Hogwarts Legacy Will Allow For Transgender Characters

[Dwarvenhobble]

Didn't Jim say that they feel bad for the devs working on it only for Rowling to go mask off despite their efforts?

The funny thing about it all is Rowlings position is pretty much what is referred to with the disparaging term of "Truscum" the whole "J.K. Rowling is a Terf" is a giant spin campaign in the end

What does that have to do with fictional characters? Does it make Harry Potter's live any harder in the fictional world if he were gay? Fictional characters live as hard of a life as the creators deem to impose on them regardless.

Would the latest Joker film resonate with people more if Arthur was also gay? Would the LBGTQ community favor watching a homosexual go through that kind of abuse? Because from what I've seen from the trans community's responses to hardships with trans characters, they don't particularly care for that shit. Ultimately it is a sticky situation, you try to appeal and it doesn't work so it just causes problems.

And again why does it matter? Furthermore the wokeness of things has only continued to grow, forcing long time voice actors to step away from roles because they're playing people not of their race. Simpsons and Family guy have both removed white actors from playing the black characters that they've voiced for decades. It's getting out of hand, and the strict focus on race only drives for more racism. Just like doing the same thing with gay/trans actors drives more phobia.

Honestly I don't get it.

The ultimate goal of being trans is to be the opposite sex right?

So playing as some-one the opposite sex would fulfil that goal would it not?

Why would you need a special Trans character position unless the story literally called for stuff a person is incapable of doing even if they are trans and have fully transitioned.

There's the Kotaku writer objecting to having the option to have different voices to the characters body as an element of being Trans. Then there was I think it was Ana Valens or some-one for some other site complaining Cyberpunk 2077 tied pronouns to your voice selection which meant they couldn't creator themselves because their pronouns don't match their voice.

The other thing I will add is that the argument that representation doesn't matter comes across as really insincere and disingenuous when the peonot even the level ple making it do it on every single thread about the topic and always have pages of stuff to say about it, like if it really doesn't matter why do you care so much about it?

Well in a sense it does matter in so far as it diverts development time from other areas. It also means you get a less defined protagonist and story for them and instead get more generic story beats that are often interchangeable.

Romance options are different but it's level of the old Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines 1 where being a female character in one side mission lets you skip part of it by shagging the NPC instead of doing a prolonged fight.

 

[happyninja42]

What does that have to do with fictional characters?

Because fictional characters, and the media we consume, DOES color our understanding of things. It's why whenever anyone makes any technological advance, you see tons of articles calling it "the next Cyberdine! They're making the Terminator! It's a Black Mirror episode come to life!" it's fear mongering on a scale that actually colors our perception of how the world works. And since "creative license" gives creators carte blanche to be incredibly inaccurate with stuff, just to tell a story, you will have plenty of people who think that it's really that way, and no amount of correction from the experts in the field will change their minds. Every AI story is one about them immediately deciding to Purge All Humans! and mass produce a faceless army of robots to do so. When that's ALL they see, that's what they think it is.

And so it's why, when people who only ever see characters like themselves portrayed in a negative way, (if they are portrayed at all), it gets frustrating for them. I mean if you see a mincing, flamboyant, stereotypical gay guy in a film, they are either the "female protags best friend" or they are a villain. You never see one of them as the actual hero of a story. It's why you have trans characters (trans women, as I can't actually recall a trans male even portrayed in any popular show/film), portrayed as deceitful and duplicitous, when they are revealed to not be a cis woman. Crying Game, Ace Ventura, that episode of Family Guy where Brian learns that the woman he was hooking up with, was trans. ALL OF THEM, have the people react by being violently ill. Just KNOWING someone is a certain way, causes them to projectile vomit. "So yes, young child, who might be struggling with their own identity, if you let people know who you really are, they might violently vomit as a result. Have fun dealing with that!"

When the ONLY way a demographic is portrayed, is in a single light, it limits them, and when that way is a negative one, yeah, they don't like seeing it. I personally get tired of seeing atheists in film and tv portrayed as being "angry at god", and somehow broken, and needing to be healed of their grief. And at best, are just portrayed as broken, angry people, and at worst, are people like the Snyder version of Lex Luthor, who is all ego-stroking "I'm bigger than god!" kind of behavior.

So yeah, the way they are portrayed does impact how they are perceived. And they would like to have some positive representation.

 

[CriticalGaming]

And so it's why, when people who only ever see characters like themselves portrayed in a negative way, (if they are portrayed at all), it gets frustrating for them. I mean if you see a mincing, flamboyant, stereotypical gay guy in a film, they are either the "female protags best friend" or they are a villain.

Can you name me one group of people that have only ever been represented as villains? Name me one race, one LBGTQ archtype, that has only ever been a villain of the story.

Because to say these people are only ever protrayed negatively is bullshit and the LBGTQ groups know it's fucking bullshit. As to the BLM folks because we've already listed several Heroes of color.

Ace Ventura,

Ray Finkle wasn't trans. He took over the identity of a women to hide himself away from the insane asylum while plotting the kidnapping of Dan Marino.

Family Guy is a cartoon and Brian is a dog, the bestiality implications on any given episode is staggering. And their whole gimmick is basically offensive humor so that's kind of the point.

Is the humor device used too often with trans characters? Yeah probably. But to say they are always portrayed the same way is ignorant and cherry picking.

There are plenty of positive protrayals of LBGTQ people going back a long time.

Birdcage (Robin Williams 1996)
Will and Grace (long running sitcom)
Get Shorty ( The Rock )
Orange is the new Black (Netflix)
Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Allyson Hanigan)
Modern Family
Brooklyn nine-nine
True Blood

I mean that's just off the top of my head and I don't even watch much TV let alone pay attention to LBGTQ characters. So if you are going to advocate for people, at least know what the hell you are talking about.

Are there negative representations? Of course.

Are LBGTQ characters the butts of jokes? Of course, but so is everyone else why should they get special treatment?

But none of that equals "Always the joke, always the villain". Hyperbole is disingenuous and shows that there is more care to pretend these people are oppressed and hated than they actually are.

 

[Kae]

The funny thing about it all is Rowlings position is pretty much what is referred to with the disparaging term of "Truscum" the whole "J.K. Rowling is a Terf" is a giant spin campaign in the end

Truscum, is actually a term referring specifically to binary trans people that deny the existence of nonbinary and often have a list of things that are required to be trans, like for example saying that both Hormone Replacement Therapy & Gender Reassignment Surgery is needed, which isn't actually the case.

Honestly I don't get it.

The ultimate goal of being trans is to be the opposite sex right?

Incorrect there are actually many different philosophical currents among trans people many of which aren't really compatible with each other (See Truscum above), but nope, that's not necessarily the case, a more accurate statement would be saying a gender different than the one they were assigned to at birth, key word gender, which is actually not the same thing as sex, point is there is not one singular goal all trans people share and as such it cannot be boiled down to such a simple statement.
Not different from cis people, some cist people believe there are certain attitudes, behaviours and presentation styles that one must follow to be a man or a woman but it's not a universally shared philosophy, there are opposing ones and many variations on what those characteristics even are.

Why would you need a special Trans character position unless the story literally called for stuff a person is incapable of doing even if they are trans and have fully transitioned.

Several reasons, while playing as the gender one perceives themselves can be enough for some people, we must also recognise that this still submits to the gender binary leaving non-binary people completely out of the conversation, there's also the factor that some people just like to play themselves rather than their idealised self, which is ultimately good as body image problems are common among trans people so being able to play as someone that looks like them could help with those body image problems, there's also the fact that cis women with broad shoulders and even facial hair do exist, and so do cis men with narrow bodies and a more hourglass shape and this could also help cover those groups, so you know just from aesthetic point of view it's pretty cool that there are that many options, brings you closer to being able to make any person regardless of how uncommon their physiology is.

There's the Kotaku writer objecting to having the option to have different voices to the characters body as an element of being Trans. Then there was I think it was Ana Valens or some-one for some other site complaining Cyberpunk 2077 tied pronouns to your voice selection which meant they couldn't creator themselves because their pronouns don't match their voice.

Well voice training is notoriously hard, it's a skill that takes years of practice to be able to change how you naturally sound, I for example can only do the closest thing to my desired voice for about an hour of relatively extensive talking before my voice it starts to crack and it becomes extremely difficult to continue to use it, keep in mind that is roughly about a year of training and I've been training every day for at least 6 months, so some people just can't do it, there are alternatives like surgery for trans women (Trans Men tend to develop the voice a bit easier because Testosterone changes your voice while Oestrogen doesn't, though not enough sometimes.), but the surgery is expensive and it's also risky, I mean riskier than not having it at least, keep in mind that someone that might be interested in surgery is likely to already have a lot of other medical bills relating to transitioning which could mean things Laser hair removal treatment, Hormone Replacement therapy, Gender Reassignment surgery and even clothes since your body shape tends to change dramatically while on HRT meaning it's very likely you'll need new ones, so it's not necessarily realistic to add another medical bill not to mention kind off scary for someone to cut into your throat.

Point being that being able to accept that you're just not going to have a feminine or masculine voice is the best option for some people or at least will be for a good portion of their lives, so being able to play a character that reflects this, this being portrayed as normal could help, that's also not to mention cis people that just sound like the "opposite" gender, like I have a friend that is a cis man (He's the worst he always hugs me for at least 20 seconds to say hi) and he likes that but his voice sounds like a woman, to the point where at work he just accepts that over the phone and in online games people will refer to him as a woman, and this kind of thing accommodates for people like that too.

Well in a sense it does matter in so far as it diverts development time from other areas. It also means you get a less defined protagonist and story for them and instead get more generic story beats that are often interchangeable.

Glad we finally admit that it matters, however I fail to see how that's necessarily an issue, we're talking here about RPGs mainly games that are always bragging about the variety of customization in characters, this adds another layer, anyone that claims to like character customization should be OK with this, it's the same as when they limit character customization, that's fine it's your artistic choice but ultimately it must be seen as a good thing, the main issue is that it can be poorly handled and given the variety of conflicting philosophies on matters of gender, regardless of which choices you allow there's always going to be someone that's not happy with it, like all the examples that we've already discuss or bigots upset at the inclusion of these things.

Romance options are different but it's level of the old Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines 1 where being a female character in one side mission lets you skip part of it by shagging the NPC instead of doing a prolonged fight.

Weird example, none of these really prevents that, in fact taking these things into account could add to some fairly interesting scenarios, whether it's simple gay options in conversations like New Vegas did for example, to situations where being a trans character is relevant, such as for example encountering an NPC that really fetishizes pre-op trans-women and having to decide whether trying to find another way around or just doing the easy thing and getting with him despite his grossness, a character making comments about your voice apparent disparity and so on, if what you want is unique scenarios based on what kind of character you play those are still possible with trans characters, in fact it adds a lot more possibilities.

 

[Asita]

In any case, my point being that even if something seems like just a silly harmless joke, it's not really always the case and it can genuinely have a negative or positive effect on people's lives, so I think it's reasonable to be weary of these kinds of humour, which is often what edgelords and conservatives refer to when they're complaining that they aren't allowed to make a joke.

There's also the consideration of why something is 'funny' and the question of...let's say consistency? There's an odd example I remember from back when I watched NCIS (a series that could be absolutely breathtaking in how stupid the writers could be). Now in one early episode, they came across a naval transwoman who committed suicide. Kate was quick to admonish the characters that she was a woman rather than a man. Fair enough...or it would be if not for a later episode. In it, the team learned that the woman Tony had been hitting on was the male suspect that they had been trying to track down, with the implication that the money the suspect had stolen was used to fund her SRS. Contrasting the first example, all the characters (Kate included) are disgusted and immediately start treating the perp as intrinsically male. Moreover, for the rest of her tenure on the show Kate makes a point of mocking Tony for his interest in "him" (or as she once so quaintly put it, "that he-she"). And yes, you could argue that Kate's only intent is to bust Tony's balls rather than to tear down the perp's gender identity, but the two are inexorably linked in this case and throws in a dash of homophobia for good measure!

When you actually look at its composition, the 'joke' at Tony's expense is wholly predicated on a few ideas: 1) Transwomen are really men, 2) being interested in transwomen therefore makes you gay, 3) doing anything gay emasculates you, leading to the punchline of 4) If a transwoman tricks a man into liking being gay for 'him', that's a lapse in the latter's judgement that he should never live down. Yes, the intended target of derision is the guy rather than the transwoman, but it's so intimately tied to dehumanizing the latter and treating her existence as an intrinsic joke that it's arguably more accurate to say that it really only mocks the former by proxy. You know that gag where someone starts making out with someone in their dream and wakes up to find that their dog is licking their face? In this joke, the transwoman is given the same or even lesser standing than that dog. And that's what makes it harmful. It's not a joke made in good fun, it's laughing at a schoolyard bully humiliating another kid on the playground.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Truscum, is actually a term referring specifically to binary trans people that deny the existence of nonbinary and often have a list of things that are required to be trans, like for example saying that both Hormone Replacement Therapy & Gender Reassignment Surgery is needed, which isn't actually the case.

Well based on what she's actually said not the spin and narrative building. That would be J.K's position. A Truscum one.

Incorrect there are actually many different philosophical currents among trans people many of which aren't really compatible with each other (See Truscum above), but nope, that's not necessarily the case, a more accurate statement would be saying a gender different than the one they were assigned to at birth, key word gender, which is actually not the same thing as sex, point is there is not one singular goal all trans people share and as such it cannot be boiled down to such a simple statement.
Not different from cis people, some cist people believe there are certain attitudes, behaviours and presentation styles that one must follow to be a man or a woman but it's not a universally shared philosophy, there are opposing ones and many variations on what those characteristics even are.

And this is why I nope the hell out because it seems more that Gender as a term is being used as a personal style term or attempt to define a personality than anything really useful anymore.

Well voice training is notoriously hard, it's a skill that takes years of practice to be able to change how you naturally sound, I for example can only do the closest thing to my desired voice for about an hour of relatively extensive talking before my voice it starts to crack and it becomes extremely difficult to continue to use it, keep in mind that is roughly about a year of training and I've been training every day for at least 6 months, so some people just can't do it, there are alternatives like surgery for trans women (Trans Men tend to develop the voice a bit easier because Testosterone changes your voice while Oestrogen doesn't, though not enough sometimes.), but the surgery is expensive and it's also risky, I mean riskier than not having it at least, keep in mind that someone that might be interested in surgery is likely to already have a lot of other medical bills relating to transitioning which could mean things Laser hair removal treatment, Hormone Replacement therapy, Gender Reassignment surgery and even clothes since your body shape tends to change dramatically while on HRT meaning it's very likely you'll need new ones, so it's not necessarily realistic to add another medical bill not to mention kind off scary for someone to cut into your throat.

Point being that being able to accept that you're just not going to have a feminine or masculine voice is the best option for some people or at least will be for a good portion of their lives, so being able to play a character that reflects this, this being portrayed as normal could help, that's also not to mention cis people that just sound like the "opposite" gender, like I have a friend that is a cis man (He's the worst he always hugs me for at least 20 seconds to say hi) and he likes that but his voice sounds like a woman, to the point where at work he just accepts that over the phone and in online games people will refer to him as a woman, and this kind of thing accommodates for people like that too.

Problem being the Kotaku writer is portraying being able to use different voice options compared to the character body as transphobic because the the stereotype / joke.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Glad we finally admit that it matters, however I fail to see how that's necessarily an issue, we're talking here about RPGs mainly games that are always bragging about the variety of customization in characters, this adds another layer, anyone that claims to like character customization should be OK with this, it's the same as when they limit character customization, that's fine it's your artistic choice but ultimately it must be seen as a good thing, the main issue is that it can be poorly handled and given the variety of conflicting philosophies on matters of gender, regardless of which choices you allow there's always going to be someone that's not happy with it, like all the examples that we've already discuss or bigots upset at the inclusion of these things.

Well an RPG isn't always about playing the role of yourself in said situation. E.G. The Witcher is a role playing series but you play Geralt and it's up to you how Geralt acts but he's still Geralt and all you do is create different versions of Geralt as such.

Weird example, none of these really prevents that, in fact taking these things into account could add to some fairly interesting scenarios, whether it's simple gay options in conversations like New Vegas did for example, to situations where being a trans character is relevant, such as for example encountering an NPC that really fetishizes pre-op trans-women and having to decide whether trying to find another way around or just doing the easy thing and getting with him despite his grossness, a character making comments about your voice apparent disparity and so on, if what you want is unique scenarios based on what kind of character you play those are still possible with trans characters, in fact it adds a lot more possibilities.

Thing is it's more programming time and the more options you have the more of a less necessary addition said element becomes. Thus it becomes a case of AAA companies making a more bland story without much specifics based on choices beyond dialogue options and even in many of them it's not that big a choice because all the choices ultimate come back together to a few options near the end of the game.

It's why I keep pushing for actual stories not trying to make every game be for every-one but a range of media. Unfortunately that's not the most profitable route normally as big and bland tends to offer better returns than specialised media.

 

[Kae]

Well based on what she's actually said not the spin and narrative building. That would be J.K's position. A Truscum one.

Not really, as she's not trans, one needs to be trans to be truscum so Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist or TERF, really is the more accurate terminology, if we're arguing semantics.

And this is why I nope the hell out because it seems more that Gender as a term is being used as a personal style term or attempt to define a personality than anything really useful anymore.

You're entitled to your opinion but just keep in mind that biologically speaking the gender binary has always been false and things aren't as simple as just male and simple and have never really been that simple, it's also important that in some level this categorization does reflect the biological reality of some sex characteristics, both primary and secondary.

Well an RPG isn't always about playing the role of yourself in said situation. E.G. The Witcher is a role playing series but you play Geralt and it's up to you how Geralt acts but he's still Geralt and all you do is create different versions of Geralt as such.

Pretty sure I said it was OK to have limited options, whether that's having a single protagonist or choosing between two, it's all fine it's up to the studio making the game after all, it's an artistic decision after all.

Thing is it's more programming time and the more options you have the more of a less necessary addition said element becomes. Thus it becomes a case of AAA companies making a more bland story without much specifics based on choices beyond dialogue options and even in many of them it's not that big a choice because all the choices ultimate come back together to a few options near the end of the game.

See this is just bullshit BTW, every single part of the game requires an investment of time that arguably takes away work from other areas, all you're communicating is that this in particular is not your interest and because it doesn't interest you it isn't worth the work investment regardless of if the devs think it's a worthwhile investment or if the rest of the audience does, basically this point is basically utter garbage, it's like the beard growth in I don't remember if it was Witcher 3 or Red Dead 2, kinda pointless but I saw no one complaining about the inclusion of that and how it caused other parts of the game to be neglected, basically you could argue this about any feature, so it's not a good point.

It's why I keep pushing for actual stories not trying to make every game be for every-one but a range of media. Unfortunately that's not the most profitable route normally as big and bland tends to offer better returns than specialised media.

I personally would love to see more stories cantered around these topics, I think they're genuinely interesting and people who don't live through them could be fascinated by just things that they maybe have never imagined, however the problem is that when it's actually tried people make a stink over it and cry "Why are you shoving politics into my game?" see the Last of Us 2 and the absurdly long thread about it that I think it's still going for example, a game that sold well BTW, kinda contradicting the notion that stories that include these themes don't necessarily sell.

That being said I'll admit I don't have a PS4 so I never played The Last of Us 2, so I can't speak to the game's actual quality but I highly doubt the backlash would've been as pronounced if it weren't for the very heavy on LGBTQ representation cast, to the point that people accused the one cis-straight protagonist of looking like a transgender woman, even though She was modelled after an actual cis woman that did the mocaps, which is just plain absurd to me.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Can you name me one group of people that have only ever been represented as villains? Name me one race, one LBGTQ archtype, that has only ever been a villain of the story.

Because to say these people are only ever protrayed negatively is bullshit

Well, they did say "only ever see", not "only ever been". But, ok, if it's not absolutely 100%, it's just the overwhelmingly majority, that's really not all that much better. Obviously.

(As an aside, while I'm not very familiar with it myself, there were a lot of questions about how positive the positive depiction of LGBT people in True Blood was. It was more positive than the usual homo/transphobic jokes all the time, but the LGBT characters were not treated the same as the cishet characters, and this is not a new thing)

 

[Hawki]

Question.....isn't everyone in Hogwarts young? Like 8-15 years old young?

11-18.

claiming Dumbledor was gay and Hermione was black long after the fact, as some sort of attempt to retroactively score points.

Dumbledore, yes, Hermione, no.

The black!Hermione thing comes from the stage play. They cast a black actress, and some idiots got bent out of shape, only for Rowling to claim (incorrectly) that she never depicted Hermione as white. While Rowling's lying through her teeth there, the bigger issue comes from people who saw casting in a stage play (a medium where different actors and actresses will play characters over and over) and lost their shit.

Let me ask a question. If there is no relationships or romance in a piece of fiction, what is the point of labeling them as gay, straight, bi, asexual, etc? Why not leave it blank and let the reader decide to make them whatever they want in their own mind? Why can't Tracer be a lesbian for those who want her to be, and why can't she be straight for others? Would that not allow for the player/reader to create their own bonds with a character if they so chose?

I perfectly understand options in game with romance ala Elder Scrolls, Mass Effect, etc etc. But why put it there when it has no place to be there as you said yourself?

Tracer wasn't "labelled" as anything - a comic was released where it was revealed (and even "revealed" is a wrong term - it wasn't a plot twist or plot point) that she was lesbian.

Also, it didn't stop people from doing anything. Before the 'reveal,' people often shipped Tracer and Widowmaker, despite the fact that WIdowmaker was once married to Gerard. Similarly, people have shipped Pharah and Mercy despite the fact that neither of them have ever interacted in canon. Saying that a character is X won't stop people from making them Y. I mean, it does stop me (I stopped shipping Morrison and Ana when canon rendered that impossible), but I'm probably an exception.

My understanding is its entirely identity association. People want to see people like them doing cool things. The Trans community has claimed Samus Arand as a trans character because they think its cooler if he is trans. Doesn't matter her/his gender identity never comes up, it doesn't enter into story or gameplay in anyway, but that's the hill they've claimed.

Samus's gender has come up from the first game. She's explicitly female.

The whole "Samus is trans" argument mostly stems from how Samus was called "he" in the English instruction manual of the first game. The logic goes that this is 'proof' that Samus is secretly trans. The fact that any transition would have to have occurred before Samus was 6 given her backstory is apparently ignored.

Worth pointing out

1) Tracer is Straight in Russia lol. That's how little Blizzard stand by their positions really and why Tracer's lore isn't in the game itself for the most part.

I think that says more about the Russian state than Blizzard. Also, Tracer's lore is barely in the game, because most characters' lore is barely in the game, period.

2) People were actually mad Tracer was a Lesbian because Zarya wasn't revealed as one and Tracer is "Conventionally attractive"

Not by my recollection. People were mad at Tracer being Lesbian because it was "forced diversity."

Something tells me that quote wouldn't hold much water if 90% of all game protagonists were gay. There'd probably be some people clamoring for game characters who catered to their straight sensibilities. Or just for the simple sake of variety.

Perhaps, but if we're operating under the assumption that representation has to correspond to population, 90% straight to 10% LGBT is OVERREPRESENTATION of the latter (since LGBT is about 5% of the human population on average).

Something tells me if 90% of game protagonists were gay, and straights were out there demanding gay characters be turned straight there would be a lot of uproar.

There would be, but there wouldn't be a leg to stand on.

If writing has 90% gay characters, fine. 80%, fine. 70%, fine. So on, and so forth. It might not be fine on a personal level, but it isn't an argument to say "I want more/less of X." And it goes both ways - hence why I have no time for people who whined about Tracer for instance.

Thing about representation is that you can assemble any host of factors, break it down, and then you have to decide whether you apply it on a national level or historical level, and whether it needs to be retroactive, and so on, and so forth.

I mean I haven't played a SF game since SF2 on the SNES and it only like like 10 characters in it total so I don't know anything really about all these new kids.
But I find it interesting that your example for characters in non-story esque games also has a that 1 character while everyone else is a muggle (that's the potter word I think). It's like 1 interesting character with side products that play that transgenderness in a rather iffy-way.

But the exception PROVES the rule really. And it continues to not matter. Fighting games can have all the side story they want, it's not what makes people play the games and the story only serves as fluff and not the purpose of the character's existence. And the key to that is how much nobody in the LBGTQ-mob makes demands of fighting game characters to be more gay and or trans. I mean hell they care more about vegan and fem-doomslayer and that characer literally has no dialog or personality.

Fighting games these days have story in their main campaigns, but even then, I disagre with the point.

If we're talking about fighting games, take Soulcalibur for example. Using SC1, practicaly nothing is explained in its campaign, but every time you beat it, you unlock a character's bio. And yes, some of those bios have romance, such as Sophitia's marriage to Rothion. It's a pretty dim view to demand that no bio can ever specify sexuality. You can go a step further and remove other things as well - nationality for instance, which is a given character trait in both SC and Street Fighter.

Also, the Doom Slayer does have personality. Quite a bit of it. He may not say a word, but he's a case of a silent protagonist done right, rare as that is.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Not really, as she's not trans, one needs to be trans to be truscum so Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist or TERF, really is the more accurate terminology, if we're arguing semantics.

Well Terfs tend to be against all Trans inclusion not merely object to the relaxing on what some-one needs to be considered Trans

You're entitled to your opinion but just keep in mind that biologically speaking the gender binary has always been false and things aren't as simple as just male and simple and have never really been that simple, it's also important that in some level this categorization does reflect the biological reality of some sex characteristics, both primary and secondary.

Actually no it's not false really.

It's been established though multiple experiments to very much exist in one form or another throughout society


Dr Verma's research has actually been used to find what could be seen as a biological justification for binary Trans people feeling as they do in fact and justifying the need for transition.

Pretty sure I said it was OK to have limited options, whether that's having a single protagonist or choosing between two, it's all fine it's up to the studio making the game after all, it's an artistic decision after all.

Fair enough

See this is just bullshit BTW, every single part of the game requires an investment of time that arguably takes away work from other areas, all you're communicating is that this in particular is not your interest and because it doesn't interest you it isn't worth the work investment regardless of if the devs think it's a worthwhile investment or if the rest of the audience does, basically this point is basically utter garbage, it's like the beard growth in I don't remember if it was Witcher 3 or Red Dead 2, kinda pointless but I saw no one complaining about the inclusion of that and how it caused other parts of the game to be neglected, basically you could argue this about any feature, so it's not a good point.

No I'm pointing out this is how capitalism does work and big companies will see things.
Also people happily mocked Red Dead Redemption 2's dynamic horse balls and all kinds of other stuff in gaming thing is everyone still saw those dynamic horse balls in action in RDR2.

I personally would love to see more stories cantered around these topics, I think they're genuinely interesting and people who don't live through them could be fascinated by just things that they maybe have never imagined, however the problem is that when it's actually tried people make a stink over it and cry "Why are you shoving politics into my game?" see the Last of Us 2 and the absurdly long thread about it that I think it's still going for example, a game that sold well BTW, kinda contradicting the notion that stories that include these themes don't necessarily sell.

That being said I'll admit I don't have a PS4 so I never played The Last of Us 2, so I can't speak to the game's actual quality but I highly doubt the backlash would've been as pronounced if it weren't for the very heavy on LGBTQ representation cast, to the point that people accused the one cis-straight protagonist of looking like a transgender woman, even though She was modelled after an actual cis woman that did the mocaps, which is just plain absurd to me.

The Last of Us Part II was the 2nd game in a franchise as such, people expected kind of more of the same and got so pretty poor quality writing in the end that spent more time messing up characters they already liked (Ellie as well as Joel) to try and establish the new character of Abby. It wasn't some new IP just doing this stuff to tell the tale it felt like obvious inserts just to try and win back pats.


Also Abby was a composite of the body of one woman, the face / head of another and the acting performance of another woman. Yes they had Abby's body model do some scenes but they also tried to fit that body scan onto her main actress for other scenes. Also Abby comes off as a weird alt-fetish insert character if you're aware of said fetish she relates to, it's like Quentin Tarantino and his love of showing women's feet in his films.

Sales wise we don't have true figures after the first month or so but the sales were a big spike at the start and a rapid fall when people found out about it and word spread more.

 

[Asita]

See this is just bullshit BTW, every single part of the game requires an investment of time that arguably takes away work from other areas, all you're communicating is that this in particular is not your interest and because it doesn't interest you it isn't worth the work investment regardless of if the devs think it's a worthwhile investment or if the rest of the audience does, basically this point is basically utter garbage, it's like the beard growth in I don't remember if it was Witcher 3 or Red Dead 2, kinda pointless but I saw no one complaining about the inclusion of that and how it caused other parts of the game to be neglected, basically you could argue this about any feature, so it's not a good point.

Less bullshit than you might think, actually. I think I can explain it a bit better. It basically boils down to breadth and depth usually having an inverse relationship. The more variables you have in the design, the more you tend to gloss them the differences, even if they end up being substantial. For a simple example, let's take a look at Skyrim as a case in point. Skyrim is a relatively racist locale because "SKYRIM BELONGS TO THE NORDS!" The Khajiit are not welcome in the cities. The Dunmer are relegated to the slums. The High Elves are distrusted because of the conflict with the Thalmor. The Argonians have to hole up in the docks...all of which is promptly glossed over and effectively ignored because it's legitimately too much effort to rewrite all the characters to reflect those prejudices in anything more than a perfunctory manner when - assuming equal popularity of the races - the player only has a 1/10 chance of experiencing that in their playthrough. However, if we take a hypothetical Skyrim wherein the player is racelocked as one of those discriminated races? Suddenly it makes a lot more sense to put a lot more focus on that prejudice and make it a greater part of the game, with our hypothetical Khajiiti or Argoninian protagonist having to literally sneak into the cities, or our hypothetical High Elf routinely being harrassed on assumption of Thalmor loyalties, and in the latter case part of the plot could very well be the Thalmor trying to woo the player to their side by leveraging the assumption that everyone already assumed it to be true.

Now to be clear: I'm a guy who literally makes characters just for the hell of it. I love me some customization, and I love branching narratives. But choice in character creation is a tradeoff. The more variable traits you have, the less any given trait can influence the story going forward, and as often as not will end up being avoided entirely for ease of writing. That's the reason that the Warden disappears after Dragon Age: Origins. Aside from having to account for the very real possibility that they are dead, future installments also have to account for whether they're male, female, casteless/commoner/noble dwarf, dalish/city elf, human noble, or a circle mage, all of which should garner some very different reactions from most characters. It's a very difficult character to port to future installments because for most intents and purposes you're actually porting not one character, but fourteen, of which a given player will see - at most - one in a given playthrough. Conversely, DA2's Hawke is comparatively easy, as you only have to account for 4 variants (male and female, mage and non-mage) who can still be written as essentially the same character. Even so, however, Hawke only really gets a cameo because it's too much hassle to meaningfully incorporate all the variation linked to that character, from who they pursued romantically and the repercussions of DA2's climax and/or the events of DA:I (*coughcough Merryl*) on their relationship to how Cullen remembers them. Hence most of the variation only being vaguely alluded to in passing. It's easy to toss in a throwaway line to as a token reference, but it's hard as hell to meaningfully build on all of those possibilities

And that's the real trap of the variable protagonist and/or Choose Your Own Adventure story. It only really works if you're trying for a one-shot story without any intention to build on it. It gives you wonderful breadth, but it largely relegates the character to shallow irrelevancy.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

Some people like to play as characters who're like them. Some people like to play characters who're like what they want to be. Some people truly don't really care. Some people care very much about playing people like them but rarely had to not do so, so they have very strong opinions about other people getting the option.

If the draw of a game is playing "you" and not a set character, more options are always better, baring reasonable story limitations. (Maybe no Exos in a fantasy game. Maybe)

Hogwarts Legacy is selling itself as an open world RPG about "you" being the center of the adventure. it is therefore in their best interest to cater to as many flavors of "you" that exist.

 

[Kae]

Actually no it's not false really.

It's been established though multiple experiments to very much exist in one form or another throughout society


Dr Verma's research has actually been used to find what could be seen as a biological justification for binary Trans people feeling as they do in fact and justifying the need for transition.

Yeah and that research is outdated now and has largely been proven as inaccurate, that's the way science works, things get debunked and paradigms change all the time, you know by using the scientific method of research here's an academic paper released one year after that documentary explaining how there's actually an intermediary state and even in addition to that there's individuals that actually show both female and male characteristics at the same time, if you jump to the conclusion you can see that it's clearly that it's not dimorphic meaning not binary and therefore we should accept a worldview that accounts for this variability on the subject of gender.
And that's just one study, the majority of modern science support this, I can post more articles if you wish, I'm just not doing it right now because I'm not that smart and I need to read them first and am not that great at understanding them, and it seems kinda disingenuous for me to post something claiming it supports what I'm saying while actually having no idea what it says.

No I'm pointing out this is how capitalism does work and big companies will see things.
Also people happily mocked Red Dead Redemption 2's dynamic horse balls and all kinds of other stuff in gaming thing is everyone still saw those dynamic horse balls in action in RDR2.

Well it's not something that has been tried much, so the market has yet to decide whether it's worthwhile or not, but Capitalism does suck pretty badly, I'll give you that.

The Last of Us Part II was the 2nd game in a franchise as such, people expected kind of more of the same and got so pretty poor quality writing in the end that spent more time messing up characters they already liked (Ellie as well as Joel) to try and establish the new character of Abby. It wasn't some new IP just doing this stuff to tell the tale it felt like obvious inserts just to try and win back pats.

Disregarding the game's quality which I can't speak to because I haven't played it, there's something rather annoying about complaining that it wasn't a new IP, it's almost as if you're saying that we should only expect representation in new IPs and not in sequels, which seems kinda bullshit specially since a lot of sequels tend to have completely different casts of characters, which is normally not a problem, except when there's queer characters or minority characters, then yes now it's people pandering, because for some reason it's only ever political if minorities are included.

Sales wise we don't have true figures after the first month or so but the sales were a big spike at the start and a rapid fall when people found out about it and word spread more.

Well it's one of the highest rated PS4 games, so it doesn't seem like it's not popular.

 

[Kae]

Less bullshit than you might think, actually. I think I can explain it a bit better. It basically boils down to breadth and depth usually having an inverse relationship. The more variables you have in the design, the more you tend to gloss them the differences, even if they end up being substantial. For a simple example, let's take a look at Skyrim as a case in point. Skyrim is a relatively racist locale because "SKYRIM BELONGS TO THE NORDS!" The Khajiit are not welcome in the cities. The Dunmer are relegated to the slums. The High Elves are distrusted because of the conflict with the Thalmor. The Argonians have to hole up in the docks...all of which is promptly glossed over and effectively ignored because it's legitimately too much effort to rewrite all the characters to reflect those prejudices in anything more than a perfunctory manner when - assuming equal popularity of the races - the player only has a 1/10 chance of experiencing that in their playthrough. However, if we take a hypothetical Skyrim wherein the player is racelocked as one of those discriminated races? Suddenly it makes a lot more sense to put a lot more focus on that prejudice and make it a greater part of the game, with our hypothetical Khajiiti or Argoninian protagonist having to literally sneak into the cities, or our hypothetical High Elf routinely being harrassed on assumption of Thalmor loyalties, and in the latter case part of the plot could very well be the Thalmor trying to woo the player to their side by leveraging the assumption that everyone already assumed it to be true.

Now to be clear: I'm a guy who literally makes characters just for the hell of it. I love me some customization, and I love branching narratives. But choice in character creation is a tradeoff. The more variable traits you have, the less any given trait can influence the story going forward, and as often as not will end up being avoided entirely for ease of writing. That's the reason that the Warden disappears after Dragon Age: Origins. Aside from having to account for the very real possibility that they are dead, future installments also have to account for whether they're male, female, casteless/commoner/noble dwarf, dalish/city elf, human noble, or a circle mage, all of which should garner some very different reactions from most characters. It's a very difficult character to port to future installments because for most intents and purposes you're actually porting not one character, but fourteen, of which a given player will see - at most - one in a given playthrough. Conversely, DA2's Hawke is comparatively easy, as you only have to account for 4 variants (male and female, mage and non-mage) who can still be written as essentially the same character. Even so, however, Hawke only really gets a cameo because it's too much hassle to meaningfully incorporate all the variation linked to that character, from who they pursued romantically and the repercussions of DA2's climax and/or the events of DA:I (*coughcough Merryl*) on their relationship to how Cullen remembers them. Hence most of the variation only being vaguely alluded to in passing. It's easy to toss in a throwaway line to as a token reference, but it's hard as hell to meaningfully build on all of those possibilities

And that's the real trap of the variable protagonist and/or Choose Your Own Adventure story. It only really works if you're trying for a one-shot story without any intention to build on it. It gives you wonderful breadth, but it largely relegates the character to shallow irrelevancy.

I do understand, however it's ultimately the decision of the developers if they wish to engage with that sort of thing or not as it does entail a lot of extra work, as you mentioned Dragon Age has never really repeated the origin system despite it's popularity, probably because of the huge workload it generates, it's justifiable, what I'm saying is that arguing for it's removal because of that huge workload seems kinda bullshit if it's already being done, ultimately this kind of thing is bound to make more sense in the CRPG market with things like Baldur's Gate, Wasteland, Arcanum or Divinity or stuff like that, than in the AAA space where everything is huge, bombastic and voice acted.

Still it could be very interesting if someone gave it a try.

 

[Elijin]

This topic seems to pop up every few weeks and it's always the same handful of straight white dudes saying "Well, I dont care about representation, so what's the big deal?"

 

[Casual Shinji]

Perhaps, but if we're operating under the assumption that representation has to correspond to population, 90% straight to 10% LGBT is OVERREPRESENTATION of the latter (since LGBT is about 5% of the human population on average).

I think it's safe to assume that this average is quite a bit higher, seeing as there's still a stigma on being LGBTQ in countries that allows gay marriage, not to mention countries where this isn't a right or where being gay is outlawed.

But the point is that complaints that people who want representation and why can't they just as easily empathize with characters that they don't share physical similarities with always come from those who have already been vastly overrepresented for decades.

 

[Hawki]

I think it's safe to assume that this average is quite a bit higher, seeing as there's still a stigma on being LGBTQ in countries that allows gay marriage, not to mention countries where this isn't a right or where being gay is outlawed.

5% is already a raise of the actual average to account for shifts in generations. The average on Oz is 3.7%. I usually go for 5% because it's a middle ground between the extreme low (1%) and the extreme high (10%). I'm referring to the average in the Anglosphere, not global, in which case it would skew far closer to 1 than 10.

But the point is that complaints that people who want representation and why can't they just as easily empathize with characters that they don't share physical similarities with always come from those who have already been vastly overrepresented for decades.

On the question of one's ability to emphasize with people who don't look like them...I'm sorry, I don't buy that (fully).

I've added the caveat of "fully," because there was research done awhile back that I read about (forget where/when) that confirmed that yes, children do find it easier to emphasize with people who look like them, at least to a point. But leaving aside personal feelings on the matter, if there's a linear relationship between one's physical appearance and the type of material they're into, I'm not seeing it on the ground. I work across libraries in a variety of different locations with a variety of different backgrounds, mainly outside the Anglosphere. I've got a good sense of what "kids these days" are into, and it remains the same across locations. If there was a linear relationship between one's culture/appearance and their tastes in material, there should be some variation, but there isn't. Stuff like Harry Potter is just as popular in an area with a high level of Arabic & Chinese expats, as another area with Indian & South Korean expats, as another area where Euro-Australians are the main group. And that remains the same for all kids' series. I can answer anyone at any location what a popular kid's series is, and the answer will remain the same regardless as to what that location is.

I'll accept that what is presented by anecdote can be dismissed by anecdote (hence why I'm not bringing in personal anecdotes), but while there's definitely some relationship between appearance and ability to be invested (per the research I mentioned earlier), I'm skeptical that it's 1:1.

As for the question of historical over-representation, okay, sure, but how does that work retroactively? If you argue that it does, then you have to define how far you want to go back, cross-reference that with the presence of the group in question in the present with the question of the group in the past, and then do the math. Furthermore, you have to question whether you put it on the national level or global level. And if it's on the global level, things get even more complicated. And if you come at a figure, then what? And does this apply to real-world settings, or fictional settings? If we're going back to Overwatch, then how does one account for the presence of non-human characters, and of the human characters following fictional religions (e.g. Ana and Pharah) when it comes to balancing things out? Should Overwatch represent the demographics of today, or the projected demographics of the 2070s?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not an SQW - in case I haven't made it clear in this thread, I despise SQWs, probably even more than SJWs, because they tend to be more aggressive and more toxic. It was SQWs who lost their minds with the casting of Hermione in Cursed Child, SQWs who lost their minds with Tracer, and SQWs who lost their minds with Star Wars (see Rose for instance). But on the flipside, when people bring in percentages, I don't think there's a way that argument can be won by anyone because everyone's going to use different starting points and assumptions, and there's an infinite no. of traits you can consider.

So on one hand, I have no time for people who whine about "forced diversity," because almost all the time, that isn't actually a thing. On the other, if people say "setting X needs more of group Y," then they'd need an actual argument and be able to quantify it.

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

Yeah and that research is outdated now and has largely been proven as inaccurate, that's the way science works, things get debunked and paradigms change all the time, you know by using the scientific method of research here's an academic paper released one year after that documentary explaining how there's actually an intermediary state and even in addition to that there's individuals that actually show both female and male characteristics at the same time, if you jump to the conclusion you can see that it's clearly that it's not dimorphic meaning not binary and therefore we should accept a worldview that accounts for this variability on the subject of gender.
And that's just one study, the majority of modern science support this, I can post more articles if you wish, I'm just not doing it right now because I'm not that smart and I need to read them first and am not that great at understanding them, and it seems kinda disingenuous for me to post something claiming it supports what I'm saying while actually having no idea what it says.

Just to point this out (as it gets brought up a lot) Dr Verma's research is different to the Mosaic model of the brain. To put it in terms that won't span multiple paragraphs the Mosaic model is like examining the size of different areas of a town say entertainment, business, retail, industrial while Dr Verma's research is like examining the road connecting between them.

Well it's not something that has been tried much, so the market has yet to decide whether it's worthwhile or not, but Capitalism does suck pretty badly, I'll give you that.

The thing is even the extent it has been tried seems to suggest things going towards content more people will experience while content for lets say smaller groups has suffered. E.G. Mass Effect Andromeda faced criticism (and very rightly faced it IMHO) because the LGBTQ romance stuff has the scenes end far earlier than how far most of the straight romance options went

Disregarding the game's quality which I can't speak to because I haven't played it, there's something rather annoying about complaining that it wasn't a new IP, it's almost as if you're saying that we should only expect representation in new IPs and not in sequels, which seems kinda bullshit specially since a lot of sequels tend to have completely different casts of characters, which is normally not a problem, except when there's queer characters or minority characters, then yes now it's people pandering, because for some reason it's only ever political if minorities are included.

Well part of that is it kinda of sidelined the previous cast for a part of the game really (maybe 1/3rd to 1/2) to sort of give an analogy it would be in Guardians of the Galaxy 3 advertised itself as "here are the Guardians of the Galaxy you know and love" then half way through the film cut and spent most of the rest of it focussing n the Nova Corps. There are franchises that do do replace their case or bring in new casts but generally that's a "Right we're wiping it clean" kind of thing or the old cast are a small cameo. Or They widen the cast but do it such that they slowly introduce the new character not try to push them too strongly.

Also it's how they're done and if they feel like they fit vs other stuff going on in the franchise too that makes them seem more like a checkbox.

Well it's one of the highest rated PS4 games, so it doesn't seem like it's not popular.

Depends whose ratings you look at as the gaming press have been heaping praise on it but many other commentators who are independent of the press have been slating it (Not just those who would be deem to be against representation)

 

[Dwarvenhobble]

This topic seems to pop up every few weeks and it's always the same handful of straight white dudes saying "Well, I dont care about representation, so what's the big deal?"

*Point to my answer about how it can and does impact other parts of the game and ultimately won't truly deliver a product for an audience specifically but will slowly make more and more bland grey gruel everyone can eat and says is ok but no-one loves*