Why was there no uproar about same sex relations in Skyrim, or the Fable series?

[Rylot]

I wanted to check if I remembered that right so I checked <a href=http://fable.wikia.com/wiki/Marriage>here and it turns out that's not even close to the worst bit. Try this on for size:

In Fable II the only safe way for lesbians to have sex is to have a male villager either following you or participating in a three-way encounter. Otherwise the game forces you to have unprotected sex. This can result in a high number of STDs on your tracked statistics.

Seriously. What. The. Fuck?!?

Well the only way for you to have protected sex is to use a condom (which you can sometimes dig up and use just fine) so naturally that isn't going to help lesbians. Also it's been a while but I'd think in that situation you could still get an STD since only the guy would be wearing a condom. Since the number of STDs has no impact on any part of the game I'd take it with a grain of salt as opposed to the developer making a statement. Kinda like how you can have a white spouse and still have a black kid.

 

[Silvanus]

Weeeeeell, the bigots tend to argue that the gay NPCs initiating stuff is the problem. They argue that this is invasive or forcing them to interact with issues they don't want to, even though they can simply reply, "no thank you". They believe this is similar to a gay person hitting on them in real life, and thus they react in a similar and almost fearful way.


You know, because gay people never have to deal with the default assumption of straightness, both in real life and ingame (oh wait).



In Skyrim, meanwhile, the player himself is always the initiator, if he wants to play a romantic storyline (as short and generic as they were, they could be amusing).

 

[soren7550]

Was probably already said, but the likely reason that no one has made a hubbub over gay marriage in Skyrim and the Fable series is because there isn't any real weight behind the relationships. In Skyrim, you just wear an amulet and you go talk to one of the marriageable NPCs and hey, they'll marry you. Congrats, you got a little vendor in your home now. No sex, no mentions of the relationship, the guy/gal will just call you 'my love' now.

In the Fable series, almost all the relationships you can have boil down to make their approval bar of you be high enough and they'll marry you, regardless of morality/gender/appearance/anything. Most anyone is interchangeable with the next ten blokes, and for sex all you get is a black screen with a few grunt put in (although in Fable 3 you do get a bit of silly music and very over exaggerated exclamations of joy). When married, you just have someone around your home who'll either complain about how the house/you look, they want money, or how you're not there enough. And you can get married as many times as you want with as many interchangeable people as you want.

So yeah. People only complain about same sex relationships in games if there's substance to them.

 

[Cavan]

What are you disagreeing with?

I was disagreeing with the thing that I quoted first (surprisingly?), that being that the love story in Bioware games are as shallow as the others. Which I tried to argue in terms of mechanics rather than narrative, which seems to be your focus.

If I misinterpreted your point because I was skim reading your insanely long responses; all I can really say is meh. I'm not gonna bother to respond to this thread anymore anyway so I won't be muddying up the waters or whatever.

 

[uzo]

Hmmm ... perhaps because all of the loli-beast-werewolf-pedobear mods, the idea of a gay person getting married wasn't that shocking?

Umm. Not that I know anything about that other stuff.

So .... look! What's that?! *points*



*footsteps recede into distance*

 

[Luca72]

I can't speak for Fable, but my impression of almost everything that happens in Skyrim is that it's happening by accident. Sure, gay romance doesn't have a huge impact on Mass Effect, but at least when it happens there is a scene of two apparently gay people doing apparently gay things. Skyrim never really acknowledges anything you do. I mean, if I started a gay relationship with another character in Skyrim I honestly wouldn't know for sure whether it was intended or some kind of bug.

I mean this is a game where you can give rare jewels to an Argonian couple so they can get married, then immediately shake them down for cash for the Thieves' Guild, and the game doesn't bother to decide whether they like you or not. That was one of my favorite ridiculous moments in that game - I walked into the bar, and the Argonian guy hisses "WHY DON'T YOU JUST LEAVE" and barely before the sentence was out of his mouth, he closes in and re-initiates dialogue and goes "You're a very good friend!". It's hard for anything to have any kind of impact in Skyrim.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

People can be against gay marriage so thats fine.... i dont know why everyone HAS to accept gay marriage. Everyone has the right to marry so let them do it. Its like religion, i dont accept religion but would never stop someone from there faith. But in the games you mentioned, its an optional thing......it gives all players the freedom to play there own character and thus a gay person can play out themselves in game. Which is great. Had same issue in Bully where you can kiss a boy. lol

But maybe the real reason could be that Bully/Fable gave an achievement to kiss/marry same sex partner, so maybe they hate that they have to do this to get 100% completion. hee hee.

 

[Joccaren]

I'm guessing because they weren't advertised.

This guy is dead on the money. Its the same reason no-one gave a shit about the child killing mods in Skyrim until the media sensationalised it.

Games like Skyrim and Fable just let you be gay. They don't come out and say "We're allowing Homosexual relationships". They just exist. They're treated like any other relationship. They exist, but no-one makes a big deal out of it as there's no big deal to be made. Were the publishers of Skyrim or Fable to come out and say "We're putting Homosexual relationships in our games to help fight the alienation of the part of our audience that would appreciate that sort of thing", people would talk, 'cause then they've gone and made a big deal about it.

Basically, don't say anything and nothing much will be said. Head out and say something, and then you get the discussions.

 

[spartandude]

Why did nobody say a thing when you killed a kid in The Walking Dead, but everyone flipped shit that Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 had a cut scene (cut scene - not you actually DOING anything) where a bomb goes off and a kid is right next to it?

In the walking dead (i assume your talking about episode 4, havnt played 5 yet) it had actual relevence to the story and what had happened to the characters.
in MW3 it was just there to be "They killed a kid! they must be evil!" and it was cheap and manipulative.

 

[xPixelatedx]

I am still surprised no one threw a fit over being able to marry an argonian. I mean, when you consider what marriage entails, the implications are much weirder if your lover is a big lizard.

 

[Assassin Xaero]

Why did nobody say a thing when you killed a kid in The Walking Dead, but everyone flipped shit that Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 had a cut scene (cut scene - not you actually DOING anything) where a bomb goes off and a kid is right next to it?

In the walking dead (i assume your talking about episode 4, havnt played 5 yet) it had actual relevence to the story and what had happened to the characters.
in MW3 it was just there to be "They killed a kid! they must be evil!" and it was cheap and manipulative.

There was that one, too, but I was more referring to...

Spoiler: Episode 3 (I think)

Where you shoot Duck or have Kenny shoot him.

Not to really defend MW3, but they could have tried to add it for more emotional effect. Van blows up and kills some soldiers, meh. Van blows up and kills a kid who was playing on the sidewalk, bit more tragic. Or is that what you meant?

 

[Erttheking]

Because the kind of people who scream over this kind of stuff know so little about video games and do so little research, that they need to have it shoved in their face to know that it exists.

 

[Ickorus]

Because they didn't make a big deal out of it, Bioware always make it a big deal and also do a very bad job implementing it into their games oftentimes making them feel very artificial, unrealistic, and shoehorned in which in turn alienates people on both sides of the fence who will both go forth into the forums to voice their opinions which ends up with them waging war upon one another culminating in what we all know as a 'shitstorm'.

 

[RobfromtheGulag]

Well, firstly, the marriage feature in Skyrim wasn't much more than an afterthought, and sadly ridiculously shallow. Second, they never really used same-sex relations as part of the marketing blurb, it was just there. You could marry someone of your own gender and no one seemed to mind. It's rather refreshing, really, since it isn't nearly as big of a deal as some delightful people make it out to be.

Indeed this is refreshing. It's just there, it's not a 'reason' to buy the game.

Numerous people mention the lack of activity with your spouse in Skyrim. That's where mods and imagination come in. Similar to the combat.
-I realize that the argument is a shipped game with no included mods, but ME2 (didn't play 3) had all of 3 scenes with your significant other. Even the dating sim games are exceedingly shallow in their portrayals of relationships, if this is what we're arguing on about.

You can ask your spouse to follow you out to some romantic hilltop and find a tree stump to sit on or something while you both eat vegetable stew painstakingly created by looting the local farmyards.
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