19658 réponses à ce sujet

[Vapaa]

The difference being that when we say gender what we mean is biological sex, as in: I only want to have sex with people whose genitalia is the same as mine. Yeah, I went there. Deal with it. Also, I assume you're referring to sexual preferences of gay, bi, straight, and asexual, btw. Gender preferences, on the other hand, are different and could encompass a wide spectrum of possibilities. A gay man could prefer men who are more feminine in behavior or dress. That doesn't mean said gay man prefers women. He prefers--although it'd be more accurate to say, only goes for; preference is not the ideal term to use for sexual orientation--men, but finds feminine qualities attractive and prefers those.

 

Of course, I was using gender attraction as a generic term as it is often how it end up working in the romance (gated male/female), but it's true that attraction has as much nuances as there are people

 

 

With race, no one is born with an ingrained sense of, "I'll only bonk men of ___ skin color." I agree with Ailith Tycane on that point. Tycane also touched upon internalized racism and self-loathing because of institutionalized racism. Just as institutionalized homophobia can lead someone to hating themselves for preferring someone of the same sex, racism can lead someone to hating people of the same "race" as themselves.

 

I don't like equaling IRL races to DA species, humans are a unique species and there's no "race", where DA species are different biologically from one another even if they can interbreed via fantasy genetics.

 

 

The way you're phrasing it, humanity would have an ingrained, biological reason for preferring people of their own skin color and only people of the same skin color. But that's not the case. And that's different from preferring someone who looks like you, which can still be influenced in external ways because of the racial biases in media and culture that Tycane mentioned.

 

That's ideed not the case, but it's also irrelevant when talking about a universe with different species. Let me explain how I see the issue: human society only even knew its own species, so the only real "rift" (for lack of better term) between humans is gender; you are either male or female...of course recent history says it's more complicated than that, but at the scale of the human society, it's a conception that was very real for millenia and it coloured human society. That's why sexuality is kind of a big thing, because the existence of this "rift" between males and females shaped our collective minds and gave gender a psychological importance, even if deep down, it's just a biological difference.

 

But now let's take a look at the DA universe, it's a world were indivudals are not separated just by gender, but species also, so I honestly believe that in a society that evoled in this situation, species would be as big as a deal as gender is, because the existence of this difference among people would influence society and the minds.

 

 

It's different at its core because someone who thinks black people are ugly because they think of black people as thugs and see dark skin as disgusting due to associating it unattractiveness and nasty human behavior is, at its core, different from someone who does not date or have sex with men because they have no attraction to male bodies.

 

Does that make the distinction clearer?

 

Again that would be the case if we're talking human ethnicity, but in this case, it's different species; and lack of attraction for an elven or quanari body would be in the same league as lack of attraction for the human body

[Neesa]

I think it's more the absolute that annoys people.

 

I could claim that I'm not attracted to black people, meet an amazing black guy/gal who rocks my world and realize that I can be attracted to black people because everyone is a different individual. If in game for example Vivienne claimed she isn't into Dwarves and after some amazing rescue missions she changes her mind, that'd be great. I can deal with Viv simply not being into me as a person just like Varric isn't into Hawke or me not being into my best friend not matter what she does. To completely rule out an entire race is wonky and often riddled with creepy underlying reasons.

 

As opposed to the creepy underlying reasons people feel they're owed a good reason for being rejected or else they'll hold a grudge?

 

If someone says they're not into a particular ethnic group, I accept it on the basis of it being a purely physical thing. At least until they elaborate on the reasons and they include comments like "black women are too confrontational for me" or "white women are so needy". Then we have issues but overall I'd just consider it a bullet dodged and a few minutes wasted. Certainly not an automatic reason to boot a character from my Inquisition. On the other hand, from a writing perspective I get how "I'm just not attracted to x group" doesn't seem like a very interesting story arc. As such, I'm willing to see what these story reasons are before passing judgement.

[Cat Fancy]

I'm willing to believe that race is, perhaps, as much a social construction in Thedas as it is on Earth. I'm still very uncomfortable with people fully equating racism against fantasy races with racism in real life. I'll never believe it would be equally gross for some character to have a problem with dating a qunari as it would for them to never want to date a black person. That's ridiculous. Even if the qunari didn't have horns. And there are more differences between humans and qunari than horns.

 

(and why wouldn't you want to date a qunari with horns, though? you're not Qunari, you know big-horned qunari are just clearly, objectively better than hornless qunari in pretty much every way)

 

Fantasy racism is not going to cause me to have my Inquisitor kick someone out of their Inquisition. There are going to be so many worse things about your potential love interests in this game than racism! At least half of our former romance options were actual murderers. I'd imagine that trend will continue, much as I wish it didn't. (I never thought there was a good enough reason to spare/recruit all those murderous party members in Origins)

 

Anyway, the solution to this problem is for Bioware to only allow people to play humans from now on.

 

I'm not attracted to people who dress a certain way: Err... we're veering into shallow territory here.

I think that's completely appropriate. Love and attraction are not blind. I, for one, would have trouble loving someone who wore Dragon Age mage hats all the time.

[Basement Cat]

I think that's completely appropriate. Love and attraction are not blind. I, for one, would have trouble loving someone who wore Dragon Age mage hats all the time.

On the upside they don't get helmet hair. Ugh.

[Ajna]

The idea of attraction or lack of attraction to certain races doesn't exist in a vacuum though. We (westerners) come from a culture where whiteness is seen as the default in beauty and deviating from that in any way is ugly. It also comes from extremely racist ideas of what "all" black people are like (uneducated, rude, lazy, etc etc.) So no, I don't think someone saying they aren't attracted to black people is something that can't be helped, I think it's something that's been socially ingrained in literally all of us since we were old enough to consume any type of media whether some people realize it or not.

Even people from those minority groups sometimes hate the way they look. That's why someone like Whoopie Goldberg literally sat in bleach as a child to try and make her skin white. That's why black women feel so compelled to straighten their hair, and it's why Asian women get surgery to make their eyes look more white, and why a lot of Mexican people will go out of their way to avoid the sun so they don't tan at all and remain as pale as possible.

Anyway, this is derailing the topic completely, I just think it's really important for people to realize, this isn't the same as sexual orientation, no one is born thinking ALL black people are ugly.

To make this more relevant to DA, I wouldn't support race gating in DA for the sake of "Realism" because I feel like that's a slippery slope where people would use it as an excuse to be genuinely racist, but because like I said before, there are no elves and qunari in real life, So there's no negative representation issues there. And second, I just find it personally funny that a black female character in game would be racist within the confines of the DA universe, especially since there have been so many ugly comments about her being unattractive for being black from people online.

Post of the day for me, this.

[Who Knows]

If we can accept that some people in Dragon Age have magic powers, we can accept that there are 8 people in a group that would either be immediately fine with dating another race, or would eventually come around to it.

 

Unlike gay characters, racegated characters have no real purpose in terms of representation.

 

If you don't have time to make all of the animations, then fine, but racegating just for "story reasons" seems arbitrarily restrictive.

[Deviija]

The idea of attraction or lack of attraction to certain races doesn't exist in a vacuum though. We (westerners) come from a culture where whiteness is seen as the default in beauty and deviating from that in any way is ugly. It also comes from extremely racist ideas of what "all" black people are like (uneducated, rude, lazy, etc etc.) So no, I don't think someone saying they aren't attracted to black people is something that can't be helped, I think it's something that's been socially ingrained in literally all of us since we were old enough to consume any type of media whether some people realize it or not.

 

Even people from those minority groups sometimes hate the way they look. That's why someone like Whoopie Goldberg literally sat in bleach as a child to try and make her skin white. That's why black women feel so compelled to straighten their hair, and it's why Asian women get surgery to make their eyes look more white, and why a lot of Mexican people will go out of their way to avoid the sun so they don't tan at all and remain as pale as possible. 

 

Anyway, this is derailing the topic completely, I just think it's really important for people to realize, this isn't the same as sexual orientation, no one is born thinking ALL black people are ugly. 

 

To make this more relevant to DA, I wouldn't support race gating in DA for the sake of "Realism" because I feel like that's a slippery slope where people would use it as an excuse to be genuinely racist, but because like I said before, there are no elves and qunari in real life, So there's no negative representation issues there. And second, I just find it personally funny that a black female character in game would be racist within the confines of the DA universe, especially since there have been so many ugly comments about her being unattractive for being black from people online.

 

Why thank you, A.  I was getting ready to post on the matter, particularly the (irritating) bolded tangent that this thread sees when this subject crops up, but everything you said makes my job easier.  Quote, say all this ^, and done.  Now I can return to sipping my morning horchata in content.    

[Nocte ad Mortem]

I've been pretty vocal about wanting the last two characters to be one male and one female bisexual option, so let it be known I'm not saying I think/hope it wont be, but just out of curiosity... does anyone actually think there's a chance Vivienne will not be an LI? It seems like pretty much everyone is taking this as given right now.  

[Maria Caliban]

...does anyone actually think there's a chance Vivienne will not be an LI?

*raises hand*

[New Kid]

If she wasn't the only female companion left I wouldn't think she'd be a LI. I suppose there is a chance that there will be more male romance options than female. (which I doubt)

[Former_Fiend]

The reason it's hard to use our world as a comparison to Thedas on this particular topic is because races and ethnicities work differently there. Using the word 'race' to distinguish between say, white people and japanese people, is wrong. We're all humans, we're all part of the human race. The distinction is actually that we're different ethnicities within our race. There are no other humanoid races on earth. that we know of.

 

also note that this does not mean racism doesn't exist, like the kid in my tutorial was trying to argue. it means that racism is a frequently misunderstood social construct with no rational basis, and a badly suited name that reflects the ignorance of the act itself. PM me if you want to have that argument, I refuse to have it here.

 

In Thedas, there are four sentient humanoid races who also have different ethnicities inside of their respective races. We know from what we've experienced in game that it isn't totally weird or unheard of for elves to get together with humans, but for all we know it could be entirely taboo and unheard of for a Qunari and an elf to get together. There could be the same kind of tabooness on that that there are for siblings here. We just don't know, and we've got nothing to compare and contrast it with because there are no other races on earth for us to use as examples. I think it's one of those things we'll have to wait to see in game before we can actually understand it, and any non-preferential reasons there could be behind race-gating. 

 

disclaimer: i don't think that an elf getting with a qunari is the equivalent of our world incest, that's just an example.

 

It's funny that the pairing with by far the largest taboo against it is elf/human; not because the other combinations are entirely acceptable, but because they're so rare that they're not as stigmatized.

 

But here's my thing; there are four distinct humanoid races, but these races are used by the writers to explore real world issues like racism, race relations and politics, and the plights of certain ethnic groups have faced throughout history.

 

So I take issue when the writers want to use dalish elves as analogues for native americans or roma and city elves as analogues for jews forced to live in the ghettos in Germany, but then turn around and say that someone's perfectly justified in refusing a relationship with them on the sole basis of them being an elf.

 

There's a lot of similar mentality in the "they're different races/species" argument as you see in real world racists arguments against interracial relationships; I've mentioned several times on these forums my uncle who disowned his daughter when she married a black man because he didn't want "half monkey" grandchildren. He doesn't see black people as humans. They're less, as far as he's concerned. They're different. They're not to be mixed with.

 

There's a reason I haven't talked to that uncle in ten years.

 

In the realm of fantasy, we're just talking about one further degree of separation. Are they human? No, but they're fully intelligent, sentient, sapient beings that display the full array of emotion that we do. There's no reason any of these people can't form a meaningful bond.

[Sporothrix]

Human history was never confronted to different sentient species, so RL analogies are biased. I don't see what makes attraction to gender that much different to attraction to species.

 

 

That's actually not true. Neanderthal was different species, and there are some evidences for interbreeding.

 

As for attraction, it's mainly a matter of responsing to sexual clues (basically, secondary sex characteristics) and none of those fantasy species really look too different from humans, that's why real people find them hot.

[azarhal]

does anyone actually think there's a chance Vivienne will not be an LI?

 

There is a lots of things that makes me think Vivienne will not be a LI and it's all based on what we know of her and the other characters. The only way I could see Vivienne being a LI is if Sera is race-gated against humans and Vivienne exist to provide that choice only.

[Milan92]

There is a lots of things that makes me think Vivienne will not be a LI and it's all based on what we know of her and the other characters. The only way I could see Vivienne being a LI is if Sera is race-gated against humans and Vivienne exist to provide that choice only.

 

But if they don't make Vivienne a romance then its gonna be either Solas/Varric Solas/Blackwall or Varric/Blackwall.

 

It would create more male romances instead of an equel number of male and female.

 

This is not me complaining btw - just pointing it out. I'm fine with just Cass and Josephine.

[Nocte ad Mortem]

I think the only way Vivienne wouldn't be an LI is if all three gates were on male characters. That's the conclusion I personally keep coming back to. I think there must be a bisexual male that was meant to fill in what Iron Bull was meant to be gated against, whatever that was. There's a chance that Cullen is gated and they added Varric as a second straight options, but I'm more doubtful of this, because I think Qunari is the one they'd both most likely lack, if any. I think that's also likely why they wanted to get IB ungated, because this would make things basically equal. Right now, I can just see it making more sense that they have one male and one female gated option left, Vivienne and a bisexual male. 

[Sporothrix]

There is a lots of things that makes me think Vivienne will not be a LI and it's all based on what we know of her and the other characters. The only way I could see Vivienne being a LI is if Sera is race-gated against humans and Vivienne exist to provide that choice only.

 

They would have to be insane to think that people would be OK if the group that was mistreated before gets the short end of the stick. It would pretty much deny what they try to accomplish here.

[Sporothrix]

I think the only way Vivienne wouldn't be an LI is if all three gates were on male characters. That's the conclusion I personally keep coming back to. I think there must be a bisexual male that was meant to fill in what Iron Bull was meant to be gated against, whatever that was. There's a chance that Cullen is gated and they added Varric as a second straight options, but I'm more doubtful of this, because I think Qunari is the one they'd both most likely lack, if any. I think that's also likely why they wanted to get IB ungated, because this would make things basically equal. Right now, I can just see it making more sense that they have one male and one female gated option left, Vivienne and a bisexual male. 

 

That would be still extremely unfair. That would mean straight women and gay men getting much more options - all they would need to do is choosing different race for PC in next playthrough, which would even add more replay value for them. And it's not the same as playing as different gender, because it's their sexuality that's represented this way.

[Nocte ad Mortem]

That would be still extremely unfair. That would mean straight women and gay men getting much more options - all they would need to do is choosing different race for PC in next playthrough, which would even add more replay value for them. And it's not the same as playing as different gender, because it's their sexuality that's represented this way.

I don't disagree. I hope they will do a male and female bisexual character for the last two, for the 2/4/2 configuration. I'm not arguing for another distribution, I'm just discussing what I think is possible. But, like I said, what seems most likely to me is that Vivienne and another male will be the last options and I think they will be bisexual.

[Neesa]

... does anyone actually think there's a chance Vivienne will not be an LI? It seems like pretty much everyone is taking this as given right now.  

 

I think there's a significant chance she's not LI yes. That's mainly due to the race-gating which I suspect will create an imbalance regarding choices among PCs. Otherwise, the "she's too busy for romance" thing just doesn't work for me; so long as she's interacting with the Inquisitor there's an opportunity for a romance to develop. 

 

Regarding Vivienne being bi, it hit me in hindsight that Mike Laidlaw may have already shot down this possibility when he dropped that hint about Josephine. If that wasn't an inconvenient phrasing (or I'm recalling it incorrectly) then she's either straight or a lesbian.

[Parkimus]

I think there's a significant chance she's not LI yes. That's mainly due to the race-gating which I suspect will create an imbalance regarding choices among PCs. Otherwise, the "she's too busy for romance" thing just doesn't work for me; so long as she's interacting with the Inquisitor there's an opportunity for a romance to develop.

 

That can be applied to any companion/advisor. Vivienne may simply be uninterested in a romance, you know 

 

That being said, I want her and Blackwall to be bisexual LIs for gender and orientation representation.

[CrimsonN7]

I think there's a significant chance she's not LI yes. That's mainly due to the race-gating which I suspect will create an imbalance regarding choices among PCs. Otherwise, the "she's too busy for romance" thing just doesn't work for me; so long as she's interacting with the Inquisitor there's an opportunity for a romance to develop. 

I will be sorta disappointed if she's off the table as an option. I'm still undecided on who I will romance if any, would like to have her as an option but if not the search continues!

[godModeAlpha]

"she's too busy for romance"

Deffinately an easy cop out.

If she's not a LI, then someone has to provide a better reason.