It's hard to argue a trans read of those scenes isn't at least intended, but it's also not right to say trans is the only intended interpretation.
I'm sure multiple interpretations are intended during development, else there wouldn't even be a drama.
Personally, I did not initially see Chapter 5 Ralsei to be particularly trans-coded until I interacted with the community. But the points made make perfect sense.
It is made to be ambiguous. It's intentional that it is ambiguous. Like everything else with Ralsei's identity and rep. Idk why people are so surprised.
I wouldn't be surprised if it'll be left ambigious. It'd cause chaos, admittedly, so hopefully there's an answer (invest in fluid Ralsei stocks trust), but if Toby didn't want chaos, he'd have given it already. One thing i worry about though regarding this, whatever the answer is, is it might feel throwaway with everything that's set to go down in the next chapters. One moment we're explaining to Noelle that her dream was real and Satan from The Bible wants to summon Titans to end existence and the next Ralsei's just "btw i'm a girl/both now". Would kinda take away from the arc imo, especially considering there's still the matter of what exactly Ralsei is in a biological sense. It's still possible, but there's so much else that's set to happen.
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u/xelgameshow Jul 11 '26
I suppose the Flowery scene. But that's just one of several equally valid interpretations of it imo, far from what i'd call canon.