6 réponses à ce sujet

[MsKehoe]

 Dear Bioware,

I'm a twenty year old art student living with my parents. I have anxiety and depression which makes it hard for me to leave the house unless it is for therapy or classes. When I am at home, I'm drawing, I'm surfing the net, and I'm playing video games. Video games have been an outlet for me all my life and roleplaying games especially were helpful in letting me create an alter-ego who can be something more heroic or productive than I can ever be.I'm also queer and trans*. 

The inclusion of bisexual love interests in Origins shocked me and made me still happy. When all the love interests were available to all genders, it made me even happier, because I could play myself without limitations. I could play out people like me in relationships. So, you did good on that one.

But there's one thing I do not like. One thing that is a big part of me that I constantly see treated negatively or as a punch line in media. 

I'm trans*. I was assigned female at birth and I have spent a long time struggling with my identity. There are days of extreme discomfort and dysphoria. There are days when I want to kill myself, because I think I can never be who I want to be. My family is still coming to terms with it and most of my friends at school insist on misgendering me. Every day I have to deal with the prospect of people seeing me as someone I'm not. Every day I have to live with the fear of being hurt for beng who I want to be.

Video games are my outlet as I've said before, but while queer characters are becoming more prominent, trans* characters are still being pushed back into stereotypical and harmful roles. I would kill to have a trans* main character or party member who kicks ass and isn't treated as a joke. However, from playing your Dragon Age series multiple times, the  only trans* characters I see are stuck in brothels and with disgusting harmful portrayals meant to shake a few laughs out of the cisgendered people playing your game.

I'm not laughing.

I'm frustrated. I'm frustrated, because while you are making big steps in being more queer friendly, you are taking giant steps backward when it comes to your trans* audience. I don't want the only representation of people like me in fiction to be prostitutes that are treated disrespectfully and as a joke. You think we don't have enough ridicule in our lives? You think we don't go through each day, having to bite our tongue when someone throws around the word tranny or purposefully misgenders us or hurts us or humiliates us? You think we like the pain, the humiliation, the frustration?

Bottom line is, it's not a joke. I don't care whatever excuses you might have for your behaviors. I'm not hearing it. There is no excuse to treat someone disrespectfully when they face such hardships in their life.

And it isn't just a game. Media is powerful. Fiction is powerful. When people see these negative portrayals, they carry it into their every day vocabulary. It gives them permission to treat other people with that same disrespect you show for your trans* characters.

I don't want to feel unsafe in one of the few things that helps me through the days. 

I hope you actually listen to this. I hope that some changes can be made, but I'm not holding my breath. Why? Because I have learned disappointment from the privileged people in society. The ones who can feel comfortable with the gender and sex they were born with, who don't have to live in fear of being hurt, who have a whole pool of fictional characters to relate to.

That is all.

- B

P.S. If you're wondering where this came from, it has been a problem I've been noticing for a while, but a scene from the Mark of the Assassin DLC just ignited something in me and I had to write this out. Enough is enough. Do something about this.

I'm going to ignore anyone who doesn't have anything productive to say. Thank you.

EDIT: Mary Kirby has come on to apologize and had this to say:

“To the OP and others offended by this scene:I am deeply sorry. It wasn’t my intent to make Serendipity the punchline of that conversation or to depict her in a negative light. But my intent as the writer doesn’t matter. What I was trying to do failed, and ultimately, what came across to you was hurtful, and that does matter. And for that, I cannot apologize enough. Again, I’m very sorry.”

“The scene plays differently if Hawke has slept with Serendipity. In that version, she greets Hawke familiarly, and hints that everyone at the Blooming Rose is looking forward to Hawke’s next visit. That’s what Tallis and Hawke are responding to, because I thoughtlessly did not write an alternate version of the middle or end of the conversation in the event that the player hadn’t slept with Serendiptiy. I just linked around the familiar part of the conversation to the same ending. So yes, in this version, the most reasonable assumption would be that the source of the awkwardness is not a discussion of Hawke’s popularity at the Rose in front of both their dates, it seems to be Serendipty herself, because no conversation has occured in this version of the scene. Tallis’ line doesn’t even make sense in this case, because there’s no topic to change. There’s nothing else for Tallis and Hawke to be reacting to. It’s an absolutely terrible scene, and I can see why it offended.Again, I’m very sorry.”

Modifié par MsKehoe, 09 octobre 2011 - 11:45 .

[Mary Kirby]

To the OP and others offended by this scene:

I am deeply sorry. It wasn't my intent to make Serendipity the punchline of that conversation or to depict her in a negative light. But my intent as the writer doesn't matter. What I was trying to do failed, and ultimately, what came across to you was hurtful, and that does matter. And for that, I cannot apologize enough. Again, I'm very sorry.

[Mary Kirby]

Moussey wrote...

What other meaning is there, if it has nothing to do with transgenderism or Serendipity being an unconventional person?

The scene plays differently if Hawke has slept with Serendipity. In that version, she greets Hawke familiarly, and hints that everyone at the Blooming Rose is looking forward to Hawke's next visit. That's what Tallis and Hawke are responding to, because I thoughtlessly did not write an alternate version of the middle or end of the conversation in the event that the player hadn't slept with Serendiptiy. I just linked around the familiar part of the conversation to the same ending. So yes, in this version, the most reasonable assumption would be that the source of the awkwardness is not a discussion of Hawke's popularity at the Rose in front of both their dates, it seems to be Serendipty herself, because no conversation has occured in this version of the scene. Tallis' line doesn't even make sense in this case, because there's no topic to change.  There's nothing else for Tallis and Hawke to be reacting to.   It's an absolutely terrible scene, and I can see why it offended.

Again, I'm very sorry. 

[Stanley Woo]

Let's keep the swearing out of the discussion, please. Thank you.

[John Epler]

Let's avoid trying to tell other people what they should or should not be offended by, shall we? And while we're at it, how about we cut out the armchair psychology.

I'm going to leave this topic open, but I strongly recommend people don't post unless they have something constructive to say. Which means that I'd rather we cut out the posts telling transgendered people what they should or should not be offended by, as I'm rather certain the majority of us (myself included) have no experience living that sort of lifestyle and dealing with the issues and societal biases associated with it.

That is all.

[David Gaider]

It's always interesting to see how someone else will interpret something you've written.

Mary's already apologized, as I don't think she intended it to be taken the way it was by the OP. But I'll add my two cents, here:

1) We love Serendipity. If we didn't love her, we wouldn't bring her back for any reason. While I understand someone might want us to have characters that they can personally identify with other than ones that are played for laughs, having a character that we adore and who we think is hilarious is no small feat. I'd hope that she would be taken in the spirit which she was meant.

2) Despite the above, the request for other kinds of transgendered characters is reasonable enough. We've even discussed it in the writer's pit from time to time. If anything, we've avoided it because it's a hard sell (in terms of it not coming across as a "gimmick" for a major character), it's not altogether setting-appropriate (cross-dressing perhaps, but that's not the same thing) and because unless a trangendered person somehow made themselves stand out (which someone like Serendipity would purposefully do) they're not going to come across as anything other than the gender they've chosen. More subtle nuances of appearance aren't something we're really set up to do, engine-wise (not without creating content specifically for that reason).

With either point, it would otherwise be really easy to dismiss the idea as being overstated-- easy because I (and no doubt most others) have no idea what it's like to live in a world where such stereotypes are constantly reinforced and have personal significance. Really, until very recently, gay people were in the same boat when it comes to videogames. So I'll add my apology to Mary's and we'll try to keep this in mind in the future. Thank you to the OP for pointing out something that would otherwise be overlooked.

Modifié par David Gaider, 11 octobre 2011 - 02:57 .

[David Gaider]

Whoa, people.

I'll chime in on this topic one more time, since it's devolved (predictably) into back-and-forth insults.

Before closing this down, however, I'll leave people with a couple of thoughts:

Nobody likes to think of themselves as having a privileged mindset. Why would you? I'm as bad at that as anyone else, and it can be uncomfortable to have it pointed out to you. If you're comparing a representation of minority to a representation of anyone else, however, that's exactly the sort of mindset you're indulging. They're not equal, because (as the OP pointed out) there's not a lot of representation for those groups out there... so any chance of there being good to match the bad is unlikely.

Is Serendipity a bad representation? I don't think so-- in my mind, this is a bit like the people who claimed that Zevran was a bad stereotype because he was (in their view) too flamboyant and sexual. Never mind that he was just a single character and not meant to represent any larger group, positively or negatively. But (and that's a big but) you must also respect the fact that minorities are sensitive to that kind of portrayal because that's all they see. You don't get to come in and say "I don't see what all the fuss is about"... because of course you wouldn't. That goes without saying. So, yes, you (and I) just have to take them at their word when they say it's insensitive.

When I first saw the exchange with Serendipity, I honestly just thought the "awkward" part was the fact that the seneschal had brought a prostitute to a high-class social gathering... a rather awesome, sassy prostitute, but a prostitute nevertheless. I didn't see anything wrong with it, because I don't consider Serendipity to be the butt of anyone's joke-- Honey Badger don't take no guff from anyone-- and rather it's the seneschal who has that honor... and I knew what Mary was getting at. But, as Mary said, intentions don't really matter. I can see how someone might look at it from another angle... and, yes, you could claim they were seeing something that wasn't there, but they can only look at it from their perspective just as we can only look at it from ours. That doesn't make their perspective invalid, and we must respect that.

Nobody's asked for a quota of "special rights" characters, or demanded that we only represent minorities in a certain light or done anything more, really, than ask that we stop and consider how we use some characters when they're the only characters of that type that get represented anywhere. And that's fair.

The point has been made, and I've definitely heard it-- and I think that those people on either side who've worked themselves up into a frenzy should take a moment and consider where they're taking this argument... because I frankly don't think we're talking about the game at this point. I'm going to close down this thread and ask that you take that moment.

And thank you again to the OP. While I'm closing this thread, that shouldn't be taken as an indictment of your viewpoint from us developers.

Modifié par David Gaider, 11 octobre 2011 - 08:54 .