57 réponses à ce sujet

[Allan Schumacher]

You can make some argument about Alistair and Morrigan (being unskippable companions where Zev and Leliana can both be left behind), but Kaiden is bisexual in ME3 and Liara was the only non-hetero option through ME1 and ME2. Cassandra may be straight, but you can't take Cullen on missions with you and he isn't really more important than Sera or Dorian. There are also 2 homosexual companion romances and 1 heterosexual companion romance.

 

It's important to note that until people play the game, people on either side aren't really equipped to say whether or not Cassandra or Cullen (or anyone else) are or are not important based on their status as companion or advisor and whatnot.

[Allan Schumacher]

Right, I get the point that straight characters can die too, but in my second post, I was rethinking my discomfort and realizing it was specifically that the games seem to largely have written in the ability for homophobic gamers to entirely avoid having to deal with the bisexual characters at all. 

 

I just don't like that the player can easily kill/cruelly get rid of so many of the non-straight characters.

 

That's a fair concern.  It's something that maybe I struggle with, because I can (divorced from the character's sexuality) probably come up with a reasonable reason why a companion could be removed from the Inquisition in a particular playthrough.  But that said, I'm also probably infinitely less sensitive/aware of the incidents when they happen because of my privilege, so I can be blind.

 

Is it reasonable that, in some cases, a companion can be removed (or even killed) for some reason, and that a solution is simply that in some cases, a character that this cannot happen to is an LGBTQ character?

 

I tend to have a leaning towards "we should let the player add/remove party members as they wish" so an evolution would be simply "to remove at least some LGBTQ characters, it can't be done in a particularly cruel or murderous way?"

[Allan Schumacher]

I think we can be pretty sure at this point that she didn't die...

 

Technically neither does Leliana either.  Though within the context of the game, it's still a valid enough critique I think?

[Allan Schumacher]

cunning and uses their intelligence to further definite goals and/or agendas (Miranda, Morrigan and possibly Vivienne, Celene and Anora). Is it just me or does the latter category tend to feature a lot more women?

 

Hmmm.  I wonder if it's a degree of trope subversion that became at trope of its own.  In that maybe there's an inclination to make women the manipulative and perhaps conniving one looking for power/influence, because that's often a male thing?  (I don't know if it is often a male thing or not)

[Allan Schumacher]

Yeah, I think the best solution is simply: more gay/bi LIs that can't be killed or cruelly gotten rid of.

 

Keep in mind I'm not asking for gay/bi LIs to be impossible to get rid of. I didn't have any problem when companions have that dialogue that lets you ask them to leave.

 

Yes, I understand that it's the context of how the removal occurs itself.  Thanks.

[Allan Schumacher]

And what about gay women/men killing off straight characters ? What about misogynistic men killing off female characters ? The freedom to RP can potentially cost the life of a lot of characters, but it's not specific to the LGBT ones, straight characters can also have heavy casualities.

 

I'm snipping this one in the bud to keep the conversation on track, but the reality is that straight people do not have a history of being oppressed and murdered by gay/bisexual people as a result of their sexual orientation.

 

As such, I don't consider the death of straight NPCs by gay characters as being an "unfortunate trope/archetype" within the sociocultural context of Dragon Age's existence in our world.

 

 

Further points along this discussion will be removed.

[Allan Schumacher]

gay/bi elves... there hasn't been a single straight elf. If Solas is a romance im betting hell be on the bi train as well.

 

Also bis preferring women... or at least the ones whose actual characters are meant to be bi(Isabela, Zevran and Leliana).

 

Not really sure any of this counts as bad, just reoccurring..

 

To be fair, until DAI the elves were only bisexual (and I think there were only two).  Is this a trope at this point?  It may be coming from cultural references that I am unaware of.  Can you elaborate?

[Allan Schumacher]

Well I mean both of the previous elf romances are bi. Then there's Sera. It just seems a little odd there hasn't been a straight elf(at least in the companion romances).  I wouldn't necessarily call it a trope at this point but it should be broken before it becomes one.
 

 

Just to make sure I'm not missing any, we've had 2 bisexual and 1 lesbian, right?

[Allan Schumacher]

I think it's fair to say, though, that Bioware has made games were the romantic element... intertwines with the main plot, for lack of a better word. I don't think there's a need to go farther; but it is fair to say that the non-straight LIs don't feature into the plot the same way.

 

I'm not sure how this relates to the discussion I was having with the poster whom was discussing that they'd like the romances to become more important and more recognized by the rest of the game world beyond the

 

I am trying to keep my responses more focused to the particular issue described because otherwise it becomes too difficult to manage....  Your trope is fine, and I guess I failed by keeping on topic since my explanation wasn't relevant to the topic itself, but I'd actually prefer you create a new post without a quote describing the trope because I find this confusing as I'm not sure if your response relates to the original issue the poster brought forward or not.

[Allan Schumacher]

Thread closed because I'm finding myself actively removing most posts because it's evolved into a general discussion about things I consider off topic which, unfortunately, I don't want from this thread because it's complicating the information gathering I am intending on doing.

 

I will probably reopen the thread later when I can more consistently engage directly and have time to keep the thread more on track, and I do acknowledge that doing this biases my exposure to people that share the same schedule on when I am "casually" on the boards.  But I literally have an entire page is entirely hidden because it was a discussion about what it means to be "white" when the trope itself seemed to be more "deviate more from standard conventions of women's attractiveness."

 

The extended conversations about it actually confuse me because now I am dissecting if it's an extension of the trope, or just an off topic tangent.  I know I engaged in off topic discussion from time to time too when elaborating on some things when trying to give responses to posters, and will resolve to not do so in the future.

 

 

If you have any concerns about this decision please contact me via PM.

[Allan Schumacher]

I haven't forgotten to open this again, just was busy and still need to do some things.

 

SOON(ish).

[Allan Schumacher]

Cleaned up some posts, thread reopened.  Going to reexamine the list, so to speak right now too.
 

 

I know conversations tend to be fluid so it's easy to have discussions.  I'll simply try my best to keep it on track I guess, but if we can keep idle chatter I do find it helpful.

[Allan Schumacher]

I'd like to see a lessening of the "Nasty-minded shrew" and the "sweet, naive idealist" who have been the omnipresent females in pretty much every Bioware game, ever.  Let's have a look:

 

Can you elaborate on the meaning of the phrases you used.  The last I am more familiar with, but I had to look up the term "shrew" and the definition I found didn't really help me out with respect to many of your examples.

[Allan Schumacher]

"The perfect girl/boyfriend" trope.  Never hear any banter about PC screwing up once PC is established in relationship, which would be kind of funny.  And not in a plot altering, massive way of screwing up, but just normal oops crap that friends could remind them.  Like "Anders was mad the last time you forgot to feed his cat." or forgetting a birthday.  The closest I thing that was touched on was Anders/Merril scene with the dog scene.  And maybe that one banter between Alistair and Zevran about the night in the tent.

Don't think the scene is necessary, but banter might be cool.

 

Basically the idea that typically LI are maybe too universally accepting of the player character barring maybe ultra extreme (Urn of Sacred Ashes) or the utterly mundane/irrelevant stuff that anyone could point out?

[Allan Schumacher]

This is a good point to take notice of and bring to Allen's attention. It hadn't occurred to me but you're right, all of the f/f LIs are feminine in ways that are likely appealing to straight men. There's no "butch" bi or lesbian LIs and I can't help wondering if this is because someone thinks that straight men won't want to romance someone who is" manly". Maybe it's accidental, but it's a good thing to think about during the character planning from the next game.

 

While I disagree, many say that Cassandra has these more manly features.  Plenty of women were upset because they fit the butch type.  But she's a LI for men, so does she subvert the idea that "straight men won't want to romance someone who is 'manly'" at all?

[Allan Schumacher]

New stuff, to be added to the original list:

 

Added Gay to Lesbian Tragedy

Added "healing" trope is exacerbated by requiring romance to be done (not friendship)

Added "Women do not have a past relationship" to Carth Syndrome

 

 

Originals:

 

• If you're not straight, you're a Rogue
• If your devout, chivalric/virtuous, or knightly/heroic, you're straight.
• Bisexuals seem to have female preference
• Gay and bisexual people have dark backgrounds, that comes across as feeling like that is why they are not straight
• Bisexuals are promiscuous
• Carth Syndrome (and the fact that Women typically do not have a past relationship)
• Lesbian/Gay Tragedy
• People with dark/damaged pasts tend to be LI, and by being a LI they are "healed" (and rarely by friendship)

 

New:

 

• Forcing LIs to "change for their own good" (Possibly related to "healing" trope)
• Men LI aren't intellectuals
• More virgin romances/LI always interested in sex before marriage
• Perceived "leading" characters are straight. 
• If a character is "unkillable" they tend to be a straight LI and not an LGBT LI
• Cunning/Manipulative LIs are typically women (Morrigan, Isabela, Miranda)
• LI are often only seen as LGBT if they're in the active romance with the player
• Women have narrower standards of beauty

 

 

I'll update the OP with the new stuff (and changes) after people have had a chance to view them.

[Allan Schumacher]

Hmm... how to put this. The issue isn't just that straight men don't want a manly LI, it's that the lesbian/bi women LI seem to be visually more designed to appeal to the typical idea of what the media tells us straight men want (aka feminine, femme, not butch, not 'manly'). 

 

Anyone else wanna chime in? I'm not sure I'm expressing this properly.

 

I guess where I am curious:

 

Do you think that the same people are okay with a manly LI if they are straight, but less so if they are lesbian or bisexual?

[Allan Schumacher]

Be careful bringing up the idea of trans LIs. I did this in the romance thread and got hella piled on by people upset at the idea of a transwoman "tricking" them into a romance. :/ So yeah. 

 

On the bright side, some things D. Gaider and co said at GaymerX get me hopeful that there will be some sort of trans or genderqueer-ness happening in Thedas in DA:I, even if not among our LIs. *crossing fingers*

 

Within the context of this particularly thread, unless it's a statement of a trope "You don't have trans-characters" I'd prefer to not explore the theme to much in this particular thread.

 

 

My motivation for this thread was when I saw a whole bunch of people suggesting that our romances are often quite similar between each other between games, so ideally I'd like it to be more of a critique of things we've done, although I can acknowledge that "things we haven't done" is related to it (doing nothing is technically still doing something...) so I have been mostly okay when stuff like that comes up.  But looking more at "what has BioWare done with their romance content in the past that is problematic and so forth."

 

I'll also admit that I'm woefully ill equipped to deal with a conversation like that in that I'll undoubtedly make mistakes trying to deal with it, which may sidetrack what I'm hoping to get from the thread itself.

 

 

Thanks.

[Allan Schumacher]

Iron Bull is pretty manly and he swings every which way. What do people think about him? (Don't ask me. I'm biased.)

 

Unless I'm mistaken, JadePrince's point was regarding women LI, so I'd like to keep the scope within that since that's the part that tripped me up.

[Allan Schumacher]

Shields make you straight. (Alistair, Aveline, Cullen, Cassandra)

 

I saw this one in a different post, but saw the "if you're not straight, you're a rogue."  While Dorian coming in changes that up, is it sufficient to keep it within that trope or do you think it'd be useful to explicitly state it?

[Allan Schumacher]

Forgive me if this has been thoroughly discussed already, I'm still catching up on this thread.

 

I think media in general shies away from portraying women as "too" masculine.  If she appears butch, or even simply engages in "masculine" activities like combat, there is a kneejerk need to protest that she is definitely a woman.  And usually that seems to come in the form of showing that she is unequivocally straight.  Movies like, say, G.I. Jane, raise the idea of her being a lesbian, only to shut that down hard and turn it into an injustice that anybody would see her as not straight.  When Brienne is introduced in GoT, almost the first thing you know about her (besides the fact that she is really big and a good fighter) is that she is in love with a man.

 

On one hand, I can see the desire to avoid stereotypes.  There is this idea that "lesbians must be masculine, gay men must be feminine".  But on the other hand, there is a real reluctance to ever show truly butch women in any form.  So butch queer women just... don't really exist.  And I think it goes back to that need to make lesbian women socially acceptable.  They have to be cute and femme and, well, appealing to straight men.  

 

Fair enough.

 

My disconnect was framed around the perception I had that the argument was "men wouldn't want a butch lesbian."  Alone I can understand that, but Cassandra is straight.  So is there more tolerance for men dealing with a butch straight woman?

 

Which might be the case.  It just seemed odd to have the idea that we wouldn't make Cassandra bisexual or a lesbian because she's not pretty enough, but it's okay for her to be straight.

 

 

Does this mean, then, that people feel that the women we have available for f/f romances tend to have narrower/more male conventional range of "beauty" applied to them?

[Allan Schumacher]

But I think there's often this unconscious desire to make sure that butch female characters aren't too butch.  Making sure she's straight is one way this seems to play out.

 

Okay thanks.  I think I understand it now.  By making Cassandra interested in men, we can be maybe a bit more free in how she looks because even if she doesn't look as much as men may like, they still have the knowledge of knowing that she's available for men to fall back on?

[Allan Schumacher]

For the most part, I would say yes, but this applies to most of your female companions characters, not just the F/F love interests. 

 

Reasonable.  I think only Shale is the most surefire counterpoint.  Maybe Merrill, but that's also possibly just my own biases on what I consider attractive rather than an honest depiction of measuring her against conventional beauty standards.

[Allan Schumacher]

^ Thank you, I'm glad someone appreciates how hard I worked to summarize that information. T_T

 

EDIT: And everyone still ignores it. *sigh* There's an HOUR of typing this morning I'm never going to get back.

 

As note, I try to read every post in this thread, since I created the thread to solicit feedback.  That doesn't mean that I'm necessarily going to respond to every post, however.

 

(stating this for everyone's benefit since you're not the first person in this thread to make an explicit comment about lack of acknowledgement in this particular thread - doing so is actually a disincentive for me to respond since I do not want to reward posts like this and have everyone start doing it when I don't respond).

 

 

As for your concerns about romance distribution among races I have two questions:

 

How much of the issue is romance specific, or more general to companions?  In general, our companions tend to be tilted towards human in the first place, which immediately removes other races from the romance equation by default.

 

You mentioned "comfort zone" in the the other thread.  What do you mean by that?

 

 

 

As it stands now I see two points from your posts:

• There's a lack of in universe racial diversity among romances (/companions) in the game
• Flirtatious lines towards the non-human LI utilize problematic phrases. (more examples?)

[Allan Schumacher]

Why is sex gating a bad thing ? People have preferences, so it makes sense that not everyone is going to want to sleep with you because you're the PC.

 

The issue isn't with the gating, it's that the first female companion is the straight female LI.