Neither can I. Though I already suspect I’ll end up revising those parts a zillion times.
Hm, I know I didn’t see that one…
Right now that’s not planned to be a hardening factor, just a possible point of disagreement. I’m not 100% sure I’m even going to be able to work in a conversation about it, given the way things are planned for the final scenes of part 2, but we’ll see.
Sooooo, the Guenverse is a lot less sexist than the historical Middle Ages, but it’s still a very gendered culture. It’s less sexist in the sense that women genuinely aren’t considered inferior to men, and a woman who wants to fight or lead an army isn’t going to be shamed or told she won’t be any good at it. But the Guenverse is gender-normative in the sense that people expect that men and women generally tend to do certain things and act in certain ways according to gender. People assume that most women will be inclined to have babies and raise them (no birth control in this world, btw), and that most men will be inclined to protect and/or provide for their families. A man who stays home with the children or a woman who fights would generally not be seen as something negative, but definitely an exception to the norm. Because of that gender-normativity, there’s an assumption that women wouldn’t walk the castle halls at night, either because it’s not quite safe, or because they shouldn’t have to go to the effort, or maybe because of an underlying assumption that women aren’t as interested in sex as men are and therefore wouldn’t be seeking it out. Also, the queen’s bedroom is actually bigger and more comfortable than the king’s, because it’s assumed that she’ll spend more time in her room than he would in his. Even though the queen has servants to take care of the space, she, as a woman, is still kind of viewed as the “home-provider,” and her room is the “home” for the couple. Hence, the queen going to the king’s bedroom would be viewed as strange (but really, no one’s going to stop her – they’re just going to whisper and giggle about it.)
And yes, the gender-normativity of the Guenverse is a deliberate choice on my part, because I wanted to write a story where gender mattered. I probably won’t do that again. My plans for future games/stories involve much less gendered cultures.
Sure! I’m going to do my best not to give any hints, so I probably won’t comment at all if I can help it, but I’d love to hear any speculation (and it sounds like other people would, too). I guess I’d better not “like” any posts speculating on the baby’s sex, though, because I don’t want anyone to take that as a hint.