TL;DR version: I think s/s romance can be well done; if it seems to change Kaidan's character that's probably because it's challenging what we perceive as the status quo.
Jhosephine wrote...
Every character can change...but in this case, the change will only occur by a certain approach? Where's the credibility in that? I see Kaidan in a certain light, have known him for years now and he's my Shepard's only LI throughout a trilogy...but if I decide to go through the same trilogy as a male Shepard, Kaidan's going to change on me between ME2 and ME3 and only then?
Kaidan won't show any interest in a male Shepard for 2/3rd of the trilogy but if you come on to him in ME3, he'll do a 180 and be open to it with what...hidden feelings for male Shepard for alll these years?
I think it depends on how you RP it. We already RP our Shepards, I bet most of us RP our LIs as well.
There's no reason that starting a s/s romance with an existing character in ME3 should be different than starting a het romance without having pursued one before, inlcuding one with Kaidan. If femShep shows no interest in Kaidan, Kaidan shows no reciprocating interest in femShep; that doesn't mean that his character changes in ME3 if you choose to start a romance at that point, it just opens up another part of his character that was previously unknown. It's one thing if Kaidan starts hitting on maleShep out of the blue; it's another if maleShep initiates it and Kaidan is receptive, which is what I got out of this:
"Happy to confirm #ME3 supports wider options for love interests incl. same-sex for m&f chars,
reactive to how you interact w/them in-game."
(emphasis mine,
source)
MICHELLE7 wrote...
I think that when it comes down to it... an s/s romance in itself would be out of character for some of the LI's and if they force it just to appease certain fans it will destroy that LI's character.
Jhosephine wrote...
In the end I won't notice it in my playthrough and it will have no affect
on my game, but it will affect my perception of a character.
We perceive Kaidan in a certain way, but our knowledge of his character is perforce limited to our conversations with him; there are very few occasions where we actually get to see him acting on his own---actually, Horizon is the only one I can think of that involves an actual choice---mostly we get his comments relating to various situations. We say we know Kaidan, but canonically, we only know him up to a point. There's also a difference between what
we know about Kaidan and what
Shepard knows about Kaidan; depending on how you RP the relationship, Shepard can know relatively little compared to what we do, or can know a lot more than we ever will, information to which we are not privy.
Our perception of Kaidan is also altered if we choose Kaidan as an LI, because we are emotionally invested in the relationship, and have likely spent a lot of time RPing it. If femShep/Kaidan is your OTP (it's mine), it can be difficult to step outside that, since OTPs by their nature create a kind of mental wall that precludes other ships. (Especially if you have a "canon" Shep with a Kaidan LI; we get very attached to our Sheps and so we expect to maintain very particular relationships with other characters, despite the fact that a lot of events happen off camera which can alter those relationships. Even in ME1, a lot of things must be assumed to have happen which we never see, such as eating, sleeping, travel time...) If you write Kaidan in fic, that's another level of involvement, and you end up spending a lot of time considering and developing his character and motivations beyond in-game parameters.
While ME canon is a nebulous thing, and is esentially non-existent for Shepard, NPCs definitely have canon personalities. Can we say that Kaidan is canonically straight? Does he have to be? Does it actually matter if he is, would it make him a different person if he weren't? Or would it only change the way
we think about him? Because that's not the same thing as changing
him.
Collider wrote...
Kaidan in particular...there's much pointing to the romance being with a woman. There's the story of Rana (the girl he had a crush on or a relationship with), his comments about Liara, the asari, the dancers in Chora's Den, reading novels where the main character explores space in search of a beautiful woman, "it's been a long time since a woman's made me feel..."
(Disclaimer: I haven't played maleShep beyond the first 5 levels in ME1, so I don't know how much of Kaidan's dialogue is available to maleShep.)
I don't think it's really fair to use Kaidan's romance dialogue with femShep as a reason why he can't be interested in maleShep, because of course it's tailored to a female romance. Even if Kaidan had a M/M romance option in ME1, it would have been incredibly jarring if he'd told femShep,
oh, by the way, I like guys, too, just FYI, because there's never a point in the game where that conversation would be appropriate. You can also brush off a lot of his comments on attractive women as just trying to fit in, since we know he feels awkward about being a biotic, and an L2; he doesn't want to draw attention to himself, so he tries to blend in.
Sexuality is a pretty broad spectrum; Kaidan in a romantic M/M relationship could be homosexual, or bisexual, or asexual. I think it's possible to retain the "romantic" part of his character while still allowing for a M/M romance, e.g., reading space-hero fiction with female LIs, because what people enjoy in fiction is not necessarily the same as what people enjoy in reality. Straight people can enjoy gay romances; gay people can enjoy het romances; people who do not really want to be attacked by space zombies can enjoy ME. None of that is necessarily dispositive of his sexual orientation.
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