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We would be remiss if we didn’t talk about the varied, interesting romances in the world of gaming. Patrick Weekes, now lead writer for the Dragon Age franchise spoke with us a few months ago about how to effectively convey sexuality in gaming.
TRANSCRIPT THANKS TO COMMANDER LURKER
AB: When did you decide on Iron Bull’s ideology, I guess, on [his] sexuality?
PW: So we were looking at how the qun handled sexuality and we went back and forth about it. We had different ideas. There was the puritan version, there was the holy thing, there was the ‘he’s basically no different from any other mercenary’ option. We eventually kicked it around and said if we’re going to do this, if this is something he’s going to talk about, we better make it interesting, because if he’s not interested in sex in any capacity and if he’s buttoned down about it then he’s not really covering any ground that we didn’t already cover really really well with Sten. And if he’s basically a mercenary who likes sleeping with people, well we’ve also done that before with other characters, so this was a chance for something new.
Looking at how the qunari treat sex and what sex means for them and what is and isn't’ considered taboo, that was, in addition to just being goofy fun–which is certainly part of the reason we wrote him–it would be interesting to see, okay, here is a culture that is really in touch with their physical side and just completely removes the taboo on things. ‘Oh, okay this is what you need? Well, great, we’re gonna calm you down, we’re gonna have fun, alright, awesome, great, have a good day.’
AB: One of the amazing things though in the relationship with Iron Bull if you do kinda progress towards it, just like all of these great relationships–I think of Jack in Mass Effect–when you take a step deeper, you see that that relationship and this form of sexual identity can be a lot stronger.
When developing this sort of idea for his sexuality, did you look at or speak to any experts, any people that deal with BDSM or other things like this when trying to express this very complicated and often, I would say misunderstood form of sexual expression?
PW: Oh, it’s absolutely complicated and often misunderstood. And yes, I’m fortunate to have friends in the community that I could talk to and say, ‘okay, how does this work, how does this go?’
The original, if I’m remembering this right, was Mike Laidlaw, our creative director and lead designer, he and I at lunch, I said, ‘you know, I kinda would like to see if the Iron Bull could maybe be romanceable.’ and he went, ‘Really?’ and I went ‘yeah okay I know, but we got Cullen, we got all the quote ‘normal’ romances, we got those, but just imagine if he like, you know, leaned in and pinned your arms to the wall and said ‘[deep voice] are you ready to do this’, and Mike went ‘okay! You clearly have a vision.’ We were there with our wives, his wife Mel and my wife Karen and both of them went ‘Yes. Please. That. Do that thing you just described’. Okay! Apparently there’s a target audience for that! So we took it from that.
I took it to […] my friends in the community and said, ‘okay here’s what I’d like to do, I am aware that 50 Shades of Gray–it wasn’t a movie yet when we were writing it [Bull’s romance] but we knew the movie was coming, we knew the books had sold zillions and zillions of copies so there was obviously some market for something like this. And at the same time I had also seen criticism from people saying ‘here’s what 50 Shades did wrong, here’s the things that were not healthy about it’, so how can we do these things and get it done in a way that is tricker than in 50 Shades.
Because in 50 Shades you are a reader reading about what another character is doing. And it is okay if the other character does something in a way that causes them to be degraded or feel disrespected because you’re not that character. But in a video game, you ARE that character. ANYTHING along those lines that happens has to be so carefully managed in a way that, if we take power away from you we are doing so after you have said unequivocally ‘I want you to do this. I am happy that you are doing this. Please do the thing you have just telegraphed you are going to do.’
And so that was the reason why, relative to some of the other romance options, [with] Iron Bull […] you have to flirt with him–a lot–have no other romances open. And then […] he’s waiting in your bedroom saying ‘I’ve seen the signals, I’m not sure you know what you’re getting into.’ You have to say ‘Yes, I want to do this’ twice before he even touches you. And then after he touches you, you get a little hint of ‘oh this is going to be, OH this might not be reading love poetry by the river!’ Then you have another chance to say ‘oh, yeah, never mind. I wanted something else.’
And then, again, just like everything else, because making a video game of this sort, we are making something and our goal is to give the players the type of fantasy fulfillment they want. And no one wants a type of fantasy fulfilment where someone hits on them, they say, ‘no i’m not interested,’ and the other person gets angry and bitter. And brings it up later in passive aggressive ways, or stalks them or gets creepy on them. So if you’re like ‘Ok Iron Bull that could be fun, that could be interesting’ and then he pins your arms up over your head and you go ‘Nope! Not interested!’, he immediately backs off, goes ‘Hey, no worries, have a good one, talk to you later’ and leaves. Those were all things we hit really, really carefully.
The cinematic designer was John Epler and he’s an amazing guy, fantastic to work with, and he and I got real comfortable to the point of […]–we actually staged out the scene. He and I, in a room, going, ‘okay and then this happens, and we’ll have the camera here, okay, pin my arms here,’ […] And we’re laughing about it because you know, we’re a couple of dudes, but if you can’t get to the point where you can have that conversation with someone you’re working with about it, then how are you supposed to deliver that to the audience? I feel like our players can tell when we don’t actually believe or respect something that we’re making. There are times where I feel ‘wow that movie was phoned in’ or ‘wow that book was, that was someone writing that for a paycheck’ you know, so it was a little bit of interesting growth on all our parts to get to a point where we were comfortable with that.
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