Frustrating relative lack of LGBT NPCs in this game

[Vahlnir]

Technically it's more of a cyan. Gauntlet thrown.

I thought it was more of a chartreuse. Come at me.

[Driavna]

I thought it was more of a chartreuse. Come at me.

Wait... is not red?

[Melichoir]

Ah, yes, the FAMOUSLY apolitical SquareEnix, who donated to Black Lives Matter months ago, who made SEVERAL games about taking down an authoritarian empire, whose game that YOU'RE playing is FILLED with politics: including the dangers of authoritarianism, the plight of political refugees, class disparity, race discrimination, ACTUALLY has LGB characters and options for player characters...

Gosh, politics have NO room in a SquareEnix game, not when 7 had a clear anti-pollution, anti-monopoly message, or every Yasumi Matsuno game ever (Yoshi-P's a big fan of Matsuno btw); Matsuno, who literally based his games on the Yugoslav War (Ogre Battle/Tactics Ogre). No, damn, Politics have NO room in video games.

(Note: I know this is a troll thread but this is just willful ignorance. People don't actually CARE when games get political, they just get mad when it's not THEIR views)

There is a fundamental difference between broad socio political points that are innate to the human experience over generations (I.E evil authoritarians and conflict between two kingdoms/countries over broad differences in belief) and purposefully shoe horning in contemporary political issues that wont age well.

To illustrate this, it would be really out of place if all of a sudden there was an event in game specifically about police brutality (guard brutality?) against darker skinned Hyurs and that the NPCs start talking about Guard Reform and racial justice for Darker skinned Hyurs.

It would be out of place and context for the universe and it's already established lore. It would be tacky and distasteful. If you want to incorporate contemporary politics into a piece of media, you dont brute force it. You carefully weave it via allegory so that it fits within an exisiting narrative without being so brazenly in your face. Furthermore, most times when politics are incorporated into moral tales, they tend to be broad ones that are universal. I.E - Being an authoritarian jerkwad who oppresses people cause theyre different is kind of universal nono. Again, to illustrate an example of what wouldnt work is if you all of a sudden had a 1:1 analog for, I dunno, US Conservatives where theyre portrayed evilly and outlandishly and the good and pure US Progressive fights to stop their evil. That kind of shoe horning becomes propaganda, because it is designed to sell one viewpoint without nuance or tact. This doesnt mean that the other viewpoint is correct, but that to blatently take a black and white view point that specifically props up one contemporary political side or agenda isnt typically welcome.

Thats what people mean by keep your politics out of games. They dont want to have debates over nuanced specific contemporary politics in a piece of fantasy escapism because we get enough of that in real life as it were, not everything needs to be about contemporary politics, and I would say 90% of hte time when it's done in media its a ham fisted one sided propagandist mess that fails to actually fairly or truthfully address issues. This is double so when the media just slaps you in teh face with it bluntly and disparages you overtly for having a viewpoint that may not be universal or has nuance.

[Nekaru_Infitima]

Can we just not bring the SJW stuff onto the game? Leave it on Twitter and Tumblr where it belongs. And by that I don't mean the LGBTalphabetsoup stuff. If they put it in the game fine. But the complaining about representation and if it's there or not, and all of that. Just leave it to the cesspools of the internet. People use games to escape reality. Don't drag reality in.

[Vahlnir]

Can we just not bring the SJW stuff onto the game? Leave it on Twitter and Tumblr where it belongs. And by that I don't mean the LGBTalphabetsoup stuff. If they put it in the game fine. But the complaining about representation and if it's there or not, and all of that. Just leave it to the cesspools of the internet. People use games to escape reality. Don't drag reality in.

Honestly, there's no escaping it. It's everywhere. However, I do think that we are finally at a tipping point where people have had their fill and then some and just want it to go away.

[WhiteArchmage]

Thats what people mean by keep your politics out of games. They dont want to have debates over nuanced specific contemporary politics in a piece of fantasy escapism because we get enough of that in real life as it were, not everything needs to be about contemporary politics, and I would say 90% of hte time when it's done in media its a ham fisted one sided propagandist mess that fails to actually fairly or truthfully address issues. This is double so when the media just slaps you in teh face with it bluntly and disparages you overtly for having a viewpoint that may not be universal or has nuance.

I agree with your earlier points (although I still hold that a great deal of literature that has survided to our days is itself political: Richard III, Don Juan, the Divine Comedy, the Aeneid... the only thing is we now lack the political CONTEXT of them), however I will draw from my experience (which, I know, anecdotal evidence) that when people say "keep your politics out of my game" it tends to be towards inclusionary measures such as "We have added a completely optional female main character", "We added a trans character, who only outright says they're trans via a specific dialogue tree", "there are now same-sex couples in the game" and are met with the reactionary "keep your politics out of my games".

I won't contest that there ARE ham-fisted ways to do so (the ending of BlackKklansman, or the entirety of Birth of a Nation, and Citizen Kane wasn't shy about the titular character being a stand-in for Senator McCarthy), but (and I'm not saying that YOU'VE said this, but others, including the poster I was originally responding to, certainly have), but when "keeping politics out of games" is used as a stand-in for "keep people that I don't want to see in my games out of them" THEN I have a problem.

[Melichoir]

I agree with your earlier points (although I still hold that a great deal of literature that has survided to our days is itself political: Richard III, Don Juan, the Divine Comedy, the Aeneid... the only thing is we now lack the political CONTEXT of them), however I will draw from my experience (which, I know, anecdotal evidence) that when people say "keep your politics out of my game" it tends to be towards inclusionary measures such as "We have added a completely optional female main character", "We added a trans character, who only outright says they're trans via a specific dialogue tree", "there are now same-sex couples in the game" and are met with the reactionary "keep your politics out of my games".

I won't contest that there ARE ham-fisted ways to do so (the ending of BlackKklansman, or the entirety of Birth of a Nation, and Citizen Kane wasn't shy about the titular character being a stand-in for Senator McCarthy), but (and I'm not saying that YOU'VE said this, but others, including the poster I was originally responding to, certainly have), but when "keeping politics out of games" is used as a stand-in for "keep people that I don't want to see in my games out of them" THEN I have a problem.

I fully agree that there are those who have been, for lack of a better word, trained to view certain included topics to be seen as an overtly political (adding a trans character to a game, as an example) by default and that this isnt a fair position to take. However its also just as important to note that there are plenty of creatives who actually do 'hi-jack' an IP or concept to insert their own political beliefs - context to existing narrative be damned. So when you encounter the former, its cause the latter exists as well. I keep an ey eon the media industry and there are plenty of cases where creatives will do something purely for politics or their own 'agenda', even if it is narrative, world, or character breaking to do it. And frankly, if Im going to be blunt, this pisses me off because it is making story and proper development take a backseat so creatives can either virtue signal about some cause they hopped on board with cause its a trend, or to push a political point at the expense of a story, thus creating propaganda in the process.
I think the tactful approach is as I suggested - if you want to incorporate it, do it carefully and through allegory that fits the pre-existing narratives. If you cant make it work, dont include it. Doing hard 180s on characters or making big changes cause "current political topic that the creative is invested in on an emotional personal level" where in its a one sided ham fisted propaganda point isnt acceptable in media and should be rebuked when we encounter it. The key difference, of course, is as long as this is done with some forethought. Meaning, dont knee jerk rebuke the inclusion of a trans character in media as a political agenda. It is possible for creatives to write a story about a character who happens to be trans. If it turns out the creative takes a pre-existing character, warps and breaks them just to make said character trans when it has no contextual meaning to the story at large or the character, and said creative is a big activist on said topic and has openly stated that their intent was solely to create more 'inclusivity' in a pre-existing narrative by making this 'adjustment' (read forced change), then yeah we can push back and say this wasnt appropriate.

[Tsiron]

This went down about as well as I expected...

I was about to say the game doesn't really specify one way or another, but there's a few instances. Thancred is shown to be interested in women (early on, at least) tho could just be for info-gathering, Alphinaud too apparently? Urianger seemed pretty into Moenbryda, female characters are not allowed relationships lest the nerds riot actually Krile and Mikoto (who?) express interest in male characters so there's that...

On the flip side besides the WoLsexual characters (Haurchefant, Alisaie, Aymeric??) I can only think of the Wanderer's Palace (Hard) duo, a Hyur and a Miqo'te both male... which, yeah there's barely anything...

Hopefully Ryne and Gaia, as reasonably major characters, can change that but that's probably not happening

[BokoToloko]

Don't answer to this thread. It will only make the necro pay off for our usual forum troll.

[Tsiron]

Don't answer to this thread. It will only make the necro pay off for our usual forum troll.

Well... that's true, but they're not the one who made the thread, and I think this's something worth discussing.