Liam Kosta (Official Thread)

Nov 14, 2016 19:49:45 GMT shechinah said:

Nov 14, 2016 19:45:04 GMT @domi said:

And the other romantic option for the female PC is...?

I am almost certain it is PB though some believe she will merely be one of the casual options because of what we know about her characterization.  

Oh, well. We really did have it good in the original Trilogy. Thane and Garrus, two alien options for a straight female. We are back to the nice human boy next door and the gender-neutrals.

EDIT: Fingers crossed for Khet leader...

Nov 14, 2016 19:55:58 GMT @domi said:

Nov 14, 2016 19:49:45 GMT shechinah said:

I am almost certain it is PB though some believe she will merely be one of the casual options because of what we know about her characterization.  

Oh, well. We really did have it good in the original Trilogy. Thane and Garrus, two alien options for a straight female. We are back to the nice human boy next door and the gender-neutrals.

Bit of a bad timing. I actually went back to alter and expand upon my post to more or less address this worry after I thought of it. Basically, I wouldn't worry until we know more.

Also, just a small correction: the asari are not gender neutral, they're mono-gender meaning they're biologically one gender. In this case, female.  

Nov 14, 2016 22:14:48 GMT Artemis said:

Nov 14, 2016 19:59:37 GMT shechinah said:

Also, just a small correction: the asari are not gender neutral, they're mono-gender meaning they're biologically one gender. In this case, female.  

Hmm I disagree with this. Liara says that the concept of man and woman have no real meaning to them. How could they? We use terms like "male" and "female" to signify difference between types among our species (and even every other species on earth; when a species doesn't have that divide, it tends to baffle us a bit). 

Initially asari were clearly designed to be sexy bisexual babes, but I think the writers really did work hard to do away with that and try to mold them into something far more complex. Liara's father makes that comment about being in one's maiden years and either shaking your ass at a club or joining a merc group. Now, obviously, a human woman/female can do either of those things; they are not gender specific. But I think the intention there was to show that asari do not think in terms of male/female or man/woman. They are asari. What gender are they? What sex are they? They are asari.

Long ago, I made a post that I think better summed up my view on this but it's gone so I'll try to explain anew: I feel it is undue credit, for the lack of a better word, to say that the asari were designed as a gender neutral race. I don't feel there is anything in the asari's design that suggest an effort went into portraying them even subtley as a gender neutral race: they have prominent breasts, they have female voices and so far, asari have only been referred to by female pronouns.

They also use the feminine version of words such as matriarch, maiden, huntress, lady, and so on. The only example that I can really think of where they don't is when it comes to reproduction to differentiate between which of the partners produced and carried the baby.

Yes, the asari reproduction might be used as an indication of this but there exist an all-female species of lizards in real life that can reproduce asexually through parthenogenesis.

Yes, there is the universal translator that might be automatically converting gender neutral terms in the asari language into feminine terms in the human language but I might have been more ready to accept that explaination if it hadn't been for all the other design choices.

Don't take this to mean that I dislike the asari design: I like the asari design. I just don't think that the asari should be considered a gender neutral race or to be given credited as having been designed to be that.

I'm not sure your club example works as an argument in your favor since we only ever saw asari and female humans in that occupation: no males but I also don't consider occupations to work as examples because, well, they are occupations. They're not an indication of gender. Some cultures might consider some occupations to be masculine or feminine but they are not. We see male and female mercenaries in the Mass Effect universe.