ME3: One hell of a retcon...

[Silver PBall]

I know a lot of people who have never explicitly told me whether they were gay or straight. I imagine the same can be said for Commander Shepard. In fact, I'd think it would be heinously out of place to know anyone in the Mass Effect universe came out and said "I AM A HOMOSEXUAL" given that there has never once been a dialogue option. Maybe Kaiden has spent all of the time over the course of the 2 existing games coming to terms with his sexuality? Maybe he's spent some time experimenting, getting to know himself a little more and becoming more comfortable with being gay? I've never heard of anyone waking up and saying "Yes, please!"

It sounds like they could do this in a very human way, which would come to me as a massive shock considering that I still can't figure out whether or not Kaiden is a human with a personality or a Geth in Sheep's clothing(considering he has no personality)

 

[Sejs Cube]

However when you walk around the Citadel you don't see any men holding hands or talking close.You never meet an NPC that has a 'partner' or such that they my mention in passing....but you do see plenty of Asari snuggles...and yes they are 'aliens' but they also look like blue women...but no male/male snuggles.

Go back and look again. How many times do you see anybody holding hands or talking close. The only time that you see anything vaguely close (to use the term loosely) is asari strippers doing the Intended-To-Be-Sexy-But-Really-Kinda-Not dance animation. I feel you're going about this the wrong way. To go from relatively austere as far as depicting human relations to FEATURE! GAY MEN! would be counterproductive. You'd either have to go about it as FEATURE! EVERYBODY BEING ROMANTIC (everybody includes male/male relationships)! or go about it like it's not a big deal.

...but I'm confused because a fellow like myself just doesn't exist in the entire Mass Effect Universe.

Just because something hasn't been featured doesn't mean it doesn't exist. How many Inuit have been featured in Mass Effect? How many Italians? Welp, guess that means they don't exist. Midgets? Well since you never see one, guess they're not there. I guess since you only ever hear about Ashley being Christian, I guess that means there are no other religions out there either.

That logic is silly and I feel you may be overreacting.

As others have said I do have a bad feeling it's just going to get shoe horned in and treated as if it was always there....which is stupid. >_<

No, it isn't stupid, it's called knowing how to handle a narrative.

 

[Alucard788]

Hendel from Mass Effect Ascension is a soldier who is gay

I had to go and look up who that was int he wiki. So he was in one of the books eh. I'll admit I've never absorbed myself into all of the Mass Effect media...but this is interesting. The wiki mentions that it's 'hinted at' which is also interesting.

 

[OakTable]

Why is this romance stuff so important? Shouldn't we be worrying about the gameplay, rather than this?

 

[Alucard788]

Why is this romance stuff so important? Shouldn't we be worrying about the gameplay, rather than this?

Oh please I'm not just singularly focusing on this...it's just what my post is about. What I'm stating is that as a 'part' of the world how will it go down. of coarse I want a solid story and good game play. However I find it interesting that they are adding something that has not been added previously.

 

[Alucard788]

Thank you. Yes it did come to mind as I thought about how this would all go down. Perhaps if Kaidain (or whoever they make Bi (or gay) showed an interest in Shep early on he would have been arrested, and thrown off the Normandy.

Only at the end of the world when all hope is lost 'you' as male Shep, and him find the true love that they had been missing all this time...that they had to hide due to society pressures and laws.

Yea it's corny as heck but it would work. ^_^

Corny, perhaps, but it'd still be better than just hand-waving it away. The other option would be just to have it be part of the subquest, maybe having male Shep convince (insert possible bi male character here) that breaking the law is fine and what really matters is how they feel, et cetera. Still corny. But at least you wouldn't lose a teammate. Though... hm. It'd be interesting if one of the options when whoever-it-is tries to initiate something was to report them to the appropriate authorities... if you wanted to make your male Shep a bit of an ass.

...If they did it right, pulling an arrest for male homosexuality could actually get some interesting political commentary going on. Hmmm.

I think so as well. Really it could be an amazing and emotional statement if the player chooses that path. A kind of dark side to the wonderful future that humanity had in Mass Effect. Only as the world falls apart and is on the brink of destruction Shepard and whoever find that one true love.

How do you know they weren't gay?
Maybe its just they were not flaymboyant or stereotypical. For all you know, ALL your crew could have had a crush on you.

If they had a crush on you, why wouldn't they have said something? Personally, I think it would be interesting if they did, indeed, carry a bit of a flame, but had a legitimate reason for not doing anything about it (like the OP's suggestion of outlawed male homosexuality). It'd add a bit more to the plot then a simple "guess what! These guys are going to come out of the space-closet now!"

I'm glad someone else sees it this way as well. To me it is a ret-con in a story sense. Also relationships have become a big part of Bioware games and writing...so it is important and relevant.

 

[Timberwolf0924]

Alright, I'm gonan go ahead and say my mind on this one. Lesbianism isn't really placed in ME Universe "Oh but the Asari!" no.. No.. NO.. Asari are uni-gendered, thats like saying an Ameoboa is a lesiban (amobea have no gender) Kelli! no.. Kelli is a whore, if you happened to play a fem-shep then yea, you could've made her homosexual. But thats one character. Just because you have your fem-shep, then yea you can go that route. But you don't see anywhere else that two woman are explicitally doing fem/fem action. If you're a male shep and you feel like you're being left out, I'm sorry but I'm with every other guy out there who doesn't see a problem. Kedian, Thane, Grunt, Zaeed, Wrex, Jacob, Kaiden, Legion (yes he sounds like a guy to me) and most importally Garrus isn't homosexual.

Yes! They could have left Kelli out and made her only heterosexual, and I agree that is very one sided. But still, complaining that your favorite character isn't a "mans-man" is a mute point. I mean, why do they have to swing both ways, not everyone in the universe is unable to plant their feet sexually.

I'm not gay bashing, a great friend of mine came out of the closet not to long ago and we still hang out all the time. I have a lesiban couple in my family (not my immediate family, but a 2nd cousin) and they come to my families pool house all the time.

It just disturbs me that people complain about not having a homosexual love intrest when it's quite possible that Joker is gay but he's not a love intrest so.. whatever..

 

[Irriduccibilli]

Well good for you my friend, because there WILL be gay male sex in Mass Effect 3. I believe Bioware said that themselves

 

[Ian Caronia]

*snip*
That would actually make sense in the context of the world of ME3. Considering what they said here http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/99710-BioWare-Explains-Why-Theres-No-Homosexuality-in-Mass-Effect-2 which well...it seems like to me they completely ignored the 120 pound blue alien in the room.

Why do you guys think? How should they handle this?

How they should've handled it: Make male homosexuality available or even existent from the start to not pigeon hold themselves

How they should handle it: Make male homosexuality very scarce in the game world. One, maybe two couples or just one couple and one solo gay guy at a club is all you see. Make it seem like it was part of the universe all along, but it's just in such a rarity that no one ever payed mind to it. Explain during the gay romance that the reason male homosexuality and female homosexuality (barring asari) is so rare is because of how every race views relationships in terms of genetic offspring.
_This ties into why the asari don't like "purebloods" and asari on asari romances- because they fear genetic mutations like the Ardat Yakshi and find the lack of additional race DNA to be bad (insulting?) and that it stagnates their gene pool.
_This concept that relationships need to have babies at the end is something thoroughly discussed in Mass Effect 1. It can be utilized to it's full potential to explain the lack of same gender relationships in ME up to this point (except with asari), and can bring more drama into pre-existing cross-species relationships. Relationships = babies. Cross species and homosexuality = no babies, in turn = Society at large: "Not acceptable"

Why they can't handle it: Thanks to the creators being awful ignorant retconning writers, Mass Effect 2 broke apart the idea that was unique (relationship must = babies) with how extras conversed, namely the quarian and the turian hitting it off in the bar on Illium (I think that's the name). There's also the "Fleet and...whocares" movie that's mentioned and the utter lack of mentioning this societal ideal from either Tali, Thane, or Garrus. Or anyone, really. No one mentions something so important that was clearly established in the first game. Quarians and turians are just assumed to be so understanding of a cross species relationship, despite being defined as hard-asses about everything.
_The result of the bad science and lazy retconning in Mass Effect 2 leads to the inability to clearly and understandably explain why something so fundamental (Over 60-70 hrs traveling between galaxies and not a single gay man/gay couple not involving asari? ...That's just stupid...and creepy) was never part of the universe to begin with.

How they will handle it(?): My educated guess is that Bioware's writers will either make homosexuality an on-ship/player-driven discovery only (meaning the rest of the universe will still have no sign of being gay, yet the characters are now totally fine with being gay), or they'll go overboard on trying to make homosexuality a part of ME and have numerous extras spouting off "witty" exchanges about how gay they are, trying to make us think that "lulz there were always gay people, silly". No, there wasn't. But there probably will inexplicably be en masse now.
_If they decide to take ques from Dragon Age then there'll probably be characters sexually harassing us to let us know they are in fact options for gay romances now, and when we turn them down they'll call us everything but homophobic and not like us anymore...or they'll just continue harassing us.

Between the points I just made and the beautiful example (golden one really) of how Bioware has no concept for continuity, especially in characters and it's executives' own statements, that Alucard788 pointed out, it's pretty much obvious to say that: All in all, Bioware done fucked up.

At least gay gamers can have fun now. If they manage to disregard the blatant retconning and grotesque lack of continuity, that is. Tali fans did with her health after all. Have at it! Just because Bioware doesn't know it's ass from it's elbow doesn't mean you should deprive yourself of fun. To help me through my long nights of tossing and turning, I think of Mass Effect as "just a game" instead of "this game is an experience/is a great piece of work" like I do with certain other game titles. That way I can have fun with the game instead of ranting on and on about how bad the writers at Bioware are.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go romance Tali again and bite my fist when she talks about her immune system to keep me from punching the TV. Tatta! /jk

 

[veloper]

You know I was sitting here thinking about how nice it's going to be to finally romance Kaidain in ME3 (I like the men, and I wanted him to join my Hawke, and Elven Gray warden)....and it it struck me. How the hell is that going to go down exactly? While lesbianism is clearly on display in ME3 (for the enjoyment of all I take it) how ever homosexual men...as far as i can remember...are completely absent in any form.

So how in in the Maker are they going to pull this off?

Here's a question for you that you must answer first: how can Shepard be a guy in one game and a woman in the next?

And this one: how is it that Kaidan died in ME1, when he didn't die in ME1?

Bio are simply going to make the romanceable characters bi, because nothing related to any potential player choices in ME1 and ME2 has to be canonical.

 

[Woodsey]

It'll be interesting. They've lost their magic touch lately, so I'm not actually as confident as I would have been a year ago about whether they could integrate it tastefully.

Different writers for the different games.

OT: Its not like any character was specifically stated to be one or the other, I don't think it matters. And if you aren't going to roll a gay Shepard, it won't affect you anyway.

I would like to point out to you that Bioware themselves have stated that anyone rolling a gay Shepard in Mass Effect 3 would have a far superior experience than anyone trying to play a straight Shepard. Just sayin.

If that's a joke, its gone straight over my head.

 

[Savber]

People seem to have the misconception that people that come out of closet has to do it flamboyantly prior in announcing their sexual identity.

I think they're just gonna shove it in and ignore that little plot hole.

No offense, but while I adore Bioware games, character development is their weakest forte. Not once do I ever care about the actual characters. Unfortunately.

The heck? Bioware generally sucks at the overall story (with the exception of KOTOR)

Most of it just degenerates to 5 basic areas to gathering something or someone before engaging into an epic climax.

It's their characters and the interactions between them that made their games great.

 

[Gametek]

Who are you to say that they don't exist? Do you live in the world of Mass Effect? It's a made-up world, Bioware can do whatever the fuck they want with it. Any arguments against retconning are usually made by nerds that need to get a reality check (not directed at you per se). It's like all this shit around Tali. What does she look like? Would she be able to fuck humans? Who gives a flying fuck? It's a fucking made up world, and these characters don't exist. Enjoy the game, fuck the rest.

Also, although I said I couldn't care less about retconning, it does frustrate me somewhat when remakes or homages fuck with original material for the wrong reasons. But that doesn't apply here.

Some people care even for the story, you know. Not only the game play. I think it this what cause all the winning about CoD...

 

[Ian Caronia]

If people didn't want things shoe-horned in, people shouldn't of demanded they be shoe-horned in.

More evidence that Bioware simply cannot win in this scenario; groups of people will piss and moan no matter what course of action they take.

Except that they clearly said in that linked statement in the OP that they weren't going to shoe horn it in, and they explained why in regards to continuity and what they wanted the game to be.
Now? They want money so it's a harem game. Just because fans "demand" it that doesn't mean they need to compromise their principals (if they had any) and do it. It's ME3. The game is going to sell huge no matter what. This is clearly just them trying to reel in as much cash as they can before they have to stop making the latest blockbuster series.

People also wanted to romance Wrex, by the way, yet it seems Bioware has ignored their demands. Almost like Bioware's just doing this to get more money and... *GASP* Try and be edgy?
Marketing ploy. Gross marketing ploy.

Still, as I said, least gay gamers can have fun boning who they want now, which isn't said (by me, anyway)to imply gay gamers can't have fun playing straight characters. *shrug*
Let's just see if the writers manage to be as creatively bankrupt for the ending of the plot as they were for the overarching plot itself and finally rip off Revelation Space in full.

 

[IamGamer41]

As far as I remember none of those characters ever explicitly stated they were straight right? *shrug*

You can think of a million reasons why for example Kaiden never stated his apparent attraction to men and I'm sure BioWare will use one of those. It's not really that big of a deal, in my opinion.

They did.Kaiden turns you down if you try to sex him up in mass effect 1.Same with Jacob and Maranda if you try to sex talk them when your the opposite sex. So yeah they do state that they are not gay.

 

[Nimcha]

How they should've handled it: Make male homosexuality available or even existent from the start to not pigeon hold themselves

That doesn't make sense. It was never stated that male homosexuality doesn't exist in the galaxy.

 

[Ian Caronia]

You know I was sitting here thinking about how nice it's going to be to finally romance Kaidain in ME3 (I like the men, and I wanted him to join my Hawke, and Elven Gray warden)....and it it struck me. How the hell is that going to go down exactly? While lesbianism is clearly on display in ME3 (for the enjoyment of all I take it) how ever homosexual men...as far as i can remember...are completely absent in any form.

So how in in the Maker are they going to pull this off?

Here's a question for you that you must answer first: how can Shepard be a guy in one game and a woman in the next?

And this one: how is it that Kaidan died in ME1, when he didn't die in ME1?

Bio are simply going to make the romanceable characters bi, because nothing related to any potential player choices in ME1 and ME2 has to be canonical.

"How can Shepard be a guy in one game and a woman in the next?"
Answer: He can't. You make the character from the start and they stay that sex. If you don't bring over your save data and start fresh in ME2, you have to choose a sex prior to even the first cutscene, which in turn means that Shepard was a woman before ME2 (if you chose such form the menu in ME2).

It's a matter of choice before establishing the character. It's the genesis of the character. You're not changing the sex of the character after the character has already be established.

"How is it that Kaiden died in ME1, when he didn't die in ME1?"
Answer: Don't try and go all Schrodinger's Cat on this. It's a choice. You choose if he dies or doesn't. He isn't magically alive in the next game if you killed him (unlike the DA:O characters in Dragon Age 2, but that's for another time >_>).

"Bio are simply going to make the romanceable characters bi, because nothing related to any potential player choices in ME1 and ME2 has to be canonical."
Response: ...Are you joking? Because that sounded like a joke to me. If so, then I wholly agree with you on the fact that Bioware's writers seem to genuinely believe this for most accounts: "Story continuity? Character continuity? PFFF! We'll make them ALLL gay! Give us your money now, pl0x."

If you were being serious then...that's just silly.

 

[IamGamer41]

It'll be interesting. They've lost their magic touch lately, so I'm not actually as confident as I would have been a year ago about whether they could integrate it tastefully.

Different writers for the different games.

OT: Its not like any character was specifically stated to be one or the other, I don't think it matters. And if you aren't going to roll a gay Shepard, it won't affect you anyway.

I would like to point out to you that Bioware themselves have stated that anyone rolling a gay Shepard in Mass Effect 3 would have a far superior experience than anyone trying to play a straight Shepard. Just sayin.

Where did you read that? Post the link I want to read this myself.

If thats true then they are catering to a specific group of people.A minority I might add.Which is total bullshit.Ill not play a game where I'm told that the only way to get the best experience out of it is to play ass backwards from how I have played the other 2 games.They should just take all the romances out of their games if they can't keep the continuity of pre established characters.

 

[Ian Caronia]

How they should've handled it: Make male homosexuality available or even existent from the start to not pigeon hold themselves

That doesn't make sense. It was never stated that male homosexuality doesn't exist in the galaxy.

It's not just what's stated, it's what's shown. As is evident and repeated numerous times over, there were no male homosexuals or even homosexuals in general in ME up to ME3. None. That's two games worth of content. Hours of traveling from world to world, town to town, galaxy to galaxy.

The fact that there wasn't even one gay couple is evidence enough that homosexuality didn't exist in the galaxy of Mass Effect. It's like when the first Star Wars movie came out everyone was like, "...Wait, where's all the black people?"
"...Wait, where's all the gay people?"

 

[Alucard788]

Its not, its asinine to assert that just because it wasn't on display means that there's a whole galaxy in which gay doesn't exist. Its being hyper-sensitive.

Umm...no. I'm making a comment on the context of an excluded social aspect that will be included in the final installment of a game. Who's universe up to this point in time showed no signs, subtle or not, of this kind of lifestyle existing.

I am using...debating...and thinking about it. No I do not want something flamboyant or silly...no I do not want it 'in your face' during the entire plot line. No what I want is to ponder how the hell they are going to pull it off.