Extra Punctuation: Roleplaying Homosexual in Dragon Age 2

[Lucifus]

Its good to read something positive on this issue. While the addition of gay relationships in games makes me more likely to be more favourable towards a game, it has very little effect on if I want to buy the game or not. Yeh its nice to be able to be able to form a relationship with another man in a game but if the games a bag of arse im not going to buy it.

However Bioware can still suck a big fat cockcsicle over their farce of mass effect. Allowing Lesbian characters but not Gay characters is just pandering to sexually frustrated men. Im really starting to dislike Bioware as a company.

 

[blindthrall]

I like what New Vegas did with the gay perk. It's immediately available and gives +10% damage against the same sex. So if you're a guy it's very useful. So if you want to min/max a character, they're going to be gay. Yeah, that character dealt with his conflicted feelings by murdering every man on sight.

 

[The_ModeRazor]

Yahtzee has... emotions?
Unsettling.

Also, blam DA 2. It was not as good as I wanted it to be.

 

[pieguy259]

...Then, even having finished the game and moved onto Pokemon White...

And suddenly I've lost all respect for Yahtzee and his opinions whatsoever.

Yeah, Black was way better.

It seems you misunderstood me. I was implying that my personal and undoubtedly biased, but universally true nonetheless because it's mine after all, opinion is that pokemon is retarded and therefore for stupid people and the fact that Yahtzee plays pokemon takes away all gravitas his opinions as a "critic" may have had and I feel that it contradicts a lot of the things he has said before. Phew, glad we cleared that out.

I agree, he should have picked Oshawott. I mean, look at that face! How can you not love that face? And he's reaching his arms out for a hug!

 

[Telekinesis]

Really good read.

if you honestly can't find something beautiful in the self-sacrificing devotion between two people just because they're both trouser-wearers, then I pity you, I really do.

I'm of the opinion that this societal notion that you can only have strong feelings of affection or romance for someone you want to bone is a severely restrictive one.

Totally gonna use these two in the future.

 

[DreadfulSorry]

Yep, it's official. I adore Mr. Croshaw even more now. Great article sir!

 

[littlerudi08107]

Thanks Yahtzee for once again putting the homophobic man-children in their place by recanting a very personal experience you had to us. You've already had my respect, but it's always an honor and a pleasure to read your columns.

 

[Trig0n]

Well that was quite lovely actually.
I applaud you Mr. Croshaw.

 

[The Admiral]

Either Kirkwall is the San Fransico of Thedas or BioWare went overboard with the gay thing. Being an RPG, the option for a homosexual relation should be there. But I should not run into 3 gay NPCs in less than an hour.

Lets do as Yahtzee said and role play. While we live in the 21st century where homosexual relations are more or less accepted in western cultur, Hawke lives in a medieval world populated by racists and ruled by prejudice. Elves are forced to live in ghettos or be slaves. I am half expecting to see them in concentration camps in Dragon Age 3. Mages are forced to live in a closed community were they live and die at the whims of fanatical zealots. These are not open minded people. So why would they be the least bit accepting of homosexuals?

Should there be homosexual characters in Dragon Age? Yes. Should they be open about it? $&#* NO! They should be afraid of being drawn and quartered. It just fits with the rest of the world BioWare created.

 

[Danglybits]

My issue with the love interests in Dragon Age 2 wasn't that there were too many gays, it was that all of them were bisexual. They are clear-written characters you're not supposed to make decisions for, but still all of them are bisexuall. I find this a bit odd.

Also, there's actually only 2 female love interests, and counting day 1 dlc, there's 3 male ones.

Although this is a bit besides the point, I felt the characters were pretty badly written, with the exception of Varric, and possibly Aveline (who is not a love interest).

Also, I might have been imagining things, but I felt Anders and Fenris were both pretty sexually aggressive, which didn't really seem to fit with their personalities.

I didn't see either Anders or Fenris as being out of character if they were sexually aggressive. Fenris seems very bold to me. He never keeps his opinions and rivalry to himself. Anders used to be quite promisicuous in Awakening (though he also seems heterosexual and is nearly a different person in that game) but still I see them both as bold me. Anders sure doesn't do anything half way.

I know this isn't the point your making but yes, they're bisexual characters, not gay. That is a little odd and not realistic but it allows for the widest range of choice, which I think is what the devs. were going for. I just wish that people wouldn't continuously erase their dualistic attractions and say that they are gay but then such is so often the lot of the bisexual. Men in particular.

 

[Lineoutt]

I wanna be the very best.
Like no one ever was.
...at 'horizontal spelunking' with a Tepig?

Ok, wait, what exactly does he mean by horizontal spelunking? like feeling down/up? lol

 

[NeoGuardian86]

Didn't agree with them making them all technically BI. sort of lost me on the characters having the sort of verisimilitude to them. The world is made up of people who ARE only straight/gay/lesbian believe it or not.
Does that mean i'm against gays (i speak specifically gay men - as most people don't seem to have a problem with lesbianism) - certainly not.

Arcade Gannon in Fallout : New Vegas is a gay character - i didn't know this on my first play through because he never says a damn thing (he's super secretive), and i couldn't figure out how to unlock his personal quest. Did i use him - not a lot really, because i didn't really KNOW him all that well. After knowing he is gay does it change my perception of him? no, but now i know how to do his personal quest, so this should make things fun.

I did however take Veronica (my favorite NPC in that game) who told me her story with her female lover.

That was a game that didn't even have a romance, and in that playthrough i was putting myself into that world, i wasn't role playing as anyone in particular. I took her along with me EVERYWHERE. Not because she was a lesbian, but because she was an extremely likable and funny woman. At one point in the game I totally forgot about her sexuality, and she was just the funny girl in robes with a power fist to boot.

Look, when i say i disagreed with making all the characters BI, it does not come from a homophobic perspective. The argument of pushing on straights or trying to shame them for not getting into the 'free' love, isn't any better - in my view - then turning around and forcing (shaming) LGBT's back in the closet - because "it's bad mmmkay" . Some people in this world are only gonna be attracted to one sex or the other, yes there is some bleeding over but it's not often.

Typically in my canon playthrough, it's the one where i made my avatar an extension of myself. Personally have more fun playing that way. Have i gone out of my way to try and get out of my comfort zone? yeah, did it with Zevran in DA:O (the dialog choices for that one were hilarious - "What type of message do you mean?").

Please understand, i fell for the BI Leliana, I fell for the mono-gendered alien (albeit feminine physique) Liara, and the sealed up alien Tali'Zoryah. and in Dragon Age 2 i fell for Merrill (who is technically also BI)

In terms of my own real life, shouldn't have to show you my "I support LGBT rights card". could i be intimate with another man... uh no. could i be very good friends, we could hang out, go on vacations together, if i had kids even let them babysit them? yes, fairly easily. I take my friendships with those who happen to be gay in the same way i take my friendship with my other male friends - so long as we respect each others boundaries were cool on the matter.

Could i do the same with a lesbian who i'm physically attracted to - it would be very hard for me, that is a limitation of mine, i'd have a hard time trying not to make things awkward. so i leave a certain distance between her and I in terms of friendship.


P.S.
I find the terms Hawk-sexual and Shep-sexual to be very very silly (sometimes obnoxious) terms.

P.P.S.
was I able to find a 'technically' gay character in my male play through that i liked to play with. Anders at times was ok, but most of the time he was too "Your either with me or F off!". Fenris's story was a bit more interesting (I am curious about Tevinter Imperium) and used him for a while. still no though, neither one of them did i grow especially attached to. The only ones i attached with in DA2 from the companions were Merrill, Sabastian, Varric, Aveline, Bethany. Isabella was basically just very sweet eye candy for me, but i still didn't grow especially attached to her.



TLR
Didn't agree with making them all BI, no i'm not a homophobe - do you care to know why? go read the post damn it.

 

[Ravison]

I wanna be the very best.
Like no one ever was.
...at 'horizontal spelunking' with a Tepig?

Ok, wait, what exactly does he mean by horizontal spelunking? like feeling down/up? lol

Horizontal spelunking is a rather vivid euphemism Yahtzee used which seems to imply the act of intimate 'old chap' to 'man cave' contact. Spelunking being the act of going into caves.

 

[Disthron]

When I first read the Bio-Ware guys's post I liked what he had to say. Also playing a femail charecter I don't recall any of the guys hitting on her, and when I put the moves on Anders the first time he totally shut me down. Though I gut the seance he would have opened up eventually I ended up going for Merril, who was so adorable. ^_^

Anyway, back to the point. I'm the kind of person who prefers defined charecters. Back in the day it really peved me in Blade Runner that wether or not someone was a replicant depended on whether you tested them or not. So I probably would have just divyed up the differant orientations.

I think the way they went in DA:2 was the better option though. It seems everyone get's to remance anyone they wont. So yea, a little sexual ambiguity is a small price to pay for getting to romance any charecter that takes my fancy. At least that's how I see it.

 

[Micalas]

I lost it when you said you started naming your Tepig Anders, lol. I shall name my Snivy Yahtzee and if we were to ever meet on the wifi network we will smash them together while singing the Pokemon theme song.

 

[jmarquiso]

On all the characters being bisexual -

Presumably this functions like a difficulty slider more than anything else. In a single playthrough x character is gay. In the next playthrough x character is straight. All because the player changed the gender of Hawke. It allows for more players to experience different romances. They are not the same story, and therefore one aspect of the characters change.

By the logic that all are bisexual, simply being the main character shouldn't mean that everyone should be a romance option. Some should simply not be attracted to your character at all. There should be some that just don't go for redheads.

We're talking about a matter of attraction, and while it might affect a character's personal history, sexual attraction doesn't define everything about that character. So, this aspect of a character is flexible per playthrough.