So You Like to Read the Young Wizards Series

I find the first comment very interesting. I belong to DD's YW forums (which she owns, operates, and frequents herself), and she has specifically stated that, well, she won't specifically say. Possibly that is a decision she made since 1998... The Tom and Carl characters are based on real people who she knows - friends of hers, who are not in a relationship - and she wouldn't want to do something that would make them uncomfortable, i.e. make something like that obvious.

Or such is my understanding.

There are long discussions in the forums on just this subject. People who don't like the idea have suggested that they are just friends, that they are close like brothers, that they are cousins (?), but my assumption as soon as I started thinking about it one way or the other was that they were a couple.

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mitchy.livejournal.com

DD is very responsive to emails, even if it takes a while for her to respond. You should email her and ask :)

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platypus

I like that there's a bit of ambiguity -- it made me unhappy in HW when Nita was all, "Oh, they're just good friends" (when she was on the moon angsting about her relationship with Kit). I had my fingers crossed that Nita was an unreliable narrator on that point. Because *I* like to believe they're an 'old married couple,' and it pleases me how casual and understated it is in the books. They just are.

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starcat-jewel.livejournal.com

It seems blindingly obvious to me that they are; there was one scene somewhere along the way (I forget now exactly what it was) that just jumped out and said, "Oh, okay, these guys aren't just buddies."

However... given that it's a YA series, she can't very well say that out in public! She might say so to you privately in e-mail, if you were to ask, but the official line has to be ambiguous, or her sales will suffer.

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eavanmoore.livejournal.com

Aw, man... more support for the N/K ship...

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mat-t.livejournal.com

Interesting. I still have the original email from her too. :)

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Okay, I won't be at Coppercon but she's answered this question before in other guises. Basically, Tom & Carl are based on friends of hers - her former editor and an "associate" of his. When she gets asked this question, she normally says "I don't know" or "I haven't enquired."

I know it's not real helpful but it's definitely all you're going to get out of her, I'm afraid. :P

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I'm not saying I don't believe you, just that that's what she says now.

If I got an e-mail like that from her (or anything that wasn't a mass e-mail) I'd keep it, too.

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Oh, you beat me to it.

i.e. make something like that obvious.

And I totally sympathise with that, of course. But, hi, they live together. It should be fairly obvious, don't you think? :P

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Oh, totally. As soon as it occured to me to think about such things, I turned to my sister (who also has read the books) and was like "They're a couple, right?" and she said, to paraphrase, "Well, duh" :)

It's possible, I guess, for a couple of grown men to share a big house, three dogs, koi, bills, etc etc together, but...not very likely, in my opinion.

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Just randomly popping in here, but -- remember that conversation we sort-of had about this awhile ago? Turns out we were RIGHT (our slash radars must be quite good) and I'm gloating now. xD

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It's possible, I guess, for a couple of grown men to share a big house, three dogs, koi, bills, etc etc together...

Yeah, right. ;) (Actually, I think a couple of straight men would be averse to this *just in case* anyone thought they might maybe be gay; most guys I know are ridiculously oversensitive about that kind of thing.)

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That's 'cos we're BRILLIANT. ;)

Do you remember where we had the conversation? I went skimming through

myriadwords backposts and couldn't find it, and I hate losing good discussion threads...

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Hehe yes. Exactly.

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Actually I lost it too, which was why I stopped responding, unfortunately. :(

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OK NO, I LIED, I DID FIND IT. :D

Ta-da! (http://community.livejournal.com/myriadwords/16015.html?thread=138383#t138383)

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*bounce* YAY THANK YOU! :)

I think it's nearly time for another discussion post. It's either gonna be T/C and other slash (I mean. If I just say "slash" do you honestly think anything else is going to get mentioned? No.) or... something else entirely. Suggestions?

From:

starcat-jewel.livejournal.com

It's possible, I guess, for a couple of grown men to share a big house, three dogs, koi, bills, etc etc together, but...not very likely, in my opinion.

It used to be much more possible than it is today. I am probably twice as old as most of the people in this community, and when I was growing up it was common and perfectly acceptable for two adult men (or two adult women for that matter) who were not married to room together for the purpose of splitting expenses. Now... I have 2 good friends, one widowed and the other escaped from an abusive marriage, who have decided that they make good roommates -- and they have to deal with people assuming that they're lesbians on a regular basis.

This is, I believe, a side effect of the gay rights movement; when gay couples were more closeted, it was easy for people to ignore the possibility. OTOH, it has always been the case that men and women who hung out together (never mind living together!) were assumed to be a couple whether they actually were or not; the societal increase in awareness of gay people has merely extended this paradigm to pairings that used to be immune to it.

This, in turn, is the root of my largest problem with non-canon slashfic. I spent FAR too much time and energy during my teens trying to convince my parents that I was NOT romantically involved with one or another of my guy friends, and watching other people assume that any strong emotional bond between people of ANY gender just HAS to involve sex... jeezus ghod, it's been 30 years, aren't we PAST that shit by now?

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