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Merlin St. Jacques (Garth Nix)

Merlin (no, not that Merlin) is the deuteragonist and love interest in Garth Nix’s YA fantasy novel The Left-Handed Booksellers of London and I will start out by acknowledging that both “bisexual” and “man” are arguable in this case. 

To quickly recap, The Left-Handed Booksellers of London is about a young woman, Susan, who goes to London to look for her unknown father and runs into Merlin, a left-handed booksellers. The left-handed booksellers are combat-oriented and the right-handed ones are intellectual, and all of them work on maintaining order between the regular world you and I know and the world of magic, mythology, and monsters that lies underneath (they also sell books).

Let’s begin with the “bisexual” bit. Merlin dates and expresses attraction to exactly one character in this book, the protagonist Susan, and never defines his sexuality. However, he and his sister are always careful to use gender-neutral words when referencing Merlin’s previous partners. Merlin also makes no assumptions about Susan’s sexuality, asking of Susan’s ex, “What’s her name? Or his?” I don’t think this is a slam-dunk case for bisexuality, but it’s plausible based on what we have in the text.

Now, as for “man”, it’s a little more complicated. When we first meet Merlin the narration says “he was a young man, or was tending towards being one” and Merlin describes himself as “a human male at the moment.” I love this. Can I get tending towards being a man on my driver’s license?

Merlin goes on to explain that, “[The booksellers] are somewhat...shape-shiftery...I guess you could say. I was born male but I have been pondering if I should change” -- a process which is apparently easier for booksellers than the rest of us. He doesn’t “change” over the course of the book but the possibility is brought up a few times, it’s not just a throw-away line. 

I really enjoyed the relationship between Merlin and Susan (who has a punk/androgynous style and could easily be bisexual herself though, like Merlin, she doesn’t clarify). It feels uncommon to see a male (-ish)/female relationship between two GNC characters and it was a pleasant reflection of my queer community and experience.

The queerness in this book is delivered with a light touch and few specifics, which I think is why it’s so easy for the reader to find what they want to find in the text. I’m inclined to read Merlin as a bi genderqueer man, and that reading is easily supported. Another reader might see Merlin as a transfemme lesbian and I think that works just as well.

Garth Nix apparently has some notes and a title but hasn’t committed to writing a sequel. I enjoyed this book immensely so I really hope he does, and I’m curious to see how - or if - he expands on the queerness he gestures to here. 

Says “bisexual”? No.

Immortal/non-human? Magical but no.

Evil? No.

Dies? No.

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Quentin Coldwater and Eliot Waugh (The Magicians)

I have to give the TV adaptation of The Magicians by Lev Grossman quite a bit of credit for being notably more diverse than its source material (short summary: depressed nerds get a magical post-secondary education and find out Narnia is real). In addition to casting actors of color in the roles of presumably-white book characters, it takes two main characters’ bisexuality from suggested to unambiguous.

In both versions, the first inklings of our protagonist Quentin’s potential bisexuality comes early in the story when he cheats on his girlfriend in an ill-advised, intoxicated threesome with his friends Eliot and Janet (or Margo as she’s named in the show). The book frames it as “sex with Janet,” “cheating with Janet” and Quentin’s vague memory that he might have kissed Eliot is just a detail to show how out of control he was that night. In the show, Quentin and Eliot’s kiss gets as much visual emphasis as Quentin and Margo’s. Quentin also has a long-term relationship with Eliot in an alternate universe, in a plot point that’s original to the show.

Quentin’s predominant relationships in both book and show are with women but the show is very clear that he’s also sexually and romantically interested in Eliot.

The TV adaptation also makes Eliot, another prominent character, much more legibly bisexual. In the books, he is portrayed as a gay man who occasionally makes an exception for his friend Janet. In the show, he is still mainly interested in men but explicitly states that he likes to sleep with women “sometimes”.

Neither work uses the word “bisexual” but in the books Quentin comes off as a straight guy who maybe had sex with/next to a man once and Eliot as a gay dude who had sex with a woman once or twice - you can read them as bisexual but it doesn’t seem like the author had it in mind. The show doesn’t discuss either character’s sexuality explicitly in depth but the message that they both are attracted to men and women is obvious and intentional. 

It’s also great to see two different depictions of bisexuality in the same work. In addition to showing their attraction to men and women to different degrees, Quentin and Eliot are very different people. They’re both troubled nerds (which seems to be a prerequisite for doing magic) but Eliot is a cool, outgoing, campy hedonist while Quentin is shy and awkward in the classic nerd mold.

I read the books as a teenager and never saw Quentin as anything but straight, so it was a pleasant surprise to find an undeniably bisexual protagonist when The Magicians made the jump to TV. 

Says “bisexual”: No.

Immortal/non-human: They’re magicians but no.

Evil: No.

Dies: I can’t praise the TV adaptation without a caveat about the way it ended Quentin’s storyline. I stopped watching before I got there, but I know it upset many fans for multiple reasons. Yes, Quentin sacrifices himself to save others in the TV show. 

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Imriel no Montreve de la Courcel (Jacqueline Carey)

Imriel nó Montreve de la Courcel is a protagonist in Jacqueline Carey’s lengthy and very bisexual Kushiel series, and the only male one. Imriel appears in Kushiel’s Avatar and is the main character in Kushiel’s Scion, Kushiel’s Justice and Kushiel’s Mercy. Set in a fantastic alternate-universe France where everyone is descended from angels, these books depict a sexually permissive society where bisexuality (as well as sex work, non-monogamy, and BDSM) is normal and accepted. 

That’s the good news. 

The bad news is that Carey seems uninterested in fully investing in her characters’ bisexuality and the male characters get particularly short shrift. 

Her female protagonists (Phedre and Moirin), both end up with men as their long-term partners but have emotionally and sexually intense relationships with women along the way. By contrast, Imriel barely kisses a man and never loves one romantically. His significant relationships are all with women.

In fact, as far as I recall (look, there are a lot of really long books), there are no significant male/male relationships in any of the Kushiel novels at all. Two prominent male characters who begin a relationship die quickly afterwards. Imriel’s gay friend comes from a less accepting culture, goes through significant angst over his attraction to men and ends the book single.

Imriel was raped and abused by men as a child and this is explicitly given as the reason he’s unwilling to explore relationships with men as an adult despite being attracted to them. While that would be totally understandable if Imriel were a real person, it’s frustrating in the context of the lack of attention to queer male relationships among other characters in these books and also Imriel’s particular character arc. 

A large part of Imriel’s evolution as a character is his struggles to come to terms with his trauma around sexual sadism so he can have the kinky sex (with a woman) that he really wants. Carey could have had Imriel similarly address his trauma around men, but she doesn’t really and he ends the books almost where he started in that respect.

Though it’s undercut by the way almost every character ends up in a male/female relationship, Carey’s female characters (both protagonists and side characters) have significant relationships with men and women. The disparity in Imriel’s treatment is obvious and disappointing - it really feels like Carey wasn’t comfortable writing a bisexual man.

I should be clear that I really love these books and it’s great to see so many bisexual characters on the page. I just wish Carey had fulfilled all the potential she created.

Says “bisexual”? No.

Immortal/non-human? Yes. D’Angelines’ distant descent from angels makes them inhumanly beautiful and contributes to their society’s sexual openness.

Dies? No.

Evil? No.