Jimquisition: Mass Effect 3 And The Case For A Gay Shepard

[Something Amyss]

I've got one problem with Bioware including gay romance options in ME3 that DOESN'T stem from homophobia: It's that they waited until ME3 to include them.

PREACH ON, sister!

Sorry if that's three posts in a row. I only saw this after my last comment, and couldn't NOT say it.

DVS understands. >.>

 

[chiefohara]

God damn but that was one hilarious episode, and im delighted you called out the homo=paedo wankers.

If i ever play a gay shep Jim, he'll be closing his eyes and thinking of you.

 

[el_kabong]

I wasn't aware that this was such a big deal until last week's video. I don't really have a problem with it. As long as they don't pull what they did in Dragon Age 2 which saw the player directly punished (mechanically speaking) when they didn't give into the advances of their gay mage friend.

But that complaint is minor and won't affect my decision to purchase ME3. Which I'm still on the fence about. Never played the first 2, but all my friends rave about them. Not sure if this is a good point of entry into the series.

 

[Elyxard]

It's amazing how there is some serious world ending politics going on in reality as we speak, but half of this country is still fearful and hateful towards "the gays". Gotta love that artificial controversy to keep people distracted.

I hate everything that EA has done to the Mass Effect franchise since the beginning, but this is certainly not a reason to pull out the pitchforks and torches. I assume most of these people are bandwagon-ing on to the EA hate machine and finding any reason to criticize them, but criticizing them for what they do correctly is only diluting the message.

 

[LiquidGrape]

Just a few weeks ago, I was at best ambivalent regarding Jim Sterling. I thought he'd often make some quite solid arguments for any particular given subject, but utterly undermine their legitimacy by shrouding the discourse in gendered and sexist vernacular.

Now, while this practice of his might persist (as is his prerogative), and some latent reservations remain on my part as a result; I have to say that in the light of these last two videos, his public condemnation on twitter of rampant homophobia in gaming subculture, his professional and sensitive treatment of the misogynist Cross Assault incident and not least his outspoken defense of the horrendously persecuted Jennifer Hepler...

- Blow me down on a little red wagon. I think I really, really like Jim Sterling.

Good Sir, I doff my proverbial cap in your general direction.

 

[KAPTAINmORGANnWo4life]

I kinda felt like making a gay Shepard in Mass Effect 1. Mostly because I was trying to do the Kaidan and Garrus achievements, partly because Ashley's a racist and Liara was boring.

My only problem with the gay Shepard is that he's suddenly here now, but wasn't an option from the start. Now the character I was going to have be gay is straight with the loony chick, and even if I was gay, I wouldn't break up with her.

 

[Tanakh]

-snip-

firstly, there is NO CANON SHEPARD your Shepard is only canon in YOUR game, it doesnt matter what other Shepards do your shepard does whatever you want him to do. it isnt a retcon if the character's entire existance and choices depend on player choice. if the player chooses for Shepard to be gay, then Shepard IS gay, it isnt a retcon, if you say that he/she isnt, then you know what, you are also correct, with YOUR Shepard

secondly, refering to the bold, you are implying that a gay person always appears to be gay, like he/she can't help but show it, that isn't true, i've met plenty of straight people whom i thought were gay, and gay people whom i thought were straight, all through school people made fun of me for being gay, problem is, i'm perfecly straight, you can't guess anything about sexuality by "hints" or any kind of tendecies they previously exhibited

good god! did you even watch the video this thread is about?!
i'm basically repeating what Jim already said
watch it again, see if you understand then

BS, there is a cannon shepard, ME is an ongoing franchise with multiple tie ins and of course there's a cannon shepard, just as there is a cannon Master Chief in Halo or a cannon prisioner escapee for Elder Scrolls.

For your second point, what i am saying is that, given the circumstances shown in the first 2 games, it is indeed very higly unlikely at the very least for shepard to be gay, so, him being gay on the third game is a retcon. I don't know what you understand by that, but according to wikipedia retcons can be non disruptive as in: "Some retcons do not directly contradict previously established facts, but "fill in" missing background details, usually to support current plot points.", and this is clearly that, an addition retcon, i can't even see what you are arguing about.

Thirdly, i am just answering to quotes, my first post here and on the other thread didn't focused on retcon issues, people quoted that part, so i assumed they want to talk about them.

 

[Swifteye]

I know what you said in the last video jim but I prefer this one over that one cause. Well. It wasn't erotica. Mostly. You'd be surprised how people still use the pedo can haz too defense whenever allowing homosexuals to have this or that (and if it isn't pedophilia it's bestiality). I've been really considering what the difference was in a way that made good deal of sense but I think you nailed it just in the way I've been wanting to grasp.
One is two consensual adults deciding to be lovers. The other is rape. Case closed I'd say! Although I do see one weird loophole that I'm sure almost never happens but I'm the sort of guy that has to fight over what to say or think if it did. And that would be what if a pedophile actually managed to convince a child to have a consensual sexual relationship with him? That's a bit harder but I got an answer for that one. It's wrong because the child doesn't know enough about themselves to make such a decision. Part of being an adult is having to make tough decisions and decide things that require all you're knowledge and wisdom to consider. When you're a child you're still learning and the sort of things adults have to think about and deal with can be very overwhelming. Such as the case sexuality and everything pertaining to that.

Even if it's a straight relationship between two kids (obviously post puberty) it would still be wrong for them to have a sexual relationship because they are doing an act with incredible consequences and have not weighed all the pros and cons. Probably can't even comprehend them until it's too late. With animals it's more a sense of that they aren't intelligent enough to handle a human relationship. Animals can be very gifted and interesting but they are still leagues being what's expected of a human being. Thus doing anything sexual with them is the same as doing it to a child. Abusing a creature who doesn't know any better.

I'm concerned with how much I've actually given this thought.

 

[RGman]

Dear Lord. I agree with you Jim, but your counter-arguments are just as weak as the arguments you are trying to refute. No pedophilia is not the same as homosexuality (although there are gay pedophiles), but both are sexual activities that some find deviant and therefore immoral. The morality of homosexuality is a topic that has been debated for decades in the highest (and lowest) echelons of public discourse, and your bold-faced declarations about the matter come off as naive.

Also, you used the "so?" argument twice. Since you are so fond of it, let me ask YOU - so? What do you care what some homophobes write on the internet? It doesn't affect YOUR experience.

The levels of pretentiousness are off the charts on this one.

Was the episode about his position on the morality of homosexuality? Nope. I think you'll find that Jim was adressing the viewers that like to paint themselves as open minded people but desperately try to find half baked arguments to why ME3 shouldn't have the gay Shepard option instead of admiting they have problems with homosexuals.

And the "so" thing... I mean.. what? Denying content to people who may enjoy it solely because other people, wich are not in any way hindered by not accessing this content, won't like it? Really? You don't see why that's all flavors of stupid? And that's talking about the game! Take that to the real world and you're saying that homosexuality is immoral and pernicious to society unless proven otherwise, and it's ok to repress it on other people.

Think it like this, someone thinks that women's teeth are evil, so this someone gets a baseball bat and knocks all of you'r mother's teeth out, will you have a problem with that? It doesn't affect YOUR lunch time.

 

[Right Hook]

People seriously equated homosexuality with pedophilia?!?!

Faith in humanity: -1

 

[sordcooper]

this may be a little tangential (because i don't feel like reading 5 pages of posts), but as a straight man with no issue with homosexuality, male, female, or some bizarre form that involves people with both, none, switched, or all the hardware on a trampoline; would be pretty damned pissed if the gay romance in ME3 was shoe-horned in!

this is a bioware game! was i upset that Zevy could (and did) gobble my warden's knob in Dragon age Origins? hell no! that's because in context it felt real, and even the awkward moment afterwords where the warden realized he was indeed a fan of just tacos and had an aversion toward sausages felt like it would be natural for both involved parties (especially that sly elf min- i mean man..yes that is totally what i meant)

But guess what? This is bioware we're talking about; the company that got me, some one who considered Tali to be something akin to a little sister in ME1, to dive headlong under the bio-suit in ME2. So, I'm thinking they'll make a pretty convincing argument as to why my Shep would want to take the brunt of Wrex's quad or slurp down some turrian tallywacker


...then again they've got their hands full if they want to make that bland pile of blandy bland Jacob appealing

 

[AgDr_ODST]

It was in Mass Effect 1 & 2 at one point:




Really have no idea why it was cut.

Your guess is as good as mine, I mean its clearly there in the dragon age games if you go looking for it just as those vids show would have been in both Mass Effects if they had left it in. Personally though I wish that they would have at least left Ashley[footnote]even with my femshep characters I chose her over Kaiden[/footnote] open to being bi so I that I could have romanced her with my femshep.

 

[Something Amyss]

I'm not a pedophile or a homophobic but let just say that you woke up one day and everyone is gay and it is illegal to have sex with the only people you're genetically attracted to, would that make you a bad person?

Pedophiles had it and still have it worse that homosexuals because there's no chance their preference is going to be accepted any time. Remember, pedophiles that don't act on their desires haven't hurt anyone. They can't help it, they were born that way.

Of course, the problem with that analogy is the fact that this is about gay romance options leading to a gay love scene in a game. The comparison to pedophilia is that if we allow men to have sex with each other, then HUR HUR we have to let people choose to do the same to pedophiles.

Are you really advocating that analogue? I don't think you are, but bringing that comparison up seems to miss a few things. One, this issue isn't so much about gays existing as having gay sex. Two, given one, the pedophile analogue would mean romance leading to sex. Three, that's not illegal solely because "ew pedos," but because of the psychological ramifications involved. Because kids really can't consent to any real decisions, not just sex. This is not some specific anti-pedophile crusade here.

Acting on pedophilia is inherently victimising. acting on homosexual or heterosexual urges is not.

 

[Simonoly]

Heterosexuality makes babies. Homosexuality doesn't.

Frankly it IS, from an evolutionary point of view, wrong. Thats not wrong in a moral sense, but wrong in a continuation of the species sense.

From an evolutionary point of view? No, it's not wrong. In fact, homosexuality tends to be more prevalent in times of famine and war (stress alters natal development), and makes a lot of sense from an evolutionary standpoint: It keeps species, theoretically, from overpopulation.

I can fully understand why some consider it a mental illness, arguably an inherited or developed one.

I take your point about "so what?" but the problem here is, "evolutionarily wrong" doesn't translate to mental illness in any sense. Nothing you just said supports why it could be considered a mental illness.

Care to try again?

Darn, you beat me to it! Yes, please try again...

 

[Sacman]

It was in Mass Effect 1 & 2 at one point:




Really have no idea why it was cut.

Heh it wasnt cut out of 2...

If you were a female Shepherd you could get it on with Kelly, the female Yoeman...<.<

 

[Fred Deleissegues]

Sadly this ignorance is still going on. I live a life of polyarmoy with my wife. When my mother found out she also made the reference i am on the same level of Pedophiles. The responce went like this "I am poly because me and my wife believe that humans not only should, but can love more then one person. And instead of getting a divorce, or cheating on each other we talk about everything and realize it's alot of undo stress to make ONE person the center of your world. And we both feel we are adult enough to handle this, AND STILL LOVE EACH OTHER, And other people" My mother: "Well, just because you love someone else doesn't make it right. Pedophiles say they "Just love children" and thats why they do what they do"

Yeah.... my mother is INSANE.

 

[Lunar Templar]

utter fucking brilliance

it makes me sad you need to be MORE BLUNT then normal to clarify, but more then that, it down right HURTS MY HEAD some one, on this forum even uttered 'gay is as bad a pedophilia' just ... WHAT?!?! how fucking retarded are they, its not the same thing, at all, or even close -.-

and why are people getting butthurt over OPTIONAL CONTENT!!!!! -.- seriously, grow the fuck up, no ones forcing anyone to make your character gay, so shut up about it, cause ya know IT'S JUST A GAME

 

[sindremaster]

BS, there is a cannon shepard, ME is an ongoing franchise with multiple tie ins and of course there's a cannon shepard, just as there is a cannon Master Chief in Halo or a cannon prisioner escapee for Elder Scrolls.

For your second point, what i am saying is that, given the circumstances shown in the first 2 games, it is indeed very higly unlikely at the very least for shepard to be gay, so, him being gay on the third game is a retcon. I don't know what you understand by that, but according to wikipedia retcons can be non disruptive as in: "Some retcons do not directly contradict previously established facts, but "fill in" missing background details, usually to support current plot points.", and this is clearly that, an addition retcon, i can't even see what you are arguing about.

Thirdly, i am just answering to quotes, my first post here and on the other thread didn't focused on retcon issues, people quoted that part, so i assumed they want to talk about them.

Um.. no, you're wrong. I have read all the tie ins, and not once (except for Udina being council member) have Shepards choices been mentioned, this is because there is no cannon Shepard.

And which circumstances shown in the first two games makes it unlikely that he's gay? And where have they filled in background details?

I would also like to hear what you believe to be the cannon Shepard.

 

[Callate]

It appears that human bisexuality, at least among men, isn't all that common.

Right, like how it isn't all that common for one person to stand up against the Geth army to defend the galaxy. You're right, those things are so super-rare, I don't know why they even put them in games: it just breaks immersion for me completely.

Way to miss the point.

The Geth, and Shepherd, and the whole Mass Effect universe are fiction. I'm aware of this, as, presumably, are you.

The stories Bioware is telling come out of a long, rich tradition of heroic fiction, from heroes like Gilgamesh and Achilles and King Arthur. Many of those stories were reflections of the times they arose from; some of them are undoubtedly based on real events, real wars, and real people, however loosely they might borrow from the events or how reality might get stretched in their retelling.

Even within the last century, the people responsible for bringing down the Third Reich are in the process of attaining a status that could be described as legendary, the stories of their struggles and victories a sort of near-mythological sheen.

Whether it's Beowulf slaying Grendel or Shepherd reclaiming Earth from an evil alien force, these stories are familiar to us, and don't need explanation. Is it unlikely that one man would be largely responsible for defeating a force that has eaten galaxy-spanning civilizations? Does that portrayal minimize the contributions millions of fictional people would make towards making such a victory possible, or realistically believable? Yes, but we're familiar with the conventions, and we don't dwell on it; we enjoy hearing about heroes, believing we could be heroes, stepping into the shoes of heroes, in the case of games.

More recently, by most reckonings, we have science fiction. Science fiction can be heroic, of course, but that's not usually it's only purpose. Science fiction reflects upon, and comments upon, the reality we live in today. Mass Effect does this, too. When we hear some people grumble about the quarians, it very much reflects the attitudes we see toward "migrant" peoples, whether the Romany in Europe or the Latino workers who do so much of the farming in the United States. When Shepherd decides whether to reprogram or destroy the Geth, it brings up questions of the rehabilitation or execution of criminals in our own society. Even the faster-than-light travel, so much a staple of science fiction, reasonably asks the question "what would being able to access a million worlds to to a people"... A question Mass Effect also tries to answer, albeit often in ways that are fairly subtle.

So when you talk about prevalent bisexuality breaking immersion for me, you're missing the point. In the culture I live in, and you live in, and most players of the game live in, human bisexuality, especially male human bisexuality, appears to be relatively rare. We make certain assumptions about things within the game world by extrapolating from what we know; the designers and writers know this. Hell, they anticipate it. If a Lieutenant started giving orders to an Admiral, or guns worked by microwaving people's internal organs rather than firing bullets, or children were expected to be independent and self-sustaining entities by the age of seven, we'd want an explanation.

Widely prevalent bisexuality would have a significant, real effect on human culture, just as faster-than-light travel would do. It deserves to be treated as such, not just hand-waved. I'm not saying that I would be averse to playing a game that did assume such a change in human culture, only that it's not an extrapolation one should make from our current status without explaining what brought it on.