I have edited my response. Here it is :- Video games can have artistic elements but at the end of the day, video games are video games, not art. Art is art.
How does the work of concept artists, musicians, story writers, developers etc etc suddenly turn into NOT ART.
Good to find a kindred spirit amongst the insanity here.
Golly, aren't you just level headed and consistent. he says he doesn't care about percentages and you decide he's a hypocrite SJW sinking to remarkable low depths. he says he agrees with you about a couple of characters and suddenly he's a kindred bastion of sanity.
here's the rub: the pendulum of your mind swings a little too dramatically to recommend your "sanity."
Confession time - Sometimes I like to release stress by being a dick. This is one of those moments.
What a shock.
How does the work of concept artists, musicians, story writers, developers etc etc suddenly turn into NOT ART.
That is why I said it has artistic elements. You can't shoot a painting or slash a sculpture. You can't romance and be dragged to art hell.
I'd be uncomfortable/wary of a gay villain because I think it would be extremely easy for the sexuality to become part of their identity. Villains are often flamboyant and over the top- especially the scenery chewing villains like the Reapers or that Dragon Age uses- and so it'd be all to easy for it to be seen as 'the evil gay,' intentionally or not.
I think it'd work best, or at least best avoid the stereotypes, if the sexuality was a humanizing element. Say you have a cold and hard villain- not a frothing fanatic or a sociopathic radical, but a more subdued and reserved person who's doing things out of a view of hard necessity. In that case, the sexuality- any expression of care, really- becomes a humanizing element and expression of care for someone, proving they have emotions and feelings.
In fact, it could be a good part of making that villain a more personal antagonist- where you kill their lover in the course of a battle, and their anger/grief makes an impersonal antagonism personal as they turn their attention towards you.
But I don't think Solas is flamboyant and fall under any of the typical villains. Especially with manga, most gays and villains are flamboyant and/or evil, but Solas is just happened to be evil, which may not even be evil depending on how you view him. The thing is most series with a gay villain usually doesn't have a counterbalance to show the example of the contrary. It's like saying villains could only be straight. A lot of the villains in Bioware games are not actually evil and may have a reason why they're doing it like Loghain, Meredith, Illusive Man. I don't often see a villain that is purely evil unless it's someone we can't usually reason with like Archedemon or Corytheus. Still, a villain can just be gay or straight. I do like the idea of making a more personal connection between a villain and the protagonist. Most villains in Bioware often lack the personal connection with their protagonist, so I don't see why I should stop the villain except because he wants to destroy the world. It lacks the personal connection why you want to stop on the personal level.
Hello everyone. Please keep it on topic and civil in here. Thank you.
Have you all heard of the Galbrush Paradox ?
Do you know why there's so many white male characters in video games? Especially leads? Because no one cares about them. A white male can be a lecherous drunk. A woman can't or it's sexist. Sexualizing women and what all. A white male can be a mentally disturbed soldier who's mind is unraveling as he walks through the hell of the modern battlefield. A woman can't or you're victimizing women and saying they're all crazy. Consider Guybrush Threepwood, start of the Monkey Island series. He's weak, socially awkward, cowardly, kind of a nerd and generally the last person you'd think of to even cabin boy on a pirate ship, let alone captain one. He is abused, verbally and physically, mistreated, shunned, hated and generally made to feel unwanted.
Now let's say Guybrush was a girl. We'll call her Galbrush. Galbrush is weak, socially awkward, cowardly, kind of a nerd and generally the last person you'd think of to even cabin boy on a pirate ship, let alone captain one. She is abused, verbally and physically, mistreated, shunned, hated and generally made to feel unwanted.
Now, you might notice that I've given the exact same description to both of these characters. But here's where things deviate. While no one cares if Guybrush takes a pounding for being, for lack of a better term, less than ideal pirate, Galbrush will be presumed to be discriminated against because of her gender. In fact, every hardship she will endure, though exactly the same as the hardships Guybrush endured, will be considered misogyny, rather than someone being ill suited to their desired calling. And that ending. She goes through ALL that trouble to help, let's call him Eli Marley, escape the evil clutches of the ghost piratess Le Chuck, it turns out he didn't even need her help and she even screwed up his plan to thwart Le Chuck. Why, it'd be a slap in the face to every woman who's ever picked up a controller. Not only is the protagonist inept, but apparently women make lousy villains too!
And that's why Guybrush exists and Galbrush doesn't. Men can be comically inept halfwits. Women can't. Men can be flawed, tragic human beings. Women can't. And why? Because every single female character reflects all women everywhere. The horrible truth is SJWs want to craft a box into which you can force every female character into. Some idiotic 'ideal'. Putting aside the stupidity of exchanging one unobtainable role model for women with another, this has the added problem of making all female characters exactly the same. And when all characters are exactly the same, that's boring and boring characters do not sell video games.
In my opinion, this applies to the homosexuals and "minority" characters. Just look at how there are some posts here that do not want a homosexual villain because it will somehow give homosexuals in the real world a bad name. It won't because real people =/= fictional people. If people think otherwise, its their fault.
Most people, especially the SJW types cannot accept it if fiction creators made women or brown men or homosexuals or transsexuals with flaws because there is this twisted groupthink logic going on where the actions of a fictional woman or a fictional brown man or a fictional homosexual or a fictional trans reflect real women, real brown people, real trans folk and real homosexuals.
Just look at Black Widow from Age of Ultron. Joss Whedon go so much sh*t thrown at him, especially by the SJWs, because he dared to make Black Widow have flaws in that movie. It was ironic because Joss himself is sympathetic to the SJW cause but because he did not make what in the mind of SJWs to be a strong, independent and empowered Black Widow, he faced so much flak to the point he was booted of Twitter. Poor man.
Another example would be the Lara Croft's "controversial" rape scene in the Tomb Raider reboot. It got so much heat because the fictional creator decided that Lara should have a difficult moment and the SJWs twisted this to mean that its negative for real women. Or how about the backlash to the Sansa Stark's sexual assault scenes ? Or how about a sexual assault scene that was originally supposed to be in Inquisition but it was scrapped by Gaider and Co because "it was offensive to women", even though fictional women in Thedas =/= real women on Earth ?
That is why fiction creators will never take the risk to make anything interesting. Its because if they do, the SJWs employ ridiculous doublethink logic to say that this fictional person represent an entire group of people and this is problematic.
As such, it is so very important to not tie your personal anecdotal life experiences to fiction. Because you start to make things personal when they should not be personal and then get triggered.
As long as we have cultural authoritarians who want to tie identity of real people and real groups to fictional characters and demand politically correct Mary Sues, we will never have interesting characters and fascinating villains who just happen to be homosexuals or women or brown or trans.
TL;DR - People need to realize the fact that fictional people in fictional setting are not real people in real life and as such do not reflect them. Fiction is for entertainment and best not to take it seriously instead of focusing on narrative pushing, sermons and preaching.
I'm glad you can do that and enjoy it. More power to you! For me though, I can't. If I'm going to do something as specific and personal as a romance in a story I need it to be relatable to me, otherwise there isn't any point doing it. That's how it is for me. This rule isn't absolute since I ended up romancing Cullen just because I loved the romance itself and Cullen as a character, but I still couldn't fully relate to it and know that if I could have... Wow
Oh, I get you.
Or I try to, because if I myself were the Inquisitor, none of those romances would be for me. 
If any of them would flirt with me, I wouldn't realize it and if I would, I'd probably react like Cass when you flirt with her as a Ladyquisitor "You're important to me, but not in that way. Can we stay friends?"
Let me take Cole to Val Royeaux, play Wicked Grace with Varric, eat cookies with Sera, gossip with Josie, drink with the Chargers etc...
Gimme....more scenes where I can show my platonic love for my friends.
Cause I love my friends 
, just....well, only platonic. 
The relationship in DAI which is closest to "being for me" would be Josie's. So it makes me really happy, that Josie's romance was the first I tried in DAI. Just switch the kisses for hugs 
Yes, seeing gay, or female, or "minority" characters as a representative of those particular demographics is something we really need to get away from. It leads to criticism of characters (and their writers) for simple things like making them believable, flawed human beings. If every character that isn't a straight white guy has to be a perfect little special snowflake, it not only makes these characters boring, but also harder to relate to.
If people really want the "straight white dudebro" gamers to connect with these characters, then the easiest way to do that is to make them human. Like I said earlier, empathy is still a thing, and most people on the planet have it. Empathy crosses all barriers like sexual identity, race, gender etc. Do people really think most straight white guys connect more with a Trevor Phillips than they do with Ellie from TLoU? If you can only empathize with people that share your genitals, or sexual identity, whichever side you fall on, you aren't truly empathetic. It's simple, write good characters, and don't be too preachy about it, and most sane people will accept such a character.
Just write characters as individuals again, and a lot of this nonsense will go away after a while. A gay character who is there to be laughed at isn't automatically a statement about the writers feelings towards gay people IRL. We need to stop treating characters like they are social statements, they aren't.
Video games can have artistic elements but at the end of the day, video games are video games, not art. Art is art.
You're serious, aren't you?
http://edition.cnn.c...video.game.art/
People will complain regardless if a character fits an archetype.
Yes, seeing gay, or female, or "minority" characters as a representative of those particular demographics is something we really need to get away from. It leads to criticism of characters (and their writers) for simple things like making them believable, flawed human beings. If every character that isn't a straight white guy has to be a perfect little special snowflake, it not only makes these characters boring, but also harder to relate to.
If people really want the "straight white dudebro" gamers to connect with these characters, then the easiest way to do that is to make them human. Like I said earlier, empathy is still a thing, and most people on the planet have it. Empathy crosses all barriers like sexual identity, race, gender etc. Do people really think most straight white guys connect more with a Trevor Phillips than they do with Ellie from TLoU? If you can only empathize with people that share your genitals, or sexual identity, whichever side you fall on, you aren't truly empathetic. It's simple, write good characters, and don't be too preachy about it, and most sane people will accept such a character.
Just write characters as individuals again, and a lot of this nonsense will go away after a while. A gay character who is there to be laughed at isn't automatically a statement about the writers feelings towards gay people IRL. We need to stop treating characters like they are social statements, they aren't.
What do mean by making them "humans". What I want is for them to treat gay characters as any other characters. Them being gay shouldn't make them more special than any other characters. If they're evil, they're evil, if they're good, then they're good. That's why they shouldn't avoid characters like Solas and avoid making him bisexual because he may become a depraved bisexual. In an effort of trying to avoid a stereotype, they actually adding a stereotype to a character, and in an effort to try to make their characters become more empathetic, they're bringing attention to the fact that they're gay. I think by focusing on writing gay characters, they make the gay characters more standout rather than just another character in the story.
Anyone remembers the South Park episode about Nurse Gollum? What she said is how I feel. I don't want to be treated special, I just want to be treated as every other characters in the game.
Yes, seeing gay, or female, or "minority" characters as a representative of those particular demographics is something we really need to get away from. It leads to criticism of characters (and their writers) for simple things like making them believable, flawed human beings. If every character that isn't a straight white guy has to be a perfect little special snowflake, it not only makes these characters boring, but also harder to relate to.
If people really want the "straight white dudebro" gamers to connect with these characters, then the easiest way to do that is to make them human. Like I said earlier, empathy is still a thing, and most people on the planet have it. Empathy crosses all barriers like sexual identity, race, gender etc. Do people really think most straight white guys connect more with a Trevor Phillips than they do with Ellie from TLoU? If you can only empathize with people that share your genitals, or sexual identity, whichever side you fall on, you aren't truly empathetic. It's simple, write good characters, and don't be too preachy about it, and most sane people will accept such a character.
Just write characters as individuals again, and a lot of this nonsense will go away after a while. A gay character who is there to be laughed at isn't automatically a statement about the writers feelings towards gay people IRL. We need to stop treating characters like they are social statements, they aren't.
Word.
A well written non preachy character with humanizing flaws who happens to be female or non-white or homosexual or trans >>>>> Mediocre character with no real humanizing flaws who spend their time condescendingly preaching to you.
Empathy + no preaching + good writing = Excellent characters.
People will complain regardless if a character fits an archetype.
Complaining about archetypes is pointlessly futile because archetypes are neither bad nor good, they simply are.
Additionally, the notion that you cannot write good characters because you adhered to a particular archetype is preposterous.
If that is the case, then many people would hate overlapping characters like Deathstroke and Deadpool, Wolverine and Lobo, Batman and Moon Knight, Ant Man and The Atom, the many different prince & princesses in fiction, etc. But they do not because you can use a stereotype and have a character fit an archetype and still write them well.
What do mean by making them "humans". What I want is for them to treat gay characters as any other characters. Them being gay shouldn't make them more special than any other characters. If they're evil, they're evil, if they're good, then they're good. That's why they shouldn't avoid characters like Solas and avoid making him bisexual because he may become a depraved bisexual. In an effort of trying to avoid a stereotype, they actually adding a stereotype to a character, and in an effort to try to make their characters become more empathetic, they're bringing attention to the fact that they're gay. I think by focusing on writing gay characters, they make the gay characters more standout rather than just another character in the story.
Anyone remembers the South Park episode about Nurse Gollum? What she said is how I feel. I don't want to be treated special, I just want to be treated as every other characters in the game.
Relevant quote :-
I'd be uncomfortable/wary of a gay villain because I think it would be extremely easy for the sexuality to become part of their identity. Villains are often flamboyant and over the top- especially the scenery chewing villains like the Reapers or that Dragon Age uses- and so it'd be all to easy for it to be seen as 'the evil gay,' intentionally or not.
I think it'd work best, or at least best avoid the stereotypes, if the sexuality was a humanizing element. Say you have a cold and hard villain- not a frothing fanatic or a sociopathic radical, but a more subdued and reserved person who's doing things out of a view of hard necessity. In that case, the sexuality- any expression of care, really- becomes a humanizing element and expression of care for someone, proving they have emotions and feelings.
In fact, it could be a good part of making that villain a more personal antagonist- where you kill their lover in the course of a battle, and their anger/grief makes an impersonal antagonism personal as they turn their attention towards you.
"I'd be uncomfortable/wary of a gay villain because I think it would be extremely easy for the sexuality to become part of their identity. Villains are often flamboyant and over the top- especially the scenery chewing villains like the Reapers or that Dragon Age uses- and so it'd be all to easy for it to be seen as 'the evil gay,' intentionally or not."
There are people who want homosexuals to be given special treatment because they think fictional homosexuals in Thedas =/= real life homosexuals on Earth, and also because they think a single fictional homosexual villain somehow represents real life homosexuals as a group and assume that discerning adults wouldn't know the difference.
Refer to the Galbrush Paradox post and while you are not one of these people, there are plenty who want to see special snowflake treatment be given to these types of characters.
That's exactly what I mean by human Battlebloodmage. Just write them like you'd write any other character, not as a means to "intentionally add diversity" or to make a political statement or to appease a certain group of people.
By "human" I mean exactly that. Everybody is unique, people can be good, bad, ugly, beautiful. They can be drunkards, or lecherous, neurotic, benevolent, you name it. People are extremely diverse and that extends to far more than skin colour and who you like to bang, so show that in the writing.
People will complain regardless if a character fits an archetype.
Sadly this is true. Plus Identity pols will construct the most illogical of arguments in order to feel offended 24/7.
http://www.independe...y-a6775406.html
Excited dragon!
I'm disapointed that I've never had any of those glitches in my copy of Skyrim.
Spoiler
Ha, well that one wasn't recorded by me, though I did have some odd dragon moments. What is "AU"? Alternate universe?
Ugh. Another person trotting out flawed self-reporting data as "fact". I guess it will never end.
One more time -- This data isn't accurate and never will be as long as there is social stigma related to sexual identity. They are asking people to identify as a stigmatized group when there is no incentive to do so. These numbers don't identify the % of LGBT individuals; they identify the % of adults who are willing to identify as LGBT in a survey. Basically, this is the bare minimum of how many LGBT individuals there are out there. The researchers themselves even include a warning in the articles explaining that the number isn't accurate because it doesn't capture the real number, which would include people who don't want to identify as LGBT in the poll. As someone who was "in the closet" at one point, I can tell you that I would never have identified as LGBT, even in an "anonymous" poll, when I was in the closet. Hell no. That's the entire point of the closet -- to hide your identity.
So basically, this data tells you that at least 3.4% of Americans will identify as LGBT in an anonymous poll. Which? Not a terribly compelling statement. But that's that. It certainly doesn't tell you that in "the world population" there are "1-7%" homosexuals.
It really chaps my ass when people misinterpret data to make their point.
And this is why I nuked my two threads. I don't regret it.
This topic will always get heated. If you nuke a thread and start a new one, it'll just happen again. Although I admit I'm pretty sick of the current discussion, and would like to get back on topic without the people who apparently have nothing better to do that argue and derail threads. I think it's petty; I don't go into threads and do that. Not sure if that'll happen though.
Oh, I get you.
Or I try to, because if I myself were the Inquisitor, none of those romances would be for me.
If any of them would flirt with me, I wouldn't realize it and if I would, I'd probably react like Cass when you flirt with her as a Ladyquisitor "You're important to me, but not in that way. Can we stay friends?"
Let me take Cole to Val Royeaux, play Wicked Grace with Varric, eat cookies with Sera, gossip with Josie, drink with the Chargers etc...
Gimme....more scenes where I can show my platonic love for my friends.
Cause I love my friends
The relationship in DAI which is closest to "being for me" would be Josie's. So it makes me really happy, that Josie's romance was the first I tried in DAI. Just switch the kisses for hugs
I agree, I hope Bioware gives us more options to express platonic bonds in future games (especially hugs), because they so far don't really seem to realize you can love someone in a non-romantic way. It's odd.
Relevant quote :-
"I'd be uncomfortable/wary of a gay villain because I think it would be extremely easy for the sexuality to become part of their identity. Villains are often flamboyant and over the top- especially the scenery chewing villains like the Reapers or that Dragon Age uses- and so it'd be all to easy for it to be seen as 'the evil gay,' intentionally or not."
There are people who want homosexuals to be given special treatment because they think fictional homosexuals in Thedas =/= real life homosexuals on Earth, and also because they think a single fictional homosexual villain somehow represents real life homosexuals as a group and assume that discerning adults wouldn't know the difference.
Refer to the Galbrush Paradox post and while you are not one of these people, there are plenty who want to see special snowflake treatment be given to these types of characters.
This reminds me of the character of Dethmold in The Witcher 2. An (In my opinion) extremely well written villain who just happened to be gay. Being gay has nothing to do with his character arc though. People took exception to the way he dies, because Vernon Roche castrates him. People didn't see this as retribution for the awful things he did (he's a real nasty piece of work,) but as a statement about gay people from CDPR. It's ridiculous, and there's absolutely nothing to suggest that. It's this kind of outrage culture that annoys people because it's leading to watered down characters in the long run.
This reminds me of the character of Dethmold in The Witcher 2. An (In my opinion) extremely well written villain who just happened to be gay. Being gay has nothing to do with his character arc though. People took exception to the way he dies, because Vernon Roach castrates him. People didn't see this as retribution for the awful things he did (he's a real nasty piece of work,) but as a statement about gay people from CDPR. It's ridiculous, and there's absolutely nothing to suggest that. It's this kind of outrage culture that annoys people because it's leading to watered down characters in the long run.
Sadly this is true. Plus Identity pols will construct the most illogical of arguments in order to feel offended 24/7.
That is what happens when someone uses personal anecdotes to form headcannons and end up taking a particular piece of fiction a little bit too seriously and before they know it, they are demanding that characters are written to conform to their preferred genitals, preferred sexual orientations, preferred gender, preferred skin colors and preferred headcannons under the guise of "overturning stereotypes" and "expanding archetypes".
In truth, these types just make things worse because the fictional character then becomes a preachy one dimensional tool with no humanizing flaws that lectures the player unnecessarily for no reason.
If people really genuinely truly want fiction creators to expand the archetypes, all they need to do is stop taking fiction too seriously, too personally and not get outraged or offended or triggered by it - That way fiction creators have the creative freedom to do make a well written villain that happens to be gay like Dethmold who was dealt a severe retribution by The Broche for screwing things up.
Heck, was there ever any moment in Witcher 2 where Dethmold was lecturing and preaching to Geralt, and by extension the player about homosexuality ? Nope, Dethmold's sexuality was just there. It was natural and not forced or shoehorned. Did Ciri ever lecture Geralt about her possible bisexuality ? Nope. Did Philippa Eilhart spent her time lecturing Geralt on the dynamics of lesbian relationships when Geralt walks in on her spanking Cynthia ? Nope. Was there any moment where Yennefer decided to lecture Geralt about how he must respect her choice as a strong independent empowered woman to use a stuffed unicorn while having sex and its somehow abusive if Geralt doesn't agree to it ? Nope. Did Philippa Eilhart turn around to give a condescending stern lecture when Dwarf called out "Lesbomancy" ? Nope. All the interactions were natural, real and not preachy.
Can you just imagine if Bioware decided to write a character like Dethmold in Inquisition ? The politically correct crybully offense industry would lose their freaking minds. If the offense industry stopped existing or decided to turn its attention to other more pressing issues, Bioware would be able to write someone like Dethmold in game without having to make excuses, Tomb Raider devs can make the story they want without sugarcoating stuff, Joss Whedon can make a movie where Black Widow can have flaws, etc.
I agree, I hope Bioware gives us more options to express platonic bonds in future games (especially hugs), because they so far don't really seem to realize you can love someone in a non-romantic way. It's odd.
Yes, it really is odd.
The only people you can hug in the three DA games are:
- Bethany - If you send her to the Circle and then side with the Templars <-- my Hawke loved her little Sis, I had sent her to the Wardens and when they saw each other again in the DR I had hoped I'd get a (Hug your little Sis) option in the dialogue wheel and was so sad there wasn't one.
- Varric - If you leave Hawke in the Fade <-- This is just evil. I'd never break Varric's heart just so I'm able to hug him
I see a difference between art and entertainment.
The supreme court is talking about a purely legal basis.
Yes, a video game can be art. I have no doubt about that. But let's not pretend that just because it has interactive words and pictures it's "art"
NOTE: I'm not going to entertain the "what is art" discussion. Yes, you are absolutely free to see every SyFy Original movie as art... every fanfic as art... every doodle as art. I would - in the spirit of what it is to appreciate art - disagree and move on.
We should've been able to hug Cullen in his lyrium withdrawal scene. But no, we just pat him on the shoulder. Wtf is that ****.
Sadly this is true. Plus Identity pols will construct the most illogical of arguments in order to feel offended 24/7.
I think I lost a few brain cells reading that.
Sadly this is true. Plus Identity pols will construct the most illogical of arguments in order to feel offended 24/7.
Lmao, isn't that the idiot who said people have to be sensitive about using the words "hard work" because of slavery and "relative privilege"?
I'm playing TW2 (Roche's path) right now as I write, let me say something about Dethmold: while the way he is killed is definetly disgusting (but what he did was EVEN WORSE: allowing a woman to be raped), he is indeed rather well-written: he's a powerful mage in a position of power who most likely cares not about SJ, and he's not a victim of homophobia despite living in a homophobic world (because of this, I prefer him to Dorian).This reminds me of the character of Dethmold in The Witcher 2. An (In my opinion) extremely well written villain who just happened to be gay. Being gay has nothing to do with his character arc though. People took exception to the way he dies, because Vernon Roche castrates him. People didn't see this as retribution for the awful things he did (he's a real nasty piece of work,) but as a statement about gay people from CDPR. It's ridiculous, and there's absolutely nothing to suggest that. It's this kind of outrage culture that annoys people because it's leading to watered down characters in the long run.
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