318 réponses à ce sujet

[Rifneno]

The Angry One wrote...

How is that a plot hole?
At what point was it necesarry in Awakening for Anders to fully reveal his sexuality?

Obviously you never tried giving all of Oghren's liquor gifts to Nathaniel at once.

[Viyu]

The Angry One wrote...

How is that a plot hole?
At what point was it necesarry in Awakening for Anders to fully reveal his sexuality?

The situation was never necessary, he did it on his own. During Awakening, he will not flirt with your male warden, even if he has the exact same personality as a female Warden. And IICR he says something of the effect of "have I ever told you how much i love you---not in that way of course" if you're a male warden that comes back to save the Vigil. Why the need for the disclaimer?

Modifié par Viyu, 21 avril 2011 - 04:41 .

[nekhbet]

@Nepenthe87 

He likes women all right. He's not gay (even in the romance with a male Hawke he says he's explicitly bisexual). He might have been straight, but he wasn't. And that's how bisexual people are like: sometimes they like men and sometimes women. Sometimes at the same time, sometimes not. Sometimes the same person can change his/her mind about liking men and women at the same time or women one week and men the next. Sometimes people are bisexual whilst preferring either men or women, yet liking the other gender enough to identify as bisexual.

You got it from several bisexual people on this topic now, that sexual preferences fluctuate. It might have been a surprise to you, I'm not denying your personal experience with the game. But it's not out of character or a weird change of character by any means. It really happens to real people all the time.

Rifneno wrote...
And my point is, they could not do that if they weren't innately set to swing either way.

I too tired to find the quote, but someone brought up earlier that Anders in DA2 never mentions Karl being his former lover if Hawke is female.  This is another part of the reason I find the whole thing contrived.  It seems like Anders' sexuality depends on Hawke.  I know the obvious response, but also consider that Anders tells her "I feel like I could tell you anything and you wouldn't judge me."

That's true, but consider the situation. He's flirting with Hawke, he doesn't have any reason to bring up his bisexuality to a female Hawke at that point. Nothing's to say he couldn't do it later, though we obviously don't know. But it doesn't seem the best time to get into matters like this. I couldn't imagine walking up to someone and saying "Oh hi handsome/beautiful, how about it? Oh btw, I dig chicks and dicks both", unless I was hitting on my own gender. Then you might wanna make your intentions clear.

But nobody's saying people who play the female romance cannot play him straight if they want. It's not being brought up by him so one can assume whatever. It's the male romance that is of interest in this topic.

I strongly disagree about innately having to swing one way or another, though. Whilst most people do have a gender they prefer over the other, that's not the case for everyone. You can't even measure preference by counting partners of each gender (because not everyone can have the kind of relationships they would like to have, or they don't get a chance), and when we get into genderqueer territory it gets even more complicated. Where do you place a bisexual woman who prefers trans-women over cis-women? Is it culture or nature that defines the box and the label you put on it? But that's a discussion that goes a bit too much off topic, since it's Anders' sexuality we're discussing.

Viyu wrote...

The Angry One wrote...

How is that a plot hole? 
At what point was it necesarry in Awakening for Anders to fully reveal his sexuality?

The situation was never necessary, he did it on his own. During Awakening, he will not flirt with your male warden, even if he has the exact same personality as a female Warden. And IICR he says something of the effect of "have I ever told you how much i love you---not in that way of course" if you're a male warden that comes back to save the Vigil. Why the need for the disclaimer?

Because he didn't fancy the Warden that way? And people can flirt without actually wanting to bed someone, which apparently happened with the female Warden since she gets rejected.

Modifié par nekhbet, 21 avril 2011 - 04:43 .

[Viyu]

Still, the problem is that the writers do not clarify it, which is the root of the plothole. All I want, is for them to fill that plothole and offer decent transition/explanation like they did with Zevran so that there's an understanding of the character WE the audience should have. I agree with most of what you are saying other than that though.

[The Angry One]

Viyu wrote...

The Angry One wrote...

How is that a plot hole?
At what point was it necesarry in Awakening for Anders to fully reveal his sexuality?

The situation was never necessary, he did it on his own. During Awakening, he will not flirt with your male warden, even if he has the exact same personality as a female Warden. And IICR he says something of the effect of "have I ever told you how much i love you---not in that way of course" if you're a male warden that comes back to save the Vigil. Why the need for the disclaimer?

Why the need? Maybe he feels the need to deflect his statement, lest it be taken seriously and lead to awkwardness he isn't prepared for at that point in his life, since he *is* attracted to men?

[nightscrawl]

autumnyte wrote...

nightscrawl wrote...

If Hawke is a male, Anders and Fenris are gay, and Merrill is straight. Other than Isabela, nowhere is it implied that anyone is bisexual. 

I don't like labeling anyone's sexuality, but I will point out that both Anders and Fenris do come across as bisexual if you are playing as a male Hawke.

If you aren't in an active romance with Fenris during Act 3, he gets together with Isabella. Anders and Isabella make passing reference to a past sexual encounter at the Black Pearl as well.

Fenris never made a pass at me when I played a male Hawke, EVER. He was my friend the entire time. However, I knew someone was going to bring up this issue with Isabela. I thought of it after I left the computer /sigh. I should perhaps have clarified that it probably also has to do with your own flirt options in the game.

So, how then does that make Fenris bisexual? If anything, that makes my previous assessment only slightly incorrect. It relies on the player behind Hawke to determine the orientation of the various companions, because interest/no interest is expressed through the dialogue options. Therefore, other than Isabela, they do not have a sexual identity independent from Hawke since it depends on Hawke's gender and choices. The obvious example to prove this is Aveline. She HAS sexual independence from Hawke because she was designed that way, the others do not.

I do recall the statement between Isabela and Anders. I believe she asks him if he was the mage who did that thing with the lightning or some such. You can look at that one of of two ways: yes that does make Anders bisexual, or it's general party banter that didn't take into account the choices you have made (and given some of the problems the game has/had that have been patched/yet to be patched, that second one is entirely possible.)


I wish these threads woudn't devolve in this way, but I suppose I contribute to it.

At any rate, this thread isn't about Anders's sexuality, but about his character as a whole. Considering who he was in Awakenings and who he is now in DA2, he has undergone a lot of changes, BUT I don't view him as a completely different person. Taking both Anders together makes him more of a well-rounded character and is the best example of how a person can change through experiences (with a dash of possession.)

After you do that whole thing in the fade with Feynriel he says, "I find there's nothing like being possessed to keep you on the straight and narrow." Tell me that's not something Awakenings Anders wouldn't say.

►If Anders can "die" at the end of Awakening like Nathaniel can point out in DA2, how could the Wardens force him to get rid of Ser-Pounce-A-Lot if they all thought Anders was dead? This seems like a clumsy attempt to get Anders to brood against the Wardens for getting rid of the cat, but without considering certain endings.

I just looked at the whole Ser Pounce-a-Lot as cute fanservice to be honest xD. I wished there was a kitten gift in DA2 also...

► Anders doesn't know where Justice ends and he begins, and there supposedly isn't a way to separate the two. That's not how spirit posession works in the original Dragon Age mythos. Just look at Connor. You don't become fused to the spirit/demon when you allow yourself to be willingly posessed. That also begs the question: Why aren't Justice and Anders separated in the fade like Connor is? And why isn't Anders tranquil after you kill him in the fade?

You might be incorrectly comparing demons and spirits. DAO and DA2 both talk about consorting with demons and demonic possession in the traditional sense, but no one ever mentions the other kinds of spirits. Also, the circumstances of how Justice came into the world were unique. He didn't possess Anders in the fade. Justice was already outside the fade inhabiting a corpse, so he just made the jump into a living person. Additionally, Conor was a child, an UNTRAINED mage and afraid his father would die. Those circumstances don't really make someone "willing."

► Justice was supposed to serve the order for many years. So how exactly does he posess Anders, leave the Wardens, flee to Kirkwall, and get jiggy with Karl merely a year after the blight? Awakening occurs 2-6 months after it, if I remember correctly. Now I know DA2 is supposed to be based off a possible ending for Anders. But in practice this couldn't have been possible in any of the epilogues. In DA2 Anders implies that Justice is still possessing Kristoff's corpse during the time of possession. But the endings where Justice isn't killed/dies either has him serving the Wardens or fixing up graves in the blackmarsh--but that's provided he's never recruited, and never meets Anders to begin with.

For those who played DAO, Awakenings and the DLC the dates/time are a problem. A huge problem. Here is a list of the various epilogues for Justice. Floating over into Anders seems a possibility in 4/6 of those. Ultimately though, you can't take a majority of the epilogues into account, since those are written as if it's the last installment of the game and the story does not progress further than that. You can say the same thing for the epilogues in DAO concerning the Warden, but we know that s/he went onto the whole adventure in Awakenings and Witch Hunt.

Modifié par nightscrawl, 21 avril 2011 - 05:24 .

[Viyu]

nekhbet wrote...

@Nepenthe87 

He likes women all right. He's not gay (even in the romance with a male Hawke he says he's explicitly bisexual). He might have been straight, but he wasn't. And that's how bisexual people are like: sometimes they like men and sometimes women. Sometimes at the same time, sometimes not. Sometimes the same person can change his/her mind about liking men and women at the same time or women one week and men the next. Sometimes people are bisexual whilst preferring either men or women, yet liking the other gender enough to identify as bisexual.

You got it from several bisexual people on this topic now, that sexual preferences fluctuate. It might have been a surprise to you, I'm not denying your personal experience with the game. But it's not out of character or a weird change of character by any means. It really happens to real people all the time.

Rifneno wrote...
And my point is, they could not do that if they weren't innately set to swing either way.

I too tired to find the quote, but someone brought up earlier that Anders in DA2 never mentions Karl being his former lover if Hawke is female.  This is another part of the reason I find the whole thing contrived.  It seems like Anders' sexuality depends on Hawke.  I know the obvious response, but also consider that Anders tells her "I feel like I could tell you anything and you wouldn't judge me."

That's true, but consider the situation. He's flirting with Hawke, he doesn't have any reason to bring up his bisexuality to a female Hawke at that point. Nothing's to say he couldn't do it later, though we obviously don't know. But it doesn't seem the best time to get into matters like this. I couldn't imagine walking up to someone and saying "Oh hi handsome/beautiful, how about it? Oh btw, I dig chicks and dicks both", unless I was hitting on my own gender. Then you might wanna make your intentions clear.

But nobody's saying people who play the female romance cannot play him straight if they want. It's not being brought up by him so one can assume whatever. It's the male romance that is of interest in this topic.

I strongly disagree about innately having to swing one way or another, though. Whilst most people do have a gender they prefer over the other, that's not the case for everyone. You can't even measure preference by counting partners of each gender (because not everyone can have the kind of relationships they would like to have, or they don't get a chance), and when we get into genderqueer territory it gets even more complicated. Where do you place a bisexual woman who prefers trans-women over cis-women? Is it culture or nature that defines the box and the label you put on it? But that's a discussion that goes a bit too much off topic, since it's Anders' sexuality we're discussing.

Viyu wrote...

The Angry One wrote...

How is that a plot hole? 
At what point was it necesarry in Awakening for Anders to fully reveal his sexuality?

The situation was never necessary, he did it on his own. During Awakening, he will not flirt with your male warden, even if he has the exact same personality as a female Warden. And IICR he says something of the effect of "have I ever told you how much i love you---not in that way of course" if you're a male warden that comes back to save the Vigil. Why the need for the disclaimer?

Because he didn't fancy the Warden that way? And people can flirt without actually wanting to bed someone, which apparently happened with the female Warden since she gets rejected.

Please clarify. I am asking why is there essentially this "no ******" disclaimer for the male warden if you go back to the vigil to save him? Why was that disclaimer really necessary. 

EDIT; sorry, you and I posted at the same time!

Modifié par Viyu, 21 avril 2011 - 04:48 .

[Miri1984]

Viyu wrote...

nekhbet wrote...

Viyu wrote...

My apologies. I forgot to mention one other thing.He doesn't flirt with male wardens like he does female wardens, implying that he does not have the preference for men that he does for women--at least, not at that time. So my opinion on Anders' sexuality doesn't simply rest on the "sword" joke. It's not that I could NEVER imagine Anders bi, but it makes no chronological sense that Karl would be his first. It's implied through the fact that Anders had no preference towards men during Awakening, that Karl and Anders couldn't have met before Anders "became" a Warden. And again, it makes no sense that Justice could posess Anders and leave the Wardens for Kirkwall merely a year after the blight. What I am trying to say, is that it'd be more practical if Hawke was Anders' first, and the transition from straight to bi should have been explored carefully and intimately.

Sexuality is a fluid thing. It's pretty much the standard type of bisexuality that you go through phases of fancying men more for a while and then you find yourself fancying women more for a while. The people who fancy 50% women and 50% men at all times throughout their lives, expressing it nonstop, are few.

In Awakening, there's simply no telling what Anders' sexuality is. He likes girls for sure, but nothing says he doesn't fancy boys as well. You simply can't tell, which is how it usually is for bisexual people. You don't know until they say it.

You're missing the point. You are trying to fanwank it for the writers, but the problem is that it is still a plothole. It can be FILLED sure, not all plotholes are these delicate, irreparable things. But that does not change the fact that as of right now, this is a plothole and UNTIL it gets filled it seems like character derailment rather than establishment. No transition is given to explain in detail the nature of Anders' personality regarding sexuality, because there are many types of sexuality. Pansexual,homosexual, bisexual, etc. Zevran makes it clear to the audience what his sexuality is. Effective writers get into the heads of the characters so that we, their audience, can understand and appreciate the story through understanding its characters. Us "guessing" why Anders seems repelled by men one moment and not the next does not FILL the plothole. That is up to them to do. Your audience shouldn't have to "guess" and try to piece together certain things you should have done. Could there be a DLC that fills this plothole? Absoloutely.

When does he EVER show signs of being REPELLED by men? Truly, you're inventing plot holes were none exist! The Templar/Sword joke is a joke about RAPE and Templars. Anders, even DA:A Anders, HATES Templars. He doesn't want their swords, metaphorical or otherwise ANY WHERE NEAR HIM. 

And I totally disagree with you about having every plot point filled up to the point where you have no room for speculation. BAD WRITING is where an author shoves every part of a story down your throat, so you have no room for interpretation. BAD WRITING assumes everyone who is reading the story is an idiot who can't make their own conclusions about characters, or admit to themselves that their original interpretation of a character's motivations might not have been the holy grail they thought it was. 

[ipgd]

Clearly, Anders must be gay because he refuses to sleep with a female Warden even if you directly flirt with him.

[mellifera]

ipgd wrote...

Clearly, Anders must be gay because he refuses to sleep with a female Warden even if you directly flirt with him.

He also had a cat.

[Rifneno]

nekhbet wrote...

That's true, but consider the situation. He's flirting with Hawke, he doesn't have any reason to bring up his bisexuality to a female Hawke at that point. Nothing's to say he couldn't do it later, though we obviously don't know. But it doesn't seem the best time to get into matters like this. I couldn't imagine walking up to someone and saying "Oh hi handsome/beautiful, how about it? Oh btw, I dig chicks and dicks both", unless I was hitting on my own gender. Then you might wanna make your intentions clear.

Fair enough.  I'm still of the opinion that he was rewritten though.  If it was just his sexuality, that'd be one thing.  But despite the foreshadowing, there's so much other stuff that screams they didn't have DA2's story pencilled in when they wrote DAO/DAA.  We're clearly forced to let certain characters live, such as Anora or Morrigan, because of plot armor.  So why let us kill characters like Anders, Justice, or Leliana only to bring them back and have some fairly convoluted reasons why they didn't really die and everything worked out like the "average" playthrough no matter what?

I strongly disagree about innately having to swing one way or another, though. Whilst most people do have a gender they prefer over the other, that's not the case for everyone.

I think we're just misunderstanding each other.  I'm not saying they can't like both but prefer one or the other.  I'm just saying that people have an innate preference and there's no conscious decisionmaking to it.  The comment I initially took issue with was the one that seemed to be saying some people are bisexual because they made a conscious decision that gender doesn't matter.  That's been about my only stance here: that there's no conscious choice made in sexual preference.

[Viyu]

Miri1984 wrote...

Viyu wrote...

nekhbet wrote...

Viyu wrote...

My apologies. I forgot to mention one other thing.He doesn't flirt with male wardens like he does female wardens, implying that he does not have the preference for men that he does for women--at least, not at that time. So my opinion on Anders' sexuality doesn't simply rest on the "sword" joke. It's not that I could NEVER imagine Anders bi, but it makes no chronological sense that Karl would be his first. It's implied through the fact that Anders had no preference towards men during Awakening, that Karl and Anders couldn't have met before Anders "became" a Warden. And again, it makes no sense that Justice could posess Anders and leave the Wardens for Kirkwall merely a year after the blight. What I am trying to say, is that it'd be more practical if Hawke was Anders' first, and the transition from straight to bi should have been explored carefully and intimately.

Sexuality is a fluid thing. It's pretty much the standard type of bisexuality that you go through phases of fancying men more for a while and then you find yourself fancying women more for a while. The people who fancy 50% women and 50% men at all times throughout their lives, expressing it nonstop, are few.

In Awakening, there's simply no telling what Anders' sexuality is. He likes girls for sure, but nothing says he doesn't fancy boys as well. You simply can't tell, which is how it usually is for bisexual people. You don't know until they say it.

You're missing the point. You are trying to fanwank it for the writers, but the problem is that it is still a plothole. It can be FILLED sure, not all plotholes are these delicate, irreparable things. But that does not change the fact that as of right now, this is a plothole and UNTIL it gets filled it seems like character derailment rather than establishment. No transition is given to explain in detail the nature of Anders' personality regarding sexuality, because there are many types of sexuality. Pansexual,homosexual, bisexual, etc. Zevran makes it clear to the audience what his sexuality is. Effective writers get into the heads of the characters so that we, their audience, can understand and appreciate the story through understanding its characters. Us "guessing" why Anders seems repelled by men one moment and not the next does not FILL the plothole. That is up to them to do. Your audience shouldn't have to "guess" and try to piece together certain things you should have done. Could there be a DLC that fills this plothole? Absoloutely.

When does he EVER show signs of being REPELLED by men? Truly, you're inventing plot holes were none exist! The Templar/Sword joke is a joke about RAPE and Templars. Anders, even DA:A Anders, HATES Templars. He doesn't want their swords, metaphorical or otherwise ANY WHERE NEAR HIM. 

And I totally disagree with you about having every plot point filled up to the point where you have no room for speculation. BAD WRITING is where an author shoves every part of a story down your throat, so you have no room for interpretation. BAD WRITING assumes everyone who is reading the story is an idiot who can't make their own conclusions about characters, or admit to themselves that their original interpretation of a character's motivations might not have been the holy grail they thought it was. 

No, bad writing is when you make a character with the intention of everyone liking them without giving them room to decide for themselves how THEY feel about them. And believe me, I've encountered professionals who do that. But providing information that gives us understanding about the character and allowing people to come to their own conclusions about the character is not the same thing as writing a character in a way that forces the audience to feel that they HAVE to like or dislike the character.

I have already touched on the fact that it is NOT just the templar joke. Please read the OP again.

[Miri1984]

Don't forget his earring.

[The Angry One]

Also, Sigrun and Velanna express disgust at Oghren's flirts and idiotic innuendo.
This makes them lesbians, obviously.

[TEWR]

The Angry One wrote...

Also, Sigrun and Velanna express disgust at Oghren's flirts and idiotic innuendo.
This makes them lesbians, obviously.

Sigrun and Velanna are hot for each other.







I wonder what Velanna would look like with the new elven appearance. She was already gorgeous, so I wonder if she'll be even more gorgeous.

[Sabariel]

ipgd wrote...
Why he or Merrill don't become Tranquil when killed in Feynriel's dream isn't explained. I won't bother to speculate.

Merrill and Anders don't become Tranquil because the group is essentially attached to Feynriel's mind, not Anders' and not Merrill's.

[Viyu]

The Angry One wrote...

Also, Sigrun and Velanna express disgust at Oghren's flirts and idiotic innuendo.
This makes them lesbians, obviously.

Faulty analogy. Sigrun and Velanna don't make comments that make them seem particularly uninterested in men, in fact, Velanna's conversations with Anders and Nathaniel provide the exact opposite impression. Most especially Nathaiel.

Modifié par Viyu, 21 avril 2011 - 05:01 .

[TEWR]

Viyu wrote...

The Ethereal Writer Redux wrote...

The Angry One wrote...

Also, Sigrun and Velanna express disgust at Oghren's flirts and idiotic innuendo.
This makes them lesbians, obviously.

Faulty analogy. Sigrun and Velanna don't make comments that make them seem particularly uninterested in men, in fact, Velanna's conversations with Anders and Nathaniel provide the exact opposite impression.

I never said that!


since Velanna is now in play, I want to see more of her. I want her to be a companion again.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 21 avril 2011 - 05:03 .

[Viyu]

lol wut? Forgive me, this topic updates every 5 seconds.

[Miri1984]

Viyu wrote...

The Angry One wrote...

Also, Sigrun and Velanna express disgust at Oghren's flirts and idiotic innuendo.
This makes them lesbians, obviously.

Faulty analogy. Sigrun and Velanna don't make comments that make them seem particularly uninterested in men, in fact, Velanna's conversations with Anders and Nathaniel provide the exact opposite impression. Most especially Nathaiel.

Anders' line about being naked under his robes has been taken by MANY PEOPLE as a flirt. I really don't get why you're insisting that Anders has shown a dislike of men. He hasn't. About ten different people have told you why they think he says "ewww" to Oghren's joke. I said "ewww" to Oghren's joke and I'm a heterosexual woman. Obviously I'm repressing my Lesbian tendencies.

[tanuki]

nightscrawl wrote...

senorfuzzylips wrote...

(It annoys me that he doesn't mention Karl to F!Hawke though. It's like the game's letting us pretend that Anders might be straight in the F!Hawke universe... but he still seems so, well, not straight to me.)

Why does he seem "not straight" to you?

Why does no see that NONE of the companions (except Isabela I guess) have an orientation apart from the gender of Hawke? If Hawke is a female, Anders and Fenris are straight, and Merrill is gay. If Hawke is a male, Anders and Fenris are gay, and Merrill is straight. Other than Isabela, nowhere is it implied that anyone is bisexual.

This is a game with fake romances. In order to appeal to the widest selection of players they went beyond their rigid system in DAO (I'm sure there were girls who wanted Morrigan and guys who wanted Alistair after all) to have the romances be available to everyone regardless of gender. This is logical game design!


(Btw in my single play as a guy I did romance Anders just to see, since people made such a huge deal out of it on these forums.)

This is logical game design <-- and yet some lazy writing. I understand that some people wanted to romance Morrigan and Alistair, ok, there were mods for it, right? NPC changing their sexuality depending of the PC gender is a bit... far-fetched, though I totally understand why they made that decicion. For Zev and Lely it was in their characters to be bi, they were written like that and it was cool. For DA2 LI their sexuality basically does not exist as a canon, except for Isabela. (And I agree that "canon" Awakening Anders was straight, there was nothing there to think otherwise. And I didn't see him flirting with Nate in that robes banter - it seemed like he was just joking around in his usual manner). 
So... it was like instead waiting for people to make mods for romancing certain chars, devs added these mods themself. And while I like the characters Bioware create a lot, and not especially bothered with so-called "hawkesexuality" or "subjective sexuality", I still think it cheapens them somehow.

PS I miss Greg Ellis voicing Anders:crying:

[nekhbet]

Why does it need to be clarified? Where is the plothole? That he didn't explicitly say he likes his sausage in DAA but does say it in DA2?
I don't see the plothole even if his sexuality was defined at a later stage by the writers, because it's written just the way bisexual people can behave. They change their minds just like that. Sometimes they have no interest in men/women and have no desire to jump every guy/girl or give wrong impressions. It's just normal to jump from 10 years of sleeping with guys to only wanting to be with women, if you swing both ways. You see it happen all the time. Why does it need extra clarification?
Also, you might say "I love you, but not that way!" if you're a gay person saying it to another man, in case they get the wrong impression. You could say it if you're straight and don't want to give the wrong impression. You might say it for different reasons (don't want them to think you want a piece of their ass, or don't want them to think you're gay, for example), but it's not a comment that's restricted to straight people. And we don't know what Anders meant with it. It could be either, but considering the later developments it's probably of the "I don't fancy you" sort.

[Viyu]

Viyu wrote...

nekhbet wrote...

@Nepenthe87 

He likes women all right. He's not gay (even in the romance with a male Hawke he says he's explicitly bisexual). He might have been straight, but he wasn't. And that's how bisexual people are like: sometimes they like men and sometimes women. Sometimes at the same time, sometimes not. Sometimes the same person can change his/her mind about liking men and women at the same time or women one week and men the next. Sometimes people are bisexual whilst preferring either men or women, yet liking the other gender enough to identify as bisexual.

You got it from several bisexual people on this topic now, that sexual preferences fluctuate. It might have been a surprise to you, I'm not denying your personal experience with the game. But it's not out of character or a weird change of character by any means. It really happens to real people all the time.

Rifneno wrote...
And my point is, they could not do that if they weren't innately set to swing either way.

I too tired to find the quote, but someone brought up earlier that Anders in DA2 never mentions Karl being his former lover if Hawke is female.  This is another part of the reason I find the whole thing contrived.  It seems like Anders' sexuality depends on Hawke.  I know the obvious response, but also consider that Anders tells her "I feel like I could tell you anything and you wouldn't judge me."

That's true, but consider the situation. He's flirting with Hawke, he doesn't have any reason to bring up his bisexuality to a female Hawke at that point. Nothing's to say he couldn't do it later, though we obviously don't know. But it doesn't seem the best time to get into matters like this. I couldn't imagine walking up to someone and saying "Oh hi handsome/beautiful, how about it? Oh btw, I dig chicks and dicks both", unless I was hitting on my own gender. Then you might wanna make your intentions clear.

But nobody's saying people who play the female romance cannot play him straight if they want. It's not being brought up by him so one can assume whatever. It's the male romance that is of interest in this topic.

I strongly disagree about innately having to swing one way or another, though. Whilst most people do have a gender they prefer over the other, that's not the case for everyone. You can't even measure preference by counting partners of each gender (because not everyone can have the kind of relationships they would like to have, or they don't get a chance), and when we get into genderqueer territory it gets even more complicated. Where do you place a bisexual woman who prefers trans-women over cis-women? Is it culture or nature that defines the box and the label you put on it? But that's a discussion that goes a bit too much off topic, since it's Anders' sexuality we're discussing.

Viyu wrote...

The Angry One wrote...

How is that a plot hole? 
At what point was it necesarry in Awakening for Anders to fully reveal his sexuality?

The situation was never necessary, he did it on his own. During Awakening, he will not flirt with your male warden, even if he has the exact same personality as a female Warden. And IICR he says something of the effect of "have I ever told you how much i love you---not in that way of course" if you're a male warden that comes back to save the Vigil. Why the need for the disclaimer?

Because he didn't fancy the Warden that way? And people can flirt without actually wanting to bed someone, which apparently happened with the female Warden since she gets rejected.

Please clarify. I am asking why is there essentially this "no ******" disclaimer for the male warden if you go back to the vigil to save him? Why was that disclaimer really necessary. 

EDIT; sorry, you and I posted at the same time!

I think you mentioned somewhere before that he could be in the closet, and wasn't ready for the awkwardness of actually being interested in men. If that is true, it still needs some form of development. I think the transition would've been rather sweet in an intmate sort of way if it had. But this is offered no transition, no explanation, and no attention to detail. And, some folks are taking this the wrong way--that I'm "protective" of Anders' sexuality, when I really am not. Its just that...as a writer, I get irritated when loose ends are not tied. I'd be just as (well, I'll admit I'd be more furious) if Zevran was written to flirt with men only, and then next game (assuming he had just as much presence) does a complete 180, with nobody connecting the dots. And in the previous games these dots WERE connected through 1 on 1 conversations with the characters, that are spaced out far and few in between in this game. And of THOSE conversations, we weren't really learning about things like their hobbies, likes and personal dislikes-- we were practically being shoved mage/chantry politics.

[autumnyte]

nightscrawl wrote...

autumnyte wrote...

nightscrawl wrote...

If Hawke is a male, Anders and Fenris are gay, and Merrill is straight. Other than Isabela, nowhere is it implied that anyone is bisexual. 

I don't like labeling anyone's sexuality, but I will point out that both Anders and Fenris do come across as bisexual if you are playing as a male Hawke.

If you aren't in an active romance with Fenris during Act 3, he gets together with Isabella. Anders and Isabella make passing reference to a past sexual encounter at the Black Pearl as well. 

Fenris never made a pass at me when I played a male Hawke, EVER. He was my friend the entire time. However, I knew someone was going to bring up this issue with Isabela. I thought of it after I left the computer lol. I should perhaps have clarified that it probably also has to do with your own flirt options in the game.

So, how then does that make Fenris bisexual? If anything, that makes my previous assessment only slightly incorrect. It relies on the player behind Hawke to determine the orientation of the various companions, because interest/no interest is expressed through the dialogue options. Therefore, other than Isabela, they do not have a sexual identity independent from Hawke since it depends on Hawke's gender and choices. The obvious example to prove this is Aveline. She HAS sexual independence from Hawke because she was designed that way, the others do not.

The question of whether the companions have a sexual identity independent from Hawke is an interesting one, but I don't want to derail the thread any further by getting into it too much. I tend to perceive that they do, but I can see your argument as well. 

However, you originally posted that "if Hawke is a male, Fenris and Anders are gay". I was simply pointing out that I did not find that to be the case. In a playthrough where my male Hawke slept with Fenris, got dumped by him, and then watched him move on to Isabella in Act 3 -- Fenris was very much bisexual.  And Anders' character has a history of women, so I did not consider him strictly gay, even when I romanced him with male Hawke. 

[MikoDoll]

[quote]ipgd wrote...

Yes, Anders's romance has the same general trope, but it's handled so differently and so much better that I can't help but wonder if the people who make these negative comparisons have any why Twilight was actually bad beyond the idea that they're supposed to hate it and everthing it did because everyone else does. [/quote]

Sometimes I think it's sometimes at least, almost as as bad because they went to great lengths butchering the character, and having him "change his mind" with no explanation as to why. All for a trope that was redundant within the confines of the DA2 story. We already had the "tortured, sexy/broody" guy in Fenris who is both romancable to male and female players.  It's like saying no one can claim an outrageously OOC moment is not OOC because characters can change whenever.  "Whenever" especially when it is THAT great a change, needs to be explained. Tell me why he stopped caring about his phylactery, and the fact templars were using it to pursue him? I need to know why he stopped caring about his life and what event triggered it? what event happened that made him want to go from seeing purpose in the Circle to wanting it destroyed. That's like next game popping Fenris out the woodwork and having him spout nothing but wanting the Circle to be dissolved and mages to go free with no explanation provided. Providing feasible explanations is how plotholes are filled. But until they are, it's still a plothole.



[quote]Have you never changed your mind about something? [/quote]

I know I have. But, I nor people in general magically change their minds (no pun intended). The reservations preventing his change of heart needed to be explained. Otherwise it is a plothole that needs to be filled. Simply saying "his opinion changed" without showing how that was possible doesn't cut it. That's like next game writing Fenris to be pro mage, anti templar, and anti circle for no explained reason. After all we can simply say "he changed" so why bother telling viewers why he seems so OOC?



[quote]Yes, Anders is initially opposed to the idea of liberating mages. It's later explicitly stated that he changes his mind. [/quote]

again, WHY? How?

[quote]Nowhere is it indicated that Anders has such a strong attachment to the Circle system that it would break his character (in fact, the way he repeatedly escapes the Circle, even after being punished with solitary confinement for an entire year prior to after his last escape attempt, suggest he has some deep issues with it). The entire point of his conversation with Wynne is that he dislikes the Circle, but sees the alternative (certain chaos) as worse. [/quote]

He dislikes "Chantry Oversight" Yes. But the Circle is more than simply Chantry oversight and could be envisioned to exist with far less of it, if none at all. The Circle is also a place to also teach them how to use magic which makes it useful. Even Anders in DA2 notes that a mage can only really be educated to use their powers in the Circle. He escaped, because he no longer needs to be trained in how to control his powers. That doesn't mean other mages couldn't need the Circle--a point he acknowledged.

[quote]
After spending time with Justice, he is convinced that it might be worth it. [/quote]

Wonder when that happened. Certainly never saw it in Awakening and Anders went to Kirkwall shortly after. Justice was supposed to serve the order for many years before giving Aura Kristoff's body. The questions of "how" and "when" this would've been feasible still remain, and until these questions are answered they are plotholes.


[quote]Spirits' relation to demons, and particularly Justice's, becomes a big point in Anders's development in DA2. [/quote]

This doesn't really explain why he'd be motivated to join Justice. Nethaniel also has discussions with Justice about posessing a living host. Should this have made Nethaniel a more viable candidate when asleep and in contact with the Fade?


[quote]Justice makes it very clear here that he is opposed to the Circle. He believes Anders should be fighting it. He has enough conviction here that it's pretty reasonable to conclude that he might continue to try to convince Anders of this, and eventually succeed. [/quote]

Again, how? Anders had a good point that the Circle was the only place people could really learn to control their powers and thought it'd be chaos to destroy it. To date, there's no rebuttal on Justice end that has ever been seen that would effectively counter Anders' beliefs.


[quote]Here Justice seems to be indicating he is becoming attached to the mortal world. He even seems to be actively planning to find another host after Kristoff's corpse becomes uninhabitable. [/quote]

Yes, I get that. But why would Anders join with Justice? When justice had not provided any reasons that overcame Anders' many doubts.  I get the idea that the notion of Justice inhabiting a body could happen. But the notion of Anders and Justice merging when they did couldn't have happened. Anders' reservations had also never been resolved.  He was the most cowardly of the group. If this had been a character known less for cowardice, protecting their own lives first and foremost, etc it'd have been one thing. But this is a huge leap in characterization that is never explained.


[quote]It also helps that, you know, the other character in the very banter you cite now occupies his body and mind. That's a pretty big character consistency. [/quote]

It wouldn't if they're saying that it's a plothole because it happened without noting how their personality made a HUGE shift, and in a chronological timeframe that is so very, very broken.



[quote]►If Anders can "die" at the end of Awakening like Nathaniel can point out in DA2, how could the Wardens force him to get rid of Ser-Pounce-A-Lot if they all thought Anders was dead? This seems like a clumsy attempt to get Anders to brood against the Wardens for getting rid of the cat, but without considering certain endings.[/quote]
It's a handwave to get him back into the game.


[quote] 2. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. There are any number of reasons why Anders might choose to openly flirt with women and not men, despite being attracted to both. He could have perceived the Warden as straight and figured he shouldn't bother, he could have a preference for women, whatever. [/quote]

Ok as someone who has had to actually defend some gay friends from "no ******" remarks from people who proclaim they don't mind gays, my qualm has been "if you don't have a problem with being thought of as gay, why do you have to add a 'no ******' disclaimer?" while having no problem with flirting with girls. It's more than an issue of "preference." if you don't have an aversion to it, there's no need to say such things. That's why I find it insanely difficult to believe he'd been involved with Karl before Awakening and DA2.




[quote]There can be arguments made as to whether or not Anders's bisexuality was intended from the beginning, but the way it was written in doesn't contradict his character in Awakening at all. [/quote]

That's really not theissue here though. His relationship to KARL, and Karl being the first to make him realize he was bi is difficult to believe. If Hawke had simply been his first, that'd be one thing. Karl opened up a big can of worms and it served no other purpose than to make Anders angst and brood.


[quote]Because Justice isn't in the Fade. Connor's demon is controlling him from the Fade; Justice is present within Anders's body, and has merged with his mind. Their merging is different from a standard demonic possession.
[/quote]

Hepler wrote the posession of Anders to have taken place in the Fade though ( http://na.llnet.biow...ies/anders.pdf )


[quote] Why he or Merrill don't become Tranquil when killed in Feynriel's dream isn't explained. I won't bother to speculate. [/quote]

It's a plothole


[quote]The epilogue end cards are handwaved, but this isn't specific to Anders. Obviously, they cannot satisfy all endings; they wanted to make Anders a significant character in DA2, so they had to bull**** the cards. A dead Anders couldn't have blown up the chantry. An Anders not possessed by Justice would have needed all of his dialogue rewritten. Considering every choice is not even remotely possible and expecting that is unrealistic. [/quote]

None of them really fit though. Again, how did Anders and Justice "merge" 1 year before Act I when that'd be before Awakening? Justice was still posessing Kristoff according to Anders, so Anders allowed Justice to posess him from the Fade. This means any endings where Kristoff's body wasn't left behind are the most probable endings, and they'd pretty much wrote Justice to inhabit Kristoff for many years.

This sort of discussion is very refreshing no? Just so long as no one gets really upset over anything I guess.

Modifié par MikoDoll, 21 avril 2011 - 05:22 .