Romance

[HooAmEye]

 

 

Micamo, 10% or less of the population is estimated to not be heterosexual. There's a kind of bizarre tendency in RPGs and some genre fiction to portray this as the 'lived experience' of a large portion of people or even a majority (see certain Bioware titles).

 

Which BioWare titles have non-heterosexual characters in the majority?

 

(Spoilers: it's none of them.)

 

In DAII everyone was bisexual.

Inquisition had two gays and two bisexual. The straight characters were four, just like the non-straight (three of those were only available for females PCs, though). 

That's not a correct representation of sexual orientations, since more than 95% of the world population is straight. I'll also add that having a setting based on medieval Europe where people think it's ok to kill others because of their faith or social class but somehow everyone is more open-minded than contemporary real world people about being sexual orientation/identity is also ****ty fanfiction-tier writing.

 

 

 

Micamo, 10% or less of the population is estimated to not be heterosexual. There's a kind of bizarre tendency in RPGs and some genre fiction to portray this as the 'lived experience' of a large portion of people or even a majority (see certain Bioware titles).

 

Which BioWare titles have non-heterosexual characters in the majority?

 

(Spoilers: it's none of them.)

 

In Dragon Age II they were all bisexual.

Also, Inquisition had two gays and two bisexual. The straight characters were four, just like the non-straight (three of those were only available for females PCs, though). 

That's not a correct representation of sexual orientations, since more than 95% of the world population is straight. I'll also add that having a setting based on medieval Europe where people think it's ok to kill others because of their faith or social class but somehow everyone is more open-minded than contemporary real world people about being sexual orientation/identity is also ****ty fanfiction-tier writing.

 

 

 

Only those two characters were exclusively gay, but Lily and Cass were arguably LGBT. I agree that it didn't feel as forced - part of that was good writing, but part of it was also not having player romances. It was always a background detail.

Cass seemed straight to me, you could even flirt with her if you were a guy.

Lily was a very old woman with some kind of mental illness, I wouldn't really say she was LGBT or whatever. 

 

Yeah, SunBroSolaire seems to have ratio reversed

[SunBroSolaire]

Only those two characters were exclusively gay, but Lily and Cass were arguably LGBT. I agree that it didn't feel as forced - part of that was good writing, but part of it was also not having player romances. It was always a background detail.

Cass seemed straight to me, you could even flirt with her if you were a guy.

Lily was a very old woman with some kind of mental illness, I wouldn't really say she was LGBT or whatever.

 

Lily was a physically male character who took on a female persona, so basically trans. Cass iirc admits to being bi at some point.

[Revan91]

 

 

 

Micamo, 10% or less of the population is estimated to not be heterosexual. There's a kind of bizarre tendency in RPGs and some genre fiction to portray this as the 'lived experience' of a large portion of people or even a majority (see certain Bioware titles).

 

Which BioWare titles have non-heterosexual characters in the majority?

 

(Spoilers: it's none of them.)

 

Dragon Age 2. And DA:O was 50/50.

 

 

If we're only counting LOVE INTERESTS then DAO was 50/50 and DA2 was 80/20 ... but that's not what you said. There is no BioWare game in which the majority of characters you can interact with are lesbian, gay or bisexual. There are a heck of a lot of characters in Dragon Age 2 who aren't love interests, and most of the ones that have a stated preference are straight. Even a majority of the companions are heterosexual in DA2 - it's Bethany, Caver, Aveline, Varric and Sebastian vs. Anders, Fenris, Isabela and Merrill. (I guess you could count temporary companion Tallis and have it balance out at 50/50, but she's only available for one DLC.)

 

Across the whole Dragon Age franchise - counting novels, comics and The Last Court as well as all three games - there are forty-nine LGBT characters with speaking parts, including a few that aren't important enough to have names and some that are only ambiguously gay. Given that the whole franchise has well over five hundred characters, I don't think that's disproportionate at all.

 

(If anyone is wondering why I bothered to count them, it's because when people on the internet complain that there are too many LGBT Dragon Age characters I like to have some actual numbers to put things in perspective.)

 

This is a thread aboout romance, we're talking about romanceable characters in BW games, not side characters whose sexual orientation is left unknown.

 

 

In DA2, four out of the five love interests are bisexual and one is straight, but not a majority of your companions, let alone a majority of the characters in the world.

 

There are various reasons why there's less homophobia in Thedas than there is the real world, but my essay about that would be really off-topic.

Is the fifth LI a dlc character? I never played that and so I only know of the base games one and think those are the ones that really count, but if you want to add her to the list ok, it doesn't really change anything.

 

And the reason why there's less homophobia than the real world is because the game is written by "progressive" designers/writers that want to pander that small part of their audience which is susceptible to these things. It has nothing to do with setting consistency. 

Just to be clear, I'm not advocating for settings were everyone hate gays or whatever, I just don't like that sort of pandering BioWare likes to do, and I think when you want to treat these issues you should deal with them with more respect and intelligence than just making everyone bisexual and/or politically correct, which is just the easy and dumb way.

[Micamo]

Dragon Age 2 doesn't really count: The four love-interests aren't really bisexual, they're player-sexual. Whatever gender you happen to be is the one they're interested in. Well, except Isabella. Issy def. likes girls whether you are one or not. Fallout 4 does the same thing. I actually really hate it when games take this approach. It's a way to have your representation cookies from shippers and not put in the work of actually writing the characters to be different from you.

 

Also Bioware, especially Neu Bioware, has this weird problem where they keep making these soft butch lesbian characters and then asserting no, in fact, this person is 100% straight. Some writer at bioware is one of those guys who keeps going to bars where all the women wear flannel shirts and have short pink hair and has no idea why he keeps getting turned down. I mean, Morrigan? Jack? Cassandra? How else do you explain this?

 

One last thing: Cishet people always assume that if there's more than one queer person in a story, it's overrepresentation.

[Fluffle]

There are various reasons why there's less homophobia in Thedas than there is the real world, but my essay about that would be really off-topic.

 

The thing is, every game world needs to treat non-heterosexual characters the same way that they are treated or were treated in this world. Also the percentages of the different sexualities of this world need to be applied to any fantasy game world.

 

For example let's say we would agree that 10% of our world's population was not heterosexual. Then by logic that means the same must hold true for Eora, Thedas, The Forgotten Realms etc etc.

Edited February 15, 2017 by Fluffle

[HooAmEye]

 

Lily was a physically male character who took on a female persona, so basically trans. Cass iirc admits to being bi at some point.

 

 

Lily was biologically woman before the FEV, and continued to identify as one afterwards. As for Cass, shes more ambiguous than anything else

[Roahin]

Lily was biologically woman before the FEV, and continued to identify as one afterwards. As for Cass, shes more ambiguous than anything else

 

The FEV removes primary sexual characteristics and implements strong male secondary ones. Arguing Lily is LGBT because she's literally a genderless giant with both a male (Leo) and female personality doesn't seem like a big stretch.  And for Cass, she responds with positive dialogue from both male and female flirtation, it's not ambiguous.  She's just not romanceable is all.

[SunBroSolaire]

One last thing: Cishet people always assume that if there's more than one queer person in a story, it's overrepresentation.

 

No, that's a completely ignorant take on the discussion here. We're talking about representation compared to real demographics.

[Revan91]

 

Only those two characters were exclusively gay, but Lily and Cass were arguably LGBT. I agree that it didn't feel as forced - part of that was good writing, but part of it was also not having player romances. It was always a background detail.

Cass seemed straight to me, you could even flirt with her if you were a guy.

Lily was a very old woman with some kind of mental illness, I wouldn't really say she was LGBT or whatever.

 

Lily was a physically male character who took on a female persona, so basically trans. Cass iirc admits to being bi at some point.

 

Are you sure about Lily? She has a male body because that's the standard body-type for supermutants, I don't think there even is a female version. And I wouldn't call her trans, she's just mentally ill and is no longer sexually active and not interested in men nor women.

I don't know about Cass, but I don't think you could really flirt with her if you were a female PC. Maybe I'm just misremembering, I don't know, but I never considered anyone gay aside from Arcade and Veronica in the base game. 

Still, the representation of non-straight party characters versus real demographics wasn't exactly realistic, but even if Cass was bi the game never even got close to BW levels of pandering, so it's fine.

Edited February 15, 2017 by Revan91

[Revan91]

No, that's a completely ignorant take on the discussion here. We're talking about representation compared to real demographics.

It would probably be wiser to just ignore anyone who unironically uses words such as "cishet", "cisgendered able-bodied man", "allistic" and other made-up, meaningless labels. Edited February 15, 2017 by Revan91

[Andraste]

 

Some writer at bioware is one of those guys who keeps going to bars where all the women wear flannel shirts and have short pink hair and has no idea why he keeps getting turned down. I mean, Morrigan? Jack? Cassandra? How else do you explain this?

 

Actually, both Morrigan and Cassandra were written by a gay man . Dunno about Jack, though.

[HooAmEye]

 

There are various reasons why there's less homophobia in Thedas than there is the real world, but my essay about that would be really off-topic.

 

The thing is, every game world needs to treat non-heterosexual characters the same way that they are treated or were treated in this world. Also the percentages of the different sexualities of this world need to be applied to any fantasy game world.

 

For example let's say we would agree that 10% of our world's population was not heterosexual. Then by logic that means the same must hold true for Eora, Thedas, The Forgotten Realms etc etc.

 

 

The problem like that is that these world are completely unlike our own. In fact, you couldn't get further away for any of the ones you suggested. There are multiple gay couples in PoE, along with Hiravias being bisexual. Thedas has much of the same, along with an in universe explanation (http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Codex_entry:_Sexuality_in_Thedas). Hell, even D&D hasn't had a stigma ever against it. In fact, homosexuality was even addressed in 5ed. (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/136405-D-D-Developers-Explain-Choices-on-Gender-Diversity-in-New-Edition)

[algroth]

All I have to say here is that I'm saddened that my rather innocuous remark started this extremely backwards discussion about gender labels and whatnot. I'm with the aforementioned response that people can feel free to label themselves as anything they wish, and label and interpret the characters as they wish too; but these labels have no business existing in the diegesis of Eora, and it is *much* better to let that fall to the hands of the reviewers, players and interpreters instead. But please, fellas, just put an end to it.

 

And before you accuse me of being a "cishet" or whatever that is, don't. You don't know me, don't assume that you do.

Edited February 15, 2017 by algroth

[HooAmEye]

Yeah, it does seem unfortunate that a simple question stirred up this ****.

[Revan91]

Actually, both Morrigan and Cassandra were written by a gay man . Dunno about Jack, though.

Also, I don't understand how Morrigan would be a lesbian turned straight.

Actually, even punks with a tattoo-filled body and a tough she-warrior don't have to be necessarily gay for whatever reasons, but I could understand the association with lesbians since they're often depicted that way in the media (short hair, tough/strong attitude, kind of masculine attributes, etc). But Morrigan, I wouldn't really consider her masculine.

 

The problem like that is that these world are completely unlike our own. In fact, you couldn't get further away for any of the ones you suggested. There are multiple gay couples in PoE, along with Hiravias being bisexual. Thedas has much of the same, along with an in universe explanation (http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Codex_entry:_Sexuality_in_Thedas). Hell, even D&D hasn't had a stigma ever against it. In fact, homosexuality was even addressed in 5ed. (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/136405-D-D-Developers-Explain-Choices-on-Gender-Diversity-in-New-Edition)

Wait, how is Hiravias bisexual? He frequently makes sexual jokes with most of the women he met. Have I lost something?

Also, no one is arguing that there shouldn't exist gay people in these kind of fantasy games, just that they should make sense and not be made just to pander to SJW, and should be represented in somewhat realistic ways and numbers (aka, if you have six companions and four are gay/bi you're doing it wrong).

I won't speak about Thedas because it's a shallow setting, but PoE draws much from real world history (see Waidwen, for example) and has a coherent setting with believable factions and characters. Having a setting where people purge other citizens just because of their deity, where people think that it's fine to kill others that have wronged you in some way and in general the mentality is, let's say, more in line with 16th century than modern times and then having its people being more open-minded than today's society about gays just because of political correctness doesn't really make much sense.

Edited February 15, 2017 by Revan91

[Fluffle]

Better to stay out of romance discussions...

Edited February 15, 2017 by Fluffle

[algroth]

 

The problem like that is that these world are completely unlike our own. In fact, you couldn't get further away for any of the ones you suggested. There are multiple gay couples in PoE, along with Hiravias being bisexual. Thedas has much of the same, along with an in universe explanation (http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Codex_entry:_Sexuality_in_Thedas). Hell, even D&D hasn't had a stigma ever against it. In fact, homosexuality was even addressed in 5ed. (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/136405-D-D-Developers-Explain-Choices-on-Gender-Diversity-in-New-Edition)

Wait, how is Hiravias bisexual? He frequently makes sexual jokes with most of the women he met. Have I lost something?

 

Maybe assumed from the reference to Kana's voice. I've missed any other indications however.

[Leeuwenhart]

Dude.

 

Everybody's gay.

 

 

Just not superhero mega gay

 

 

 

T t t thats all folks.

Waves*

 

Walks of the stage

Edited February 15, 2017 by Leeuwenhart

[zered]

I just really want to get to answers Hiravias' question: does Pellegina have a cloaca?

[Revan91]

Maybe assumed from the reference to Kana's voice. I've missed any other indications however.

I remember him saying something about Kana's singing voice, but it was more a joke (or at least, a non-completely serious sentence) than an indication of him being bisexual.

[Leeuwenhart]

Not the real question...

 

The real question is...

 

 

If she ovulates once a month...

 

Does an egg come out?

 

 

Also that rangerchicken be looking mighty turned on by pallegina in the latest artwork with the 7 companions.

[Faerunner]

Do avian godlike have coclea and ovulate eggs?

 

Do female wild orlans go into heat once a month like cats?

 

Do aumaua give birth to live young or lay egg cases like sharks?

 

Are mountain dwarves born from rocks? (As Oghren tells Velanna in DAA.)

 

Since it's been established that different races can't have children, why is inter-race sex not super common as a foolproof form of birth control? (Aloth's mom entered an official mistress "marriage" with a human noble, which is apparently common since it lets male nobles have a bit on the side without worry of bastards to dispute his legitimate wife's heirs, but other than that...)

 

Can subraces of the same species (like boreal + mountain dwarf; pale + wood elf) procreate? If so, what are the children like?

 

These are important questions we need answers to.

Edited February 15, 2017 by Faerunner

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

[algroth]

 

Maybe assumed from the reference to Kana's voice. I've missed any other indications however.

I remember him saying something about Kana's singing voice, but it was more a joke (or at least, a non-completely serious sentence) than an indication of him being bisexual.

 

Yeah, pretty much. I'm not suggesting he's bisexual myself, really.

[Notshauna]

 

 

Micamo, 10% or less of the population is estimated to not be heterosexual. There's a kind of bizarre tendency in RPGs and some genre fiction to portray this as the 'lived experience' of a large portion of people or even a majority (see certain Bioware titles).

 

Which BioWare titles have non-heterosexual characters in the majority?

 

(Spoilers: it's none of them.)

 

In Dragon Age II they were all bisexual.

Also, Inquisition had two gays and two bisexual. The straight characters were four, just like the non-straight (three of those were only available for females PCs, though). 

That's not a correct representation of sexual orientations, since more than 95% of the world population is straight. I'll also add that having a setting based on medieval Europe where people think it's ok to kill others because of their faith or social class but somehow everyone is more open-minded than contemporary real world people about being sexual orientation/identity is also ****ty fanfiction-tier writing.

See here's your mistake you seem to think that Dragon Age is based off medieval Europe when it's really not. Neither is Pillars of Eternity. Medieval Europe didn't have magic, gender equality, other races, monsters and literal gods. Both game series have no interest whatsoever in simulation of the real world largely because they take place in their own fictional one. Even if we take that extremely dubious 95% number at face value, you've offered no compelling reason why it should be on Eora.