Christina - F - Welsh - Latent Bi (Character identifies as heterosexual but can be 'seduced' by a persistent and sincere Ann)

Neville - M - Welsh - Latent Bi (Character identifies as heterosexual but can be 'seduced' by a persistent and sincere Arthur)

While I am glad these characters now are open to more than one gender identity (someone was kind enough to show me the original chart), I have a slight problem.*

REALLY love the idea that you can 'turn' two of the characters with sincere persistence!

You see, there's a problem here. Queer identified people are often subject to a vicious myth that they are constantly trying to 'convert' straight people into their 'lifestyles,' and the idea of 'seducing' or 'persuading' them to be 'bisexual' feeds into another stereotype that bisexual people have been 'corrupted' from their 'natural state' by the influencing of other people.



There are an infinite number of other ways of going about a similar story (of a presumed heterosexual person realizing they harbor feelings for someone of a similar or same gender identity) without falling into such tried, tired (and untrue) tropes - for example while I am not a huge fan of the 'Only if its You' idea, it can have some truth in it, without falling into the uncomfortable idea of seducing/'sincerely' badgering someone into 'turning.'

“Remember Jade Empire (One of Bioware's best IMO)? In it, the Yuri path had a unique spin to it: As usual, the PC was the initiator, but the love interest was straight (or rather, she never was interested in women before meeting the protag).



It was (to me) wicked hot, as my female character seduced a straight woman (and a normally dominant straight woman at that). It was sad that Bioware never went down this path again. I was hoping for Ashley in Mass Effect 3, but the door was slammed shut on that one :p”

All we can do is TRY to make the best game possible, both in gameplay and in the story

I agree with ChaosMorning, the latent Bi entries made me worry as well. There is a ton of trainwreck potential in that setup.

The political correctness discussion takes the cake though. That buzzword has no place in a serious discussion. Issues like national stereotypes or tokenism are important if you want to do more then a thin vernier of pluralism. Washing them aside with pc is not okay.

Avoiding tokenism and stereotypes usually also lets people focus on the characters as agents in the story

instead of on their ambassador functions if they are the singular character of their group.

Or to say it different, if you only have one character of a group he becomes a stand in for the whole, pars per toto.

Pars pro toto (and totum pro parte) can be imprecise, controversial or even offensive. One example is the UK. Many people of the United Kingdom are unhappy with the generalization as England for the United Kingdom, partly because those not in England want to be referred to individually, and partly because those in England don't want to be thought of as the only people within the United Kingdom.

It'd be quite reassuring if instead of simply proclaiming that all characters are only standing for themselves Fen would think about how to enable people to see them as that.

I'm bisexual (I came out in 1988, when it certainly wasn't trendy to do so), and I most certainly don't need well-meaning straight people getting offended on my behalf. I don't see the 'latent' gay characters as being 'those evil gays are stealin' our wimmin!' but two characters making a connection that one wouldn't have initially expected. Fen said you had to be 'sincere' after all. For various reasons, some people don't acknowledge their own sexuality until they meet the right person - I was pretty lucky in that I always knew I was attracted to other girls as well as guys.

Yes, it _could_ be a train-wreck as Anima puts it, but I have faith that the WW will make it awesome. The games have touched on hot-button issues like slavery (Loren, Heileen) and they have been sensitively done. I really don't want the games made anodyne and lowest-common-denominator just because someone somewhere might be offended.

We fall in love with _people_, not genders!

So I had j20019's post in the back of my mind, and from the original design doc I inherited from Jack's original Roger Steel writer we had Christina and Neville. Now Christina and Neville were always going to be foils to those sassy go-getters Ann & Arthur, because that's the way buddy stories go. At least in my experience. But then, what the heck do I know?



Anyways, when I came to write the script, they emerged as grounded, rather serious, down-to-earth characters who (because opposites attract, right?) had somehow forged firm friendships with the Trevelyans which had survived numerous long-duration and long-distance separations. As reserved, shy people – even, in Neville's case, a kind of high-functioning autistic – they were never going to make the first move romance-wise. Not heterosexual, not homosexual. No way. No how. Not ever in a million years. They value Ann and Arthur's friendship too much to take the risk of spoiling it by coming out with their feelings and risking rejection which would taint what friendship might remain.



And coming from the deeply traditional backgrounds they do, it's quite possible that they never even considered there were any other kinds of sexual relationship beyond that between man and woman. Whatever desires they have towards their same-sex friend have been sublimated into deep and abiding friendship.

Also, wearing my storyteller's hat (which is really quite fetching), I didn't want Christina and Neville to emerge as default romance choices. They are the only party members for the first couple of Episodes, there was a risk that players might feel 'pressured' to deepen the relationships with Neville/Christina to a point where, once the other party members appeared, it might smack of betrayal for them to begin exploring other romance options.

I do not mean to insinuate that you are referring to me by saying a 'well-meaning straight person,' but if you are I just want to clear that up - I am not straight.

Furthermore I did not mean to intend that 'latent' characters themselves carry such an implication - rather I meant that the way the post I was speaking about had some unclear connotations. Aside from that I certainly agree with the rest of your interpretation of the post

...and I was thinking that the slavery theme in Loren could have been problematic and in future was better to avoid such topics...

Jokes apart I think probably Anima misunderstood the point or maybe he would have said it differently after reading your previous post. Anyway, I'll only add that yes, probably some people will be offended by some aspects of the game, exactly like some people were offended by Loren's beginning about the slavery theme... I remember some guys writing comments like "being forced to follow a nazi-bitch like Loren" (seriously! maybe was Greenlight though, so in that case the mental insanity applies ). But you need to read a whole book or watch the whole movie before judging it completely.

We know our audience is composed of many people who feel rejected and judged by society as a whole because of their sexuality, and crave some entertainment which speaks to them with more than platitudes, condescension, or judgement. Jack and I are more than happy to have the game beta-tested by people of diverse backgrounds and sexuality to ensure we don't end up “insulting or inadvertently discriminating against another group”, but that doesn't mean we are going to release a game developed by committee which offends no one and probably would interest no one either.

One example is the UK. Many people of the United Kingdom are unhappy with the generalization as England for the United Kingdom, partly because those not in England want to be referred to individually, and partly because those in England don't want to be thought of as the only people within the United Kingdom.

I'm sure most people here have trust and faith in Jack and his writers to make awesome games. Personally I'm delighted that we're even having a conversation about not just having gay romances, but a CHOICE in who we romance! I mean, Winter Wolves is a mother-lode for this stuff, it really is! We are literally spoiled for choices!



Was a time we were happy to even have one romanceable character - 'you're a lesbian, so you get Liara and Leliana... you're gay, so you don't get ANYBODY!'. Now, we discuss and debate which of the many wonderful choice we want to go for!

It's refreshing to have a direct line to the author, but it's also a little worrisome. I hope the creative process does not get hampered by stuff like political correctness or pandering to peoples' pet peeves. Because all in all, I think the tidbits we're given are looking awesome!

Agree with Franka. I have TONS of respect for Anima but I think letting Political Correctness hamper a writer really hurts the games.



Fen is correct in saying that he wants the characters to represent _themselves_, they are not avatars for their entire race or gender or sexuality.



I think that's one of the good things about Winter Wolves being a small game company - they can experiment more, do stuff that Bioware would be terrified to do.



I'm bisexual (I came out in 1988, when it certainly wasn't trendy to do so), and I most certainly don't need well-meaning straight people getting offended on my behalf. I don't see the 'latent' gay characters as being 'those evil gays are stealin' our wimmin!' but two characters making a connection that one wouldn't have initially expected. Fen said you had to be 'sincere' after all. For various reasons, some people don't acknowledge their own sexuality until they meet the right person - I was pretty lucky in that I always knew I was attracted to other girls as well as guys.



Yes, it _could_ be a train-wreck as Anima puts it, but I have faith that the WW will make it awesome. The games have touched on hot-button issues like slavery (Loren, Heileen) and they have been sensitively done. I really don't want the games made anodyne and lowest-common-denominator just because someone somewhere might be offended.



Taking PC to its logical degree, you'll have people saying 'oh, you can't have gay Kashmiri twins because Kashmir is mostly Muslim and that would never be allowed'. But that would deprive us of some great NPCs, because the gay Kashmiri twins sound _freaking awesome_!



I'm sure all WW fans are on the same side really. I'm just voting for a bold and refreshing treatment of the issues, rather than worrying about who 'might' get offended'.

Hahaha, yeah, we Welsh are used to being forgotten about, most non-British people assume British=English. Although the Scots and Irish do get some honourable mentions.

Personally I didn't mind the 'Liara option,' if only because I don't like Mark Meer's voice acting as Shepard (now Jethann...), but I do really find it annoying that it took to ME3 for M!Shepard to get any guys he can romance.

But yeah, really have to love Winterwolves for being so great in this aspect!