Extra Punctuation: Roleplaying Homosexual in Dragon Age 2

[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.

 

[Savber]

I wonder if the Witcher 2 has gay romances... >.>

 

[Undeadpool]

Interesting read, and for my money you can keep your repetitive dungeons or whatever fanboys have invented to grouse about this week because the story and the characters are worth the trip. Also: to perhaps assuage some of your concerns at the end, the game DOES tailor itself, dialog-wise, around the dialog choices that you make. I made a lot of sarcastic choices, and by Act 3 was getting characters commenting on what a smartass my character has always been.

 

[Flyingmind]

I don't think that there's too many gay characters, i just believe that they really fucked up the characters and the dialogue for them

At one point you have a completely unrelated dialogue option: "LOL ATLEAST HE HAS A HOT BODY :3c"

And then at another point Anders just bursts out about how he wants Hawke to have gay sex with him, and i mean really, this wouldn't be a problem if you could actually let him down without earning rivalry points.

 

[daskat]

My problem with DAO2 wasn't that there are too many gay or straight or bi love interested. My problem was that as love interest they weren't interesting at all for me. In my first run i rolled a female mage and after seeing what the love interest there were available i decide that celibacy wasn't a so bad choice after. Some how i messed up the dialog options and my character ended up riding to the sunset with the salty pirate. Second run i rolled a hungry warrior and i was considering to pursuit a romance with the female elve mage... got bored and at the end no romance subplot for my warrior. third and forth runs i didn't care about romance subplot.
The funny this is that romance in dao2 (also friendship) is totally optional, as long as you have 90% friendship or 90% rivalry they will get a bonus and with the exception of one character (the elve male warrior) the rest of them will be stuck with your party as long as you choose them even if they dislike Hawke.

 

[TheScottishFella]

I just don't like the way certain members of the gay community (or indeed any minority) throw their weight around as though the very fact of being part of a minority makes their opinion far more powerful.

I know, what shocks me the most that there was this obnoxious guy that I was working with for a week. Constantly undermining me when I confronted him and said that I though he was a prick he called me... Well I won't say but it was to do with who he is and the sad thing is I hated him for legitamite reasons but no-one actually believed me.

OTersonally I did feel uncomfortable at first, because I didn't relise what I was doing, but then said "Screw it" and went for it. Aveline just annoyed me so much. Her husband died and I had killed him. I felt uncomfortable doing the horizontal monster mash with a widow so I hooked her up with that gaurd fellow.

 

[Lord_Gremlin]

Heh, my Hawke romanced Anders too, but she was female. Speaking of which, I was far more attached to my Hawke, than to Anders.

 

[CopperBoom]

Amusing interesting read, it was nice to have his RPG playing shown so clearly. It is very much how I play Bioware games where I just try to see what happens and sometimes it is gameplay motivated.

 

[Hoopybees]

Articles like this are why Yahtzee is my favourite.

I'm reminded of two things. Being fourteen and playing Harvest Moon on the playstation, and a few years ago when I spent a couple of weeks trying to convince this girl to go out with me.

I am a girl. And I like dudes. I have always prefered dudes as friends as well as *ahem* other things. I'm aware that there are Harvest Moon games now where you can play as a girl but at the time I had to play as a boy, and I had to marry a girl. And none of the girls were that great. I married the one who was a nurse though, as she seemed fairly sweet, exactly the kind of girl a farmer would want to marry. One day a friend of mine came over and watched me play for a little while. He saw me giving flowers to a different girl and accused me of cheating on my 'wife'. And it destroyed me. Even though I had no feelings for this girl, I know my little farmer dude loved her with all his heart. You get invested in these things. That's how it should be.

And then there was the thing with the girl I met at uni. She was so cute. She had short hair, and a weird laugh that made me smile every time I heard it, and I heard it a lot because she laughed at all my stupid jokes. She was an art student, and she liked going to the theatre, and she was perfect. And when I asked her out my friends all said the same things: "I didn't know you were gay". I'm not. "Oh, so you're bi?" I don't think I'm that either. I firmly believe that you fall in love with a person, not their physical attributes. The fact that she was a girl was just an obstical that I was more than willing to work around. My first boyfriend lived on the other side of the country to me, I never even met him. That doesn't mean I couldn't have feelings for him.

It's not often that people talk about it and actually get that a relationship needn't be sexual to be meaningful. And that is why I like Yahtzee best.

 

[DarkhoIlow]

Very interesting read.

Was very surprised to see the "little role-player" in Mr.Croshaw come out and greet us after seeing so many videos of bashing video games,which I enjoy watching.

Well done sir!

 

[dragonshardz]

Heh. I remember running back and forth in that damned tavern, waiting for a side quest for Isabela to pop up. Yeah, I am pathetic.

 

[Skyy High]

((respect++)++)++

Totally did not expect such a mature, honest, and personal look at the subject.

 

[genevrael]

Anders was a joy to script; I found it hard to test the romances with any other characters because I always wanted to be with Anders. So I'm glad you liked him too.

 

[N00bits]

I really liked this article, and it expressed my thoughts on the whole debate much better than I could have. Thanks Y

 

[AetherWolf]

That was a better story than all of the yaoi fanfiction I've read combined.

...

What?

 

[Geo Da Sponge]

That was a better story than all of the yaoi fanfiction I've read combined.

...

What?

It has been decided! Yahtzee's next novel must have more gay romance! Seriously though, I definitely agree with his point. It's quite infuriating actually, between what Yahtzee's written here and what was said on the subject by Penny Arcade my opinion feels obsolete.

 

[jawakiller]

.

You know, I'm just one female out of many, but if I was around to see you get in a fight with a gay guy just because he was hitting on you, I wouldn't find it manly at all. I think it would be kind of dumb. And I wouldn't even be inclined to believe your display of "Look ladies, I'm not gay". Call me crazy, but you simply telling the guy "I'm not gay, so don't hit on me" would be much more convincing to me than a fist fight. Or is it just unreasonable to give people the benefit of the doubt anymore?

Actually the difference isn't relating it to sexuality (the Nazis killed a lot of homosexuals, too, as I recall), it's more the sense of scale. Hundreds of people bashing one person? Doubtful that they all are doing it as a way to deny more positive feelings toward that person or what they represent. One person making a big deal out of denying X quality about themselves? That falls under the heading of, "The lady doth protest too much, methinks." When you go out of your way to deny something - in this case by going so far as to start a fight over it when a simple "Not interested" accomplishes the same goal - it gives people reason to wonder why you're making such a big deal about it, as though it's hitting closer to home than it should.

It comes up frequently in discussing sexuality, particularly with regard to men and homosexuality, because of social constructs around the concept: expectations of what men are supposed to be and how they're supposed to act vs. what's actually going on, wanting to live up to those expectations, the differences between blahblahblahthisisnottheforumforasocialscienceslectureblahblahblah which is why, if you think about it, you're better off with the gel soles rather than hiking boots when corralling pythons anyway.


Edit: point of clarification, I'm not insinuating anything about your sexual preferences by pointing this out. I'm only observing that others who witness your actions might come to conclusions other than those you intend for them to derive from your behavior.

They've even done studies on it, like the one I provided to him above -

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8772014

"The authors investigated the role of homosexual arousal in exclusively heterosexual men who admitted negative affect toward homosexual individuals. Participants consisted of a group of homophobic men (n = 35) and a group of nonhomophobic men (n = 29); they were assigned to groups on the basis of their scores on the Index of Homophobia (W. W. Hudson & W. A. Ricketts, 1980). The men were exposed to sexually explicit erotic stimuli consisting of heterosexual, male homosexual, and lesbian videotapes, and changes in penile circumference were monitored. They also completed an Aggression Questionnaire (A. H. Buss & M. Perry, 1992). Both groups exhibited increases in penile circumference to the heterosexual and female homosexual videos. Only the homophobic men showed an increase in penile erection to male homosexual stimuli. The groups did not differ in aggression. Homophobia is apparently associated with homosexual arousal that the homophobic individual is either unaware of or denies."

When I said "hit" perhaps a better word would be "aggressive hit". There's a big difference. If a guy walked up to me and said something, like a compliment (the kind you would tell a woman). I'd tell him I'm not gay. If he asked me out I'd also tell him I'm not gay but the answer this time might come across as mean. If it involves anything sexual, I get in his face. If he won't take it back, I might walk away... Unless he was already annoying. You see? I treat gays a little different but that doesn't mean I go looking to "bash me some gays."

And besides, scientific studies mean jack-shit. I'm serious. I don't trust anything a scientist tells me until I know who funds him.

Women like confident men (and those who don't usually turn lesbian or hook up with some wimp). Unfortunately, where I live, women are not like the mystical women on escapist. They're actually real. They are the ones I'm hanging out with so their opinion actually matters. Women like power, so when a homosexual male tries flirting (in a rather sexual way) with me they watch. If I mumble something about not being gay, they walk away. If I tell him (in a loud voice) I'm not a frickin fag (pardon the vulgar phrasing), the women see me as more of a man. Maybe that only happens in college, I really don't know.

But calling me gay is a really lame attack strategy. Just thought I'd say that before more people use the same "he hates gays, must be gay" line.

Oh and by the way, if you really wanna be more "tolerant", tolerate my homophobia. Chow kids!

 

[Smokescreen]

A solid point to this one and mostly well written, though I think that the use of derogatory slang detracts from the point, despite the intent of humor.

Sorry, man; I liked what you had to say, I just think that you used a little too much negativity to say it.

 

[JediMB]

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.

Neither Aveline nor Varric are romantically interested in Hawke, although the player can choose to flirt with both of them.

And then there's Sebastian, who does respond to flirting from a female Hawke... but has taken a vow of celibacy.

 

[Faerillis]

It was hardly just you Yahtzee, Bioware really did do a fantastic job on most characters (except the oh-so unneeded Isabella) and choices (though god 'Snarky' sucked). Even playing through as a self-representative character (something I always do the first time in Bioware games) the eternally adorable Merrill was something of an interesting romance, hell she even made me really fight for it.

I look forward to playing a variety of actual RP character, I'm just going to wait for extensive combat modding.

EDIT
Oh and even though Anders was always in my party the closest friend of the bunch he did not fare so well on my playthrough (was a Mage too)