Tomb Raider writer expressed an interest in making Lara gay?

[TrulyBritish]

OK radical idea instead of the polarized view of gay/not gay why not bi. I've found in most discussions that cover this topic (or something similar) bi is never a viable choice. why is that?

Heck, if Lara has never really had leanings one way or another why not have her be Asexual? It's always just the two with the media, and the gay ones always seem to be the women or effeminate men. :/
Though I suppose making a character asexual removes any basic romantic plotline, unless you go for a characters struggle to reciprocate attraction for an attracted friend I suppose.

 

[Cptn_Ab]

good point MR British i forgot about that one myself

 

[m19]

Asexual is just bloody weird.

 

[Cptn_Ab]

Asexual is just bloody weird.

not exactly my cuppa tea but by no means am i going to pick on someone that is asexual, that goes for gay lesbian or transgender either. in my opinion when people start thinking the same way we are going to be much better off.

 

[Elf Defiler Korgan]

I would actually like characters, male and female to stop being so damn sexualised with their wants pushed out there and on to us.

The angry homosexual spectre of Dragon age is hovering about, but what I am getting at is as nice as it is to push boundaries and make a character gay or what not, wait, no it isn't nice, it is just getting old. This pandering, this desperation to appeal to a certain demographic (we can get gays and women in with Raiden) is tiresome.

Make the damn games, stop pushing gaming characters as the reps of the sub-cultures upon us. Trying to make a lesbian gaming messiah is caring too much about politics and ticking p.c boxes, and not enough focus on the game and what the character is doing (it is focusing on who they are doing or want to be doing).

End rant.

 

[Elf Defiler Korgan]

OK radical idea instead of the polarized view of gay/not gay why not bi. I've found in most discussions that cover this topic (or something similar) bi is never a viable choice. why is that?

Heck, if Lara has never really had leanings one way or another why not have her be Asexual? It's always just the two with the media, and the gay ones always seem to be the women or effeminate men. :/
Though I suppose making a character asexual removes any basic romantic plotline, unless you go for a characters struggle to reciprocate attraction for an attracted friend I suppose.

Yeah, how about she has such a lust for gold she is totally not for men or women. You know, a tomb raider, not a panty raider.

And then she hums this to herself once in a while:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3IlqY1CbI0

Better than a gay Lara.

 

[sethisjimmy]

I think that article title, and by proxy this thread are a little sensationalist. I found the article pretty interesting. She wasn't cockily coming out and saying "Lara should be gay", the topic of conversation happened to move into gay characters in gaming. Rhianna mentions at one point there was a part of her that considered what it would be like if Lara was gay, and the writer (typically) jumped at that idea and plastered it all over the page, in big quotes and in the title.

I mean, she approaches the subject very delicately in conversation, mentioning how after the controversy surrounding Tomb Raider pre-release she wants to be extremely careful of her phrasing and how she approaches gender and sex related subjects. They talk back and forth about all the things you guys in this thread are debating now, whether a gay characters orientation should or must play some role in their story and development, or whether it should stay quiet as a little "side-note" to try and normalize the idea. They also discuss whether gay characters should be all-powerful badasses to serve as positive media figures for the gay community, or if they should endure the same struggles most real world gay people do, such as discrimination and bullying, confused or repressed self identity, etc. They also talk about that problem in terms of female vs male characters as well, in that a lot of female characters, whether out of laziness or fear of negative reception, are practically "male characters with boobs" in that they're female on the outside, but act identical to the masculine no-fear "badasses" that are typical AAA male characters.

She admits those kinds of decisions are difficult and that she doesn't know the answers, unlike the headline suggests. I know it isn't completely evil to be sensationalist in news, pretty much all news contains some elements that sensationalize to grab our attention, but I feel as if a nice conversation style-interview with some thought-provoking points is being entirely missed out on because the writer chose to promote that one idea as if Rhianna had some sort of agenda for making all your favorite beloved characters gay.

 

[TrulyBritish]

OK radical idea instead of the polarized view of gay/not gay why not bi. I've found in most discussions that cover this topic (or something similar) bi is never a viable choice. why is that?

Heck, if Lara has never really had leanings one way or another why not have her be Asexual? It's always just the two with the media, and the gay ones always seem to be the women or effeminate men. :/
Though I suppose making a character asexual removes any basic romantic plotline, unless you go for a characters struggle to reciprocate attraction for an attracted friend I suppose.

Yeah, how about she has such a lust for gold she is totally not for men or women. You know, a tomb raider, not a panty raider.

And then she hums this to herself once in a while:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3IlqY1CbI0

Better than a gay Lara.

Exactly, her preference has never really come up before so it doesn't really need to know, and I like the idea that Lara could be immune to seduction.
p.s. loved the song link

 

[Elf Defiler Korgan]

Immune, over it, busy thinking about other things.

You could even use it to draw a contrast to other characters. That she is all business and about the thrill and not game for those games. Been doing the raiding too long and the research it is the only thing that greases her wheels.

Reminded of the researcher in The Thing. Yeah others can slobber over women, she has a job to do.

 

[Darken12]

Actually, reading over the posts of this thread, I am somewhat taken aback by all the resistance to the idea. Sure, some could be written off as the usual knee-jerk reaction to any form of change in an established character (Dante with black hair??? NEVAH!11), but another suggests a slightly troubling form of homophobia, the idea that if a lesbian character is not there for the benefit of a straight male audience, then we're actually on the same level of general distaste as the idea of a gay male protagonist.

There's also this really, really prevalent idea that minority inclusion is seen as "PC" or carries some sort of political agenda. That's just baffling. Is making an overtly straight character a matter of PC or political agendas? Because I assure you, I have played some games with aggressively straight male characters, and I didn't see anyone saying that it was being "PC" or playing up to some political agenda.

And then there's the "pandering" argument, which also befuddles me. Every single instance of a game is pandering. All of it. The sound, the visuals, the gameplay, the dialogue, the worldbuilding, every choice is designed to please (even "trolling the fanbase" is designed to please the fans). So what is, exactly, the problem with companies trying to please someone other than you? Why is it only pandering when the pleasing is not aimed at you?

The video game industry is part of the entertainment industry. The entertainment industry aims to entertain, which means it aims to please. Calling one decision "pandering" over any other is absolutely ridiculous.

 

[GeneralFungi]

I would actually like characters, male and female to stop being so damn sexualised with their wants pushed out there and on to us.

The angry homosexual spectre of Dragon age is hovering about, but what I am getting at is as nice as it is to push boundaries and make a character gay or what not, wait, no it isn't nice, it is just getting old. This pandering, this desperation to appeal to a certain demographic (we can get gays and women in with Raiden) is tiresome.

Make the damn games, stop pushing gaming characters as the reps of the sub-cultures upon us. Trying to make a lesbian gaming messiah is caring too much about politics and ticking p.c boxes, and not enough focus on the game and what the character is doing (it is focusing on who they are doing or want to be doing).

End rant.

Normally I'm not bothered by people's comments. But this post reeeeeaaaaally scraped by me the wrong way. You are a demographic yourself, presumably a straight male (I apologize if I'm incorrect in that assumption).

When designers are creating characters for their games, you are the very first demographic they try to appeal to. Whether or not you are receptive of it or even care about their attempts is irrelevant; they are going out of their way to create a game that appeals to your interests whether or not it is successful. They are pandering to YOU. You are the person they are going out of their way to appeal to, a single demographic who plays games out of many different demographics of people who also play games.

You comment that all of this pandering developers are doing is tiring when they're trying to appeal to other groups, but well... how are Women, LGTB among other groups supposed to feel about that? Wouldn't they find it tiring that they aren't getting as much representation? You've explicitly said yourself that it bothers you when a character that appeals to women / gay men is in the games you play. Does it bother you when a character meant to appeal to you is in the game?

You've said that who they fuck is irrelevant, but how many protagonists have a love interest that are involved in the plot in some way? Would you say that is sexualized? Because remember, there were never plans for Lara to bang anyone. If she did have a love interest involved in the plot she wasn't going to tear her clothes off and have a 20 minute sex scene with them.

It isn't called over-sexualized until people start what gender the character in question wants to be with. That somehow homosexual relations are inherently more sexual then hetrosexual ones. That is the vibe I always get when these sorts of topics arrive and... it bothers me. It bothers me a lot. Is there some sort of difference I don't understand? When discussing a character it is assumed they are hetrosexual and if anyone suggests that they might not be, people start going on about how their video games are being oversexualized and that all of these other demographics are invading and ruining the video games.

I'm sorry if homosexual men/women in your videogames somehow make you feel more exposed and vulnerable to the ugly world of sex and humping.

God... I apologize if I offended you. It wasn't aimed at your specifically, just the general attitude I'm feeling in this thread. I need a glass of water or something..

 

[Darken12]

*snip*

Can I just thank you for this wonderful insightful post? This is really what I wanted to say, but you did it far better than I could.

 

[King Aragorn]

snip

The problem isn't a gay character in itself. Hell, I welcome those. I don't mind gay, black, female, trans, bi or asexual characters in my games, what I dislike is when a developer/writer throws it in as a publicity stunt/attempt at being ''edgy'', and tries to tell you every 5 to 10 minute.
''Hey, look at this gay character! we're modern and take risks!''
Also, as another member noted, a character being made gay is always an afterthought by the dev. The character isn't designed or made to be homosexual from scratch, but rather added late in development when they see that adding homosexuality won't ''effect'' their sales.

 

[Darken12]

I like to call that "straight priviledge" when the majority is'nt being catered to they throw a hissy fit.

It's the same thing with having a video game protoganist that is'nt white as wonder bread,people throw a fit claiming it's pandering when they get catered to all the god damn time.That's why there are so few minorites in games because the white straight male priviledged majority does'nt like when a group other than them is being focused on by game developers.

I went out of my way to avoid calling it straight privilege. It never helps, no matter how much one might imagine it would. People hear the word "privilege" and it seems to activate a switch implanted deep in their brains that turns them into frothing rage machines.

In reality, the problem is that inequality is perceived as the status quo. Catering to the straight, white and male demographics is the tradition (despite the fact that they're minorities as well, ironically), and people resist change based on many different types of justifications (all of which are either fallacious or prejudiced) because they perceive any attempt to change the status quo as unnecessary and harmful. They are used to being on the beneficial side of inequality, so they perceive any attempt to redress that inequality as obviously unnecessary (because it's not like it's affecting them negatively!) and sometimes even harmful (because it's seen as an attack on the (unequal) traditions that they benefit from. And the worst part is that it is! It is an attack on traditions and the current way of doing things, but that doesn't make it a bad thing for the people who have been suffering from that inequality).

So yeah, you're right, but good luck trying to get people to understand that.

The problem isn't a gay character in itself. Hell, I welcome those. I don't mind gay, black, female, trans, bi or asexual characters in my games, what I dislike is when a developer/writer throws it in as a publicity stunt/attempt at being ''edgy'', and tries to tell you every 5 to 10 minute.
''Hey, look at this gay character! we're modern and take risks!''
Also, as another member noted, a character being made gay is always an afterthought by the dev. The character isn't designed or made to be homosexual from scratch, but rather added late in development when they see that adding homosexuality won't ''effect'' their sales.

When you can add or remove the gay tag without a second thought (and reskin the love interest from one gender to another, and redoing the voiced dialogue, obviously), you're doing it right.

There should be no differences between two rugged marines, or two adventuring tomb raiders, or two nerdy superheroes, just because one of them is gay and the other one is straight.

 

[Charli]

Hmmm nah don't underline that, I kind of liked her Posh, Coy-Lady thing she had going near the beginning of her franchise. Leave it open to both men and women if you must, I'm all for that. But don't go 'SHES A LESBIAN, LOOK GUYS, SHE'LL DO GIRLS SO YOU CAN FANTASIZE ABOUT THAT IN CLEARER CONTEXT!'.


Pointless.

 

[Darken12]

I just wish people would stop panicking when a character is revealed to be gay,it's annoying and quite frankly offensive to gay people that they are treated like they are from a different planet.

Literally, in the case of that Star Wars MMO.

We're a walking, talking Third Rock From The Sun joke.

 

[Denamic]

I don't see why not.
As far as I know, she already is gay. Very few characters in gaming actually have a defined sexuality, and you can but speculate on whether they're gay or not. Going by statistics alone, a number of they are.