The Commander Hurricane Debate

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OK, while watching MLP episodes earlier today, one of them was "Hearth's Warming Eve" (yes, I was watching the Christmas special in April, deal with it). During one of the scenes, Private Pansy (Fluttershy's character) addresses Commander Hurricane (Rainbow Dash) as "Sir". Later on, however, Pansy says (about the Commander), "I don't really hate her, I just really, really despise her." So was the Commander male or female?

I'll probably have people say I've answered my own question, but then a few things came to mind.

1. This is a Christmas episode, and normally at Christmas pageants and pantomimes are performed. I don't know about pageants, but pantomimes usually have cross-playing characters.

2. Referring to number 1, we are never given Pansy's gender either, so this character, being in the army, may have been male him/herself. Although with this case I'm more towards the female side because Pansy is a girl's name.

3. Pansy's use of "Sir". This could be because Pansy is scared of the Commander, and is addressing him/her as "Sir" as a mark of respect. I'm not sure if women with power like this can be referred to as "Sir", so someone back me up on this?

4. Pansy referring to the Commander as "her" may have been a slip-up on Fluttershy's part, after all, she had stage fright before the play. Or it could be because the Commander is played by a female, he/she is addressed as "her" so that viewers don't get confused.

5. The genders of the characters in general. As noted above, we are not made clear of Pansy's gender either, and the same can be said for Clover the Clever, Chancellor Puddinghead and Smart Cookie. Ignore the fact they're played by females based on point number 1. Then again, shouldn't the leader of the Unicorn tribe have been the mentioned King rather than a Princess? It may be likely that all 3 leaders were female, in order to show that women have equal power as men, despite the story itself taking place centuries ago. After all, MLP is generally aimed at young girls despite the age/gender of most viewers.

As you can tell, I have mixed opinions on this. If someone could try and clear this little debate up, that would be grateful.

It doesn't exactly help with the various art/fanfics out there. Various have portrayed the Commander as male, but is female in others, which means other people may be as confused as I am.

So... Commander Hurricane, Male or Female?
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SirJames314's avatar
I like your thought in #4 about Fluttershy potentially being mixed up.

Regarding #3, soldiers (in the US armed forces, at any rate, as that's the only military I've served in) say "ma'am" if they're speaking to a female officer.  Without exception.  Of course, the show writers may not be correctly informed about actual human military custom and might be just going the Star Trek route, since "sir" is used for both genders in that universe...

None of that helps us actually decide, though, does it?  ;P