57 réponses à ce sujet

[Allan Schumacher]

Thanks, I'm glad someone appreciates how hard I worked to put this information together.

 

This isn't a competition for who put in the most amount of work.  I spent 3 hours (from 12 AM to 3 AM) on the very first day talking with people and collating information, several hours beyond that coming up with ideas to help keep the thread on track and removing off topic posts, entirely on my own time (I'm not getting paid for this....) because I thought I saw a recurring theme in the romance thread and I wanted to solicit additional feedback.

 

I'm sure several other people have put large amounts of thought into their posts as well, including the ideas that women LIs have a much narrower range of physical traits that get utilized than men do (it's listed as one of the points in the OP)

 

 

To be clear:

I've heard Allan object to people requesting non-human/elven female romances on the grounds that companions are created first and they decide who is romance material afterwards. (Or words to that effect.) They object to creating a female dwarven or Qunari companion just to make them romanceable.

We "object" to making any character simply for them to be romanced.  Including humans and elves.  Cassandra isn't made romanceable because some people wanted to romance her.  Iron Bull isn't made romanceable because some people wanted to romance a male Qunari.  Cullen isn't made romanceable because he has a large following of people that would like to romance him.  Sera isn't made romanceable because we figure some people would like to romance a lesbian elf.  Dorian isn't made romanceable because someone might want to romance a gay Tevinter mage.  Nor is Josephine made romanceable because we figure someone would want to romance an Antivan diplomat.

 

The I'm not really keen on the word "object" it's just not a factor at the start of the character creation process.  Are you asking for it to be?

 

 

However, your complaint seems to be more geared towards general companions (which is valid) as opposed to romance specific.  Though I acknowledge that the next step from making more Qunari/Dwarf women companions for you is to make them romanceable.  Do you think that the inclusion of more diversity among the women as companions will encourage the romances to come out of that, or do you think that we should specifically set out to create romanceable characters that fit these traits?

[Allan Schumacher]

Ohp, my mistake. That's definitely a trope in Bioware games, can I ask you to elaborate on why you think it's unfair ?

 

You're asking SirGladiator, or me?

[Allan Schumacher]

SirGladiator, sorry I didn't make that clear enough.I seem to have lost my head tonight. 

 

Fair enough.  He doesn't seem to be around right now.  Can you think of any reasons that someone might find that unfair?  Or at the very least, problematic?

[Allan Schumacher]

Not off the top of my head. I agree that the first female companion is almost always a straight romance option. But I can't see how it's problematic, other then being predictable and people being disappointed that the option is not available to them.

 

I think there are concerns because the first companions have a tendency to be important ones.  I think there's also a predisposition for earlier companions to remain in the party over companions that are received later in the game (this is certainly the case for me).  Or at the very least, there's a perception of this.

 

Even then, by virtue of being first the opportunities for simply having more screen time are much higher.  Done enough times over a multitude of games, it starts to become a trend that the straight character is always/typically the one that is seen the most and more involved in the story's narrative.

[Allan Schumacher]

Off topic post removed.

 

 

 

Jus some thoughts on the list so far:

 

Read the thread.  I don't have the time to specifically link to each of the issues listed in the list unfortunately, but they all manifested out of the discussion in this thread.  Most of your questions are explained there.

 

Further, that there are exceptions to any of these has often been discussed, nor does it invalidate their presence on the list.

 

 

 

 

Counter example, Morrigan is none of the above and is straight.

 

This isn't a counterexample.  It's irrelevant to the trope.  The idea "If your devout, chivalric/virtuous, or knightly/heroic, you're straight." is an implication and not reflective.  It's not saying at all that straight people fit into a particular style.  It's saying that if you fit into a particular style, you [tend] to be straight.  It's not bidirectional nor does it have to be.

[Allan Schumacher]

One can squint and look funny at any character enough to make them fit any trope, or not, if one really wanted to.

 

She comes to your defense in the Inn when you first meet her. She defends to the death the sanctity of the Ashes if you decide to foul them. Both seem pretty chivalrous to me. Knightly, well no, she's a sister of the chantry and a rogue/bard.

 

I'm not sure we know enough about Cullen and Cassandra to say which trope they fit. In DAO I wouldn't describe Cullen as chivalrous at all.We know little of either characters background either (tie in movies I haven't seen notwithstanding)

 

I'm snipping this tangent in the (not so small) bud.  The existence of something that runs contrary to a convention/trope doesn't completely invalidate the trope.

 

 

 

The problem isn't really that noble knight characters are always straight, though is it? Its the opposite, ie why are non straight characters always a bit shifty?

 

Stating the positive of the trope still makes it clear to me what the expressed concern is.  This is a semantics argument and further posts along this line will be deleted.

 

 

I just cleaned up a good chunk of the thread.

[Allan Schumacher]

Jaheira(sorta a villain that converts)

 

I think there's a mistake here as the Jaheira I remember is neither a villain nor a lesbian.... 

[Allan Schumacher]

CLosing this thread down as I am too busy to continue monitoring it, nor am I interested in seeing people come in and picking apart the list as though I randomly pulled it out of no where and clearly ignoring the OP that it's a product of the thread's discussion.

 

I got what I was looking for and I thank people for taking the time to respond.