506 réponses à ce sujet

[The Edge]

I don't think that discussing this is being uncomfortable with bisexuality (well, for me at least). Having every romance character being bisexual is fine; as long as it's a CHARACTER decision and not a GAMEPLAY decision, IMO.

[Anathemic]

ipgd wrote...

Anathemic wrote...

Where did you arrive to that conclusion. My whole premise was the issue "having all LIs bisexual" being unrealstic.

Because the lack of logical consistency with which you approach the specific issue suggests that it is not the actual issue, but an issue you have chosen to champion in order to justify an underlying discomfort with bisexuality in general.

Show me the lack of logical consitency in my posts, I will gladly clarify.

[Monica83]

jlb524 wrote...

Anathemic wrote...

It's not off-topic when you relate the outside source in a reasoanble way to the issue, which I did.

It's also not off-topic when you relate inside source in a reasonable way to the issue, which we are doing.

Monica83 wrote...

im bisexual and i continue to say the fact you have almost all romanceable character bi is laughtable as a thing...

Good for you...I'm gay and think making all LIs romanceable by both genders was awesome....

i explained why... it is not coherent.. its just a forced compromise on the plot.. and its also unbelievable that you form a team with all romanceable bi people.. its just lack of choerence and poor storytelling its a gameplay compromise and nothing more.. i prefear have some bi character like li or zevhran that have all romanceable companion bi... its just ridicolus

Modifié par Monica83, 04 juin 2011 - 09:52 .

[Akka le Vil]

jlb524 wrote...

^^ You have a problem with this...I called this 'Y'...'Y' is a problem in Origins too with romances (as we've explained tirelessly).  I want to know why it's okay to do things like this in certain areas, like ignoring 'realistic' racial/class/morality pairings but not so when we talk about gender?

See my previous post about retards and strawmanning, because you're full square in it !

Just a hint :
"X has this problem" is not answered by "Y had another completely different problem ! AHAHA I've proved you wrong !". This just make no sense and the only result is that you look like an idiot.

I can't believe I have to actually explain it.

[Anathemic]

jlb524 wrote...

Anathemic wrote...

It's not off-topic when you relate the outside source in a reasoanble way to the issue, which I did.

It's also not off-topic when you relate inside source in a reasonable way to the issue, which we are doing.

Monica83 wrote...

im bisexual and i continue to say the fact you have almost all romanceable character bi is laughtable as a thing...

Good for you...I'm gay and think making all LIs romanceable by both genders was awesome....

Please explain to me how arguing "but this issue is unrealistic too! Argue this issue instead instead of this minor one!" beneficial or anyway relevant to the argument/discussion.

[jlb524]

Akka le Vil wrote...

Strawman Fallacy

The Strawman Fallacy occurs when a debater constructs a more easily defeated version of his opponent's position to attack, rather than addressing his real arguments. The fallacy takes its name from straw dummies used in old-fashioned combat training; these dummies were made to look like a potential opponent, but provide no actual resistance. The fallacy itself is comparable to defeating such a dummy, then proclaiming you have defeated an actual opponent.

"The NRA supports the right to bear arms, so they support private ownership of nuclear weapons."

While most people will not be fooled by a blatant misrepresentation of their position, careful use of a strawman
can make them defend a carefully undermined version of their position, allowing their opponent to apparently destroy them with a prepared rebuttal.

What is the real argument against it? 

Oh, it's unrealistic!....I'm pretty sure that has been refuted as not being the source of the real issue...

Now we are left to guess at what the real issue is...

[Kaiser_Wilhelm]

This thread has quickly fallen into a debate of moral ideology. Truely, this isn't even a valid argument for the game. As many have pointed out, having options for romance hampers nothing, no characters force romance upon you, and no sense of camaraderie is broken. In actuality, none of the characters are technically "bi" or not, it depends on whether you pursue a relationship with that person. It's quite an easy conclusion to come to.

But now, this thread has gone on for 18 pages, and it's simply moral, societal, argumental, debates.

Modifié par Kaiser_Wilhelm, 04 juin 2011 - 09:53 .

[autumnyte]

Pasquale1234 wrote...

To answer the question posed by the name of this thread....

... maybe they're not.

I would admit to not being a scholar on all things Thedas, but I certainly don't remember ever seeing a codex entry that referred to any concepts about sexual orientation or means to define or label anyone's attractions.

It seems entirely feasible to me that the characters in question are more along the lines of pansexual - much more interested in the entirety of a person than in the specific composition of their DNA or whatever sexual equipment is attached to their bodies. If the culture offers no religious or other reasons to repress one's natural affections and inclinations, then no labels are needed. In that environment, I find it completely realistic that 4 of the companions would be open to intimacy with a Hawke of either sex.

Thank you for this and well said. Not everyone identifies themselves as straight/gay/bi, there are a wide spectrum of sexual orientations out there. It strikes me that in a world such as Thedas where prejudice doesn't constrain sexuality as much, it would be more common to see people with fluid preferences. 

Modifié par autumnyte, 04 juin 2011 - 09:53 .

[jlb524]

Anathemic wrote...

Please explain to me how arguing "but this issue is unrealistic too! Argue this issue instead instead of this minor one!" beneficial or anyway relevant to the argument/discussion.

Well, let's see...

These other points (Anders going for pro-Templars, Fenris mages) are brought up in the context of discussing the topic (i.e., issues with bisexuality in Thedas).  However, this alternate discussion has not dominated the thread to the point where it has completely taken over and become independent of the original issue at hand.  It is always brought up in the context of the argument, "all bi LI romances are unrealistic", which means it's on-topic.  If we were unable to do things like this, forum topics would be pretty boring/dead.

Akka le Vil wrote...
See my previous post about retards and strawmanning, because you're full square in it !

Just a hint :
"X has this problem" is not answered by "Y had another completely
different problem ! AHAHA I've proved you wrong !". This just make no
sense and the only result is that you look like an idiot.

I can't believe I have to actually explain it.

No, it proves that you are selective in your concerns for 'realism' which means that it's really not about realism.

Modifié par jlb524, 04 juin 2011 - 09:57 .

[Siansonea]

*rubs hands together*

I covered this in my previous post to some extent, but hey, I don’t mind repeating myself.

Anathemic wrote...

Siansonea II wrote...
-snip-

So my point is, why is something as realistic as being bisexual somehow not okay, when it’s okay do something as unrealistic as going against everything you stand for and romancing someone who embodies the opposition of your most basic world view? I'm not going to date a racist or a homophobe just because he buys me a nice wrist-watch.

I think I know what's really going on. It isn’t about “realism”. Realism is the pretext, the excuse. The underlying theme is the players discomfort with the idea of bisexuality. Why else focus so strenuously on that one thing? When there are so many other examples of poor ‘realism’ in the game that are much MUCH worse? As “immersion breakers” go, the bisexual LI issue is mainly a problem for people who aren’t very good at immersion in the first place, since it’s something that is only evident from a metagame standpoint, or with a Hawke who selects each and every heart icon dialog choice.

This is my underlying problem with your argument. Whereas in my argument I bring up the topic of realism, or unrealism, and relate it to the topic of "having all the LIs bisexual."

In this argument I do not say "but RL says that bisexuality is a minorty" but instead I say "judging from RL context and how fantasy derives it's genre from RL parallels, and using a simple statistic of the 3 factor sexual orientations, bisexuality is a minortiy, therefore if DA2 is wanting to express its world in a realistic faction then having all possible LI's bisexual contradicts that premise"

You're argument on the other hand is evolving from the realistic stance to the point of "This is unrealistic too, way more unrealistic than this issue! Why are you guys arguing on this minor unrealstic issue when there's a major one right here?!" The answer to that sir, is that the thread focuses on that minor unrealistic issue, not the major one you are pointing out.

If this is all about Dragon Age 2 reflecting real life demographics, well guess what? I’ve got more glaring examples of their failure to achieve that than the four bisexual LI’s in the squad. CHILDREN. We see children all the time in the real world. Where are all the children in Kirkwall? We see one or two in Darktown, but they are seriously underrepresented, especially if we factor in the correlation of Dragon Age 2 with a medieval time period in the real world in which people had far more children than in the present day. So yeah, four bisexuals, mildly defies Statistical Perfection (which only applies to large groups, by the way, not small groups, as anyone who’s ever had a bachelor party or wedding shower can attest). But a handful of children in a town the size of Kirkwall? Are they EATING them?

And what about female dwarves and Qunari? I dunno, it sure looks to me like that’s BioWare’s atempt at resource-saving more than any sort of storytelling point. Do dwarves keep their women locked up behind bars? Do Qunari? Why don’t we see any of them EVER? That’s statistically improbable!!!! Somebody call the Math Police...

And whoever said BioWare’s overriding concern was to “express its world in a realistic fashion”? I dunno, I took one look at Flemeth, dragons, ogres, and Darkspawn, and my first thought was “they’re taking liberties here—I shouldn’t judge the correlation of sexuality demographics too stringently if they’ve got dragons running around, since dragons are so statistically improbable as well”.

[ipgd]

Anathemic wrote...

ipgd wrote...

Anathemic wrote...

Where did you arrive to that conclusion. My whole premise was the issue "having all LIs bisexual" being unrealstic.

Because the lack of logical consistency with which you approach the specific issue suggests that it is not the actual issue, but an issue you have chosen to champion in order to justify an underlying discomfort with bisexuality in general.

Show me the lack of logical consitency in my posts, I will gladly clarify.

Your lack of willingness to answer challenges to the logical consistency of your argument. These "off-topic" arguments are brought up in order to assess the veracity of the core claim itself ("If your issue with X is Y, do you have an issue with Z which also has the quality of Y, or is your issue with Y constrained to its coincidence with X?") independent of its tie to bisexuality, which is relevant to an argument about bisexuality given the frequency of aforementioned dummy arguments in this kind of topic. You have evasively sidestepped these questions despite their relevance to any subject that is fraught with this behavior.

But, regardless: the argument itself is fallacious because, again, four people out of millions is not a statistically relevant sample size and is not representative of the sexuality of Thedas as a whole. The sample is far too small to draw any conclusions about the sexuality of Thedas. Neither is two bisexual love interests out of four, or any love interests out of four. If strict statistical representation were a concern, there would be exactly one queer LI per five games. But statistical representation is not a concern, so statistic issues are not relevant.

[Anathemic]

jlb524 wrote...

Anathemic wrote...

Please explain to me how arguing "but this issue is unrealistic too! Argue this issue instead instead of this minor one!" beneficial or anyway relevant to the argument/discussion.

Well, let's see...

These other points (Anders going for pro-Templars, Fenris mages) are brought up in the context of discussing the topic (i.e., issues with bisexuality in Thedas).  However, this alternate discussion has not dominated the thread to the point where it has completely taken over and become independent of the original issue at hand.  It is always brought up in the context of the argument, "all bi LI romances are unrealistic", which means it's on-topic.  If we were unable to do things like this, forum topics would be pretty boring/dead.

If the aleternate discussion hasn't achieved or the comptetance to stand by itself in relation to the main debate, then it's considered off-topic and irrelevant.

[Nerdage]

Akka le Vil wrote...

jlb524 wrote...

^^ You have a problem with this...I called this 'Y'...'Y' is a problem in Origins too with romances (as we've explained tirelessly).  I want to know why it's okay to do things like this in certain areas, like ignoring 'realistic' racial/class/morality pairings but not so when we talk about gender?

See my previous post about retards and strawmanning, because you're full square in it !

Just a hint :
"X has this problem" is not answered by "Y had another completely different problem ! AHAHA I've proved you wrong !". This just make no sense and the only result is that you look like an idiot.

I can't believe I have to actually explain it.

Quick hypothetical for you: You're discussing something with someone else and they end up calling you a "retard", how inclined would you then be to agree with their original point? Entertaining as it can be to watch people shoot themselves in the foot you're really not helping yourself, try civility.

[vdeity]

They're only bisexual if you approach them with your character.  Otherwise, their orientation never really comes up.
Who wouldn't go gay/lesbo for Hawke?

[jlb524]

Here's the thing, if I start a thread about hating Fenris and my reason is, "he's an elf" I'm not sure how serious you will take me given:

1) I have a Merrill sig, so you can assume I like her character.
2) She's an elf.

The logical assumption would be my Fenris issues aren't exactly about his elf-ness.

Disclaimer: I don't hate Fenris and I think he's cool...this was just an example XD

Anathemic wrote...

If the aleternate discussion hasn't achieved or the comptetance to stand by itself in relation to the main debate, then it's considered off-topic and irrelevant.

But it has...

1)  You:  make a claim relating to the topic.
2)  Us:  use another example from the same game relating to the same general topic (romances) to point out potential problems with your claim.

Modifié par jlb524, 04 juin 2011 - 10:07 .

[Anathemic]

ipgd wrote...

Anathemic wrote...

ipgd wrote...

Anathemic wrote...

Where did you arrive to that conclusion. My whole premise was the issue "having all LIs bisexual" being unrealstic.

Because the lack of logical consistency with which you approach the specific issue suggests that it is not the actual issue, but an issue you have chosen to champion in order to justify an underlying discomfort with bisexuality in general.

Show me the lack of logical consitency in my posts, I will gladly clarify.

Your lack of willingness to answer challenges to the logical consistency of your argument. These "off-topic" arguments are brought up in order to assess the veracity of the core claim itself ("If your issue with X is Y, do you have an issue with Z which also has the quality of Y, or is your issue with Y constrained to its coincidence with X?") independent of its tie to bisexuality, which is relevant to an argument about bisexuality given the frequency of aforementioned dummy arguments in this kind of topic. You have evasively sidestepped these questions despite their relevance to any subject that is fraught with this behavior.

But, regardless: the argument itself is fallacious because, again, four people out of millions is not a statistically relevant sample size and is not representative of the sexuality of Thedas as a whole. The sample is far too small to draw any conclusions about the sexuality of Thedas. Neither is two bisexual love interests out of four, or any love interests out of four. If strict statistical representation were a concern, there would be exactly one queer LI per five games. But statistical representation is not a concern, so statistic issues are not relevant.

Do you really honestly believe that the argument of "But this issue is unrealistic too! Go discuss that one instead of this one!" holds any credibility at all?

[Harid]

ipgd wrote...

Anathemic wrote...

ipgd wrote...

Anathemic wrote...

Where did you arrive to that conclusion. My whole premise was the issue "having all LIs bisexual" being unrealstic.

Because the lack of logical consistency with which you approach the specific issue suggests that it is not the actual issue, but an issue you have chosen to champion in order to justify an underlying discomfort with bisexuality in general.

Show me the lack of logical consitency in my posts, I will gladly clarify.

Your lack of willingness to answer challenges to the logical consistency of your argument. These "off-topic" arguments are brought up in order to assess the veracity of the core claim itself ("If your issue with X is Y, do you have an issue with Z which also has the quality of Y, or is your issue with Y constrained to its coincidence with X?") independent of its tie to bisexuality, which is relevant to an argument about bisexuality given the frequency of aforementioned dummy arguments in this kind of topic. You have evasively sidestepped these questions despite their relevance to any subject that is fraught with this behavior.

But, regardless: the argument itself is fallacious because, again, four people out of millions is not a statistically relevant sample size and is not representative of the sexuality of Thedas as a whole. The sample is far too small to draw any conclusions about the sexuality of Thedas. Neither is two bisexual love interests out of four, or any love interests out of four. If strict statistical representation were a concern, there would be exactly one queer LI per five games. But statistical representation is not a concern, so statistic issues are not relevant.

His lack of willingness to answer challenges is due to the fact that those challenges have nothing to do with the topic and are misdirection at best.  If they are arguments you want to make, rather than creating a segway in this topic to get away from the point of the topic itself, then you should create a thread, rather than try to obfuscate the point he is trying to make in other points he made no attempt to argue.

It's like the n-word thing and the "buhbuhbuhrappers say it, why can't I" thing.  it has nothing to do with why you can't say it, and is not a cogent point, you are trtying to lead the argument down a different path than was intended.

So I hope he continues to not allow your misdirection to guide his posts.

Think I am done with this thread though, when people are delusional enough to think that most of the world is bisexual, then I don't argue with crazy people; it's a waste of my god damned time.

Modifié par Harid, 04 juin 2011 - 10:07 .

[Master Wolf]

So people are defending realism...in a fantasy game...I'm the only one seeing the contradiction in this? xD

[Akka le Vil]

Siansonea II wrote...

The basic premise of this thread is that the characters are somehow unrealistic because they are bisexual. I disagree. After all, we see bisexual people in real life, and they’re not so rare that one might find as many as four of them in a group. And yet somehow, some very jarring character discontinuities—namely Anders willingness to romance a pro-Templar Hawke, and Fenris’ willingness to romance a Mage Hawke—are not eliciting the same amount of outrage in the community. Those things actually ARE unrealistic. So my point is, why is something as realistic as being bisexual somehow not okay, when it’s okay do something as unrealistic as going against everything you stand for and romancing someone who embodies the opposition of your most basic world view? I'm not going to date a racist or a homophobe just because he buys me a nice wrist-watch. (P.S. Srsly, BioWare, you made me hyphenate wris****ch?)

My answer to this point is twofold :

First, because the point you're talking about ARE actually treated in the game. Anders is pissed off if you take the side of the Templars, Fenris is pissed of if you protect the mages. They don't just change their opinion on the subject depending on your class, and Fenris doesn't become a mage-lover just because you rolled a mage - see the difference here ?
So maybe the fact that Fenris and Anders stick with Hawke despite being very opposed in their world viewpoint is not very believable, but at least it's actually a point that comes up with them and not just a mechanic that is thrown in.

Second, there is not as much noise about it because there is not the "U R JUST HOMOPHIC !" garbage that pollute and polarize every single thread where there is a discussion about homosexuality/bisexuality. See the second paragraph of your message to see exactly what I'm talking about.
There is of course the utterly retarded "X is not realistic so nothing has to make sense !" idiot-argument, but there is still much less emotionnally-charged attacks and defense when people talk about plot-related holes rather than religion/sexuality related points.
The hypocrisy about saying "sexuality has no importance in personnality" all the while being utterly defensive and systematically accusing everyone who doesn't like the unrealistic and watering-down "everyone for everyone" idea as "homophobic/bigot/etc." is actually why these threads degenerate (that and, of course, the actual real bigots/homophobic/etc. idiots that pop up from time to time).

[Siansonea]

This topic is about statistical probability of bisexuals (apparently...) and I made points about much more glaring statistical improbabilities in the game...and....*crickets*

I think that says it all...

[Monica83]

vdeity wrote...

They're only bisexual if you approach them with your character.  Otherwise, their orientation never really comes up.
Who wouldn't go gay/lesbo for Hawke?

So is better let player to decide if the companion because ethero or gay? WTF.. those companion are brainless golem or people with a mind? THis i mean when i say gameplay forced choice ruind the plot  and also made poor companion personality

Modifié par Monica83, 04 juin 2011 - 10:09 .

[Anathemic]

Master Wolf wrote...

So people are defending realism...in a fantasy game...I'm the only one seeing the contradiction in this? xD

The fantasy genre succeeds and heavily derives from its parallels of real world realism.

[Harid]

Siansonea II wrote...

This topic is about statistical probability of bisexuals (apparently...) and I made points about much more glaring statistical improbabilities in the game...and....*crickets*

I think that says it all...

People aren't arguing for the point you are trying to make, we know that there would logically be less bisexuals versus statistics, and we don't want anyone to have no romantic choices, however we also don't want unrealistic changes made for gameplay either.

[Siansonea]

@Akka le Vil

Stop using the "r" word, if you expect me to respond to anything you have to say.

[Anathemic]

Siansonea II wrote...

This topic is about statistical probability of bisexuals (apparently...) and I made points about much more glaring statistical improbabilities in the game...and....*crickets*

I think that says it all...

So your point is to derive the conversation into your more "glaring issue of the game" instead of it's current course... amirite?