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Post by river82 on Jan 28, 2018 22:00:15 GMT
Iron Bull's words for Aqun-Athlock were "born one gender but living like another". Those were his exact words, and yet Sten finds Ferelden very strange because nobody is content with who they are, how they were born.
Inconsistencies everywhere. It's an obvious retcon.
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Post by alanc9 on Jan 28, 2018 22:05:59 GMT
It's hard to make the retcon charge actually stick. What Sten says in Origins doesn't actually contradict what we learn in DAI, largely because the Warden isn't permitted to ask some questions. This is consistent with both the writers setting us up to misinterpret the Qun -- a strategy pursued at several other places in the series -- or with the writers taking advantage of the ambiguous dialogue to do a retcon. I haven't seen any data that can resolve this. Sten was fairly clear, wasn't much vagueness about what he said. I'm sure you can bend backwards to explain it all away, but it just doesn't seem particularly likely.
Sten was perfectly clear, yes. But since Krem is a man, there's no contradiction.
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Post by alanc9 on Jan 28, 2018 22:09:52 GMT
Sten talks about people being born into roles and choice not being a factor. If this was the writers trying to be ambiguous they did a pretty poor job The aqun-athlok for example is described as "born as one gender, lives like another", whereas Sten makes a speech about being born as we are "we do not choose. We simply are." When asked "don't the Qunari ever want to change their lot in life" he answers if people were meant to be another way, they would have been born that way "Meant by whom? And if that were, indeed, his purpose, why did that mysterious source of meaning not make him so to begin with." This is only an issue if being aqun-athlok is a matter of choice rather than assignment. Is there any evidence that this is the case? Does Krem think that he chose to be male? My impression is that being male is simply true, and the external genitalia are an... inconvenience?
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Post by melbella on Jan 28, 2018 22:11:57 GMT
I think you have it backwards....Krem is physically female but lives as a male. Thus, is a he, not a she.
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Post by alanc9 on Jan 28, 2018 22:13:33 GMT
I think you have it backwards....Krem is physically female but lives as a male. Thus, is a he, not a she. Thanks, editing. When I rewrote those posts I conformed them the wrong way. (Bad copyediting habit -- assume the first thing you see is true and make everything match that.)
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Post by river82 on Jan 28, 2018 22:14:20 GMT
This is only an issue if being aqun-athlok is a matter of choice rather than assignment. Is there any evidence that this is the case? Does Krem think that she chose to be female? My impression is that her experience is that being female is simply true about her, and the external genitalia are an... inconvenience? If her being female wasn't a matter of choice to the Qunari, then her gender would be considered female from birth. The Qun, according to Iron Bull's words (not what our society considers) believes the matter of gender assigned at birth "born one gender". In our society this isn't the case, because some consider gender and sex to be two different things. If the Qun believe you were born one way and you live in another completely different to how you were born, yes that is choice.
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Post by alanc9 on Jan 28, 2018 22:20:51 GMT
This is only an issue if being aqun-athlok is a matter of choice rather than assignment. Is there any evidence that this is the case? Does Krem think that she chose to be female? My impression is that her experience is that being female is simply true about her, and the external genitalia are an... inconvenience? If her being female wasn't a matter of choice to the Qunari, then her gender would be considered female from birth. The Qun, according to Iron Bull's words (not what our society considers) believes the matter of gender assigned at birth "born one gender". In our society this isn't the case, because some consider gender and sex to be two different things. If the Qun believe you were born one way and you live in another completely different to how you were born, yes that is choice. Not if the tamassrans tell you you're male and the external genitalia not matching doesn't matter. The Qun resolves the brain-body mismatch issue the same way we do; brain trumps body. (They'd do the assignment at birth if they could diagnose it, but there's no way to detect it.) Why should gender be any different from anything else under the Qun? If we assume it is, we have a problem, but why make that assumption?
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Post by melbella on Jan 28, 2018 22:21:31 GMT
I think you have it backwards....Krem is physically female but lives as a male. Thus, is a he, not a she. Thanks, editing. When I rewrote those posts I conformed them the wrong way. (Bad copyediting habit -- assume the first thing you see is true and make everything match that.)
I'm glad it was just a typo/error. There are/have been people on this board (and original BSN) who refuse to use the proper pronoun and it just comes across as petulant and rude, at best.
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Post by river82 on Jan 28, 2018 22:23:33 GMT
This is only an issue if being aqun-athlok is a matter of choice rather than assignment. Is there any evidence that this is the case? Does Krem think that he chose to be male? My impression is that being male is simply true, and the external genitalia are an... inconvenience? Er ... let's try that again xD The Qun believe Krem is born female, yet lives like a man according to Iron Bull's words. In our society we would say his sex was female, but his gender from birth was not but in the Qun his gender is female yet he lives like a man. This is definitely an example of choice.
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Post by river82 on Jan 28, 2018 22:29:26 GMT
Not if the tamassrans tell you you're male and the external genitalia not matching doesn't matter. The Qun resolves the brain-body mismatch issue the same way we do; brain trumps body. (They'd do the assignment at birth if they could diagnose it, but there's no way to detect it.) Why should gender be any different from anything else under the Qun? If we assume it is, we have a problem, but why make that assumption? The assumption isn't an assumption at all, it comes from Iron Bull's exact words. Iron Bull explicitly states that Krem was "born one gender yet lives like another", that Krem's gender at birth is female. The tamassrans interjection doesn't fit in with Sten's analysis that people are born who they are. That they can't diagnose these things at birth and they need to wait till later is yet another example that Sten's world has been changed from Origins. A person's brain doesn't develop until later, and Sten's insistence that people are born who they are should tell you all you need to know about Sten's attitude toward brain trumps body.
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Post by melbella on Jan 28, 2018 22:29:37 GMT
Lying is also a choice, one that IB was apparently good at as a child. Instead of making him stop, the tamassrans assigned him to a job where such skills could be useful.
Krem is a fighter and obviously an adult when Bull rescues him and takes him in. Assuming the tamassrans even had a say (ie that IB took him back to Qun-land) Why would they not want to use him as such? To try to change him at that point would be a waste if he can be used as is.
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Post by river82 on Jan 28, 2018 22:39:06 GMT
Lying is also a choice, one that IB was apparently good at as a child. Instead of making him stop, the tamassrans assigned him to a job where such skills could be useful. Krem is a fighter and obviously an adult when Bull rescues him and takes him in. Assuming the tamassrans even had a say (ie that IB took him back to Qun-land) Why would they not want to use him as such? To try to change him at that point would be a waste if he can be used as is. I liked it better when the Qunari were emotionless, unbending savages
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Post by alanc9 on Jan 28, 2018 22:41:03 GMT
This is only an issue if being aqun-athlok is a matter of choice rather than assignment. Is there any evidence that this is the case? Does Krem think that he chose to be male? My impression is that being male is simply true, and the external genitalia are an... inconvenience? Er ... let's try that again xD The Qun believe Krem is born female, yet lives like a man according to Iron Bull's words. In our society we would say his sex was female, but his gender from birth was not but in the Qun his gender is female yet he lives like a man. This is definitely an example of choice. I'm not sure how you're using "choice" there. Are the tamassrans making a choice? If the Qun demands that Krem is male, that's not a choice.
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Post by melbella on Jan 28, 2018 22:45:22 GMT
Lying is also a choice, one that IB was apparently good at as a child. Instead of making him stop, the tamassrans assigned him to a job where such skills could be useful. Krem is a fighter and obviously an adult when Bull rescues him and takes him in. Assuming the tamassrans even had a say (ie that IB took him back to Qun-land) Why would they not want to use him as such? To try to change him at that point would be a waste if he can be used as is. I liked it better when the Qunari were emotionless, unbending savages
We already have the darkspawn for that.
I certainly wouldn't call Sten emotionless. He feels regret, loss, and can feel friendship/respect toward the Warden, to the point of naming him/her kadan. The Arishok also isn't emotionless; far from it actually. Otherwise he wouldn't blow his stack on Kirkwall.
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Post by river82 on Jan 28, 2018 22:46:37 GMT
Er ... let's try that again xD The Qun believe Krem is born female, yet lives like a man according to Iron Bull's words. In our society we would say his sex was female, but his gender from birth was not but in the Qun his gender is female yet he lives like a man. This is definitely an example of choice. I'm not sure how you're using "choice" there. Are the tamassrans making a choice? If the Qun demands that Krem is male, that's not a choice. And how is the decision made? Would not someone like Krem petition to the tamassrans to make that decision? Isn't the petitioning a choice about how that person intends to live their life? But anyway we are arguing whether Inquisitions is inconsistent with Origins. Origins state that the Qunari are born who they are and you can't change that. Iron Bull states that gender is assigned at birth. That the gender can be changed later by the tamassrans doesn't change that this is inconsistent with Origins.
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Post by river82 on Jan 28, 2018 22:53:06 GMT
Assigning a role for people who are transgender goes against a culture that determines your role at birth (which is what Sten was talking about in Origins). For the simple reason that gender doesn't appear until well after birth. That Inquisition attempted to place this into Qunari culture is incompatible with Sten's beliefs. Inquisition may have stated that your role was assigned later, that was not the case in Origins. This is what people mean by retcon and inconsistencies
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Post by river82 on Jan 28, 2018 23:00:16 GMT
It would have been a different story if Iron Bull had said a person's gender was indeterminate at birth. However, that Iron Bull explicitly states that gender is assigned at birth screws the pooch. The Qunari assign you a gender at birth. Keep in mind Sten's speech where he said "we are born Qunari, dwarf, intelligent" etc. Sten believes, and represents a culture, where these values are assigned to you at birth. Not at 12, not at 20. You were born the way you are, you are not re-evaluated later "just in case".
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Post by melbella on Jan 28, 2018 23:01:52 GMT
Or, he could have simply been trying to simplify things for the Warden so he didn't have to get into all the gritty details about how Qun society operates. It's not like he was all that forthcoming with information.
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Post by river82 on Jan 28, 2018 23:04:31 GMT
Or, he could have simply been trying to simplify things for the Warden so he didn't have to get into all the gritty details about how Qun society operates. It's not like he was all that forthcoming with information. Yes, any resolution of this issue always comes back to either a) Sten didn't know all the details of what he was talking about, or Sten wasn't as forthcoming with all the details. Seems messy to me though.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 28, 2018 23:13:40 GMT
From Sten’s dialogues I always assumed that Qun raised children separately from families and determined their vocation over the course of their education, not at birth. Knowing what a child is going to be at birth sounds really far fetched. I never thought it was strange for Qun to put Krem to work on what he is good at. To me Qun was always about placing people in the position that fits them. The only problem I have with it, is that most people do not really have strongly defined talents.
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Post by melbella on Jan 28, 2018 23:28:11 GMT
Or, he could have simply been trying to simplify things for the Warden so he didn't have to get into all the gritty details about how Qun society operates. It's not like he was all that forthcoming with information. Yes, any resolution of this issue always comes back to either a) Sten didn't know all the details of what he was talking about, or Sten wasn't as forthcoming with all the details. Seems messy to me though.
You can't seriously be arguing that Sten was forthcoming with details. can you? Because he clearly says several times that he won't explain any further.
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Post by DoctorFox on Jan 29, 2018 0:43:24 GMT
FFS... Anita is toxic as fuck. I don't want her anywhere near Bioware or their characters/storylines. All i ever see her doing is lying and insulting people, that is not something you want in a studio.
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Post by slimgrin727 on Jan 29, 2018 1:07:46 GMT
Kinda humiliating. Anyone with a brain, especially a game dev, would know she used the industry to launch a fake grievance project to make a quick buck. She neither knows much nor cares about gaming. That some higher ups at EA missed this well, It does explain things.
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Post by Iakus on Jan 29, 2018 1:37:40 GMT
It would have been a different story if Iron Bull had said a person's gender was indeterminate at birth. However, that Iron Bull explicitly states that gender is assigned at birth screws the pooch. The Qunari assign you a gender at birth. Keep in mind Sten's speech where he said "we are born Qunari, dwarf, intelligent" etc. Sten believes, and represents a culture, where these values are assigned to you at birth. Not at 12, not at 20. You were born the way you are, you are not re-evaluated later "just in case". Yup. That was part of the alien horror of the Qun. That every aspect of your identity is something assigned to you by someone else. You have no say in the matter. It was terrible, yet fascinating. DAI really did to much to try to humanize the Qun. Make them just big horned (or not) humans.
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Post by river82 on Jan 29, 2018 1:42:46 GMT
From Sten’s dialogues I always assumed that Qun raised children separately from families and determined their vocation over the course of their education, not at birth. Knowing what a child is going to be at birth sounds really far fetched. I never thought it was strange for Qun to put Krem to work on what he is good at. To me Qun was always about placing people in the position that fits them. The only problem I have with it, is that most people do not really have strongly defined talents. What I want to know is how Tamassran assign roles to children at age 12, because that's pretty much almost as far-fetched as assigning them at birth.
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