Define "A Well Writen Gay Character" in Gaming.

[l3o2828]

Also, I personally disagree that Kanji is gay, but I won't derail the thread. Kanji IS a good character though.

Did you finish his Social link? Yes?
Then,Do it again, because theres about a thousand lines(Huge Hyperbole) that point you in the direction that 'Kanji is gay, ATLEAST'.
His thoughts about girls are left in the open.
FOR EXAMPLE: Kanji DOES say that He is 'The Other Me' Aka, The one in the TV.

And this isn't even going into the Meta side.
Atlus has told the voice actors that he is gay, Atlus has said that they tried to make Kanji being gay more subtle in the american release/translation.
This is just SOME of the proof i can remember.
I shall be replaying the game now. <.<

 

[hermes]

As others had said, a well written gay character is a well written character who is gay. In other words, is a character who is defined by being gay, but NOT only for being gay. Trying to make an heterosexual character and then switch it to gay at the end of the day is not the way to go. Its a little better than making him stereotypical or flamboyant, but its also bad characterization. Its the equivalent to having a female character being just "the male hero but with boobs".

Cortez is a good example; Kanji is a good example. Yes, they are established as being gay pretty early on, but if you interact with them, they are not saying "I am gay" every 2 sentences...

 

[taciturnCandid]

When you have a character that the only way that you can tell they are gay is by watching their romantic life. Because real people who are gay don't act any different than people who aren't except they like people of the same gender.

I'd prefer it if the player wasn't forced into the option of brohood and romance. That you can be nice without being assumed to be romantic unless you actually say romantic things. like if you had the bioware wheel, have one icon that says [romance] and then shows up other options when you click it. That way you can be nice or mean without being romantic.

 

[Faraja]

OP, you forgot Traynor. She's a lesbian. A fact I only learned after reading a release from BioWare about Cortez and Traynor.

As for what makes a well-written gay character, I'm not sure it's quantifiable. In some cases it fits that their sexuality being a second thought in conversations. In other cases, a flamboyant character would work too. It also comes down to how much your player base is willing to stand one way or the other.

 

[snekadid]

Ive noticed whenever a character is gay in a game they are pretty good guys. Like in our desire to be non discriminatory we put gay people on a pedestal when we should be treating them as equals. But a gay person can also be a bad person, just like a straight person can be bad. Imagine if the villain was gay. Right now that would probably rustle a lot of peoples jimmies.

Well, there was that fat guy in Assassin's Creed...and, well I suppose there's Zapp Brannigan, too.

I think the jimmies would be rustled because of how the writing totally fails most of the time, makign "gay" the guy's first and only defining charactetistic, that's the problem. Your usual straight hero or villain can be aloof, charismatic, determined, ferocious, ax crazy, or a complete dork. Gay heroes or villains, what are they like? Well, they're just...gay.

No wonder jimmies get rustled, as they should.

You have apparently never played godhand, an amazing and hilarious game where the objective is to brutally beat up the most flamboyant gang members in the history of fiction that constantly attack you because........ Anyways, love that game and pretty much every enemy is stereotypical to the extreme so they already did the whole gay villain thing and raised it by the nth power.

 

[Blaster395]

Arcade and Veronica in Fallout New Vegas.

You shouldn't write a good gay character. Write a good character who is gay. Same goes for sex and race. They aren't really that important when it comes to who you are.

Not only this, but all the other minor gay characters in New Vegas. The writers for that game really deserve a medal because it was all excellently done.

 

[faefrost]

I would consider Veronica from Fallout:New Vegas to fit the category. Her orientation is just one aspect of her character thats mentioned in passing. It adds depth to her.

Veronica in Fallout New Vegas is a truly alive, fully realized and believable gay character. With a story that is just wonderful, yet heartbreaking. No pandering. No stereotypes. Simply a gay character as a person.

The same with Arcade Gannon. As an NPC he is just a legitimately great guy. Yeah he's gay? What of it?

Once again Obsidian treated them first and foremost as characters and people. Their sexuality was simply a part of that. And they didn't beat you over the head with it. There were no "romance possibilities" You could play your charcter however you wanted without some cheesy stereo typed scripted semi porn. It was well handled and executed at every level. Obsidian handles the whole thing far better than Bioware. Which always struck me as being so heavy handed as to come off as offensive in many ways.

 

[Warped_Ghost]

The best written bi character I have ever seen would be the one and the only



ZEVRON!!!!

 

[NKRevan]

I would consider Veronica from Fallout:New Vegas to fit the category. Her orientation is just one aspect of her character thats mentioned in passing. It adds depth to her.

Veronica in Fallout New Vegas is a truly alive, fully realized and believable gay character. With a story that is just wonderful, yet heartbreaking. No pandering. No stereotypes. Simply a gay character as a person.

The same with Arcade Gannon. As an NPC he is just a legitimately great guy. Yeah he's gay? What of it?

Once again Obsidian treated them first and foremost as characters and people. Their sexuality was simply a part of that. And they didn't beat you over the head with it. There were no "romance possibilities" You could play your charcter however you wanted without some cheesy stereo typed scripted semi porn. It was well handled and executed at every level. Obsidian handles the whole thing far better than Bioware. Which always struck me as being so heavy handed as to come off as offensive in many ways.

I don't get this "heavy-handed" thing.

I like Veronica, no doubt it was a job well done writing wise, but how is Cortez heavy-handed? Or Traynor?

Because you can have a relationship with them? That makes no sense.

Because Cortez says he lost his husband? Well what the hell do you expect him to say when he explains why he's feeling down?

And...I never felt like I was forced to play my SHepard in any way I didn't want. I could either romance a character...or I could not. It was up to me to make the decision. That's true for ALL romances in the games I've played.

So I am a bit confused, because I see this comment a couple of times and keep wondering...did I miss something?

Captcha: it is raining (no it isn't)

 

[Skipper zammo]

Man I really feel bad for camp or effeminate gay men.

Not only do they get the worst of homophobic abuse but also ostensibly non-homophobic and even other gay people seem to give them shit for being a stereotype.

So many answers in this thread have been along the lines of.

"A good gay character is a character you can't tell is gay until they tell you."

Why?
There are plenty of guys who you can tell are gay(or at least guess they might be) from talking to them for a while. Not every gay man is like that, so not every gay character should be. But to completely ignore such people really doesn't seem very fair to me.

 

[Legion]

Man I really feel bad for camp or effeminate gay men.

Not only do they get the worst of homophobic abuse but also ostensibly non-homophobic and even other gay people seem to give them shit for being a stereotype.

So many answers in this thread have been along the lines of.

"A good gay character is a character you can't tell is gay until they tell you."

Why?
There are plenty of guys who you can tell are gay(or at least guess they might be) from talking to them for a while. Not every gay man is like that, so not every gay character should be. But to completely ignore such people really doesn't seem very fair to me.

This is very true, I think the problem lies in this being one of many situations where you simply cannot win.

An openly gay character? "Stop shoving their sexuality in our faces."
A character for whom it isn't obvious? "What, it is embarrassing to be gay?"
A camp gay character "Oh, way to pander to stereotypes."

No matter which way they go about it, they will be criticised somewhere by people.

This is the same problem with other areas too. I could give more examples for other characters, but that'd go off topic.

 

[Bolt Van Der Huge]

To me a well-written gay character is one that's played exactly like a straight character, except his/her love interest is the same sex. No flamboyant gays, no in-the-closet either unless it's a plot point. Just be a person, character!

Arcade Gannon from Fallout: New Vegas. Like Veronica, his sexuality is just a facet of his character, like he wears glasses or speaks Latin. The only reason you know is because he mentions it once in a piece of incidental dialogue; it's not like there's a big song and dance about it or anything. The fact he's gay is accepted by everyone, as in nobody in F:NV persecutes him for it or calls him out on it, or even mentions it, it's no different to anyone else being heterosexual.
Interestingly, Cortez from Mass Effect 3 is treated the same way, and the two games are set in the future. Hopefully the writers of both games independently came to the same conclusion: given recent trends, sexuality in two or three hundred years time will be a complete non-issue.

 

[faefrost]

I would consider Veronica from Fallout:New Vegas to fit the category. Her orientation is just one aspect of her character thats mentioned in passing. It adds depth to her.

Veronica in Fallout New Vegas is a truly alive, fully realized and believable gay character. With a story that is just wonderful, yet heartbreaking. No pandering. No stereotypes. Simply a gay character as a person.

The same with Arcade Gannon. As an NPC he is just a legitimately great guy. Yeah he's gay? What of it?

Once again Obsidian treated them first and foremost as characters and people. Their sexuality was simply a part of that. And they didn't beat you over the head with it. There were no "romance possibilities" You could play your charcter however you wanted without some cheesy stereo typed scripted semi porn. It was well handled and executed at every level. Obsidian handles the whole thing far better than Bioware. Which always struck me as being so heavy handed as to come off as offensive in many ways.

I don't get this "heavy-handed" thing.

I like Veronica, no doubt it was a job well done writing wise, but how is Cortez heavy-handed? Or Traynor?

Because you can have a relationship with them? That makes no sense.

Because Cortez says he lost his husband? Well what the hell do you expect him to say when he explains why he's feeling down?

And...I never felt like I was forced to play my SHepard in any way I didn't want. I could either romance a character...or I could not. It was up to me to make the decision. That's true for ALL romances in the games I've played.

So I am a bit confused, because I see this comment a couple of times and keep wondering...did I miss something?

Captcha: it is raining (no it isn't)

Did You ever play Dragon Age 2? Because it really gets annoying in that game. But even in the other Bioware games, there is a certain amount of beating you around the head and shoulders with your or the NPC's sexuality that it starts to get annoying. Bioware tends to incorporate the sexual preferences not just into NPC background stories, but incorporate it into gameplay, which forces many to confront the subject. While some applaud this, others find it downright rude or overbearingly preachy in an escapist fantasy game.

 

[jehk]

It's probably already been said but a well written gay character is just a well written character who happens to be gay.

 

[ScrabbitRabbit]

Zhevran from Dragon Age kind of flaunts his bisexuality.
Still, his dialogue is legitimately funny - so does his flamboyancy suddenly mean we can't consider him well-written?

Not at all, some people are very upfront about their sexuality. Fictional characters like this aren't necessarily poorly written, so a gay character who's very upfront about his or her homosexuality can still be a "well written character who happens to be gay." Their openness is just another aspect of their personality.

A poorly written gay character is normally a character whose sexuality is the basis of their entire characterization, but this goes for most poorly written characters. A character is poorly written if their whole personality boils down to "is a badass" or "is really smart" as well.

A poorly written character can also be someone who's just kinda wooden or just isn't very believable and in these cases it may be entirely possible to have a "poorly written character who happens to be gay." Just because a gay character doesn't make a big deal about their sexuality doesn't make them well written.

Man I really feel bad for camp or effeminate gay men.

Not only do they get the worst of homophobic abuse but also ostensibly non-homophobic and even other gay people seem to give them shit for being a stereotype.

So many answers in this thread have been along the lines of.

"A good gay character is a character you can't tell is gay until they tell you."

Why?
There are plenty of guys who you can tell are gay(or at least guess they might be) from talking to them for a while. Not every gay man is like that, so not every gay character should be. But to completely ignore such people really doesn't seem very fair to me.

I agree; just because a character is a bit flamboyant and camp doesn't make them a poor example of a gay character. Some people are like that and it would seem odd to accuse real people of being poorly written A character can be absolutely flaming and still be a well written gay character so long as that's not all they are. As long as they have a real personality and motivations beyond their sexuality as well as good character development, then they're a well written character in my book.

 

[peruvianskys]

Man I really feel bad for camp or effeminate gay men.

Not only do they get the worst of homophobic abuse but also ostensibly non-homophobic and even other gay people seem to give them shit for being a stereotype.

So many answers in this thread have been along the lines of.

"A good gay character is a character you can't tell is gay until they tell you."

Why?
There are plenty of guys who you can tell are gay(or at least guess they might be) from talking to them for a while. Not every gay man is like that, so not every gay character should be. But to completely ignore such people really doesn't seem very fair to me.

Why did it take so long for someone to say this?

As a faggy fag fag you can OBVIOUSLY tell that I am queer. I'm not even necessarily flamboyant or fabulous or whatever, but my sexuality informs a lot of what I do and I think the overly PC attempt to define gay people as "exactly like straight people but they do it with other dudes" is so negative and destructive. The fact is, most gay people are significantly defined by their sexuality. They have other aspects as well, but this whole conversation strikes me as a bunch of straight people trying to fight against stereotypes by going so far in the opposite direction that gay people are essentially reduced to straight people who happen to be gay at the moment of insertion, upon which they go back to being straight.

There's a difference between playing into the flaming queer stereotype and admitting that that LGBT people will be substantially different in many ways from their straight friends or companions or enemies or whatever. Saying that gay people have no deviation from the straight ideal is just as offensive as saying that they are all fabulous lady-boys.

This is why we need more gay writers and artists in video games. Right now it just smacks of straight people trying to write for a world that they don't quite understand.