Viewer Gender Confusion/Literature

Examples of in  include:


 * In Hungarian, pronouns aren't gender based, leading generations of The Lord of the Rings readers thinking that the Witch-king was killed by Merry, not Eowyn. And coincidentally, neither the appendices nor the prophecy (No man shall kill him—it was a Hobbit!) contradicts this. But it's clear in the original.
 * For a long time, half of the Harry Potter fandom thought Blaise Zabini was a girl, since he's just a name until book 6. (Specifically, a name which is masculine in Europe but usually feminine in the United States.) Some who wanted more Slytherin girls used "her" extensively as an OC Stand-In in Fanfic. It's now known that "she's" a he.
 * If you're well-informed enough to know that the Groke of the Moomin series is female, try figuring out Thingumy and Bob, or the Fillyjonk's children from the anime. Too-ticky can also be misleading because of her appearance, but it's pretty clear she's a woman.
 * Too-ticky is at least partly based on Jansson's sculptor girlfriend, which may account for her relative butchness.
 * In the original Swedish, the Groke is called Mårran which manages to sound both feminine and threatening.
 * Thingummy and Bob wear dresses, and in the original are named Tofslan and Vifslan—so there is no "Bob" to confuse people. (Their particular way of speaking is an in-joke on the lingo Jansson and a female friend used. "Tove" becomes "Tofslan" when you speak like that...)
 * Actually, that "female friend" was her first girlfriend, Vivica Bandler. The whole plot about the Ruby and the Groke is a metaphor for them having to hide their relationship back in the days homosexuality was still a crime and taboo in Finland.
 * A milder form of this occurs in Honor Harrington. The Royal Manticoran Navy has nearly 50-50 gender equality, and many characters are referred to as their title, i.e. Admiral, Captain, Exec., etc. To compound this, many of the women are given masculine nicknames, like Michelle becoming "Mike", while some men are given female nicknames, such as a Gervais becoming "Gwen". You may need to take notes.
 * Max, from the Maximum Ride series. Considering that the book is written entirely in first person and her masculine name, it's no wonder. It's not clear at all that she's female until at least about fifty pages into the first novel, when she is finally referred to with a female pronoun.
 * Discworld dwarfs. Most of them look male, but that doesn't mean they are.
 * This is expanded upon with Cherri Littlebottom, a feminist in a race where discovering the other's gender is part of the mating ritual. She would wear makeup, but refused to shave her beard because to do so would deny being a dwarf.
 * Many characters in Monstrous Regiment are very convincing crossdressers.
 * In the kid's magazine Muse, four New Muses are guys, four New Muses are girls...and nobody can agree what gender Egyptian-born Pwt (pronounced "pwit" is. Word of God confirmed that Pwt is a male, but some readers still think he's a girl.
 * In Goblin Moon, the anthropomorphized Nine Seasons are the setting's equivalent of gods. Four are male, four are female, and one (corresponding to mid-spring, a changeable season) is depicted as androgynous in religious art.
 * The first two chapters of To Kill a Mockingbird leave Scout's gender very much in question. (She's a girl.)
 * The Timothy Zahn novella Cascade Point is told in the first person, and the narrator's name is not gendered. Only the cover art assigns a gender.