Gryphos
Auror
So one of my characters is a beast known only as 'the Ogre', and this character is specifically described as neither male nor female. That's not that strange; I've written gender-neutral characters in the past, and in those cases I've used 'they' and its variants. But in this case I like the idea of using 'It', in order to created emphasis on the creature's alienness, because it is a properly alien creature with no other creature like it in the world in which the story's set.
However, I've noticed that sometimes this can create a bit of confusion when describing the Ogre's interactions with its surroundings, since both it and inanimate objects around it have 'it' as their pronoun.
It's not that big of an issue so far; in most cases I've been able to construct the sentence in such a way as to minimise the confusion and clarify what the 'it' is referring to, but it's interesting to discuss nonetheless.
Are there any examples you guys know of of 'it' being used as a pronoun for a character? Have you considered using it for a character before? What are the issues that arise?
However, I've noticed that sometimes this can create a bit of confusion when describing the Ogre's interactions with its surroundings, since both it and inanimate objects around it have 'it' as their pronoun.
It's not that big of an issue so far; in most cases I've been able to construct the sentence in such a way as to minimise the confusion and clarify what the 'it' is referring to, but it's interesting to discuss nonetheless.
Are there any examples you guys know of of 'it' being used as a pronoun for a character? Have you considered using it for a character before? What are the issues that arise?