control of his own life again and choosing to lives as a man.
That was basically my read of it as well, however there's one problem. By the time you meet Gwyndolin in Dark Souls, Gwyn has been 'dead' for long enough that the world ended a long time ago. The rest of the gods fucked off to a different continent. Gwyndolin is here completely alone, except for a couple of worshipers. Gwyndolin is the god left. The only one.
So why's he still girl mode if that's not the way he wants to live?
Maybe not "woke" per say but by :japan-cool: standards over a decade ago it's still pretty good
Well, anime has been doing crossdressing men forever, with various explanations for why they crossdress. "Abusive family forces them into opposite gender role" isn't even unique itself. Bridget was basically that in Guilty Gear XX from 2002 lol (though it wasn't her parents but rather the rest of the village)
Now that I think about it though, there is an interesting read of it that Gwyndolin is actually an AMAB trans man. If he (she?) ever transitioned at all. The reason I always read Gwyndolin as a man is because his follower refers to him as "Lord Gwyndolin" but I have no idea whether that sounds the same in Japanese or whether "Lords" in this setting are exclusively men as we would expect in real life. After all, all the gods are "Lords" in that setting arguably.
Honestly, with how ambiguous dark souls lore always is, there are some really interesting reads of this. Maybe Gwyndolin isn't even considered trans in Anor Londo, but the other way. Like maybe gender and sex aren't considered to be that closely related in Anor Londo and Gwyn wasn't being abusive like "oh, you're into the moon? not MY son!" and it was more like "oh, you're actually a girl? neat."
I always took Gwyndolin as a trans masc metaphor, no clue if it's the dev teams intent but:
He's always referred to by he/him pronouns.
Gwyndolin sealed himself away in darkmoon crypt because he's unable to bear the changes that happened to him as a result of the illusions that make him feminine.
The next you hear of him is in Dark Souls 3, since Gwyn has died he's abandoned the reversal ring (which is what was used to make him feminine) and left the crypt.
So you have this bloke that wants to present as male being forced to live as a woman because of the superstitions of this patriarchal authority, gaining control of his own life again and choosing to lives as a man. And I stress again that this is just my reading of the lore but that screams trans allegory to me.
That was basically my read of it as well, however there's one problem. By the time you meet Gwyndolin in Dark Souls, Gwyn has been 'dead' for long enough that the world ended a long time ago. The rest of the gods fucked off to a different continent. Gwyndolin is here completely alone, except for a couple of worshipers. Gwyndolin is the god left. The only one.
So why's he still girl mode if that's not the way he wants to live?
For the same reason it took me until I was 30 to come out as trans.
He internalized what he was told about his nature
Then why isn't he Lady Gwyndolin?
Dunno,
Could always be "time is convoluted" shenanigans.
Or, like, he's still processing his grief over what happened to Gwyn.
Or, any of a sundry of other reasons that I'm not sufficiently versed in Dark Souls lore to know about.