Why are people so confused about Val's sex?

[Burusagi]

Watching a Let's Play of the scene when SHE is taking her mud bath in the mines and you can clearly see that she has both female breasts and lacks the dangly bits of the male Heretics that chase you up to that point.

Yet, I see her being refered to as either androgynous or even a man! That's silly. But why are people mistaken on this on such a grand scale?

[judy~]

who cares about there gender -_-?

[Burusagi]

Originally posted by Sophia~:

who cares about there gender -_-?

Sex, not gender. But I digress. I don't really care about her sex, but I find the fact that so many people, for whatever reason, see her as a male to be quite curious.

[Burusagi]

Anyway, I found the explanation: Knoth and the rest thought Val was a man and refer to her as such throughout text and speech.

So it would seem that Val concealed the fact that she was a woman to them - and given Knoth's tendencies to sexually abuse his female followers it seems, to me at least, to be a reasonable enough excuse to do so. Once she was no longer among them, there would've been no need to continue to do so.

[Leichensekret]

I think Val IS male. At the first encounter you won't see any breasts. Flat chest.

I guess it has something to do with the hallucinations. Later on he appears to be female because of it. My opinion :) And some other People refer to him as "he" (Knoth @ the torture scene of the woman in the cathedral)

First: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJLUrM7aWo8
Mines: https://youtu.be/DPviJajkMzU?t=22m53s

[Burusagi]

At the first encounter you don't see anything because it is dark and she is wearing robes, duh.

Pretty obvious that she is biologically female. She's got breasts and female gentialia.

As I said, when you consider that female followers of The Cult get the short end of the stick (and it is an already short stick to begin with!) I would disguise myself as male as well - especially if I want to rise in the ranks to become a Deacon since hardline Christianity is extremely mysoggyknees-stick and wouldn't let a woman rise to that position.

EDIT: Not to mention that her followers, who unlike the Cult, get to see her in the nude are calling her "Mother".

[Kazzy]

Val is female, most certainly. She just has short hair like a male. She cant be a transgender, well it is possible but only the dev can explain something like that.

[Proxykon]

She is referred to as male in most documents you find in the game, yet later in the game you can see her female bodyparts. In the first encounter, she wears a robe, but no shape of breasts is visible, just a flat chest, when later on, you can clearly see that she has breasts.

It confuses the heck out of me as well.

[Burusagi]

As I said: if you look at it from the perspective that she decided to masquerade as a man during her time with the Cult, it makes sense. The short hair, the loose-fitting robe...

[Hursti]

nahh, you guys are way off. look at the scenes again. you can clearly see when HE's wearing a robe, it's clearly a guy with a feminine voice. later on in the mines, HE and the other heretics are wearing flayed peoples skins. just look at HIM in the mine scenes. he's got a flayed skin of a woman on.

[Burusagi]

Originally posted by Hursti:

nahh, you guys are way off. look at the scenes again. you can clearly see when HE's wearing a robe, it's clearly a guy with a feminine voice. later on in the mines, HE and the other heretics are wearing flayed peoples skins. just look at HIM in the mine scenes. he's got a flayed skin of a woman on.

Erhm, no. They're covered in mud. You even get to watch Val take a nice mud bath, lol.

[rjmacready]

Um...mud. Unconvincingly piled-on "breasts". A clearly scratched-on "slit" for a vagina. I think that Val is almost certainly a man toying with androgeny, to the point of mocking the female form. Even the name Val is potentially androgenous, and no doubt chosen for that fact (Val Kilmer, anyone?). At the very least, I certainly don't believe there is any clear case to be made for the character being "undeniably female".

Speaking of which: kudos again to Red Barrels for not pandering to any PC concerns. Between this and Whistleblower, I'm surprised they haven't come under fire from the "trans" community yet :D

(And before any morons start accusing me or them of anything, read some Clive Barker some time. Gay man. Plays with gender all the time, and doesn't apologise if it comes out creepy sometimes. Everyone and everything is fair game in horror, I'm afraid.)

[Burusagi]

She bends and twists her body during her mudbath scene. There is a noticable thigh-gap and wide hips with nothing between her legs.

There is no way she is a man.

There is no "Silence of The Lambs" kind of tucking-in going on here.

[rjmacready]

Originally posted by Alcohol Fueled Brewtality:

She bends and twists her body during her mudbath scene.

There is no way she is a man. There is no "Silence of The Lambs" kind of tucking-in going on here.

"Bends and twists" like a woman? This is clutching at straws a bit, I think :D

[Burusagi]

Originally posted by rjmacready:

Originally posted by Alcohol Fueled Brewtality:

She bends and twists her body during her mudbath scene.

There is no way she is a man. There is no "Silence of The Lambs" kind of tucking-in going on here.

"Bends and twists" like a woman? This is clutching at straws a bit, I think :D

I never said "like a woman". Learn to read.

[rjmacready]

Seriously, he/she has a GASH clearly slashed into the mud on the groin in one shot. Perhaps this was just Red Barrels being exceedingly childish about female anatomy, but it looked more deliberate than that to me. Like, the character did it themselves with a stick or something.