#henchperson of indeterminate gender
In honor of Pride month (at least here in the US, I don’t know if other countries hold Pride the same month as us), I think it’s important to note the awesome LGBT diversity that either has been written into A Series of Unfortunate Events by Daniel Handler (who is bisexual himself) or ascribed to the series by so many people in this wonderful fandom.
Even before the Netflix series came out, Sir and Charles’s relationship was always heavily coded as gay. For one, even in 2000 when The Miserable Mill first came out, partner was already a term that had gained widespread popularity in same-sex relationships when the closest substitute for marriage for them was a civil partnership. The two of them also seem to have an awful lot of involvement in each other’s personal lives for business pairs, and Charles seemed to serve no actual role in the company except to stand alongside Sir. The biggest rainbow flag, however, was definitely in The Penultimate Peril when the two of them are sharing a hotel room with a single bed, Charles is in nothing but a bathrobe encouraging Sir to undress, and Sir utters the phrase “I just love the smell of hot wood”. I mean… it doesn’t get much clearer than that. Also the fact that the Netflix series made it canon without making any sort of deal of it whatsoever is just icing on top of the cake.
Next on the list is definitely Henchperson of Indeterminate Gender. Although in the book series, the character was less perceived by the children as nonbinary but overweight and confusing, the books still avoided using gendered pronouns. The Netflix series capitalizes on the increased attention to Count Olaf’s troupe and the VFD in general to show the Henchperson as canonically nonbinary, and very confident in their gender. They appear in both traditionally masculine and feminine clothes at fairly equal rates and yet their gender presentation or identity is never mocked once in the series and is respected by even the most despicable of villains. It is easy to throw LGBT characters in books or tv shows just for emotional fodder and to fall dangerously close to the “kill your gays” trope by making all LGBT characters discriminated against and marginalized, but showing an openly nonbinary character being accepted for who they are (which is admittedly a fairly awful person, they are in Olaf’s troupe) regardless of their gender is an amazing message to send to nonbinary children, teens and adults that they are not destined to be discriminated against and that we are quickly moving into a time when nonbinary identities are respected and understood.
And there are even more little references throughout the books and the series, Larry Your-Waiter having two mothers for example, that I honestly do not have the energy to go through completely and fully explain, that I hope you will just take my word for.
Then there are the openings made available in pretty much any series to interpret any of the characters as LGBT, and the ideas of a transgender-Isadora or lesbian-Jacqueline, or less commonly but my personal favorite, bisexual-Lemony-and-Olaf-as-bitter-first-loves-that-have-never-gotten-over-their-resentment-for-each-other-because-that-honestly-is-just-how-dramatic-both-of-them-are-as-people, have been pervasive in the community since the beginning. And I think it’s awesome that the series has not just permitted that, but encouraged it by openly showing LGBT characters whose sexualities and genders are actually discussed on screen or in book (looking at you, Harry Potter).
As an LGBT kid it was mindblowing to have what was even more a taboo topic then than it is now broached in a children’s novel, and as an LGBT adult it has been no different.
