Book One, page 50

bravo1102 on July 23, 2017

Throughout history there have been people who “have no use” for the other sex. Even the grunting and heaving “ol' in-and-out” just doesn't hold any allure to them. Though I do wonder if any of them ever had a decent orgasm or a really attentive sexual partner. But for the purposes of the story Ivar just isn't interested and prefers the company of other men. Though if you do recall, there were a few women among his berserks.

Is Ivar gay? Can't use that word in the story as that reference doesn't exist in the language of the characters. Neither does the word “lesbian” That refers to an island in the Mediterranean that could exist in this world but doesn't have any of those connotations yet. Look at poor Ragnar being confronted with “okay” He has no idea what it means. It wouldn't exist until around the 1830s in the USA. It only became common during the Civil War and didn't spread overseas until World War II. So if Searsha is using a colloquialism from another time and place that hints at the fact that she visited that other time and place. After all, she is carrying a submachine gun. (Look back at the scene on the battlefield, just what is that black thing slung across her back? Some new kind of crossbow or a wand of missiles? :)

To answer the original question about Ivar's sexuality or lack of it; he was originally intended to prefer men. There are a couple of other characters who prefer their own sex. To be clear sorceresses are bisexual. But it is not unknown in this world for some to prefer the company of their own sex for romance. It's not in your face nor are they marching in the streets demanding rights because in this world no one cares. If you prefer not to marry and make valuable family alliances and then have children to pass on your name all the more influence for those that do. This is a pre-modern, pre-Christian way of looking at things. I thought I was being original only to find with further research that I was only being Roman. It was Christianity that made a crime out of different sexuality. If you don't believe that, study the writings of the early Christian Fathers and the Greco-Roman world they encountered and set about to transform. That view of how Christianity destroyed the Classical world goes back to at least Edward Gibbon. ;) His book was published in 1776 and that viewpoint was shared by the Deists who would write a Constitution that made no mention of god.