| KLXVER said: I haven't played Paper Mario TTYD in a while. Was Vivian a man? |
Gender
In the Japanese version of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, Vivian is a transgender girl. Other characters, as well as narrative text, describe Vivian using masculine terms such as otoko "man", and otōto "little brother".[3][4][5][6] However, Vivian initially describes the shadow sirens as san shimai "three sisters",[3] and routinely uses the feminine first person pronoun atai. This continues in Super Paper Mario; Vivian's catch card describes her using the term otoko no ko "boy".[7]
In the English and German localisations of the game, all masculine descriptions of Vivian are removed, and she is portrayed as a cisgender girl. Consequently, the nature of some of Beldam's insults towards Vivian was altered, as they originally focused on her masculinity. However, all other localised versions of the game retain the transgender portrayal.[1][8][9][10]
