490 réponses à ce sujet

[Medhia Nox]

@NovinhaShepard: Yes, but this thread is about the terrible injustices inflicted upon fictional lesbians.

The OP is lobbying for bed death - the least dramatic form of lesbian relationship.

Please keep your heterocentric perspective about Bioware's fascination with tragic relationships out of this.

[LobselVith8]

Medhia Nox wrote...

@NovinhaShepard: Yes, but this thread is about the terrible injustices inflicted upon fictional lesbians.

The OP is lobbying for bed death - the least dramatic form of lesbian relationship.

Please keep your heterocentric perspective about Bioware's fascination with tragic relationships out of this.

I think the OP made the thread in good faith, and is simply sharing her perspective and feelings on the matter. I think we can all discuss the matter civilly.

[Iakus]

David Gaider wrote...
Considering the original point had to be stretched pretty thinly in order to connect the dots as she wished, the ultimate point that ends up being made is a rather thin one. I'm not really convinced there's a pattern of targeting lesbian relationships as unhappy over the course of Dragon Age-- one would probably get better mileage saying "I'd like to see more happy relationships at all", which I would still glance sideways at because I think happy is boring but I at least could understand where someone was coming from on that front.

"Happy" might be boring.  But "doomed" can get tedious too.

Maybe something in the middle?  

[Enigmatick]

 

LobselVith8 wrote...
I think we can all discuss the matter civilly.

Where do you think we are?

Modifié par Enigmatick, 31 mars 2013 - 12:39 .

[BlueMagitek]

Like I said, the only "happy" relationship, according to the rules stated by OP, in Thedas is currently the Kent family (DA:O, metorite find). And if they show up again, I'm sure the writers will have torn them asunder. D=

[Jonata]

BlueMagitek wrote...

Like I said, the only "happy" relationship, according to the rules stated by OP, in Thedas is currently the Kent family (DA:O, metorite find). And if they show up again, I'm sure the writers will have torn them asunder. D=

Pa Kent died of heart attack some years later. If we'll ever see their offspring, however, it's going to be pretty epic I assume. 

Modifié par Jonata, 31 mars 2013 - 12:56 .

[BouncyFrag]

Jonata wrote...

BlueMagitek wrote...

Like I said, the only "happy" relationship, according to the rules stated by OP, in Thedas is currently the Kent family (DA:O, metorite find). And if they show up again, I'm sure the writers will have torn them asunder. D=

Pa Kent died of heart attack some years later. If we'll ever see their offspring, however, it's going to be pretty epic I assume. 

Soon.

[SwordofMercy1]

In Exile wrote...

Are there any relationships in a Bioware game that haven't ended terribly/tragically? For example, Maric + anyone he ever loved = bad news bears.

Varric was axed as an LI (among other reasons) because there'd be no 'drama' in the relationship (vs. Isabella/Merril/Anders/Fenris).

It's all drama. I don't think Bioware has a problem with portraying healthy lesbian relationships - they don't like healthy relationships period.

... Why is it after all these years of playing Bioware games I NEVER saw this trend?!... Oh ya, the drama:blink:.

[BlueMagitek]

Jonata wrote...

BlueMagitek wrote...

Like I said, the only "happy" relationship, according to the rules stated by OP, in Thedas is currently the Kent family (DA:O, metorite find). And if they show up again, I'm sure the writers will have torn them asunder. D=

Pa Kent died of heart attack some years later. If we'll ever see their offspring, however, it's going to be pretty epic I assume. 

Well, as long as he wasn't killed by Dragon Age Luthor.

But yeah, well, I guess the only working relationship in all of Thedas was ruined.  Thanks, Obama Gaider.

Modifié par BlueMagitek, 31 mars 2013 - 02:06 .

[Foolsfolly]

So you want Neil Simon's The Even Couple?

[Renmiri1]

David Gaider wrote...

I'm not really convinced there's a pattern of targeting lesbian relationships as unhappy over the course of Dragon Age-- one would probably get better mileage saying "I'd like to see more happy relationships at all", which I would still glance sideways at because I think happy is boring but I at least could understand where someone was coming from on that front.

tehehe, at least you are not being accused of being against mothers like some WoW writers are.

I think both Thedas and the World of Warcraft are words were life is pretty brutal so happy endings don't happen often, to anyone. Some people take it as a bias against lesbians, or against mothers or even against women, but I don't see it.

Granted, we don't want writers to lazily go for "kill the wimen" when they need drama to fuel the hero's angst, but that is not what I see on DAO, DAA and DA2. On a hellhole like DA's Thedas or WoW's Azeroth we get pretty much equal opportunity dying and tragedy.

Perhaps having some love stories and families survive would help. Happy is boring but a pervailing sense of dread is also not fun. :innocent:

Modifié par Renmiri1, 31 mars 2013 - 02:24 .

[Zeldrik1389]

i don't think it's just lesbian relationship being targeted though. Pretty much all the games that were mentioned set in tragic time, and it's hard to have a "happy ending" relationship during that time. There are tragic normal relationships in those games too, not just same sex relationship (The Krogan Scout and his Asari wife in ME 3 for instance.).

[Lucky Thirteen]

I think it's more that the lesbian relationships tend to lean towards male lesbian fetish. Take for example, Traynor in ME3 who has the frequent strong desire to strip to her underwear and get soaking wet around female Shepard.

All of the relationships in the games lately have been depressingly tragic.

[Forum Ronin]

If you overanalyze everything, especially if you have an agenda you want to support, of course you're going to find "disturbing trends" everywhere and in everything. Here's an example of how you can twist facts to make an argument that "The media is out to objectify and belittle men": www.youtube.com/watch

What's unfortunate, is people who cry "discrimination" at everything and everything, end up hurting people who actually find and want to stop real discrimination because the valid complaints get lumped in with the crying-wolf complaints, so the general population becomes numb to it. It's like how these days most people seem to tragically associate "feminist" with "man-hating" instead of being about equality.

Modifié par Forum Ronin, 31 mars 2013 - 03:31 .

[In Exile]

Wulfram wrote...
Have you killed Aveline?  I'm under the impression it's impossible.

You're totally right. I just assumed it was possible, infering from Fenris et al. 

[BlueMagitek]

She does leave, though.

[Fuggyt]

Every happy SS female couple is the same. But every unhappy SS female couple is unhappy in their own way. And that's not drama. Drama requires conflict; nobody wants to watch a two-hour movie about people sitting around agreeing with each other. If Branka hadn't been crazy and cruel, she and Hespith might've had a perfectly wholesome relationship redecorating the Deep Roads while they waited for the Warden to show up. But then there's no Broodmother, which is genuinely creepy the first time you see it, and would the story have been better? Had Branka been a male or hetero female, wouldn't Laren have ended up the same way? Branka didn't have to be gay, but just because she is, does that mean she can't be an antagonist without demeaning all gay relationships? Does that make her a stereotype?

OP better be careful what she asks for. Apparently she'd like to see a well-adjusted S/S female couple of NPCs in a semi-significant role, a lesbian Wade and Herren running a bed-and-breakfast outside Orlais where Inquisitors gather to trade crumpets and clues. And she just might get it, but wouldn't that rather smack of tokenism?

And I guess I see her point, but I must confess I never noticed the lack before. Maybe it's my privileged male hetero WASP bigotry, but it seemed to me the LGBT characters in DAO were portrayed with sensitivity and complexity, almost as it their sexuality was incidental to their presence in the story! Imagine that! I include Zev and Leliana in that list but also the aforementioned (and hilariously campy) Wade and Herren. Or will I get in trouble for presuming that Wade is just happily, flamingly, Broadway-musical gay, and good for him? Let Wade be Wade, I say--not only the best blacksmith in Ferelden but by far the most fabulous.

[HAG1686]

I don't think you can claim a trend in the presentation of lesbian relationships without including ALL forms of lesbian relationships (to include the PC), since the sample size is just too small with too many parameters. It is fair to just say, though, that you would like to see more and varied lesbian relationships in the background, and I would support that. Anything to make the game world feel deeper and more alive.

I would imagine that when Bioware thinks about how they are presenting homosexuality, though, they are considering it as a whole (single homosexual characters, ex-lovers, PC-LI, and ongoing NPC relationships), and making sure the variety and appropriateness is across that, and not within such a narrowly focused lens as lesbian peripheral characters.

[Siegdrifa]

David Gaider wrote...

Atalanta wrote...
Aveline and Donnic finding each other was also fantastic, and I don't think that it's unreasonable to ask that gays and lesbians also have a positive example or two to take away with them after they finish a game. I think it's difficult for non-LGBTs to wrap their minds around just how little there is written with us in mind in media, and how big of a difference positive protrayals in fiction can make. The desire to not be excluded is the major reason these kinds of threads are common - not to attack the developers or to make people feel uncomfortable.

It's not unreasonable to ask, but I think it's also not unreasonable for us to say "no" in this case. I believe my obligation extends to making these characters human, not to making them happy or even making them positive examples of anything.

Considering the original point had to be stretched pretty thinly in order to connect the dots as she wished, the ultimate point that ends up being made is a rather thin one. I'm not really convinced there's a pattern of targeting lesbian relationships as unhappy over the course of Dragon Age-- one would probably get better mileage saying "I'd like to see more happy relationships at all", which I would still glance sideways at because I think happy is boring but I at least could understand where someone was coming from on that front.

1) Couldn't agree more on that Mr. Gaider.

2) Couldn't desagree more on that Mr. Gaider.
If you find "happy" being "boring", it's mean you don't write "happy" being "not boring" to your liking yet.
It's like a white page with a black dot; you could also have a black page with a white dot. Happy does not reduce to "boring", but it sure won't use all the same strings as "unhappy" to stimulate the entertainement.

That said, i wouldn't dare reproche a writer to have his preference and personnal style while writting on certain matters, it's part of their identity. But as any work in a creative field, i think turning things we usualy avoid because we don't find them much intresting, and changing their lack of intrest to the opposite is a good way to expend the range of capability and will improve the work as a whole.

[ElitePinecone]

David Gaider wrote...

Thank you for pointing out this issue. I wasn't aware there was that many relationships in the Dragon Age which could be perceived as happy and working out well. Clearly the writers slipped a few by me. I'll need to work on that, clearly.

HA. 

[AshenShug4r]

For the love of god can we not go a single day without trying to uncover a conspiracy or find some bizarre reason to be offended?

[Monica21]

Fuggyt wrote...

Every happy SS female couple is the same. But every unhappy SS female couple is unhappy in their own way.

You get a bazillion internet points for managing to paraphrase Anna Karenina on the BSN. Also, I agree with everything else.

[andy6915]

Well, topic creator has been gone for 9 hours now. Think we scared him/her off now that it's been made clear how full of holes this pattern was?

Anyway, I think I can sum this thread up: The pattern doesn't exist and was just the result of someone seeing what they thought was a pattern and made a thread about it. But as more evidence came out against it and the thread grew bigger and bigger, they ended up stuck trying to defend it because they became to invested in being right after 10 pages. But it seems that after page 11 where Kurt and I made our strong case against it, topic creator decided to just quietly leave out the backdoor and wait for the thread to die... It's what I would do if I got into this situation with a thread I made.

However, I can agree with the overall point that more gay relationships in general need to happen among NPCs in this series. Specifically positive relationships. More wouldn't hurt. Then again, it can't be too many. Reason being, relationships being tragic in general is one of the big thing in Dragon Age, so having only the gay relationships not be tragic and only the hetero ones be tragic would not exactly be fair either. The implications would be uncomfortable too, that only gay people can have a well-ending relationship. Bottom line, it needs balance and not just swinging things around to an extreme opposite way and making tons of gay NPCs just for the sake of making their relationships positive while all the hetero NPCs get screwed over. NPCs of EVERY orientation need a bit of screwing over and having tragedy befall them, gay and straight. It won't be Dragon Age otherwise. Make more gay relatioships and make a few of them end on a good note, but also make some of them end on a horrible note to keep it balanced with how many straight relationships end on a horrible note.

Good summary?

Modifié par andy69156915, 31 mars 2013 - 05:42 .

[Xilizhra]

Anyway, I think I can sum this thread up: The pattern doesn't exist and was just the result of someone seeing what they thought was a pattern and made a thread about it. But as more evidence came out against it and the thread grew bigger and bigger, they ended up stuck trying to defend it because they became to invested in being right after 10 pages. But it seems that after page 11 where Kurt and I made our strong case against it, topic creator decided to just quietly leave out the backdoor and wait for the thread to die... It's what I would do if I got into this situation with a thread I made.

Not in ten thousand years. I have a job. You've made a case for exceptions to the pattern, but you have not made one for there not being a pattern at all, and I daresay you may need to check a bit of privilege if you don't see the distribution as being something worth noting.

However, I can agree with the overall point that more gay relationships in general need to happen among NPCs in this series. Specifically positive relationships. More wouldn't hurt. Then again, it can't be too many. Reason being, relationships being tragic in general is one of the big thing in Dragon Age, so having only the gay relationships not be tragic and only the hetero ones be tragic would not exactly be fair either. The implications would be uncomfortable too, that only gay people can have a well-ending relationship. Bottom line, it needs balance and not just swinging things around to an extreme opposite way and making tons of gay NPCs just for the sake of making their relationships positive while all the hetero NPCs get screwed over. NPCs of EVERY orientation need a bit of screwing over and having tragedy befall them, gay and straight. It won't be Dragon Age otherwise. Make more gay relatioships and make a few of them end on a good note, but also make some of them end on a horrible note to keep it balanced with how many straight relationships end on a horrible note.

Good, the only things you're against are the ones that I never mentioned at all. We're in agreement, unless you want to manufacture more conflict.