Trans characters in Mass Effect Andromeda

Well, of course there were good portrayals and bad portrayals... now and in the past. I did say they've 'started to get it right' not that they always do. And mediocre writing is just that. If a character is bland, whether they're black/white/gay/straight doesn't matter. You can praise the fact that a cast is diverse, but say the characters are poorly written, just as you can praise a fantastic story with great characters and question the choice to make them all straight white men.

It's when there's additional outrage over a character's trans-ness, often by the same posters who also talk about how they want a gay toggle/more hot chicks/realism(TM) that I'm tempted to slap the 'ist' label on them. Or when the same posters who display ignorance or outright hostility toward an issue complain that said issue is 'forced down their throats.'

So you thought Krem wasn't that great a character? Fine. Cool. Say that. Personally, I didn't understand the huge love for Scout Harding. I liked her well enough, but IIRC she was just some farm girl who volunteered for the Inquisition because she wanted to see the world, yadda yadda, heard that same thing from like five other characters already. But I like the fact that she's an ordinary person. I like Krem because he's just a normal guy. I liked his stories about the Chargers. As I made my way around Stronghold I'd click on him to see if he had stuff to say. And then it turns out he's trans, and though I'd already figured as much, the opportunity to talk about it was nice. Though maybe the writers/directors could have portrayed that conversation a bit better. Anyway, I don't hear people damning Inquisition for their 'inclusion' of ordinary girl Harding. In fact, quite the opposite. People where mad that they couldn't have a real romance with her. Was she really written that much better than Krem was?

Personally, I still think the 'overall entertainment' factor in Bioware games is still there. I have my complaints about Inquisition involving the main plot and the gameplay mechanics but I thought the companion and side characters were some of the strongest in the Dragon Age Series. Their gender/race/sexuality issues didn't take anything away from that for me. Making Dorian not straight wouldn't have made me like him any more, making Vivienne not black wouldn't have made me love to hate her any less. Making Krem not trans wouldn't have made him less boring if you think he's boring, so why does that the fact that he's trans, specifically, bug you so much?

And as far as Qunari lore goes, I look at it like this. In Inquisition we got a ton of new lore, and some of it even contradicted what we thought we knew before. New info on the Qunari, more stuff on Tevinter, a ton of stuff about the elves and their gods, and spirits and the Fade. I don't hear the same outrage over the fact that we learned the Dread Wolf was not so dreadful after all as I do over the fact that we learned there's a place for trans people in the Qun. Because the oh-so-forthright and talkative Sten failed to mention it.

Youre right, talking about fictional hair and weapons generally makes for better conversation

To me, criticizing Krems scene makes sense... saw it last week and I was like "Huh, since when did the Qunari get so inclusive???" personally I think Iron Bull should have said "In the Qun, they disapprove of people like him. We call them *Qunari word for liar*  - Liar, and they cant join our military. But the Chargers are my company, and the Qun is wrong. Hes saved my life on more than one occasion, damn fine soldier" or something along those lines... would be better in my opinion

But like to complain generally about the inclusion of transgender people makes no sense... travel all over Thedas or even to the Citadel and youre likely to meet more than 1 or 2 

We're all paying customers. We want to stand on that pedestal with a trophy in one hand and a babe in the other arm when we beat the game. That experience should be available to everyone, whether or not they want to take advantage of all those trophies.

And what do I expect from Andromeda in terms of romance? Equal amounts of romance opportunities for all. The Ryders are named for Sally Ride, the first female American astronaut in space. She's also the first known LGBT astronaut.

...and this thread's "ad hominem" award goes to: The young person with the questionable historic knowledge!

Enjoy.

Also: Oh, I do care linksocarina. I care about the quality of my entertainment, and to a lesser extent, the survival of western society...

Well I just realized that something which I didnt think made sense actually made sense I agree with your interpretation now that ive heard it

How is the inclusion (or exclusion) of trans characters related to the quality of entertainment or the 'survival of western society'?

At least BioWare is trying unlike most other developers/publishers who pretends that LGBT people don't exist..

I'd like to chime in briefly if I may: I would agree with this if it didn't feel like Bioware was taking a step back rather than forward. Personally, I thought Bioware was much cooler when they simply had these options and characters without... advertising them, as I'll call it here. To me at least it feels like they're not being inclusive because that should be normal but because they want a pat on the head for it. It comes off as slightly pretentious in DAI. I never felt this playing any previous DA titles, or Mass Effect to a lesser extend. These options were just there. Samantha was just a really cute nerdy character.

I'm curious about your take on that. Do you think Bioware wasn't being loud enough about it before? So, is going from what you describe as the end goal, a seamless inclusiveness, BACKWARDS to adverting so that a broader audience starts thinking about it, a good thing? For me it's totally a step back. They had seamless inclusion and now they make a huge fuss about it. And I don't believe it's coincidence this is happening now that being progressive is so popular. So are they really still doing it for the right reasons one might actually ask?

Perhaps you would disagree that the inclusion was seamless before? That bisexual characters (DAO, DA2) are not real inclusiveness? I would disagree but I'm not LGBT, so I probably have a different view.

One of the few good things to be said about the writing on TWD is indeed their seamless inclusiveness. Although I know the show became a target of the shitstorm that raged for a while about lesbian characters always getting killed off. And sure enough BOTH of Tara's girlfriends died almost immediately after they hooked up. Not cool. They have LGBT characters, yes, but they are never shown being intimate because the partner either gets killed off or is never on screen (see Aaron's boyfriend). The best thing they ever did was pair up Rick with Michonne. I was so happy they finally went there. In a totally awesome unpretentious way imo. Let's ignore that the show is infamous for killing off black MALE characters. It's not all as great as it looks at first glance.

Like other people in this thread, I'm all for seamless natural inclusion that makes sense for a setting but I worry about a negative impact on the writing quality if it's done in a cringe-worthy way only because it's cool right now. Political correctness is not creativity's friend. But political correctness and inclusiveness are not the same thing. The difference lies in the intent. Why do you do it and HOW do you do it?

I know you weren't talking to me, but I thought I'd offer my thoughts on it.  It's not that I didn't think they were "really inclusive" but there were really HUGE flaws in how Bioware originally implemented LGBT content.  And, before I say anything else, even flawed their efforts were so much better than almost any company, so I say this with total love.

Their first LGBT 'romance' was in KOTOR with Juhani.  I put "romance" in quotes because there are still people who don't count this since the content was really hidden and minimal compared to Carth and Bastila.  But, in my opinion, she counts and she was the first attempt.  The unfortunate issue was there was also a bug that led to her having some of her romance dialogue available to male characters too until it got patched, so a lot of people don't even consider her a lesbian.  But the intention was for her to be a lesbian romance.

Their next attempt was Jade Empire.  They included Silk Fox as a bisexual lady and that was pretty par for the course with how the other romances ran (outside of the "straight guys can get both Dawn Star AND Silk Fox at the same time" thing).  Sky, however, was really botched.  He was the first m/m option and it was pretty bad.  First, you could ONLY initiate romance dialogue with him if you openly declined BOTH female characters first.  Then, he would approach you and (paraphrasing) wonder why you weren't into either of those hot chicks.  If you told him that you were interested in him, there was a "Are you sure?" style check and then he'd say that he "never thought of that before" and that he needed time.  Eventually, he'd come back and ask you one more time if you were sure before you locked in the romance.  And, conveniently, his romance with a male character was the only one that did a cut-away before they showed the kiss.  At the time, I was thrilled because content like that had never existed, but looking back, it's cringeworthy. 

Then we get to the ME/DA era.  Let's tackle ME first -- There were ZERO male options until the third game and the devs even specifically said in response to a question about it that Shepard was the player's character but that some things, like his sexuality, were set in stone.  Shep is straight.  Which....not so much.  Because at the same time, FemShep was able to be a lesbian right from the beginning with Liara.  When this was pointed out to the same developer, his response was, "Well she's not really a lesbian because Asari are mono-gendered."  And that?  Total bullshit.  Because asari are female.  That's their ONE gender (mono = one; mono =/= zero).  It even calls them an "all female species" in the codex in game.  And, outside of that, they use female pronouns and look like sexy blue space babes (including a penchant for stripping).  So it was total bullshit.  That's where the whole "asari are monogendered" thing comes from.  Then they follow up with ME2 in which FemShep again gets a romance option (but not male Shep) and this time it's a human woman so the whole "Shep can't be gay" thing was officially debunked.  It was more than cringeworthy, it was a bit insulting.  It felt (and this is only my perception) like a game developed by straight guys who never once even thought about including a gay option and then tried to be clever by talking circles around why it wasn't included, but......weren't that clever after all.

With DA, it's been much better.  The only real issues that I have with LGBT representation in those games are with Zevran, Anders, and Serendipity.  Zevran was the worst, in my opinion, because he did that whole, "Are you sure it's okay if we talk about my bisexuality?" thing that I find really frustrating.  He literally asks for permission to flirt with you and then you have one of those "Are you sure?" options again.  And then there's the issue of his flirting with other characters.  It's almost 100% with other females.  Almost all of his stories are about women that he's bedded.  Outside of a single story about a prince who he seduced and some subtle insinuation about him and Taliesen, all of his comments are focused on his attraction to women, even while you are romancing him.  It's a little obnoxious.  And he's the only option for gay guys.  You literally have to pick the guy who flat out says that he prefers women or you get nothing.  Anders' real issue was in the fact that he didn't tell LadyHawke that he was Karl's boyfriend.  Other than that, he was fine.  And Serendipity was just poorly implemented.  She was intended to be a drag queen, in which case raunchy humor at her expense is a little more forgiven since that's kind of drag queens' whole schtick.  But they just made her a lady with a man's voice, which made it seem like she was trans and then the jokes felt more at her instead of with her. 

So, yeah, the "olden days" back when Bioware "did it right" weren't so great in my opinion.  Again, they were much better than other companies (even their old efforts are better than most companies today since most don't do anything).  And to their credit, they really decided that, as a company, this was important to them and then did their due diligence.  They listed to LGBT people and made changes appropriately. Is it perfect now?  No.  But it's definitely one of the best approaches.

I personally really enjoyed the Merrill romance in DA2 I thought she and my Hawke were so adorable together lots of cute there!

Ive played through DAO and DA2 once and nearly finished my first playthrough of DAI but like... I havent really noticed anything??? I havent noticed anything which makes me think "this is a cringeworthy thing"??? And really ive been happy with the same-sex romance options for a female in the series as a whole (although no Morrigan )

Personally I think theyre taking steps in the right direction even though it could be refined a little but hey im happy DA2 is my favorite game ever

This is the most important thing, love her VA. Why are people even discussing irrelevante information.