Now that FF16 will feature LGBT+ characters, can we get some rep in FF14 too?

[Zanarkand-Ronso]

When the Potato Peels Back.

[Sotaris]

Sure, sure, just cancel whoever disagrees with your opinion. So much for "tolerance".

I mean, it sounds like the left in general.

[NiceNox]

3 minutes into the western side of the forum and my head is already about to commit 9th Umbral Calamity. As someone from Southeast Asia, I don't see much of the appeal of the force representation, as some of you call it "Token". In my opinion, it doesn't matter what sexuality the character is, the good character doesn't need to show its sex/gender, but its contributions and stands in the story and world-setting in general; having the character's "gender" or color as the main and sole quality implies that, besides its gender/color, it's nothing else. Having LGBTQ+ characters is not the problem, the problem is how that character's written and cooperated into the story, world, and setting. I don't want the character to be just a "black dude" or a "gay character", I want a character that plays it part in the story and the world, regardless of what it is.

[Velvet_Lunarfang]

I will be like the people of Uganda and not acknowledge it

[Hurlstone]

I will be like the people of Uganda and not acknowledge it

If only they where just 'not acknowledging it' and not introduce offences including death and life imprisonment...

[Melorie]

3 minutes into the western side of the forum and my head is already about to commit 9th Umbral Calamity. As someone from Southeast Asia, I don't see much of the appeal of the force representation, as some of you call it "Token". In my opinion, it doesn't matter what sexuality the character is, the good character doesn't need to show its sex/gender, but its contributions and stands in the story and world-setting in general; having the character's "gender" or color as the main and sole quality implies that, besides its gender/color, it's nothing else. Having LGBTQ+ characters is not the problem, the problem is how that character's written and cooperated into the story, world, and setting. I don't want the character to be just a "black dude" or a "gay character", I want a character that plays it part in the story and the world, regardless of what it is.

What I don't understand is that when it's a hetero white character, they are already existing. But when it's not, then you need to put them in the story with an extremely tactical way otherwise it is a "token", you are "forcing". The game is full of little romantic stories and romance is a very powerful storytelling tool. You have entire fandoms around different ships. Making a crush or something to not be hetero has nothing to do with tokenize. Or putting a character that's not a white-haired with white skin person is not "forcing" PoC in the story. Besides, we have so many characters that are quite far from overly complex people that are sooo part of the world in the story, and yet just because they aren't gay I don't see anyone crying about it.

I am from latin america and the culture of the land that I live is incredibly diverse. There are so many types of people from all sorts of queernesss. Yes, we do suffer with fundamentalist religion ideas, but that does not change the reality of the people that live here. The mythology is full of these people. Even the culture we usually consume the most in western culture like greek myths is hella gay. But if you put that in the story then you're forcing something? Actually diversifying and bringing characters of different backgrounds, cultures, skin colour, sexuality and putting it in the world building would make the history BETTER and not worse.

Besides, this whole "aww this is western culture!" is so stupid. You know what is western culture is as well? It is great at creating stereotypes of other cultures and reducing their complexities. That's what you are doing when you act like people being able to be in stories with different aspects of humanity represented is something exclusive to western culture. Conservative americans and europeans love to use other cultures as a token in other to justify their own prejudices. Don't get me wrong, I have tons of criticism to the whole marvelesque hollow way of including certain aspects of people in media, but still, buying this "old men yelling at clouds" from conservative people isn't going to help anyone.

Funny to see all this talk of "tolerance" from the same people that claims they love storytelling, but can't deal with a bunch of gays, or with a romance, or whatever. Tell me about lack of tolerance.

[NiceNox]

Besides, this whole "aww this is western culture!" is so stupid. You know what is western culture is as well? It is great at creating stereotypes of other cultures and reducing their complexities. That's what you are doing when you act like people being able to be in stories with different aspects of humanity represented is something exclusive to western culture. Conservative americans and europeans love to use other cultures as a token in other to justify their own prejudices. Don't get me wrong, I have tons of criticism to the whole marvelesque hollow way of including certain aspects of people in media, but still, buying this "old men yelling at clouds" from conservative people isn't going to help anyone.

Funny to see all this talk of "tolerance" from the same people that claims they love storytelling, but can't deal with a bunch of gays, or with a romance, or whatever. Tell me about lack of tolerance.

Let me put it this way, if the story is set in the land where the prejudice and racism run rampant, very xenophobic, isolated, and homophobic, as well as that has very pale native inhabitants. Suddenly, despite the setting/lore, there's a dark-back character who is openly gay and tell everyone he meets that he is gay, yet, despite the setting of the location and lore, he serves no other purposes beside telling other people and players that he is dark and gay native, that, in my opinion, is what the token character is; the character than has no "character" and reason to be there beside to "be there" and make it more "inclusive" than it should be. Representation is good when it's not forceful and is flowing in the way the story progress, not just "just put one black man here and call it off" without serving any purpose. What I see in many western spheres is the notion of "just put gay or black characters here! What's so hard about that!" in which doesn't only disrupt the flow and logic of the world/setting, but instead of promoting diversity, they, on the contrary, also create the sense of animosity toward those people you want to represent as well, because, in the end, many people just want to play a good game, regardless of having representations or not.

[CaptainLagbeard]

What I don't understand is that when it's a hetero white character, they are already existing. But when it's not, then you need to put them in the story with an extremely tactical way otherwise it is a "token", you are "forcing". The game is full of little romantic stories and romance is a very powerful storytelling tool. You have entire fandoms around different ships. Making a crush or something to not be hetero has nothing to do with tokenize. Or putting a character that's not a white-haired with white skin person is not "forcing" PoC in the story. Besides, we have so many characters that are quite far from overly complex people that are sooo part of the world in the story, and yet just because they aren't gay I don't see anyone crying about it.

For black characters, those complaints are pretty much always when it's something with a historical context. Writers adding black characters to places where there really weren't any.
Lets reverse the situation... Imagine if you had something taking place in a fictional setting based off Africa, or even actual real world Africa, from several hundreds of years ago... And in that setting, you just had a random white guy in some tribe there who's presence is never acknowledged as special or anything, because "white people have always been in there".

Or they just take an already existing story, decide to do it all over again, except this time a character in it is black. Because shut up you racist.


As for the gay characters, writers have a very strong tendency to make that their entire character. Just "being gay" does not make for a very interesting character, specially when you know they were added in just to fill in a quota.

[Melorie]

Let me put it this way, if the story is set in the land where the prejudice and racism run rampant, very xenophobic, isolated, and homophobic, as well as that has very pale native inhabitants. Suddenly, despite the setting/lore, there's a dark-back character who is openly gay and tell everyone he meets that he is gay, yet, despite the setting of the location and lore, he serves no other purposes beside telling other people and players that he is dark and gay native, that, in my opinion, is what the token character is; the character than has no "character" and reason to be there beside to "be there" and make it more "inclusive" than it should be. Representation is good when it's not forceful and is flowing in the way the story progress, not just "just put one black man here and call it off" without serving any purpose. What I see in many western spheres is the notion of "just put gay or black characters here! What's so hard about that!" in which doesn't only disrupt the flow and logic of the world/setting, but instead of promoting diversity, they, on the contrary, also create the sense of animosity toward those people you want to represent as well, because, in the end, many people just want to play a good game, regardless of having representations or not.

Do you have an actual example where that happens? Because I can't honestly recall any. Most of the examples that people give are probably very out-of-reach, I have seen bad cases of representation and even then rarely match these fantastical examples. I would say that most of these examples are also bad because it is written by people with zero experience with these specific experiences. And even if this happens... It is just a bad story, it shouldn't be a big deal. Putting the blame on people that are gay or black or whatever and putting the blame on representation is a weak argument.

Why should black people or gay people serve a purpose? Why the rest of the people are ok to be there without a purpose? Your own argument to justify your vision is part of the thing you criticize.
So many people get all teary-eyed when there is a story about prejudice against, I don't know, dragons or beast tribes or whatever, and then if you put a gay person that deals with it (like Dragon Age Inquisition with Dorian, a superb enjoyable companion that trust us with his story), then suddenly you can't enjoy your game anymore? That is ridiculous. I thought that people that enjoy stories are able to embrace all the journeys that people and places go, that's what histories are about.

For black characters, those complaints are pretty much always when it's something with a historical context. Writers adding black characters to places where there really weren't any.
Lets reverse the situation... Imagine if you had something taking place in a fictional setting based off Africa, or even actual real world Africa, from several hundreds of years ago... And in that setting, you just had a random white guy in some tribe there who's presence is never acknowledged as special or anything, because "white people have always been in there".

But at the same time, that complain comes from people that know next to nothing about history. They don't realize how diverse most commerce hubs were. There is examples of that even here, on this thread, of a guy crying how Raubahn is a black guy in a "spaniard place". It is a troll, but that is a normal argument I have to see from people that barely ever read a history book on the period that they defend it was a certain way. Most of the time it comes from people that believe in a pure white Europe, for example, which is very far from the truth. Or even an all-black Africa. Like, these places are actually huge continents that had trading hubs and a deep story with Middle-east/Africa/Asia in some parts. It is a poor vision of how the story was, and the worst of all is when you go to a fantasy setting and demands some type of historical accuracy. The idea of what most people have of "medieval" for example, is poor as fuck. It is based on a bunch of fantasies they read and have little to do with the lives of medieval people.

There are TONS of non-interesting character in all media. Literally a guy being gay and not interesting should not be a big deal. Fact is, if there is a "quota" there is a demand for that. It makes MONEY. People want to see these kind of histories. A lot of company milks on that and make mediocre media, but that is the same for every other subject. What is the point of acting like this is such a big deal? There is bad storytelling everywhere, acting like putting someone gay or black is the source of that is ridiculous and serves nothing.

I am tired fantastical histories of brave western soldiers that go kill people in other parts of the world. But, I guess, there is a demand for that. You know what I do? I go and consume good media. I don't go crying in forums how I CAN'T see that in my game because I can't deal with it, how this should not exist, blablabla. You are surprised that there are weak histories out there being popular? Oh, colour me surprised. This has nothing to do with representation ruining things, there are simply a demand for meh stories out there.

[CaptainLagbeard]

I am tired fantastical histories of brave western soldiers that go kill people in other parts of the world. But, I guess, there is a demand for that. You know what I do? I go and consume good media. I don't go crying in forums how I CAN'T see that in my game because I can't deal with it

Except, you are here, crying about it. Coping with the fact that there was in fact not billions of black people in medieval Europe.