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I don't think they've stated specifically that, but if I remember well just before the end of the game, while Morgana was wishing for the next life, she asked Michel whether he would prefer to wish for a life together with Giselle or for a life in which he's born with a male body. I think that means that he was born intersex.
Besides, in the true ending he does indeed meet Giselle but he's still intersex, that means that Morgana has 'spent her wish' by wishing for him to be with Giselle. Why would he still be intersex if he weren't born this way?
I admit that what could be a binary choice presented by Morgana is compelling, but at the time I read it as her trying to gauge Michel's love for Giselle out of curiosity, something Morgana as something less 'human' cannot quite understand (at this point, the white-haired girl's soul is recombining with hers, but according what she said prior to Michel releasing her, the process is supposed to take a very long time).
Personally, I find the nature of Michel's 'puberty' far too suspect. The quickness of it, the sudden realization that "I'm a man," the horror of his mother even prior to his "coming out"... I understand the need for some time compression in story-telling so that this phase of Michel's life doesn't receive disproportionately more description, but in my opinion, Fata Morgana had an enormous amount of repetitive dialogue, especially in the first several chapters. I don't think spending more time on Michel's puberty to make it seem more natural would have imbalanced the story.
I Think the interpretation of all this really could go either way (unless someone inside sets us straight), and honestly, I like it that way. My favorite author is probably Gene Wolfe, whose books sometimes spawn entire books dedicated to reader interpretations.
I'll have to re-read the true ending as I don't recall anything about his sex in it (it was late at night when I finally finished it, so I believe you by default). I will say I think pure determination of their souls is adequate to explain his reconnecting with Giselle, especially considering the other major characters were also crossing paths once again in their new lives. If Morgana was responsible for this as well, she has quite a bag of wishes and surely could have given Michel male parts with a spare.
Dude, what? I'm certain that the ending implied that he was a man this time.
http://novectacle.lys.hiho.jp/?eid=64
In the paragraph titled ミシェルの性別について it says that Michel is intersex, while if you reach the bad ending (the one set in Paris) his body is male. In the true ending he is still intersex. In the sentence after that, it is implied that it's probably because he wished to be together with Giselle rather than wishing for the body he wanted.
Anyway, I'm still of the idea that he was born intersex and did not undergo a supernatural transformation that changed him. Just as you can't become intersex in real life by unnatural means, I don't think it would be fair for the only intersex character I know of in fiction to happen to be one thanks to magic/supernatural means and not because he was born like this.
I still think it's highly improbable it's Morgana's doing because Michel's puberty (and past) did not happen in the mansion that Morgana haunts. He only ended up there when his brothers made him escape and only then Michel and Morgana met/came to know of each other.
As for what's naturally possible (being born intersex), there really are no limits in a world of magic, so that doesn't discount a supernatural transformation in my opinion. What's your interpretation of the dream Michel has of a woman in a field?
Michel becomes sick overnight, has some dreams, a conversation with then-her's mother. Then, "Several days later, my fever was gone--like it had never been there. However--...my voice did not recover" and it's clearly changed dramatically as his mother is horrified. The joint pain is far worse than normal growing pains to the extent that Michel falls on his face when climbing out of bed. His spine is lengthening at such a rate as he becomes taller that "it felt like someone hammering a spike into the back of my neck."
The period of isolation begins: "One month passed, then two, then three." Then, "I would dream of a woman standing in the courtyard, her soft, reddish-brown hair fluttering in the wind as she twirled to face me, a smile on her face and her breasts exposed."
Can't be dark-haired Aimee (whom he also would have recognized), can't be his adult self had he remained a she, so it must be Morgana. After reading this part of the story again, I'm more convinced than before of a supernatural transformation. I believe there's more after this about how he wished for this to happen or how he brought it upon himself, so I'll have to re-read the following some time to see if there's maybe a causal suggestion in the subtext there.
This was the specific condition I believe. It matches quite well.
Yeah I think something like this fits rather well. I remember learning about it in one of my classes last year. Michel's "transformation" didn't feel supernatural to me. It is scientifically possible for secondary sex characteristics to take place around one's puberty stages for those with these sorts of conditions.
Near the beginning of his chapters in the game, the story said something about how when he was born, there were 2 peculiar things about him: His white hair/red eye appearance and the other was something that his parents wouldn't discover until much later. He was born intersex (and remember how Michelle didn't even have breasts all along, but they all thought "she" was just small-sized).
The thing I love about this game is that it doesn't put as much of an emphasis on the supernatural elements. Instead, it places a far greater emphasis on the human condition. Morgana was not the chosen daughter of God, she was just a regular human child. Michel was not a demon/witch, he was a regular human man (who happened to be intersex). The swordsman wasn't some magical beast, he was a twisted human without restraint. The 3 guys (Mell, Yukimasa, and Jacopo) suffer tragedies based on their own human weaknesses. Michel and Morgana suffer tragedies based on other's wrongful impressions of them.
About the ending, I did feel that Michel was intersex in his new life, but I wasn't sure. The writer may have stated that on their blog to give some curious fans further closure. But I think the reason they didn't specify that in the game, was because it didn't matter. Who cares if he's intersex or not? Michel is still Michel. He and Giselle love each other regardless. And perhaps, that was what the writer tried to show.
I'm probably going to repeat myself, but... The abruptness of it all. The inability to speak due to the rapidity of his voice changing. The unnatural severity of his growing pains. All this happening over the course of a couple months with elements of it, like his voice, happening almost instantenously. Then the dream which all but confirms a supernatural cause.
If someone wants to dispute the significance of the dream, they can call it a totally unrelated premonition of Michel one day meeting Morgana, who is never in the courtyard, and who is never naked, and who doesn't have two arms when interacting with Michel, and who doesn't even meet Michel in her real form for hundreds of years, but I may doubt their sincerity as that is quite a stretch and, if accurate, is an uncharacteristic instance of very poor writing. It would be the most pointless of red herrings--one that doesn't build suspense in any way.
One more thing: Aimee says "there's nothing there". She's surprised being kicked there still hurts despite nothing being there. I think, being a depraved sadist, Aimee would love to instead tell Michel how monstrous his malformed organs are if his external gear did not conform to typical male/female standards, or if he, while obviously male in every other way, had a fairly normal vagina. But that's not the case. "There's nothing there" suggests to me there's a urethral opening and that's pretty much it. I imagine Aimee would have had more fun torturing him about having something resembling an over-sized clitoris with a lump underneath. Instead, she teases him and kicked him in an entirely featureless part of his body.
Here's a biologist suggesting an individual with the mutations necessary to result in no sex organs at all is very unlikely to ever be born due to the effects of these mutations on other organs' development[www.askabiologist.org.uk]. No, you can't have an internal testicle or ovary with no external features of some sort.
I rest my case. I've put up more than enough support for the "supernatural transformation" interpretation. Being a magical transformation, it was in fact a crude and flawed one. Michel, whose wish it was, and Morgana possibly being a conduit, had no knowledge of a certain detail most people feel makes a man, something Michel only discovers when accosting the servant after his transformation. Michel became a man in all ways but one.
I'm glad the story is open enough to interpretation to allow competing views, at least, though this part of it seems straightforward to me.
Edit: Oh my, Steam censors the "v" word? Well, you know what I meant.