Are their any other gay characters in games that aren't stereotypes?

[Trivun]

I direct you to The Longest Journey. Although no really important characters are gay, there are two lesbian characters that serve as minor characters, though fairly important to the story background, who aren't stereotyped. Those two, Fiona and Mickey, are a lesbian couple from England who run a boarding house in the US East Coast city of Newport during the game. Basically, they're the main character's landladies, and they are depicted as being completely normal, regular people, except of course in a relationship with each other. Nobody ever comments on them being lesbian, it's just accepted as a matter of course. Although to be fair, the game is set about 200 years in the future, when it's safe to say attitudes to sexuality will probably be much more relaxed.

Also of note, in the same game, there's a slightly humourous take on the idea when your (female) main character attempts to get into a restricted area by flirting with the male securtity guard. If you keep trying and failing, eventually the guard will say "Sorry ma'am, but I'm gay". Although again, to be fair, given the main character is a relatively attractive young woman, we could probably have worked out the guard's sexuality after the first time he rejects her flirting...

 

[BlumiereBleck]

You can make Jimmy gay from Bully. You CAN but WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO? With Christy, Zoey, and Pinky running around ;p

 

[Darmani]

The Rockstar games definitely, including Bully, Gay Tony who is effeminate but not a stereotype (at least no more than anyone else in the series), actually there are a whole lot of them about just not.. well headlining and that's ignoring jrpgs propensity for teasing and using the concept of male-male relationships as a kind of hook.

 

[Lucifus]

Vamp from Metal Gear Solid was bisexual. Pissed off at snake for killing his boyfriend.

Some random neighbour in Indigo Prophecy but he was effeminate as hell.

Voldo from Soul Calibre.

And here is a website for the ones i missed. http://gaygamer.net/top_20_gayest_video_game_characters/

 

[Jamiemitsu]

They handled Auron pretty tactfully in FFX.

Auron was gay? Man, that WAS pretty well handled!

OT: erm... no, I got nothing. I cant even think of any stereotypes at the minute...

 

[shadyh8er]

You can make Jimmy gay from Bully. You CAN but WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO? With Christy, Zoey, and Pinky running around ;p

NEEEENJA'D!

BTW, which one was Zoe again?

 

[astrav1]

How many video games characters do you know that like lettuce instead of beans?

For all we know, loads of game characters are gay, just because they aren't stereotyped and don't mention it, we don't know.

POW! Excellent argument.

 

[BlumiereBleck]

You can make Jimmy gay from Bully. You CAN but WHY WOULD YOU WANT TO? With Christy, Zoey, and Pinky running around ;p

NEEEENJA'D!

BTW, which one was Zoe again?

Orange haired punk rock girl who is very important in the last chapter of the game

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Does it really really matter what sexuality a character has?

 

[Thespian]

The think is, a character only needs to be gay or straight if his love life is relevant to the plot. If it isn't making him gay would make it seem like they where trying to make some kind of statement when they weren't.

Imagine how badly a scene like this would fit into a game:

Female Character: "I find you attractive, have some sexual tension."
Protagonist: "No thanks, I'm gay."
Female Character: "Oh okay."
...awkward silence
Female Character: "That's okay by the way, I'm not like... er... I mean, I have nothing against you being..."
Protagonist: "Don't worry about it."

Not necessarily. You could make a brilliant few cutscenes, with a female making moves on a male character who seems to be interested. The male might not know he is gay, but gets on well with the girl who is very attractive, thus it seems like the romance will go places. Tension builds up as the game progresses and a will they/won't they theme emerges. The male begins to become distressed, coming to terms with it slowly. The girl is confused and doesn't understand what is wrong. Eventually it climaxes with a dramatic revelation that he is gay and is in fact in love with a man, a feeling he has been suppressing all throughout. Perhaps the man is close to the woman, a brother or ex boyfriend? That has drama, surprise and potentially good writing. Tonnes of good storylines you could incorporate, if anyone tried. People are just way too timid to rock the boat these days. Understandable of course, but not necessarily excusable.

 

[Therumancer]

Let me be blunt:

EVERYONE is a stereotype, period. Humans like to think we are all unique and beautiful flowers, but the actual truth is that we're very predictable. Stereotypes are simply sociology in action. The thing is that there are TONS of stereotypes and by leaving one, you enter another, especially if your somehow trying to contridict a specific stereotype.

That said, I think the number of gay characters in video games and the like is fairly proportional to the numbers of the minority group. No, there aren't always gay characters in a game, but then again by the numbers you don't run into them constantly in real life either. If your say on a large boat/ship, or on an island, it's entirely possible that there won't be any homosexuals on board or in the community. Homosexuality is not omni-present despite the politics and the pushes involved.

As far as the way gay characters behave, well consider that a lot of people *DO* behave like the popular stereotypes which is why they exist. By the numbers this also means that this is the kind of behavior you'd see and the portrayal you'd most likely run into.

All rambling aside, I would point out that the entire female cast of "Dead Or Alive" is apparently Bi-sexual going by the whole "Extreme Volleyball" thing which is pretty much a fairly tame girl on girl dating simulator.


As far as Dumbledore goes, I think he's a bad example because I do not think the character was ever intended to be gay. I think JK Rowling said that to get attention, and try and make "Harry Potter" seem more socially relevent after the fact. That's why he doesn't seem that way, nobody would have guessed because it was never intended.

In following JK Rowling's press statements when asked about homosexuality due to some of the attacks being made, her first comment was along the lines of her saying that none of the characters were gay, but if one was it would probably be Dumbledore. At the time I got the impression that this was said largely because Dumbledore was one of the characters that was not being used for such innuendos. After this comment got attention she said flat out that Dumbledore was gay, and got a lot of attention by doing so.

While I suppose this declaration by the writer does make it official, I think the nature of the situation surrounding it all doesn't make him a good example (and as far as stereotypes go, he could be considered the quintessential closeted homosexual due to his lack of any indication).

Also given that she started writing those books for her kids, and their success was a surprise, I do not think sexuality was something she put much thought into when she created the oldest characters present in the first stories. If I had to define Dumbledore it would actually be non-sexual, a virtual eunach, in the intent of the character since it was never a consideration until other people started trying to project things onto the stories, and again he was the least likely one which is why I think we got that statement.

 

[archvile93]

They are hard to come by. I think the reason is that everyone assumes the characters are straight unless shown otherwise, and the only way to show a character is gay is to either have him/her mention it at some point which is difficult to not do in a very forced manner, show him/her having sex with another member of the same gender (not gonna happen), or make him/her incredibly stereotypical. Obviously that last one is the easiest to do, so it comes up in games the most.

OT: I haven't seen it myself, but I've heard Tony in the GTA4 DLC is handled well, though considering he's called Gay Tony I can't help but think this may be untrue.

 

[Madara XIII]

CAPTAIN BASCH FON RONSENBURG FROM DALMASCA

STFU VAAN!!!!!!

Yeah....that dude is the epitome of gay -_-

 

[Woodsey]

Gay Tony, but that's the only "openly" gay character I've come across in a game. Let's face it, sexuality is so non-existent in many games that the only reason we say there are so many straight characters is because that's what we assume people to be by default.

 

[Madara XIII]

They handled Auron pretty tactfully in FFX.

WHAT?!?!?!?

Firt you find out he's dead, but now he's gay?! Damn I never woulda have thought.....Shit I'm confused now...care to emphasize please?

 

[Madara XIII]

Oh BTW in Star Trek Voyager Elite Force, you can play as a lesbian. You just don't know it until the end scene.

Private Tucker Approves this!! Bow Chicka Bow Wow!!!

 

[Iron Mal]

Here's something that's never addressed, characters in games who are 'blank slates' so to speak.

If you so wish then your faceless soldier in CoD is gay, Samus is a lesbian and the Necromancer in Diablo II is bisexual.

The point of a blank protaganist is so you can project yourself into the game through them, so if you are straight then your character is straight, if you are gay then your character is gay.

If a gay character has to be openly addressed as a gay character to be worth noting then we've somewhat forgotten the whole 'equality' thing that we were trying to do (after all, in a truely equal society, no-one would actually care about your sexuality so coming out and saying 'I'm gay' would be met with 'well that's great, what do you want? a medal?').

 

[Mr. Omega]

I don't think videogames can handle a gay romance without it coming off as a stereotype simply because for 70% of games, they can't even handle a hetero relationship without making it seem forced. Combine that with that they tend to have token characters, who themselves end up being stereotypes, and I think it may be a while before we have a meaningful gay relationship in games.