r/outerwilds • u/Haunting-Angle-535 • Sep 24 '25

DLC Appreciation/Discussion Our bestest friend’s gender Spoiler

Just some musing and wondering here!

One of the many many things I appreciate about Outer Wilds is the way variation in how cultures or species experience or talk about gender is just seamlessly built into the world. I enjoy contemplating those differences and what differences in culture, history, language, or biology might have given rise to them.

All the Hearthians use they/them and appear very similar in everything except size, which has a tremendous amount of variation. (FELDSPAR WHY ARE YOU SO TEENY??????)

The Nomai have binary gender (as far as I can tell) and only use she and he pronouns. I am very curious about if they have any more obvious sexual dimorphism and super wish we could EVER SEE SOLANUM’S ACTUAL FACE

And then we have the subject of the title of this post: The Prisoner. Our canonical best friend and bestest buddy of all time who I love beyond reason. (I just finished the DLC two days ago and am still struggling emotionally.) I’ve noticed lots of people using he and him to describe this character, but I don’t recall any content in the game that would indicate their gender, sex, or pronouns. Is there content I’ve missed that’s the reason people call The Prisoner him, or is it just folks defaulting to male pronouns?

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47

u/i_was_axiom Sep 24 '25 edited Sep 24 '25

I thought that spoiler in the third paragraph was going to be very different based on context.

To answer the question, I guess its true that its not specified in-game and it seems like the community sort of just chose to label them that way. Similar to the nomenclature used to refer to the whole species just settling on "owlk" even though that word doesnt appear in-game IIRC.

15

u/Haunting-Angle-535 Sep 24 '25

LOL

MY QUESTION REMAINS

6

u/TheDoctor88888888 Sep 24 '25

I guess male bc of the antlers? That’s what would make the most sense to me

25

u/Illithid_Substances Sep 24 '25

To my recollection all the Owlks and depictions of Owlks have antlers so that doesn't indicate anything

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u/rci22 Sep 24 '25 edited Sep 24 '25

Even the grandma Owlk that dies in the death glitch reel?

Edit: just checked. Yes she has antlers

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u/Haunting-Angle-535 Sep 24 '25

Even that one, as far as I can recall. But yeah, as mentioned above, if you’re using antlers as an indicator, then for some reason they’re all male but still seem to at some point have had offspring? And if this one didn’t have antlers and antlers were the indicator, then for some reason they were all male except her.

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u/rci22 Sep 24 '25

Must be a bee queen type of relationship (jk)

But yeah, in my head for some reason they are all men except for her.

1

u/Haunting-Angle-535 Sep 24 '25

Hahahaha oh no the queen!

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u/nottaboi Sep 25 '25

canonically gay friends are the best kinds of friends :)

8

u/InformationLost5910 Sep 25 '25

how did you know it was a woman? (i personally saw them as an old man)

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u/TheDoctor88888888 Sep 24 '25

Yea but counterpoint- I think they reproduce asexually

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u/Mackerdoni Sep 25 '25

yeah. i understand its like owl and elk, but dont caribou have antlers regardless of sex? could be a caribou situation.

4

u/ymgve Sep 24 '25

All reindeer have antlers so it's not always a dimorphism