Quote Originally Posted by Iscah View Post
I feel like it's inaccurate to associate Dotharl with "being trans" just because it's been stated that their past life was a different gender. From the two examples we have of it (Sadu and Koko) they treat it as matter-of-fact but neither chose it nor seem bothered by the inconsistency; it's just the body their soul got given this time, and they use the pronouns associated with their current form rather than seeking to change it.
For context I think Sadu is very good at depicting an adjacent topic, that approaches the subject while not directly being it. I think you could make a case that the Dotharl are adjacent to some indigenous cultures' concepts of gender diversity (I'm none of those cultures so I'm not going to try), but broadly speaking Sadu does bring forward the concept of 'hey, gender is more complicated than the binary you are accustomed to, and we're all gonna be cool about it'. I would not call Sadu trans rep, we are beyond the point of having to accept 'close enough good enough', but she does show the developers' hearts are in the right place, I also completely understand trans people relating to her and she does a good job of expressing the element they're trying for with her.

And Koko is also there. Honestly all Koko really does in this context is show that Sadu's not a one-off and it also goes the other way; that's nice, but let's not pretend that he is on an equal level to her.