So I've pretty much decided to do a Vito Russo on this whole thing. I've been trawling book lists on the intenet, and I have over 100 starting in 1962 (well, it's a dystopia). That's only for gay major characters, though. Many other books have a small queer presence that you don't notice unless you're twleve years old and desperately searching for some confirmation of your identity. Most of the following I read before I was out, and I (somewhat subconsciously) kept a mental checklist of every gay character and incident that I read about.
A Brief Timeline of Queer Content in Fantasy Literature
The 70's
1977 - The Farthest Shore, by Ursula K. LeGuin
From everything I know about LeGuin, there's a lot of queer stuff in her books. I've only read The Left Hand of Darkness (gender-bending aliens) and the Earthsea trilogy (wizards 'n' shit). The third book in the Earthsea trilogy, The Farthest Shore, has a very strange relationship between Arren, the teenage prince, and Ged, the Archmage who is...I'm not sure how old. Fiftyish? The text says quite clearly that Arren is "in love" with Ged. This is the 70's, so I'm assuming it passed under the radar because people didn't take it literally and nothing sexual happens or is implied. But it seems to be somewhat reciprocated, as when Arren is captured by slavers, Ged whips out the big magics in a "You don't fuck with my prince" gesture.
The 80's
1983 was a big year. Diane Duane published So You Want To Be A Wizard, though I never realized the Advisory wizards were a gay couple until I read about it on Tropes. It was a big "Oh! So that's why they live together!" revelatory moment. We also have McCaffery's Pern novel, Moreta, where the implications that riders of green dragons are gay are more or less confirmed. And finally, Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, a feminist retelling of the King Arthur legends (it wasn't that bad, if I recall), has a scene where Arthur, Lancelot, and Guinivere have a threesome, and Lancelot gets a bit preoccupied with Arthur. Kind of a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment, as it doesn't really add anything to the plot, or develop into a subplot. And, while I'm at it, I may as well throw in Alanna, by Tamora Pierce. I need to reread those, but apparently the main character's brother has a thing with the villain (and subsequently turns evil), which got toned down when the publisher decided to market the book For The Children.
1987 - Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey
"Look! Lesbians!" is about all that happens, with regards to the queer content. Oh, there's some subplot in the end where the one lover dies, and they hook up the survivor with the random girl who had an unrequited crush on her. Like, right after the first lover dies, and the survivor is in telepathic shock. There is also a moment when the lesbian character is talking to the main character, and is like "You're chill that we're lesbians, right?" and the main character's reaction is "Oh yeah, I'm from a patriarchal polygamist society. We had lots of lesbianism going on behind the men's backs." So...progressive? They are out of the closet, at least.
The 90's
1990 - The Eye of the World (Book 1 of The Wheel of Time), by Robert Jordan
These you have to do a close reading for, and I don't think I have time. A few times, he mentions some of the (all-female) magic users are "pillow friends." Apparently, that means lesbians. I don't even remember which ones were, though; no one important. They're just kind of there.
1993 - Hexwood, by Diana Wynne Jones
Very, very minor, but it's Jones and I love her and I just have to mention it. There are two "gay boys who run the wine shop" in the town. And they have an annoying dog. That's all that's said about them. They're never given names. But hey, now we're using the word gay. And they're not evil or tragic or closeted. Or important...
1996 - Stone of Tears (Book 2 of The Sword of Truth), by Terry Goodkind
"Look! Lesbians!" even more than Lackey. One spends a chapter giving the main character her life story, including a page dedicated to her relationship with another female character (whose backstory is not given, and she subsequently dies tragically in her lover's arms during the Plague Episode). Considering that in Book 1, the one homosexual character was a muderous pedophile, I think this is progress.
1997 - Harry Potter and the Sorceror's/Philosopher's Stone, by J.K. Rowling
Yeah, remember? Dumbledore is gay. So, so closeted, though. You can tell there's subtext in book 7, with Grindelwald. I thought I was just slashing, but Word of Gay confirmed in '07. We may have just taken a step back; however, this is a children's book series, and hugely popular, so any presence at all is not to be scorned.
1997 - Sandry's Book (Book 1 of the Circle of Magic), by Tamora Pierce
More closeted children's book characters! Same with So You Want To Be A Wizard. I forget if I read about it on Tropes or found out through The Will of the Empress. I think it was Tropes. Rereading those books now, there's sort of contradictory subtext. In Book 1, Lark calls Rosethorn "Rosie" and in Book 2, it's explicity stated that they sleep in separate rooms. If I had been ten and allowed the possibility that I could grow up and marry a woman, high school would have been a lot less stressful. And if I had figured this out when I was writing my paper on LGBT content in children's literature my freshman year of college, I could probably have added another page.
The 21st Century
2000 - Storm Front (Book 1 of the Dresden Files), by Jim Butcher
There's a random bisexual hooker in Book 1, and random references to the fact that homosexuality exists throughout the series, though no important characters are actually gay. Except maybe the vampires. Still, I appreciate a straight writer acknowledging that homosexuality exists in his universe (our universe), instead of either having a straight universe or a token queer.
2002 - Abarat, by Clive Barker
Clive Barker is the queer Stephen King. I don't mean gay (though he is), I mean queer. Stephen King writes staight horror; vampires in Maine, psychic powers at the prom, etc. Barker writes queer horror, which basically means he's about ten times weirder than King. A vampire that feeds on time instead of blood, or, as in Abarat, a high-schooler who is whisked away to a bizarre archipelago. One of the side characters has a male partner and a bunch of dogs. Probably supposed to be an author avatar, except Barker and his partner broke up while he was writing the third book. Incidentally, he also had health problems that resulted in a brief coma. No wonder it took him 9 years to finish book 3.
2003 - Wolves of the Calla (The Dark Tower, Book 5), by Stephen King
And speaking of Stephen King...Father Callahan (of Salem's Lot) is gay! Ish. He had an awkward man-crush in his backstory/interimstory. Interpret that how you will.
2006 - The Book of Lost Things, by John Connelly
I just had to include this right after Dark Tower. It's a sort of grown-up fractured fairy tale, where a kid (it's not a kid's book) gets whisked into a world of fairy tales and classic literature. One of the people his meets is Childe Roland of the poem (was it Browning?). The same Roland that King's Dark Tower series is based on. And this Roland is gay; he had a thing with a fellow knight who died and so now he's on a quest for...redemption or something. But gay Roland just makes me lol.
2009 - Best Served Cold, by Joe Abercrombie
I suspect there might be more in his trilogy, but in this stand-alone novel, one of the...villains, I guess...is gay. Which seems likes a step back, but every character in the book is morally suspect - the protagonist is a mercenary on a vengeance quest. The villains are all quite well fleshed-out, and no correlation is drawn between the one character's sexuality and his villainness. In fact, I believe he is a general, so he's a big important gay, which is positive in a way.
2010 - The Last Hunt, by Bruce Coville
Yeah, this one is kind of cheating because no one is actually gay. There is a beautiful bromance, which I don't count as queer, but since it borders on ho yay, one of the characters actually asks if they are a couple (in a non-homophobic, just curious way). He gives a "No - not that there's anything wrong with that" answer. Coville directly addresses the homoeroticism of a bromance...in a children's book! So which is better? Having gay characters without saying that they're gay, or having characters who aren't gay explicitly support homosexuality?
Conclusion: Over the past forty or so years, representations of gay characters in fantasy have become more open. Even if they are not outed in-universe (and that's mostly just in children's books), the authors have no problem saying their intent. I would hesitate to claim that representations have become more postitive. I would say, just from this sample, that they have grown less positive but more realistic. Not all gay people are morally sound staunch sidekicks, after all.
It occurred to me the other day that people complain the gay characters always die, but - in fantasy, at least - that might have a closer correlation with the fact that gay characters are always minor supporting characters, who have a higher mortality rate than the main cast or heroes. The solution, then, would not be to help gay characters live longer, happier lives, but to give them more important roles so that they can have longer, happier lives. Or have more than just the one token gay. But, long hours of research and many, many books stand between me and any solid conclusions.
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