Trailers for the latest installment in the Ratchet and Clank series of PlayStation games, due to hit the PS5 in June, revealed it will feature a new character, a female lombax. All we know of her so far is she’s called Rivet, hails from a different dimension to Ratchet and Clank, and is a freedom fighter, working against Emperor Nefarious, her dimension’s version of Dr Nefarious. Not a single thing else.
However, there is a rumour about her, and it seems to have gained a decent amount of traction, cropping up on DA, FA and Twitter: she’s transgender. The sole evidence for this I’ve seen referenced is that she has a tail, a physical trait only male lombaxes are supposed to possess, so surely she has to be trans. There are a few problems with this.
First, the one and only in-universe source for the ‘female lombaxes don’t have tails’ lore is a piece of between-songs patter on a radio station in A Crack In Time, which my memory insists was the Pirate Radio station run by Captain Slag and Rusty Pete. It’s referencing Angela Cross, a character from earlier game Going Commando (aka Locked and Loaded), whose species had not been specified before, but here is cited as a lombax, with the ‘no tail’ detail added by way of explanation, since she didn’t have one. It’s a brief, throwaway moment, possibly even intended purely as a joke, that many players won’t even have heard, yet is treated as concrete fact. That one or more of the game’s development staff have apparently referred to Angela as a lombax does add a little more credence, though still not enough.
Second, there are other, more likely explanations for Rivet’s tail. It could be a retcon, correcting something that may have been regarded as a mistake, or no longer appeals. It could be that female lombaxes in her dimension do have tails. It could be they decided she looked better with a tail, but thought a throwaway, contradictory past detail that in reality affected little of anything wasn’t worth the time or energy to address.
Third, developer Insomniac have kept quiet on the matter, neither confirming or denying. The closest they’ve gotten is one staff member affirming on Twitter that trans rights are human rights, and that’s still saying little of anything about Rivet. Keeping as much mystery as they can around her is a good marketing ploy, as confirmed by how successful, how attention-grabbing her surprise, and very brief, original reveal was. Also, keeping quiet on the matter means you don’t have to deal with either the anger of transphobes, or the disappointment of LGBTQIA+ people until after the game’s been released, and thus hopefully minimise any negative impact on sales. Cynical, yes, but they are a business, their main aim making profit. This is the approach Disney took during production of Frozen 2, when so many people were so vocally convinced Elsa would be getting a girlfriend, so there’s real precedent.
That Rivet’s voice actor, Jennifer Hale, is not transgender further reduces the likelihood of the lombax girl being so. However, there are some interesting wrinkles. The tail detail would potentially be a clever in-universe way of bringing up and addressing her gender identity. A non-binary former employee of Insomniac was heavily involved in Rivet’s creation before their departure, and have professed on Twitter to immense pride in her. All things considered, I can’t dismiss the idea outright, just think it extremely unlikely.
It’s a sad measure of how desperate LGBTQIA+ people, especially trans and non-binary people, are for good representation in media that any snifter of hope will be eagerly latched onto. Maybe, just maybe, when more details are released this Friday, or when the game is released, the hope will be vindicated. Certainly, I’d be over the moon to be proven wrong, especially if Insomniac get it right.
Foxy Musings 