Transgender in Dragon Age Inquisition and Steins;Gate.

Gigano

Whose Eyes Are Those Eyes?
Oct 15, 2009
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Why not compare to the fairly highly regarded [http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/steinsgate] game, rather than the anime?

Though it's arguably not all that fair to compare the handling of a main character from a game that's literally all story, to that of a side character in an expansive RPG. And if mages and monsters are running around, a biological woman who's mentally a man probably won't stand out much.
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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LifeCharacter said:
Yep, I still remember reading Francis Xavier's letters about visiting Japan and how shocked he was that these good, decent people pretty much had no problem with men boning each other, to the point where they mocked him for having a problem with it.
Kind of hilarious, really. Maybe that should be my new reaction to homophobes.

A more recent thing would probably be all the cries for "but Polish culture/history" in response to criticism of Witcher 3 on its lack of people who aren't pale, because a single non-white person would absolutely ruin it's Polish-ness. Though at least the Witcher didn't miss an opportunity as hard as Unity did when it decided to ignore all those things women were doing (like assassinating someone) to focus on random French guy.
Well, you know, Polish history was important. I mean, that's where we got Djinns from, as the game shows.

These are pretty much connected from what I can tell. How they view the world now (most likely inaccurately) is imposed upon the past with slight modifications. They're less tolerant of everything, they're dirtier, they treat women badly worse, and they likely speak with a British accent. Everything else is waffle and noise.
The Liberty Vallance Effect: When the legend becomes the fact, print the legend.

Unfortunately, Hollywood history is pretty much the only thing anyone seems to know. Hell, I'm surprised we haven't seen an argument that only white people exist in India.

I would, but I'm not the one using an old Anita reaction avatar despite a new one coming out recently. Get with the times!

She Who Must Not Be Named Eating Popcorn will never get old!

Damn you Marv! Damn you and your name!
Am I going to have to start a #notallmarvs tag?
 
Jan 12, 2012
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LifeCharacter said:
To address the two big points, homosexuality and transexuality:

A) Earth was not some big lovebox where everyone's sexual preferences were fine until big bad Christianity came along. Redrhyno did a good job of explaining that, and even the Greeks and Romans having reasonably strict rules of sexual conduct, including where and when homosexuality was appropriate, so your comment about those cultures having little issue with it is way off base. I've not really got a problem with the way they deal with homosexuality in Tevinter; you're expected to breed to produce the perfect mage, but if you want to mess around with your slaves on your own time, well, that's what asshole mages do. That works with the culture they've established of magisters doing what they please while also doing their duty to the Empire's greatness. It's that universally all these cultures have decided, "Yeah, it's fine to not only be gay, but openly have committed relationships, and at worst some people think it's a personality quirk."

It feels sloppy when the only other universal thing is the Chant which, as you point out, doesn't comment on homosexuality. Unless there's a passage I missed where they talk about how Andraste gave a big thumbs-up to alternative sexuality, there's no reason why everyone is down with it, especially when the previous history has people as obvious analogues of the Franks and other tribal people in Europe, who didn't have good views of homosexuality as a whole. I don't care whether or not gay relationships are a thing in Thedas, I just want there to be a reasonable explanation that follows from the history; saying, "It's like medieval Europe, but homosexuality is everywhere," is not good writing. And the idea that they just care less about perpetuating their lineage is absurd in a feudal society, especially when the games make a big deal about your family (As a female human, they keep bringing up the Trevelyan line and how to use my family for political gain).

B)
Well, why shouldn't a strictly regimented society that takes people and assigns them to what they've been deemed best at by the priests be okay with a trans person?
Because they're repressive!

Literally the entire society is built around denying individual choice and expression, breaking you down and forcing you into a mold. The Qun doesn't care if you feel misgendered, they're going to shove your square peg into the round hole so hard your corners break off. Iron Bull talks about how as soon as he felt doubts about his mission during that island war that he turned himself into the secret police to be reprogrammed, and all the notes you find during the course of the game about people who tried to buck the Qun's system end with them dying, running away, or being reshaped. However, apparently trans people are so common and accepted under the Qun (which has very strict roles for men and women, let us remember) that they have a special term and are treated just like everyone else.

Jurnag12 wrote a post that does a good job of why it may work like that, but it's still trying to apply explanations after the fact that don't really gel with the rest of what we're told about life under the Qun. They will happily torture and brainwash someone who thinks they'd rather be a farmer than a cobbler, but someone who tries to do something that flies in the face of basic divisions they Qun establishes is A-OK?

Again, it feels like a missed opportunity more than anything else, one that could have been used to enrich both Krem and Iron Bull. Imagine if Krem's story plays out just as in DA:I for the first part: Born one step above slavery, lies his way into the military, is found out and pursued by Tevinter soldiers, and Bull steps in to save him. Then we diverge: Bull is new to the continent, under orders to start spying, and he asks Krem to join his new mercenary company. Like Sten before him, he has no concept of the idea of a female warrior, and Krem takes pains to hide his sex, so the charade continues on for a quite a while. Eventually, Bull finds out what's going on under the armour (maybe through a Mulan-style injury, maybe someone else points it out or makes an offhand comment) and now he has a test of character: does he stay loyal to the Qun and ditch Krem (or try to force female gendering) or does he choose the companionship of someone who violates a basic rule of the philosophy that has governed his whole life?

He chooses Krem and it sets up so much more going on in the game: It explains more about how Iron Bull can be an agent of the Qun but how his differences to it develop, why Krem keeps making barbed comments about the Qun (adding more dimension to those rather than "oh, Tevinter vs. Qunari stuff") and it showcases Bull's personal loyalty to his chargers, which is the central part of his character arc. You still get the same result (a trans person in Dragon Age where their gender isn't a big deal outside of that one optional conversation) but it turns a really strange deviation from what we know about the world into a learning experience about the characters, and adds some depth to a character who otherwise exists to say, "I can't think of anything for the Chargers to do right now, ask me later".
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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inu-kun said:
You do realize you try to defend the honor of a fictional character?
Pointing out that someone with a medical background is trying to define things as such has nothing to do with defending his [the character's] honour. Surely, you can tell the difference.

Edit: And really? dissing Witcher 3 for not being inclusive?
Oh maybe not. I mean, seriously, who here has "dissed" Witcher 3?

God forsake having games that are actually good, DA:I is better since it's inclusive in how mediocre it is!
By the same measure, god forbid someone have different criteria for what constitutes a good game. Not that anyone has even said it's a bad game, but apparently Witcher 3's honour must be defended.

Honestly, one of the biggest reasons video games and video gamers aren't treated seriously by the rest of culture is the incessant urge to balk at even the tiniest of criticisms.

LifeCharacter said:
I'd prefer the Japanese reaction during the early 1600s, when they started to really crack down on them. But your idea's good too.
Well, I generally don't have that level of malice in me. Sometimes, but rarely.

Don't forget all those bits of American pop culture that we wound up stealing from them. The Witcher 3 has really put a spotlight and just how much influence Polish history and culture has had on our own.
Don't forget basically everything in Dungeons & Dragons. They totally got that from Polish mythology. I would never have known this without Witcher 3.

Let's see if you're saying that when Saint She Who Must Not Be Named graces us with another new gif.
Oh, trust me, our glorious feminazi overlady cannot shake my conviction.

I don't think the demographic most likely to have the name Marv knows what a tag is, or what twitter is.
I didn't know you were such a Marvist.

I honestly hate this idea that because they can come up with a story about trans people or gay people being oppressed and discriminated against everywhere that doing anything differently is just a missed opportunity that the writers need to beat themselves up over. Not every story involving a gay character or a trans character needs to make a big deal of it and have them overcome some sort of prejudice. And, considering how many people love whining about Dorian's totally gay sidequest adventure of shoving the gay agenda down people's throat, I highly doubt they'd be avoiding any criticism by having a story centered around Krem's gender.
I don't know if you know who Steve Shives is. He's a YouTuber, an atheist, and a feminist. I bring him up because he did a video where he and his wife disagreed over Joss Wheedon. I'm on the same side of the argument as his wife, more or less, though I don't think that men can't write feminist characters and I don't think of Wheedon specifically in terms of whether he writes feminist characters so much as the claim of "stong women."

What does this have to do with transmen, you ask? Well, it has to do with minority representation in general.

Ashley, his wife, contrasted female characters in movies to Will Smith. Now, I know not everyone can be Will Smith, but the point she made was that you generally don't see Will Smith struggling with adversity. And while my Will Smith viewing days somewhat date me, that is generally true. Will Smith is a badass fighter pilot who is only kept out of NASA because his evil vagina-having girlfriend uses her body to make other men feel good. He's a badass top secret agent who ends up running a clandestine operation. He's a badass cop, who is paired with a slightly less badass cop who is also black but generally not in a way that he has to suffer adversity.

Her idea was to start at the end. Start past that. And I don't think every story should do that, but I think more should. Not every story has to make gay out as a struggle, and there's no reason for conservation of detail when it comes to sex/sexuality/gender identity/race/whatever. Not every event in a minority's life is necessarily about them being a minority. And if we make everything about the struggle, then that's all people think of.

I found myself realising I more or less do this when writing. The stories I write could probably be done 97% the same with a male character in the first place, and a chunk of the remainder would only need to change either the other party's sex or the character's sexuality to accommodate. There are like two instances that deal with sexism in any way, and they're fairly minor. I could throw in polemics about the institutional issues of her former line of work, but I don't. It's not that kind of story.

Also, yes. This goes right back to the "can't win" thing I mentioned before. If this was any more central, it would almost certainly be "shoving it down our throats," or in other words "this concept exists."

As such, I imagine a man who does his job, deals with his story, and then pees sitting down is probably too much for a lot of people.
 

Redryhno

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Jul 25, 2011
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LifeCharacter said:
Redryhno said:
I think European history is pretty applicable considering the only "non-European" presence is in the Qunari, and even they've got a mix of Russia and Poland in their largely Asian-rooted philosophy...
Ehh, you've got a point. Not sure why you felt the need to ignore absolutely everything else (including the entirety of the actual arguments being made) to make that point, though.

Not to mention you started it off by talking about how the Abrahamic religions were the sole reason homosexuality were considered "sins".
Well if we're speaking of sins in the religious sense than sure, but if you're just using it as a way to indicate that people took issue with homosexuality than that's kind of patently false since I also pointed out how being seen as the woman of a relationship was shameful. That said, Abrahamic religions seem to play a pretty big part in it, what with the two big civilizations of western Europe having little issue with homosexuality before they showed up.
Because, I happen to have this thing called a job(you may have heard of them, they seem to be sorta rare on the internet) where I just got "promoted" and had to be at work to get the next week's shipment earlier than normal. I didn't have the time to respond completely and addressed what I believed to be the more egregious error in your post first, but Thunderous has sorta taken it up instead.

And honestly I like that storyline better, because it doesn't completely change what we were told about the Qun in previous games to add in a trans person that could've honestly just been random NPC #24759 for all the functions they serve, and also changes a trans backgrounder into a trans character with very tangible connections to the world that isn't just "Bull is good guy m'kay? He gave up eye because he good guy m'kay?".

And as I said but you've apparently ignored, it was ok as a SIDE ACTIVITY in those great western civilizations. It was never really something that was accepted as a lifestyle. Hell, even the Romans with their love of orgies, leaded spices, alcohol, and drugs didn't really care for male-on-male/female-on-female sex all that often, and the few times it was was because Caligula was alive or it was someone in a higher station giving it to someone of lower station. Then of course there's the Greeks who had like thirty words for love that we have to continually add adjectives onto to even begin to scratch the surface of the meanings they had with them.
 

BarkBarker

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May 30, 2013
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Its a rather odd lack of consistency in Dragon Age where they point out normal things that are out of place, like someone said if you are overly rude that is pointed out. Oh this transgender person? Not even an eye is batted, we are so welcoming we won't even have logical consistency to put a light on them for a fucking second. Yes it's different. Yes it isn't very common. No there is no problem, just don't pretend the person in say a wheelchair doesn't stick out among people walking around doing their daily do. it just doesn't work.
 

Johnny Novgorod

Bebop Man
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Feb 9, 2012
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Having skimmed over Ruka's Wikia page, I see his whole life revolves around gender, which strikes me as quite boring.
 

Darth Rosenberg

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Oct 25, 2011
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Redryhno said:
B-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-but! FREDDIE PRINZE JR. HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE THAT VOICE OF HIS.

Granted, I still think that he did a better job as Vega. Then again, I'm also in the minority of people that actually like and see Vega as a pretty good character.
Nah, you're not alone - I thought James Vegas was a mighty fine character (and will always be miffed he isn't an LI). Kudos to Mr Sarah Michelle Gellar for the voicework on Bull, too, 'cause that genuinely sounds pretty damn different.

As for the topic? Couldn't care less about looking up an anime character, but I thought Krem was rather well done, with some good work by Jennifer Hale. Then again I thought Dorian's arc was handled superbly, too. I have many, many issues with DA:I as a game, but I thought BioWare nailed the writing and gender stuff. They also give the player enough dialogue options that you can either 'discuss' these issues, or just move on with what the scene or story's doing, so it's entirely down to player discretion with how much you engage.

It's very possible the next DA will have a transgender character in your party, and I look forward to that. We really do have quite enough straight white blokes in stories of all kinds.

[ captcha: left or right?! how very dare you be so binary! ]
 

Dreiko_v1legacy

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Aug 28, 2008
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I typically consider trans people as the gender they exhibit so I most often consider them not the gender they feel as.

Ruka I instantly felt was a girl in a guy's body, it's that well-done. In visual novels (and in the anime world too) it's super easy to make someone indistinguishable from a female and just add on top that they have a penis, what with the overabundance of flat-chested female chars. Reality is often not as kind and being the shallow person that I am regarding this issue I can't shake the fact that most people really do look and act like whatever gender they are despite what they feel on the inside.


Ruka was always feminine in a uniquely anime/girly way rather than in a homosexual male (which is how most real male trans people are) way so there was no issue.
 

Saetha

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Jan 19, 2014
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Darth Rosenberg said:
Redryhno said:
B-b-b-b-b-b-b-b-but! FREDDIE PRINZE JR. HOW CAN YOU NOT LOVE THAT VOICE OF HIS.

Granted, I still think that he did a better job as Vega. Then again, I'm also in the minority of people that actually like and see Vega as a pretty good character.
Nah, you're not alone - I thought James Vegas was a mighty fine character (and will always be miffed he isn't an LI). Kudos to Mr Sarah Michelle Gellar for the voicework on Bull, too, 'cause that genuinely sounds pretty damn different.

As for the topic? Couldn't care less about looking up an anime character, but I thought Krem was rather well done, with some good work by Jennifer Hale. Then again I thought Dorian's arc was handled superbly, too. I have many, many issues with DA:I as a game, but I thought BioWare nailed the writing and gender stuff. They also give the player enough dialogue options that you can either 'discuss' these issues, or just move on with what the scene or story's doing, so it's entirely down to player discretion with how much you engage.

It's very possible the next DA will have a transgender character in your party, and I look forward to that. We really do have quite enough straight white blokes in stories of all kinds.

[ captcha: left or right?! how very dare you be so binary! ]
Ugh, I couldn't stand Hale in that role. Every time Krem spoke I wanted to claw my ears off. I mean, that accent, Christ, it's like playing Fable.
 

Something Amyss

Aswyng and Amyss
Dec 3, 2008
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LifeCharacter said:
Except that it is just as easy and just as easy to follow to refer to the transman as a man and the transwoman as a woman.
Without addressing inu-kun further, this is intentional misgendering. When you refer to a transman as a woman, it's misgendering. When you do it intentionally, as in you know better, it's intentionally misgendering. You don't gender people by their chromosomes, you don't gender them by what's between their legs.

Glad to be of service.

As for your own thoughts, maybe it's because people would like it if something other than white people were allowed to exist in the game's universe, rather than deciding to remove all non-white people from existence and replace them with pretty white people with weird ears and short white people with beards.
It amazes me that this notion is so offensive. Anyway, moving on!

God I always have that level of malice in me. I've found I'm a very vindictive person, at least in the abstract.
I've joked before that even my depression and anger have ADHD. This isn't strictly speaking true, but the basic idea is correct: it's hard for kme to stay down or hold a grudge. If I do, something's seriously wrong.

I just wonder why the Polish waited so long to show us just how responsible they are for everything? They must have a great deal of humility, which isn't exactly surprising considering that most of the people jumping to defend them probably aren't Polish nationals.
Well, Poland has known it all along. They just finally decided to share it with the rest of the world. You know, like how Nintendo created Miis back in the 80s and just totes never told anyone about the concept for three decades? Logical!

How dare you show such a lack devotion to the Great Lady! We will need to discuss this at the next Conclave. We might even need to move it up to before discussing how we'll bring an end to video games.
I think I know what Anita wants better than you. After all, I am the chosen of the Sarkeesian avatar.

It's a scientifically proven fact that Marvs are lesser beings that you can't trust. Biotruths have shown me the way.
Sexual dimorphism?

I'd consider it strange how people seem to need the gay/trans/black/not-generic to have their story revolve around overcoming oppression, but it's gotten fairly obvious what it's about by now. It amounts to little more than an extra hurdle placed in front of them where they're required to have an in-story justification and elaboration on them, whereas everyone else is allowed to just exist without question.
On top of what you say next, it means there's a standard where you have to have a "reason" to make a character black. Or gay. Or even a woman. You know, that group that's roughly half the population.

It also makes sure stories involving them are segregated into their own special category separate from the "normal" stories. They can never just be and do "normal" story things, they have to do black story things, or gay story things, and so on. I remember reading recently about an author of some spy thriller novel that people were complaining about, because the protagonist happened to be bisexual and there wasn't some warning on the cover and it wasn't relegated to the gay literature section.
Bisexual man, I'm assuming? Because the other way seems to be deemed "okay" in fiction.

But then you go bisexual dude, and ewohmygodgrosssogay

On a related note, several members of my family are offended that I would write a female lead, for multiple unspoken reasons, no doubt. The reality is that I chose a female lead because I felt there weren't many women in the genre that were done the way I would want them done. So I did what people always say to do. I don't have the requisite skills to make a film or a video game, but I can write the characters I want. So I did.

And crap came from that, too.
 

DrownedAmmet

Senior Member
Apr 13, 2015
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I'm of two minds of this, on the one hand it would have been nice to see a transgender character that shows them struggling and dealing with "adversity."

On the other hand, this is a fantasy world, why is it so outlandish that one group of people would be accepting of a trans person? I think it a bit weird that we can accept giant horned goat people, but we can't accept that their society may be nuanced enough that they accept gender-fluid people while still being strict about other things.
 

Darth Rosenberg

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Oct 25, 2011
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Saetha said:
Ugh, I couldn't stand Hale in that role. Every time Krem spoke I wanted to claw my ears off. I mean, that accent, Christ, it's like playing Fable.
But Fable's accents were usually convincingly [and awesomely/gloriously] British, and as good as I found Hale in the role, I obviously wouldn't say she was doing an especially solid British accent.