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I think the 'noble/virtuous' trope can be better summed up as "If you're Andrastian, you're straight" with Leliana as the obvious exception, but she does appear to be an outlier in the grand scheme of things.
The current Divine isn't straight.
Also Zevran and Anders are both Andrastian, though not members of the Chantry.
Wasn't it Samara as male Shepard?
I don't think so. Samara's married to her Code at this point. (It's also implied that she was either abstaining from drink or at least drinking much less than the others at the party.) I don't think you wake up with Samara even if you did pursue a relationship with her.
EDIT:
The current Divine isn't straight.
Also Zevran and Anders are both Andrastian, though not members of the Chantry.
Modifié par LiquidLyrium, 21 juillet 2014 - 03:47 .
Really? Where do we learn this? I've read the comics but not the novels, and there's not mention of that in the games and I can't find anything on the wiki that mentions it. But maybe that just reinforces the point that I'm making. Unless you're a super-fan, most people are exploring the world of Thedas through the games themselves.
The current Divine is the priestess that helps Leliana in Leliana's Song. She mentioned that she was involved with Marjolaine for a brief time.
Nope...just for female Shepard.
Eww Seriously?
At least then I could take it as a troll if both Sheps woke up with Javik.
The current Divine is the priestess that helps Leliana in Leliana's Song. She mentioned that she was involved with Marjolaine for a brief time.
they actually never say what that involvement is, it could be professional(bard) rather than romantic.
they actually never say what that involvement is, it could be professional(bard) rather than romantic.
Yeah, I never took it to be a romantic involvement. Didn't even cross my mind up to this point. (Although it could be because I'm a guy. A gay guy, but still, a guy)
I was mostly going by the wiki, as I haven't actually played the DLC. But checking it on youtube Dorothea says
"They were stolen... in a moment of weakness. I didn't know why Marjolaine wanted to be so close to me. But it felt like... youth"
which I find difficult to interpret otherwise
I was mostly going by the wiki, as I haven't actually played the DLC. But checking it on youtube Dorothea says
"They were stolen... in a moment of weakness. I didn't know why Marjolaine wanted to be so close to me. But it felt like... youth"
which I find difficult to interpret otherwise
I'll have to look that up, I'm not sure I ever actually finished Leliana's Song myself. It's heartening to know that Leliana isn't he sole exception. Although just from reading the line here, it could still be interpreted as internalized bigotry, that her desires were shameful and wrong in the first place rather than 'I broke my vows'. I'm not saying that was ever the intent I'm just saying that it's still very easy for a player to get that feeling while playing the game, even though, ostensibly, there is no such institutional homophobia. (It's also probably easier to get that feeling if you've ever been on the receiving end of such stigma, I'll wager.) I dunno.
We also haven't seen much of the Imperial Chantry either, but it might be different there, since priests are allowed to marry and have children and families in the Imperium, so that may have a different feel altogether, including the allowance for openly LGBT clergy members.
Guest_Postlapsarian_*
I am glad this is being discussed in an effort to improve future Bioware games. 
However, I have spent some time lurking in the mass effect 3 scuttlebutt/feedback threads. I get a feeling that some of the more vocal mass effect-only crowd is less tolerant of equal representation (this is just how I have personally viewed it in recent and past threads). There's some cynicism, sarcasm, and what appears to be disdain for gays, blacks, Asians, female protagonists having presence and influence in that or as some would say their game. It's weird because in a game like mass effect, which is based on some hypothetical future reality for all humanity there is less desire for equal representation of the aforementioned than dragon age with its medieval-esque setting.
I may (but I doubt it) have some form of observational bias, but I am guessing it is due to the homogeneity of the mass effect crowd being mostly straight, white male. I am a newbie mass effect fan and hope this discussion HERE has some impact on future mass effect games as well because in representing a future for mankind it really needs to.
I am glad this is being discussed in an effort to improve future Bioware games.
However, I have spent some time lurking in the mass effect 3 scuttlebutt/feedback threads. I get a feeling that some of the more vocal mass effect-only crowd is less tolerant of equal representation (this is just how I have personally viewed it in recent and past threads). There's some cynicism, sarcasm, and what appears to be disdain for gays, blacks, Asians, female protagonists having presence and influence in that or as some would say their game. It's weird because in a game like mass effect, which is based on some hypothetical future reality for all humanity there is less desire for equal representation of the aforementioned than dragon age with its medieval-esque setting.
I may (but I doubt it) have some form of observational bias, but I am guessing it is due to the homogeneity of the mass effect crowd being mostly straight, white male. I am a newbie mass effect fan and hope this discussion HERE has some impact on future mass effect games as well because in representing a future for mankind it really needs to.
It could be that Mass Effect attracts a different type of player than the DA series. Someone I work with told me he thinks only gays like fantasy. 
(there is no appropriate smiley to express my disgust)
Guest_Postlapsarian_*
It could be that Mass Effect attracts a different type of player than the DA series. Someone I work with told me he thinks only gays like fantasy.
Your coworker is wrong and that's all i'll say 
.
I just hope this discussion will come up in a ME:Next thread sometime in the future. I am a female and a scientist. I like sci-fi more than fantasy to be honest. I just hope new ME games don't try to repel me from them and can draw me in as a customer as well. I hope they try to expand their fanbase to include more groups. In the end, I can't completely blame the mass effect fanbase for its attitude. In truth, the blame must largely be placed on the writing team. Human minds are like sponges and the fanbase is only absorbing the messages the games are already sending.
Speaking of ME...one thing I had the feeling, was that there was a real backslah to the straight female protagonist.
not only for the way jacob leave of Shepard (urgh, really, could't they killed him off, or make him realize he was gay, or anything else, but impregnate another woman? really? a scientist, in a futuristic world don't know how to use a condom or pills?!? 
) that is one of the most disgusting thing that can happen in the love life of a woman in RL, but in general.
Vega after many flirts just retreat like "ewwww, no, nope, I don't want to bed you. I was just joking!" and in Citadel I don't want to say what I think of it. 
Joker is "urgh, no, I prefer metallic dolls than you"
Garrus is "you lost the train in ME2, goodbye!"
and the Javik joke was insulting. And I stop there.
the fact is, there way too many insulting episodies in ME3. the feeling is that there is a bulling of the straight females. the message is "we don't like straight female protagonist", or at least "no male like femShep".
if the episodies where less, than the feeling would not have been so strong.
so I vote for less insulting episodes in regards of the female protagonist love life. 
Yeah, female Shepards were seriously screwed over in the romance department in ME3. In cases where there's a continuing narrative over multiple games, a LI should never dump a player without a good story reason. What happened with Jacob was NOT a good reason. Thane was admitted to have been 'forgotten about' by the writers after his plot-mandated death, and that meant essentially that if a female Shepard left Kaidan on Virmire and hadn't romanced Garrus in ME2, she'd be either screwed out of a romance or only able to choose to be with Liara or Traynor, and female Shepards aren't necessarily bisexual to begin with. Not to mention that both Liara and Traynor had romances that played out more as male fantasies than romances. Mass Effect really did make a problem out of the LI's between genders - none of male Shepard's LI's will break up with him without in-game prompting or suffered plot mandated deaths, but both of these happened with female Shepard's. While I can see plot lines where a romance breaks it off or dies, the in-game narrative glossed right over this with female Shepard, and there was only one possible LI for heterosexual female Shepards to 'replace' them with, if he was alive (which isn't particularly better anyway, but it could soften the blow if there'd been other options available for a het-femShep).
There's also a lot of really uncomfortable elements in the Mass Effect games I find alienating for me as a gay man - I've routinely said that it felt like pulling teeth and dragging them kicking and screaming to get a male/male romance in the game. And what is there really plays out uncomfortably, which Shepard delivering his lines at the lock-in scene with Kaidan as if this conversation is the first time that he considered a relationship with him (despite a couple of off-handed references to Kaidan flirting with him and my screaming at the screen 'YES I AM FLIRTING WITH YOU, YOU BLITHERING IDIOT!' when Kaidan says he wants to 'live in the illusion' in Huerta). I don't even get an option to suggest that Shepard was interested in him back in the first game. In Mass Effect, it essentially feels that in that universe, men are assumed heterosexual until proven bisexual, with Steve as the sole exception to the rule. And I'm not even getting in to my issues in the portrayal of the male Shepard/Kaidan romance in Citadel...
It basically came down that while in Dragon Age, it felt like being non-heterosexual isn't a deal at all, in either character reactions or in narrative terms, in Mass Effect, I have to actively fight against the narrative to play as a gay man.
And I'm not even getting in to my issues in the portrayal of the male Shepard/Kaidan romance in Citadel...
Could you? I romance Kaidan as m/m in ME3, but I've never played Citadel. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.
Could you? I romance Kaidan as m/m in ME3, but I've never played Citadel. I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.
It could be that Mass Effect attracts a different type of player than the DA series. Someone I work with told me he thinks only gays like fantasy.
How about this one?
Yeah, I definitely think Mass Effect had a lot more issues (outside of the Garrus/Kaidan romances - though Kaidan wasn't really my cup of tea, I thought both were fairly well done and for the most part obvious-trope-free) for the female player.
I felt like my FemShep was swatting people away like flies, and not even as well as I'd have liked... I ended up in a romance with Kaidan even when I consciously tried not to (wanted to have Ashley live in my second playthrough for a change, and since I planned to kill him off the romance was a no-go, or at least it was supposed to be). I felt like Liara only backed off, reluctantly, because I was (accidentally) involved with Kaidan. And then there was Jacob (please stop flirting with him, Shep)... And, Liara, again, though she at least acknowledge my relationship with Garrus even if it was after acting weirdly clingy (with my Shepard acting weirdly clingy back).
ME3 was even worse... I flirted with James even though I didn't want to, and trying to avoid starting something with Samantha without being completely rude felt like navigating a minefield. In Citadel, Kaidan came over and cooked for me (again, Garrus! so it was a bit weird... also since I'm a vegetarian in real life... steak wrapped in bacon? Gross.) And then I learned that if I didn't romance anyone I'd be forced to either creepily seduce James or wake up next to Javik...
I'm actually kind of interested as well. I maintain to this day that Kaidan's m/m romance is the highlight of romances in Bioware games for me. My favorite scene is when Kaidan cooks you dinner and then you have a quiet evening at home together. I'd love to hear what you didn't like about it.
It's not the content so much as the distinction between the two Shepards - in the casino infiltration section, when Kaidan and romanced female Shepard arrive, they walk arm in arm into the casino. Kaidan and romanced male Shepard, however, don't. Then there's Shepard physicality when they go to 'burn off the calories' from dinner. It looks very much like the model for male Shepard was swapped in for female Shepard without accounting for the differences in the build of their bodies. Male Shepard moves more like female Shepard in that cutscene. There's also the fact that Kaidan leaves about five, six inches between them in the finale sequence after the party, though that one's true of the female Shepard/Kaidan version as well - only heterosexual male Shepard got a LI touching them in that scene.
Overall, my feeling is that in everything, base game and Citadel, the elements of the male Shepard/Kaidan romance were a direct lift of all the content for female Shepard and that it was called a day. The way it plays out is less 'this is a difference that makes no difference so it won't have difference' and more 'okay, copy, paste, and done! Moving on.' In the base game, there's even a cut - for female Shepard, she gets in his lap and he says he loves her, but for the understandable reason of awkward physics, that's cut, which made it so that until the Extended Cut, male Shepard and Kaidan didn't get an 'I love you.' And the thing for me is that I do think that there's a difference in dynamics between a M/F relationship and a M/M relationship. But those differences aren't there between the two, in either the base game or Citadel.
Don't get me wrong, male Shepard/Kaidan is still my favorite romance of the series, but it's due more to the pieces I've had to fill in because of the gaps left in the game than what I actually play in-game.
I'm actually most disappointed that they didn't walk in arm-in-arm. That's disappointing to hear. It kind of makes me less motivated to actually get around to doing Citadel at this point, when I was seriously considering it to pass the time until Inquisition is out.
reading this thread and the tropes that the female MC LIs gets stuck with makes me realize....
....it's like playing through a Harlequin Romance novel when it comes to romances.
Thank you all for the very interesting read of the thread, and to Allan for starting it.
Now I have titles for issues that have been nebulously floating around in my head.
I am glad this is being discussed in an effort to improve future Bioware games.
However, I have spent some time lurking in the mass effect 3 scuttlebutt/feedback threads. I get a feeling that some of the more vocal mass effect-only crowd is less tolerant of equal representation (this is just how I have personally viewed it in recent and past threads). There's some cynicism, sarcasm, and what appears to be disdain for gays, blacks, Asians, female protagonists having presence and influence in that or as some would say their game.
In Dragon Age specifically? Most Andrastians are straight/sexuality never talked about, and if you're a Templar (in any sense of the word, i.e. Seeker), you are definitely straight. Cullen, Cassandra, Alistair, Evangeline. All straight (Evie could be bi, but I doubt that will ever happen). Templars are never LGBT, and Andrastians only rarely (when sexuality is brought up of course).
Warriors, also, tend to be straight. This will change with Iron Bull, but I'm already afraid of his "promiscuity". Segue!
LGBT characters are rarely the type to "settle down", and the possibility of talking about one day starting a family never seems to come up with LGBT characters.
And I seriously hoping that this whole "Dorian can be, like, totally your gay best friend thing" be proven false. Flamboyance =/= LGBT (though modern media in all it's forms often support the idea). Also, while I'm on the topic, this whole "GBFF" thing bugs me, do people segregate their other friends like that? Do people introduce their friends like "this is my black best friend, Darren?", no, that would be racist... (EDIT: Sorry for raging).
In general media? Gay characters should not be attracted to every single specimen of the same sex. It doesn't always work like that. If we ever see some non-LI gay NPCs, I hope that they don't follow this trope.
Also, not only are male "bi" LIs mostly going for women, but a lot of them only go for males because they begin to look beyond sex. Anders talks about what is inside matters, not the outside, Kaidan is looking to search for something deeper with someone he already cares about, etc. While those are nice from time to time, it'd be great if we have a dude tell us dude PCs that we are HOT. In caps. Guys like to feel sexy too. There's a trope somewhere in there, I don't know how to quantify it. Maybe that those LIs are not really bisexual but heterosexual and biromantic. Also, these, in DA, are the human bisexual options. Male elves call male PCs hot, Male humans don't...
The Serendipity thing (i.e. drag queens/kings = transgenders when they don't. Also any form of crossdressing (whether for performance or not) being a joke all the time.)
Also, male LIs tend to be more "unconventionally attractive" while female LIs tend not to be (only "pretty" elves and humans).
Dwarves =/= Love Interests (three games we have had a dwarven companion, including Awakening, and while Varric and Oghren are sexual beings, they aren't sexual for a PC. Sigrun was also another possible LI ignored, not even a flirt from a PC to be found).
Sorry if I ranted a bit.
I will definitely say that masculine women(in both looks and actions) not being lesbians is hardly a negative stereotype. The negative stereotype is that somehow masculine women ARE lesbians. But this has been accepted as such a negative stereotype that it has a negative effect on those women.
"Not all feminists are hairy lesbians"
"I love sports and kick a guys butt, but that doesn't mean I am an ugly lesbian"
"You are too pretty to be a lesbian'
And all of this adds up to the bad one and the good one. Everyone says of course the thick jawed Aveline will be a lesbian, because well, let's just say that hardly every masculine woman is a lesbian, but it is more likely, because lesbian culture it is more encouraged to embrace that aspect of yourself. But while every straight person goes probably a lesbian, "ugly mannish" women are lesbians. Many lesbians sigh and say, nope can't be attracted to being a girl as to be anything like us is a bad thing. We are bad lesbians. good lesbians are pretty and everyone knows being masculine is bad for a lesbian.
A caricature of that would be the brief scene in the producers where the "gay song" had about 5 seconds of a "stereotypical bad lesbian" singing about breasts and being sullen. But about any lesbian I know loves haruka from Sailor moon, who not only looks like a guy, but even the straight sailors consider a pretty handsome guy, and even girl when they find out. I have yet to see a single character given as much respect as Haruka as a masculine lesbian. (I highly suggest a short video of each to show how one is making fun of a group and the other has been a popular sensation among lesbians despite being very masculine)
Not saying I want a repeat or the same character. I mean to offer contrast and explain there are a whole wealth of concepts and ideas that could be mined from masculine lesbians, but somehow the idea that we are ugly (we could be handsome, which is what many of us aim for?) and bad lesbians and showing us in any media(which as I said before is not in existance hardly at all) somehow denigrates us as a whole.
It is so hard to explain how looking the way you do, being who you are is somehow bad. No one gets on to men for having shorter hair, rarely if ever do people get on to women for wearing dresses, but somehow we are Bad, nasty, a thing to avoid out of our subgroup despite a hefty portion of that group. Even more than camp gays who have gotten (somewhat laughed at for the same time for it but still) heroic parts despite being flamboyant. It is a strange marginalization because almost always it is non lesbians who make that distinction of bad vs good, but it is there regardless and has a definite negative effect on who we are.
Also in the citadel DLC, it was very uncomfortable that if you didnt romance anyone you woke up next to Javick.(although i think the same thing happens with guys?) It was problematic because the idea your character got drunk and ended up sleeping with someone they had no intention of sleeping with. Which i understand is often played up with comedy, but actually is pretty scary.
If you keep the party calm, you don't wake up with Javik.
If you keep the party calm, you don't wake up with Javik.
That is good to know for my eventual Thane playthrough. Rather not waked up next to some one else after I just held Shepard's boyfriend's funeral and all.
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