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Following the Splatoon 3 Direct that aired a few days back, there was a lot of discussion about the character of Shiver. Fans paying extra close attention to Shiver thought they picked up on an interesting detail, as the character didn’t have any gender-specific pronouns tied to them. This led many to speculate that Shiver was non-binary, but Nintendo has come in to explain that’s not the case.

According to Nintendo, Shiver does identify as female. Furthermore, Shiver uses she/her pronouns and is referred to with the same as well. In other words, it seems the Splatoon 3 Direct speculation ended up being just that, pure speculation.

Unfortunately, no details were shared on why the Splatoon 3 Direct handled Shiver’s introduction the way it did. It certainly seems odd that pronouns and gender-specific terms were nowhere to be found when discussing Shiver, but it seems to have all been a coincidence.

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Comments (9)

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sligeach_eire

What's Shiver's surname? Me Timbers?

styster

1+ y ago

Little bit of a missed opportunity, with having three characters. Would have been cool to have a male, female, and non-binary character represented in the group. That being said, no harm in Shiver being female as well.


sladewatkins

1+ y ago

@styster

I completely agree with you there. Kind of a bummer but not the end of the world!


sligeach_eire

1+ y ago

What's Shiver's surname? Me Timbers?


jjnova

1+ y ago

The funny part is how many people built this up to the point where they can't help but be disappointed by something that was never implied to begin with.

Humans are silly.


wiired

1+ y ago

@rawmeatcowboy

I can't imagine the music being anything but fresh!


the_crimson_lure

1+ y ago

This is just a guess, but getting a digital event like a direct out, in multiple languages, is a lot of work between multiple parties, and usually on a strict, unforgiving schedule.

So most likely, whenever the translations were handled, whoever handled them didn't have a definitive indicator either way of Shiver's gender. (It's easy to write in ways without ever having to reference gender in Japanese, which was the source language.)

And with a deadline looming, instead of wait for confirmation, the translators just translated it without making a statement either way to play it safe.

We can only hope the speculation that was flying around was noticed on some level by the developers, and maybe considered for Splat4n.

Edited 2 times

raven57p

1+ y ago

Pretty interesting to see how desperate people are for a non-binary label on a character :o


nin2000

1+ y ago

To be honest, it was quite obvious just by looking at the character. Regardless, it is fantastic news and I will be picking it up now for the kids.

On a side note, I imagine like the rest of us she uses first person pronouns such as I/me/myself/my and mine.

Edited 2 times

princess_eevee9

1+ y ago

Why would it even matter it's not important to the GamePlay nor real. It's a children's game such Themes aren't even Developmentally Appropriate. People worked themselves into a tissy over something misinterpreted and stupid.

Edited 1 time