1188 réponses à ce sujet

[daveliam]

Because either way, your standards are completely arbitrary. The population ratio is not unduly unrealistic if we either count the world as a whole or your companions.

 

Yeah, so what he actually means is "companions who aren't your siblings", of which there are a whopping 7 of them.  And of which still only 4 of them are bisexual.  So, even using his incredibly narrow bounding, he's still griping over the fact that barely more than half (57%) of the companions are bisexual.  Fight the good fight.....

[daveliam]

Would it be that one?  The reserch made by the Yougov UK? If so, it seems to have been done with the Kinsey scale, which could be disregarded/heavily critcized  since it was created back in 1948, apparently ignores asexuality and relies on the idea that gender is binary.

 

Yeah, that's the probably the study.  I haven't dug deep enough to find the actual study reports.  I'd be curious to see how they framed it.  However, the critique against it (that Kinsey doesn't recognize asexual identities - which is totally valid) wouldn't actually make a giant difference if the point being made is that "people are now identifying as 'not heterosexual' in greater amounts than originally reported" since the 43% number here would be the people who don't identify as "straight", but excludes the number of asexuals.  Which would actually mean that the 43% is low because it's missing a group of people.

 

I get the critique of the Kinsey scale, but not for the narrative that I'm talking about.

[Colonelkillabee]

Yeah, so what he actually means is "companions who aren't your siblings", of which there are a whopping 7 of them.  And of which still only 4 of them are bisexual.  So, even using his incredibly narrow bounding, he's still griping over the fact that barely more than half (57%) of the companions are bisexual.  Fight the good fight.....

Yes I am, because like it or not, I and a lot of fans here think that is silly. And the only reason that Xil is defending it is because she thinks everyone in her own words, should just be bisexual out of convenience anyway.

[Battlebloodmage]

For an all bi approach, are they actually bisexuals or are they playersexual? Someone may use bisexual as convenience and resource management. I personally don't have a problem with all bi, and actually prefer it to set sexuality if they can't handle set sexuality correctly, which is something I find happening now. Even in the all bi approach, the guys usually only show attraction toward the girls. It's one thing if they're actually bisexuals, it's another thing that they're straight unless the PC romance them. This is a common problem with most game with bisexuals, not just Bioware.

[Illyria]

Evil doesn't mean beyond redemption. Many fictional characters proven otherwise, Vegeta was pretty much about destroying and conquering the worlds, but he has become good. As I said, many villains' goal is actually noble, but that doesn't excuse their action. That's just my view on it. 

 

I guess we're arguing over a matter of semenatics then.

 

Sorry for exploding in your thread.  It just seems like every thread I go into gets to the 'let's all hate Solas' part before getting 10 pages in, and I'm just fed up with arguing this topic.

 

At least we agree that BW needs to have more diversity in their LGBT+ LIs.

[Battlebloodmage]

Yeah, that's the probably the study.  I haven't dug deep enough to find the actual study reports.  I'd be curious to see how they framed it.  However, the critique against it (that Kinsey doesn't recognize asexual identities - which is totally valid) wouldn't actually make a giant difference if the point being made is that "people are now identifying as 'not heterosexual' in greater amounts than originally reported" since the 43% number here would be the people who don't identify as "straight", but excludes the number of asexuals.  Which would actually mean that the 43% is low because it's missing a group of people.

 

I get the critique of the Kinsey scale, but not for the narrative that I'm talking about.

What's the breakdown in gender? Studies show that around 1/1000 people is asexual and over 70% of them are women. I don't think asexual would really factor in that much, but 43% is also depending on sample size, the geography, the population of the area. I would take it with a grain of salt.

[Colonelkillabee]

For an all bi approach, are they actually bisexuals or are they playersexual? Someone may use bisexual as convenience and resource management. I personally don't have a problem with all bi, and actually prefer it to set sexuality if they can't handle set sexuality correctly, which is something I find happening now. Even in the all bi approach, the guys usually only show attraction toward the girls. It's one thing if they're actually bisexuals, it's another thing that they're straight unless the PC romance them. This is a common problem with most game with bisexuals, not just Bioware.

I used to be of the mind that they were playersexual, but I'm actually convinced by arguments in the other thread that this isn't the case here. Isabella for instance indeed mentions canonically she doesn't just sleep with men, and though fenris and merrill don't, not sure about Anders, playersexual games usually make everyone playersexual, like in Skyrim for instance, where any player can be with anyone available to marry.

[daveliam]

Yes I am, because like it or not, I and a lot of fans here think that is silly. And the only reason that Xil is defending it is because she thinks everyone in her own words, should just be bisexual out of convenience anyway.

 

"A lot of fans think {blank} is silly".  You can fill in the {blank} with pretty much anything and you'll still have an accurate statement.  That's not a compelling argument.  Especially when I can counter it with "A lot of fans don't think that it's silly" and be just as correct as you.

 

I personally prefer a variety of sexualities.  But I see absolutely no issue with four bisexuals being a small group of random people.  It's not really that interesting or shocking.  Small groups of random people aren't representational.  So that's a silly expectation to have. 

 

Here's my example:  I work at a job that has nothing to do with my sexuality.  In my job, there are 6 guys.  Three of us are gay.  According to your logic, this is inconceivable.  But, since it's a random small sample, it's not statistically sound and can't be expected to be representational.  And it happens.  So it's not a big deal.

 

What's the breakdown in gender? Studies show that around 1/1000 people is asexual and over 70% of them are women. I don't think asexual would really factor in that much, but 43% is also depending on sample size, the geography, the population of the area. I would take it with a grain of salt.

 

Sample size is over 1600, so that's a totally sound number from a statistical standpoint.  It's more than enough to account for other factors.

 

ETA:  I did a little more digging on the study and found out that they did use the Kinsey scale as one analysis.  But that was only one that they did.  They also asked a series of qualitative questions and asked people to answer them, then analyzed those results based on ages as well.  And, using that methodology, 49% of the 18-24 year olds identified as "not completely heterosexual".  And only 7% of people older than 64 answered the same way.  Again, I'm saying that half of the population is not straight.  But I do think that this study (which seems methodologically sound outside of that one analysis category) supports the idea that the societal views on sexuality influence how likely individuals are to self-identify as LGBT. 

[Battlebloodmage]

I used to be of the mind that they were playersexual, but I'm actually convinced by arguments in the other thread that this isn't the case here. Isabella for instance indeed mentions canonically she doesn't just sleep with men, and though fenris and merrill don't, not sure about Anders, playersexual games usually make everyone playersexual, like in Skyrim for instance, where any player can be with anyone available to marry.

It's more of a problem with guys. Isabela is different because she's a pre-established bisexual character from DAO with set sexuality. If she's a new character in DA2, it would be another matter. Anders only mentions Karl on male's file while nothing on female file, from what the developers intended, it was for sexual ambiguity gay in one file straight in the other. Outside of that, Anders and Fenris only mention relationship with women, Merrill also has a comment where she comments on the qunari's aesthetic. All Bioware bi males are guilty of this, Kaidan, Zevran, Iron Bull.

[Merela]

Yeah, that's the probably the study.  I haven't dug deep enough to find the actual study reports.  I'd be curious to see how they framed it.  However, the critique against it (that Kinsey doesn't recognize asexual identities - which is totally valid) wouldn't actually make a giant difference if the point being made is that "people are now identifying as 'not heterosexual' in greater amounts than originally reported" since the 43% number here would be the people who don't identify as "straight", but excludes the number of asexuals.  Which would actually mean that the 43% is low because it's missing a group of people.

 

I get the critique of the Kinsey scale, but not for the narrative that I'm talking about.

 

Here's the study: https://yougov.co.uk...t-heterosexual/

[Xilizhra]

Clearly not everyone thinks it's arbitrary. It's indeed unrealistic because as I and others said, the population of bisexuals isn't so high that a group of randomly selected people would turn out to mostly be bi. You don't agree, fine, but there's a reason so many people were saying the same thing, and it isn't bigotry despite what so many want to believe.

Shows what you know. Members of my household are bisexual in a 3/5 ratio, with only one straight person. People only say it because they're either incredibly anal about statistics and want only the most statistically probable distribution... or there's the other, easier possibility.

[Colonelkillabee]

Shows what you know. Members of my household are bisexual in a 3/5 ratio, with only one straight person. People only say it because they're either incredibly anal about statistics and want only the most statistically probable distribution... or there's the other, easier possibility.

Statistically, members of a household being of the same sexuality isn't that unusual, actually. That's not exactly random. You can make whatever statements about other easier probabilities if you want but the fact remains we already know your bias to this being convenience for players, you've said it more than several times over.

 

 

snip

Your argument is no more compelling than mine, then, as all you've basically managed to say in three paragraphs is you disagree. Which we've already established.

 

.4 percent of americans identify as bisexual. That's 1275600... out of 318.9 Million.

[daveliam]

Statistically, members of a household being of the same sexuality isn't that unusual, actually. That's not exactly random. You can make whatever statements about other easier probabilities if you want but the fact remains we already know your bias to this being convenience for players, you've said it more than several times over.

 

 

Your argument is no more compelling than mine, then, as all you've basically managed to say in three paragraphs is you disagree. Which we've already established.

 

.4 percent of americans identify as bisexual. That's 1275600... out of 318.9 Million.

 

And yet, you completely disregard the fact that I gave a real world example of how it's not unheard of for half of a small random sample to be 'not straight'.  Funny that......

 

You can trot out whatever numbers you want to support your argument, but all it does is demonstrate that you don't understand how statistics work.  In a random population of 7 individuals, you should expect some traits to be over represented and others to be underrepresented.    That's how it works.  So having 4 out of 7 people in a random group of people being bisexual isn't that interesting.  It's unlikely, sure.  But it's not impossible and it certainly shouldn't stretch anyone's belief that much. 

[Colonelkillabee]

And yet, you completely disregard the fact that I gave a real world example of how it's not unheard of for half of a small random sample to be 'not straight'.  Funny that......

 

You can trot out whatever numbers you want to support your argument, but all it does is demonstrate that you don't understand how statistics work.  In a random population of 7 individuals, you should expect some traits to be over represented and others to be underrepresented.    That's how it works.  So having 4 out of 7 people in a random group of people being bisexual isn't that interesting.  It's unlikely, sure.  But it's not impossible and it certainly shouldn't stretch anyone's belief that much. 

Because I never said it was impossible in the first place, but it is unrealistic because that's not common.

 

You like examples, there was a guy in the military that was so badass, they made a movie about him, but because his acts of valor seemed so out of this world, he had to underplay himself so that people wouldn't think it was bullshit. The unlikely happens all the time. Doesn't mean that a writer should just invent whatever scenario he wants and expect the readers to identify with the environment, just because it isn't flat out physically impossible....

 

If your goal is for people to relate, you have to go for realism. If it isn't to relate, which isn't always the case, then you're free to do whatever.

[Witch Cocktor]

Who cares about the statistics of how many bisexuals there are on planet earth.

Thedas isn't earth, our world. Certainly it imitates a lot of it, but the percentage of bisexuals in the population certainly doesn't need to be imitated.

The problem isn't that it's too unlikely to have this or that many bisexuals in a group, but a lot of other things.

[Colonelkillabee]

I care, because unless there's some reason stated that the group happens to have mostly bisexuals, it feels forced and sticks out like a sore thumb. Like I said, it being a different planet and world doesn't change that we are not from that world and any story has to be at least somewhat relatable. So it not being Earth isn't really an excuse to let obvious stuff like that go.

[daveliam]

Because I never said it was impossible in the first place, but it is unrealistic because that's not common.

 

You like examples, there was a guy in the military that was so badass, they made a movie about him, but because his acts of valor seemed so out of this world, he had to underplay himself so that people wouldn't think it was bullshit. The unlikely happens all the time. Doesn't mean that a writer should just invent whatever scenario he wants and expect the readers to identify with the environment, just because it isn't flat out physically impossible....

 

If your goal is for people to relate, you have to go for realism. If it isn't to relate, which isn't always the case, then you're free to do whatever.

 

So you are complaining because something unlikely happens in a fictional story?  It's unlikely that Hawke just happened to run across Isabela in a bar and she just happened to be the person who had stolen the book that the Qunari were looking for.  But I don't see you going on and on and on about that.  It's FICTION.  Things are going to be unlikely.  Otherwise, it's a boring story.  Seriously, this isn't worth the amount of time that people spend on it.  Big god damn deal -- there are 4 bisexuals in a random group of 7 people (conveniently excluding the other 2 people per your request).  It was by far not the only "unlikely" thing to happen in that game nor was it the most unbelievable "unlikely" thing to happen.  Why do you feel the need to bring this one example up all the time? 

 

Who cares about the statistics of how many bisexuals there are on planet earth.

Thedas isn't earth, our world. Certainly it imitates a lot of it, but the percentage of bisexuals in the population certainly doesn't need to be imitated.

The problem isn't that it's too unlikely to have this or that many bisexuals in a group, but a lot of other things.

 

Also this ^.  For people who love evidence, they sure do seem to overlook the fact that we actually have evidence to suggest that the numbers of LGBT individuals in Thedas (you know, the fictional made up place that is NOT Earth) isn't the same as on Earth (the real place where we live).  There is also a higher representation of elves in Thedas too.  Why?  Because it's a made up place that doesn't have to show the same demographics as Earth.  It's really not hard to grasp. 

[Colonelkillabee]

So you are complaining because something unlikely happens in a fictional story?  It's unlikely that Hawke just happened to run across Isabela in a bar and she just happened to be the person who had stolen the book that the Qunari were looking for.  But I don't see you going on and on and on about that.  It's FICTION.  Things are going to be unlikely.  Otherwise, it's a boring story.  Seriously, this isn't worth the amount of time that people spend on it.  Big god damn deal -- there are 4 bisexuals in a random group of 7 people (conveniently excluding the other 2 people per your request).  It was by far not the only "unlikely" thing to happen in that game nor was it the most unbelievable "unlikely" thing to happen.  Why do you feel the need to bring this one example up all the time? 

As stated before, it being a world of fiction where unlikely things happen, doesn't excuse or mean literally everything is open to be not only unlikely but rather improbable. The likelihood of things involving magic is something we're used to and given loose explanations for. The maker intended it, an elven goddess planned for it, it's destiny, whatever. No such thing exists for a group of people that happen to swing both ways. It's obvious this was done for convenience, especially when you remember, if Sebastian wasn't added via day one dlc, literally every romanceable character would swing both ways. Isabella, Merrill, Anders and Fenris.

[Battlebloodmage]

[daveliam]

As stated before, it being a world of fiction where unlikely things happen, doesn't excuse or mean literally everything is open to be not only unlikely but rather improbable. The likelihood of things involving magic is something we're used to and given loose explanations. The maker intended it, an elven goddess planned for it, it's destiny, whatever. No such thing exists for a group of people that happen to swing both ways. It's obvious this was done for convenience, especially when you remember, if Sebastian wasn't added via day one dlc, literally every romanceable character would swing both ways. Isabella, Merrill, Anders and Fenris.

 

Yeah, that's why I didn't use magic.  I used the example of Hawke, the guy who happened to be "the hero who stood up to the Qunari", happening to be at the same bar as Isabela, who happened to be the same person who stole the book from the Qunari.  His involvement with the Qunari wasn't because of his connection with Isabela.  It was totally unbelievable and not realistic.  So I look forward to your dozens and dozens of posts about that situation, since that seems to be the crux of your situation with the unbelievable and not realistic representation of bisexual demographics in DA2......right?  Yet, this seems to be the one "unrealistic and unbelievable" thing that I see you complain about all the time.

 

Also, you sure do like to have rules with a lot of exceptions.   "Almost all" of the people that you randomly meet are bisexual, if you only count companions, specifically companions who you aren't related to.  "Literally every" romanceable character is bisexual, if Sebastian wasn't added via day one DLC.

[Witch Cocktor]

I care, because unless there's some reason stated that the group happens to have mostly bisexuals, it feels forced and sticks out like a sore thumb. Like I said, it being a different planet and world doesn't change that we are not from that world and any story has to be at least somewhat relatable. So it not being Earth isn't really an excuse to let obvious stuff like that go.

 

People rarely relate to group dynamics in stories, but rather singular characters or relationships between two characters, afaik.

And what does being relateable even mean? Is there like, some kind of an official relateability scale?

I'm pretty sure that there are plenty of consumers who relate to characters and enjoy stories even if the main characters are a bunch of bisexuals.

So what you're really saying '' relateable to ME '' which is fine, but you are but one consumer out of many.

[Lady Artifice]

Because I never said it was impossible in the first place, but it is unrealistic because that's not common.

 

You like examples, there was a guy in the military that was so badass, they made a movie about him, but because his acts of valor seemed so out of this world, he had to underplay himself so that people wouldn't think it was bullshit. The unlikely happens all the time. Doesn't mean that a writer should just invent whatever scenario he wants and expect the readers to identify with the environment, just because it isn't flat out physically impossible....

 

If your goal is for people to relate, you have to go for realism. If it isn't to relate, which isn't always the case, then you're free to do whatever.

 

Equating uncommon with unrealistic is absurd in any setting, fantasy or otherwise.

 

This in particular is a case of unreality is unrealistic, because while you may find the idea of four bisexuals in a group completely improbable, it actually happens in the real world. I have four bisexual friends. Not only does it happen in reality, it's more likely to happen than not.

[Colonelkillabee]

Glad you're enjoying the show, but I'm gonna let it end lest the thread gets burned again. Already stated my opinion, others don't agree, that's fine. But I think at least some of us can agree that it's far better to have what DAI did, and include at least a few characters of several demographics, rather than just shove everyone under the same sexuality as if one size fits all. That might work for Skyrim, but Skyrim isn't exactly a game where you focus on your character's interaction with other characters. Marriage and "romance" is a tacked on feature. Dragon Age practically revolves around your interactions, romantic or not with other characters, and for a game like that, it's important that characters feel like actual people, and to me, having all the romanceable characters but one be whatever you want them to be makes them feel less real, compared to DAI where we had actual gay and straights, and actual bi characters.

[daveliam]

People rarely relate to group dynamics in stories, but rather singular characters or relationships between two characters, afaik.

And what does being relateable even mean? Is there like, some kind of an official relateability scale?

I'm pretty sure that there are plenty of consumers who relate to characters and enjoy stories even if the main characters are a bunch of bisexuals.

So what you're really saying '' relateable to ME '' which is fine, but you are but one consumer out of many.

 

Exactly.  What he means is "relateable to me and people like me".  Because a group of 9 friends including 4 bisexuals is relateable to many people.  But because that number isn't the biggest number, then it's "unbelievable" and "unrealistic".

 

And, just to clarify, I totally get the "relateable to me and people like me" thing.  It's how the world works.  But call a spade a spade and say it outright instead of trying to mask it with BS "statistics" explanations.  I just have more respect for people who say "I didn't like this because I didn't get it.  It isn't something that I relate to because of who I am and where I come from." instead of "This is objectively unrealistic and 'many people' agree with me!"

[Witch Cocktor]

Glad you're enjoying the show, but I'm gonna let it end lest the thread gets burned again. Already stated my opinion, others don't agree, that's fine. But I think at least some of us can agree that it's far better to have what DAI did, and include at least a few characters of several demographics, rather than just shove everyone under the same sexuality as if one size fits all. That might work for Skyrim, but Skyrim isn't exactly a game where you focus on your character's interaction with other characters. Marriage and "romance" is a tacked on feature. Dragon Age practically revolves around your interactions, romantic or not with other characters, and for a game like that, it's important that characters feel like actual people, and to me, having all the romanceable characters but one be whatever you want them to be makes them feel less real, compared to DAI where we had actual gay and straights, and actual bi characters.

 

Hey dude I mostly agree with you on DA:I's approach being better. It's just the other stuff that you say that I don't necessarily agree with.