I cannot defend BioWare regarding SJW stuff anymore. That's it.

Well, "and found no quotes from him that says ""we've considered, but we cut it because it was not important enough and f**k it." or anything similar" sounded more like it was about the development of the game. But since you didn't find anything at all, I guess this is over unless Jade Dreamer comes up with something.

Okay, here is the link:

It wouldn't matter if NPCs recognise the player as agender or not, it doesn't relate to the player's ability to play agendered in this particular instance. Because in this particular instance the protagonist doesn't care about the recognition of NPCs. The game may or may not have been meant to be played this way, but it's possible if you wish. People who say that the female protagonist has to be socially female are incorrect.

The pertinent question is whether Sten sees you portray yourself in the role of a woman while in your party. You say that Sten can't fail to perceive the PC as gendered, but I disagree here. You can get the conversation without Sten seeing the player adopt a female role. You can go through the conversation with Sten without taking a female role. You can do all of this without projecting female.

Not to sound harsh, but if vocal tone isn't conveyed through the writing then ... the writers need to write better? Voiced protagonists are easier, but precision is sorta part of what writing is all about :S

And to clarify even further, not being recognised socially as male does not automatically mean being recognised socially as female. Remember he called you a woman, which defenders of the notion that he was talking about gender would like to have you believe that this was an indication of the protagonist being a social female. To gather evidence for this means more than not being recognised all the time as a social male, and if you deprive Sten of any indication that you identify (gender wise) as a woman when he's around, he has nothing to go by when making that statement. Other than the character's sex, that is.

If he went for a realistic male knight, a nobleman of a good family, a scion of a known one from the period, I would have bought the argument that maybe, yes, he wanted an accurate depiction of historic events. But he easily rejects the historic truth in terms of choosing a peasant boy that rises to be a knight, but he cannot bring himself to make a backstory that will fit both a male and a female, even though the game is FPS, so the additional investment is minimal, for PC voice. I do not know if it is true, but in the thread that is dedicated to the game, the other posters mention that there were plans for a female lead, that they even agree the warrior females historically existed in the period, but that was cut. In favor of the peasant boy whose village was burned, and he became a knight.

So, yes, just another game developer who is very happy to quote the historic truth in order to say that girls don’t wield swords and not move on past it & let everyone, male and female, dream our own dreams. Defending people who try to protect videogames against the female participation because they are going to spoil the boys’ fun is just another thing. I am not angry about this, more sad and disappointed. Maybe I was right to quit gaming, because things did not change all that much since 1999.

So Sten judges the Inquisitor's gender the same way everybody else does, then. I'm not sure what this can prove.

As for what's obvious here, I thought Sten's conversations in Origins were obviously designed to hide stuff. Sort of like ME1's Sovereign convo, which was designed to hide Bio having no idea what the Reapers were up to. So I was pretty sure that the qunari weren't going to be running a garden-variety sex-and-birth caste system.

Nothing wrong with Inquisition's Qunari I'd like to add, I just prefer Origin's take. Like Iakus said, more oppressive and more frightening.

Yes, the only explanations that would fit within canon seem to be fault with Sten's portrayal of the Qun (through either ignorance or otherwise) or as you just pointed out Iron Bull (which I never really considered before this thread). Fault with Sten seems to be the most popular choice (with Iron Bull being considered accurate.)

You know you can headcanon pretty much anything if you try, right xD

Though many have made 'historical accuracy' arguments to explain why The Witcher's depiction of women--as well as its near total exclusion of POC--is necessary, only because its world is inspired by medieval mythology. I'd be surprised if you weren't aware.

To everyone claiming Kingdom Come is not historically accurate due to the protagonist being a peasant boy, tell me something. How did the Nobles become Noble in the first place hm? The first member of a Noble Family to rise to the ranks of Nobility, what do you think they were? I'll tell you what they weren't, Nobles. They were lesser people who did something remarkable, that earned them Nobility as a reward.