Is Nights a male or a female?

[FlowerCatta]

I forgot, I think it's a female?

or ?

[Kibo]

NiGHTS is whatever you want it to be, y'know, that was the intention, but it's a SHE AND MY OPINION IS RIGHT!

[Ignigknawt]

NiGHTS is a "they"

[Abraxas]

Intentionally androgynous so you can interpret however you want.

[Tyr]

Did you just assume they have a gender?

[FlowerCatta]

Originally posted by Tyr:

Did you just assume they have a gender?

Uhh... I don't know... maybe?

[PirataOfChaos]

Agree, NiGHTS is officially sexless but NiGHTS identity can be up to interpretation for any dreamer just like the dreams and everything else that happens in the game. Whatever you choose it will be right because that's how you see NiGHTS lml

[Dark Redshift]

NiGHTS is a girl. She looks like a girl, she's voiced by a girl (especially in the sequel), she's a girl. The confusion comes from the fact she is meant to literally have no gender, as she is based on a real philosophical idea about dreams and psyche, called a shadow (not that one) as revealed in the bonus video in the HD versions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kETrX6h1yAM

Some people may see this supposed shadow as a male or female depending on their own gender or if they associate their shadow with someone important to them. Takashi goes with the idea that the shadow is an alternate self, who takes the gender of the dreamer, which is why NiGHTS has none: she appears differently to different people.

Of course, the usual thing people -especially fans- think of when they hear genderless applied literally* is to either make the character female anyway with exaggerated female anatony and call her genderless (like Renamon from Digimon), or make them a female hermaphrodite. The only time I saw an aversion to this was the Magypsies in Mother 3, which poked fun at the common interpretation of genderless beings by depicting them as stereotypes of both genders, to make the fact they have none less confusing than with NiGHTS (as the latter definitely looks like a girl).


Side note:

It's also the reason why Mother 3 was never officially localised, as nintendo of america quit once they reached the first magypsy part: they wanted the magypsies censored or cut in the earthbound 2 version of Mother 3 and Itoi rightly put his foot down and said no, presumably because he was sick of nintendo of america's s.hit, so NoA dropped it entirely because they wrongly thought kids shouldn't see that, which is incidentally why the vast majority of western nintendo games, other games on their systems and Sonic games (especially from the 80s and 90s) suck balls. Thankfully, that's less common now, especially on Switch but it's still an issue.


*Literally as in, not transgender in IRL terms as we currently lack the science to literally bend someone's sex; we can so far only create the illusion of such. No offence intended.

[alx_ndr]

Originally posted by Dark Redshift:

Sonic games (especially from the 80s and 90s) suck balls.

that's really where you think the franchise went downhill, huh?

[FlowerCatta]

Originally posted by alx_ndr:

Originally posted by Dark Redshift:

Sonic games (especially from the 80s and 90s) suck balls.

that's really where you think the franchise went downhill, huh?

Huh.

[Ikagura]

Sonic didn't exist in the 80's

[mdesaleah]

Actually the post you marked as the answer is incorrect. NiGHTS does not have a gender. That’s one of the most important part of the character. In the sequel they are voiced by a woman, Bieber, the characters refer to them as “he” to balance it out

[marrow_c57]

Nights is not a male or female according to the USA Sega Saturn instruction manual.

[Dark Redshift]

Originally posted by alx_ndr:

Originally posted by Dark Redshift:

Sonic games (especially from the 80s and 90s) suck balls.

that's really where you think the franchise went downhill, huh?

I never said Sonic games suck. I said their english dubs suck. (Except Shadow the Hedgehog's) Guess I should have worded it better.

Originally posted by Ikagura:

Sonic didn't exist in the 80's

No s.hit Sherlock, I was referring to western versions of Japanese games in general from the 80s and 90s, Sonic included in the latter of those decades.

[Dark Redshift]

Originally posted by mdesaleah:

Actually the post you marked as the answer is incorrect. NiGHTS does not have a gender. That’s one of the most important part of the character. In the sequel they are voiced by a woman, Bieber, the characters refer to them as “he” to balance it out

If you read the post properly, you'd know I already said she's genderless and can be seen as either male or female, based on the video in this quote:

Originally posted by Dark Redshift:

The confusion comes from the fact she is meant to literally have no gender, as she is based on a real philosophical idea about dreams and psyche, called a shadow (not that one) as revealed in the bonus video in the HD versions:
https://youtu.be/kETrX6h1yAM

NiGHTS is voiced by a girl and looks like one so she comes across as one. If they wanted to make the distinction clearer, they could have gone the Magyspy route, but then nobody would play the game as the magypsies look creepy and were designed that way for laughs.

[Ikagura]

Nights is genderless by design btw.