Work Text:
Thinking of how GoodSilna are both individually and collectively queercoded by virtue of their relationship being so carefully, deliberately, lovingly written as platonic.
Goodsir is intentionally queercoded—e.g., “that Mary Ann”—with his compassionate, non-predatory affective attraction to Silna actually contributing to the perceived “unmanly femininity” of his more upper-class, intellectual type of masculinity: it is judged womanly to care nonsexually for a woman. In his hands-on caregiver role of surgeon to the men, Goodsir is feminized. But so, seemingly inadvertently, is Silna likewise queercoded through her relationships.
Unlike the culturally instituted arranged marriage of other Inuit groups that did not traditionally resort to infanticide, Natchiliŋmiut once had what may be termed a female infanticide-female infant betrothal complex, conceivably informed by the practices of patrilocality and preferential kindred endogamy as well as by extreme ecological pressure (Balikci, 1967; Freeman, 1971; Riches, 1974). If no suitable male relative such as a first cousin at least a few years older were available for betrothal, a female newborn who would otherwise join an unrelated competing family upon maturity may have been at greater risk of being killed rather than named and incorporated as a family member (Riches, 1974). Female infanticide thus economically advantaged the practicing family over competitors in need of women, and also increased the odds of long-term familial survival via privileging productive family members over the unproductive (Balikci, 1967; Freeman, 1971). This also decreased the odds of losing remaining children to infectious disease and malnutrition since these have a higher fatal incidence rate among families with more children (Riches, 1974). Although the murder, suicide, starvation, and accidental death rate among men was higher than that among women (Balikci, 1967), the rate of female infanticide still resulted in an unequal estimated male:female sex ratio of 1.38:1 (Riches, 1974). Compare this to the estimated 0.9:1 sex ratio of Iglulingmiut who experienced less extreme ecological pressure and did not traditionally practice infanticide (Riches, 1974). Wives were therefore very sought-after, and it would have been unusual for a woman never to marry.
Inuit sipiniq gender was most traditionally assigned to infants whose sexes were believed to have changed partly or fully from male to female in utero or at parturition (d’Anglure, 2005; Ekho & Ottokie, 2000). Such children were “reverse gender socialized” as boys until typically transitioning into women starting in adolescence (d’Anglure, 2005), with most girls entering into marriage usually at around 13-16 years of age (Riches, 1974). Kipijuituq is the correlate Natchiliŋmiut gender traditionally assigned to children with sexes assigned female-to-male who are raised as girls until typically transitioning into men (Stewart, 2002), but sipiniq is now also used as an encompassing term to describe Inuit two spirit gender identity for those of any assigned sex. In addition to a female gender role, sipiniit and kipijuitut would traditionally also learn a male gender role, each role entailing an associated gendered skillset. While women might hunt and men might butcher and sew (Walley, 2019), there is traditionally a gendered division of labor: hunting, and much of tool, site, and watercraft construction are masculine, whereas animal processing, gathering, the making of clothes, childcare, and most domestic work are feminine (d’Anglure, 2005; Rasmussen, 1931). As presumably an only daughter living alone with her elderly father for whom she would most probably need to sew and hunt, it is very plausible that Silna may have been assigned sipiniq at birth, especially were the gender of her namesake either sipiniq or male (d’Anglure, 2001), and were she born a first or only child (d’Anglure, 2005).
Upon menarche, girls preparing for womanhood would typically begin to be tattooed for religious, moral, and aesthetic reasons; women without tattoos were compared to men who were lazy hunters (Rasmussen, 1931). While Silna may possibly have tattoos on the fronts of her thighs and on her arms that are hidden from the audience under her clothing, it is unusual that she has no visible tattoos on her hands, wrists, or face. A reason for an adult woman not being tattooed, beyond that of a more youthful or masculine gender presentation—or simply extreme aversion to the needle itself—would be the lack of a related female Elder to actually perform the tattooing: it may speak to Silna’s isolation.
Yet while Inuktitut don’t have gendered pronouns, Silna does explicitly gender herself with the noun panik “daughter.” Just prior to her autoglossectomy, she says: Ataatama panigi’maŋa “Because my father has me as his daughter.” This is contrary to the officially scripted and subtitled English translation: “As my father’s child.” Use of the noun qitunŋaq “offspring,” e.g. Ataatama qitunŋa’maŋa “Because my father has me as his offspring,” would be a more literal Natchiliŋmiutut translation of the canonical English subtitle. She also uses an ulu: a feminine semilunar knife, as opposed to a masculine pilaut; her clothes that she would most likely have made for herself are feminine; her hairstyle is feminine.
Although Silna feminizes herself in relation to her father and Tuunbaq, it may be argued that they both somewhat masculinize Silna in relation to themselves: Silna’s assigned gender at birth, hunting skill, and marriage status would have been determined by her parents, and in Inuit culture the symbolic gender of the polar bear with which Silna is associated is fluid between male/female, just as the bear itself traverses the land/sea boundary comparable to the human/nonhuman and the corporeal/incorporeal boundaries (Trott, 2007). Traversion of these boundaries is navigated via shamanism, and while shamans may be of any gender, sipiniit, kipijuitut, and others who transgress the bounds of assigned binary sex and gender are thereby considered to have natural spiritual aptitude (d’Anglure, 2005). A polar bear is more human than other nonhuman animals in that it likewise hunts seals at the breathing holes in winter, a mother bear makes a den like an iglu, and to kill it requires observance of the same 4-5 day mourning period of religious prohibitions as is observed upon the death of a person (four days for males, and five for females) (Rasmussen, 1931; Trott, 2007). Tuunbaq is additionally an anachronistically physical tupilak partly modeled after a short-faced bear, crossing the boundaries of the past/present, the corporeal/incorporeal, as well as the human/nonhuman what with its human features and apparent agency.
Atypical sexual relations—either benign, permitted relations, e.g., homosexuality and polygamy; or offensive, prohibited relations, e.g., incest, pedophilia, necrophilia, and sexual relations with nonhumans—are, like transgender modality, believed to be generative of spiritual power (Rasmussen, 1931). In one Central Inuit legend, a married pair of male shamans named Aakulujjuusi and Uummaarniittuq were able to create the first female when Uummaarniittuq became pregnant and needed to give birth, necessitating that Aakulujjuusi use a shamanic incantation to transform Uummaarniittuq to female (d’Anglure, 2001; Laugrand et al., 1999; Rasmussen, 1931; Walley, 2019). And it was upon breaking the incest prohibition that the sister and brother who became the respective resident spirits of the sun and moon were apotheosized (Rasmussen, 1931). The sun/moon is another complementary symbolic pair akin to female/male, and just as children assigned cisgender at birth would be arranged to marry in heterosexual pairs ideally so as to eventually constitute a reproductive and economic unit, it was likewise thought most ideal for children assigned transgender at birth to be betrothed to each other in heterosexual pairs (d’Anglure, 2005). Like sun/moon, sister/brother, and wife/husband, transfeminine Goodsir would thematically complement transmasculine Silna—particularly if analogizing Goodsir’s surgical vocation to the Inuit feminine art of butchery.
Intriguing to me is that I’ve seen the recurring interpretation that Silna is unmarried due to being her father’s shaman apprentice, although marriage would be a norm and expectation for everyone upon coming of age (Brandvold, 2018; Ekho & Ottokie, 2000) regardless of a shamanic vocation—in fact, the possible prestige of shamanism might increase one’s desirability as a spouse. Since a person is only a shaman if they have one or more helping spirits (d’Anglure, 2001), Silna’s sexual, reproductive, and economic availability as a wife would be restricted in this scenario by her prescribed obligation to Tuunbaq. To become Tuunbaq’s shaman is to fulfill a metaphorical betrothal to it, a union that begets the next stage of Silna’s life. Although for Silna to be literally betrothed or wed to her father’s tupilak would be religiously prohibited due to animals, spirits, and animal spirits all being nonhumans with whom humans are prohibited from having sexual or affinal relations (d’Anglure, 2001; Rasmussen, 1931), there are Inuit stories and legends of this human/nonhuman boundary being broken, perhaps most famously by Nuliajuk and Her dog husband, with the children of that union said to have become non-Inuit (Brandvold, 2018; Rasmussen, 1931).
Silna’s narrative arc of acute struggle with accepting and being accepted by Tuunbaq effectively replaces what was in the novel the unquestioned realization of her betrothal as a young “virgin” to Crozier. Unlike its immortality in the novel, Tuunbaq’s mortal fate in the show echoes the tragic demise of Nuliajuk’s dog husband, which, along with the salience of Silna’s relationship with her father, supports a thematic comparison between Silna and the queerable religious figure of Nuliajuk: Uinigumasuittuq, “She who never wants to take a husband.” The severing of Nuliajuk’s fingers and Her subsequent apotheosis into the principle resident spirit of the sea is furthermore reflected in Silna’s glossectomy and subsequent shamanhood. Silna’s ultimate exile from her people also may be said to mirror the typical move of a bride out of her parents’ house and into her husband’s. Silna, however, is made to leave her family forever without cleaving to any other—other than Tuunbaq.
Here is where I do not refrain from mentioning how Dave Kajganich selected The Virgin of the Snow for Silna’s 1b. Playlist; “The Virgin of the Snow / Lights a candle in all souls / With hands as cold as stone / Still her heart burns like a coal.” Odds are that Silna has always been celibate! Either as a result of social role and personal obligation, and/or as a voluntary measure to which her father was amenable.
And here I shall opine that Silna’s ila “family member” from the title of her 1a. playlist by Dave K. is none other than Goodsir. Meanwhile, Silna having a living anaanatchiaq “grandmother” as referenced in 1b.’s title would suggest that she forgoes feminine tattoos by choice.
For his part, Goodsir’s attraction to Silna is not wholly or even mostly exploitative and objectifying. Although he does unavoidably operate from an ethnocentrist standpoint and he is motivated to meet her via his trait of scientific curiosity, he apologizes to Silna both the first and the last time that he is alive with her, regretting how the Expedition of which he is a part has harmed her. His warm regard for her and keen desire that she be safe is reciprocated. They both seek each other out for comfort and companionship. They see the humanity in each other and are drawn to each other as individual people. They do, in fact, grow close together, despite all of the odds against that.
According to Soo Hugh in an interview: “[…Goodsir and Silna’s] chemistry, it’s not a traditional chemistry. You can’t tell if this is a romantic pairing, or is this a sibling bond pairing. What is this relationship? We loved just how unique it was” (Bennett, 2018). The script for episode 7 describes how Silna lies behind Goodsir and touches him to calm him from his panic attack by saying: “there’s no carnality in the gesture. They are frightened siblings somehow” (Fischer-Centeno & Kajganich, 2017). There is love portrayed between these two characters that bridges their language barrier and cultural difference and that is intended to be interpreted as being potentially on the order of that between siblings or life partners. This love is of what Goodsir’s inability to deconstruct his imperialist ideology without destruction deprives them; Silna finds the loss of Goodsir to be yet another injury inflicted on her. This love gives their tragedy its force and meaning.
All of this, along with the show’s assiduous avoidance of explicit sexual attraction, provides ample space to allow for an interpretation of the GoodSilna relationship as a queer—especially an asexual or otherwise queerplatonic T4T!—ship.
Qujanaq for your consideration.
References
Balikci, A. (1967). Female infanticide on the Arctic Coast. Man, 2(4), 615. https://doi.org/10.2307/2799344
Bennett, T. (2018, April 10). Exclusive: The Terror cast and creators go inside butt prosthetics and episode 4. SYFY. https://web.archive.org/web/20180620232237/http://www.syfy.com/syfywire/exclusive-the-terror-cast-and-creators-go-inside-butt-prosthetics-and-episode-4
Brandvold, S. (2018). Uinigumasuittuq: The pan-Arctic sea woman tradition as a source of law and literary theory. [Master’s thesis, University of Alberta]. Education and Research Archive. https://doi.org/10.7939/R3BK17497
d’Anglure, B. S. (Ed.). (2001). Cosmology and shamanism (O. Ikkidluak & M. Kakkik, Trans.; Vol. 4, Ser. Interviewing Inuit Elders). Nunavut Arctic College Media.
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