Mass Effect hiatus speculation and reactions (consolidated thread)

Pretty much, except that I don't think aqun-athlok fits a female Warden. The problem is that a female Warden is mixing both male and female roles, whereas an aqua-athlok is male for all functions except breeding. (We don't know how they fit into the qunari breeding program; maybe they don't.)

I'm still not convinced that this is a retcon; that convo was too good at not actually giving us any con to ret. But I'm not really invested in that aspect of the debate. It's unknowable without the devs chiming in, and in any event this version of the Qun is more interesting than the alternative of a garden-variety patriarchy.

Another day and still no non-Kotaku sources on this alleged "hiatus". Seems more and more likely that Kotaku decided to make much ado about nothing over Bioware's usual post-release practice and people jumped on the bandwagon.

This is what fake news does and we fell for it.

Yes I do, hence a retcon.

But gender is not the same as sex. There is a difference outside of masculine/feminine sexual traits. It precludes societal roles and social structures, identity and so forth. Gender as that construct is often lumped into meaning biological sex only, but thats not the case.

For example, I teach for a living as a college professor. Teaching however is considered a woman's job in a lot of countries, with ironically the exception of higher education, which is classically male dominated.

In the real world, the use of gender as a stand-in for sex has been around since the 1980s, but from a scientific and social standpoint, the two are different, because we have cultural bias of a person's role based on their gender. Yes, biological sex is part of that, but again, a person's gender role in a society is often just stereotyped to sex, not actual aptitude and skill in most cases.

The Qun, I would argue, would say otherwise, as they would embrace that aptitude and make sure members of their society fit within the specific gender roles they have created. Hence, it one on skill, not biology. 

I really don't give a fuck how you look at it, i'm again, not trying to change your mind. My point is that the writers included a plausible explanation as to why a character can be considered Aqun-Athlok within the philosophy of the games actual lore.  What you consider to be of little sense actually works within the confines of the philosophy, based on a lot of social theory. What you believe is your business, but it doesn't mean your right either. 

The next Dragon Age game we will probably meet a soldier of the Qun who is Aqun-Athlok, and considers himself to be male because of his role in the Qun, nothing more. 

Well sure it could be a lie outright but I doubt it. The way ME:A was received it would be logical to put it on ice and see what happened with the dev team responsible.

Yes they did, but it's just PR damage control.

The denial is strong.

Its fake news

That's bullshit. What about Dead Space, Mirror's Edge etc. Every company want's money but only if it's profitable and MEA damaged ME franchise.

Annnnnd the part where lying to your investors is very, very bad.

Never played or cared for those games, so I have no idea. What I do know is they are doing more work for MEA as we speak and that's good enough for me.