Do you 'support' LGBT supports in "Fire Emblem: if"?

[Thor Odinson]

It's not so much that homosexuality is "special", so much as people don't want the characters to be stereotyped based on their homosexuality, like heather was. A mediocrely written character who also happen to be gay is the same level of offense as a mediocrely-written straight character, which is "eh, disappointing, but not a big deal", but a character who is bad because of stereotypes against who they are is what most people are worried about, since if all the portrayals of gay people we get are stereotypes, that can hurt representation.

That's what people mean when they say "written badly" in this context. If the writer simply writes mediocre characters and the badness of the character has nothing to do with stereotyping or whatnot, that's a completely different story.

Also if you noticed, a lot of the people who have these concerns about IS not being able to be up to the task are LGBT people themselves. While I'd welcome any characters IS comes up who are LGBT and not stereotypical, I understand people's concerns with them.

Edited June 6, 2015 by Thor Odinson

[NekoKnight]

How would you write Heather as a lesbian with the amount of dialogue provided without being so direct?

<religious debate>

Thus, there's no reason why gay relationships shouldn't be in FE:if.

I'm glad you included that last line, otherwise that whole post (and the person you are replying to) would be completely off topic! lol

[dragonlordsd]

Yeah, I agree with Augestine's points.

The only way to fairly implement gay characters is to go back to the old system, of only having a few supports available. I don't know if that's necessarily better, though.

I don't care if they're present or not, so not being able to have as many support conversations is a negative for me.

Bi characters, on the other hand, do open up a lot of possibilities without creating as many problems.

[Bovinian]

But it's still pretty bad though. People that want to be gay or lesbian have terrible choices in comparison to someone that isn't gay or lesbian. From a story perspective it makes sense, from a gameplay though? Terrible. It's almost like as a heterosexual you get a choice. As a homosexual, you have to settle. I don't think there should be any minimum. If 50% of the cast was gay because the writer thought that's how it should be, fine. If they aren't, that's fine too. Seeing as supports actually do something from a gameplay perspective, this is awful. Imagine if you will, that we have Awakening's cast, and we'll just say that the characters adopt to handle children issues. I'm now going to randomly select 3 men and 3 women:

Men: Basilio, Ricken, Stahl

Women: Sumia, Lissa, Panne.

Let's make you male Robin for this example.

Your options are incredibly limited now, and from a gameplay perspective, this hurts potential bonuses that you might get for pair up. With Basilio, you have to keep your purity until late game-- which means no supports past A until Basil comes, and it means that Robin will be childless for most of the game. That means to make Robin make use of an A support as a gay man, he has to settle for Ricken or Stahl while a straight Robin has the choices of Sully, Maribelle, Mirel, any of the female children, Nowi, Tharja... All of which join earlier than Basilio. So unless Basilio's support gives you untouchable godlike sources of power, there's no real point to supporting with him.

How is this any different from real life? Obviously the percentage of gay people you meet will be much smaller than the percentage of straight people, and if it takes a while to meet someone that suits your tastes then you have to deal with it.

You're also largely overstating the importance of S supports during the main game. We don't know how it will be handled in If, but in Awakening the only advantages S supports had over A supports were 10% higher dual strike chance, a negligible increase in dual guard chance, and +5 in one of Hit/Avo/Crit/Ddg. It makes close to no difference on lower difficulties. On higher difficulties, where support bonuses might actually matter a bit, people regularly do things they might not have done otherwise if they confer a gameplay advantage. For example, I could really like Galeforce and be angry at the game for not letting me get it as a Male Avatar. Or I could just play as a female if I decide Galeforce is that important to me, and not make a big deal out of the fact that I'm not playing as a male.

It also means that gay Robins have significantly less options for his daughter. Granted she inherits all of the classes anyways, but she gets less choices for mods than straight male Robin, which has some unfortunate implications.

What options? How are you even getting a daughter in the first place?

[Thor Odinson]

I'm not a writer. Writing is for professional writers. My job is programming and occasionally drawing things.

But if I were a writer, probably give her a couple more facets that show up during base conversations, at least and focus less heavily on the "man hating lesbian" stereotype.

There are things that you can include just passingly in a sentence to hint at a deeper part of characterization.

Edited June 6, 2015 by Thor Odinson

[Chiki]

How would you write Heather as a lesbian with the amount of dialogue provided without being so direct?

I'm glad you included that last line, otherwise that whole post (and the person you are replying to) would be completely off topic! lol

It might seem off topic but it's not. Homosexuality is a part of life and it's not something we can ignore, so why not include it in FE:if. Religion shouldn't get in the way of doing that.

[Dark Holy Elf]

I guess I don't agree with calling Heather a stereotype. She's a lesbian (probably. You can read her lines otherwise but it's a bit of a reach IMO) but I don't find her be especially stereotypical? There aren't as many lesbian stereotypes as there are gay man stereotypes, but I don't really find Heather to fall into what ones exist (she is neither stereotypically butch nor femme, she doesn't have an exaggerated hatred of men*), and she's motivated at least as much by her desire to raise money for her mother as she is by her desire to protect and fight for attractive women (Nephenee and Elincia), which is one more personality quirk than I can remember about Gatrie despite his being in two games.

For me, Heather's inclusion certainly added to Radiant Dawn. I can see disliking her, of course, but to dislike her so much that you would be opposed to future LGBT characters for fear of someone else like her is something I don't really get.

*After reading posts, seems you may disagree on this one? She's kind of a jerk to Brom at first but that's partly because she misreads his overtures (also at that point she is trying to stealth around the battlefield stealing things without a big guy in plate mail drawing attention to her) but this never manifests itself again in her (admittedly limited) screentime. If she was supposed to be man-hating it would have been easy to work this into her support dialog, but there's no hint of it to be seen there.

[goodperson707]

I'm not a writer. Writing is for professional writers. My job is programming and occasionally drawing things.

But if I were a writer, probably give her a couple more facets that show up during base conversations, at least and focus less heavily on the "man hating lesbian" stereotype.

There are things that you can include just passingly in a sentence to hint at a deeper part of characterization.

Really only one optional talk convo did the man hating lesbian type kinda ever happen with heather though (and even then it was not the only interpretation) I guess you could interpret her intro line as such, but it could easily work in other contexts. Edited June 6, 2015 by goodperson707

[Augestein]

Thing is, I'm not wanting LGBT character just for them to show up, say "I'm Gay!" then leave.

Obviously not, no one would want that. You want a character that is gay or lesbian, and I'm saying it's not important.

No

No what? This isn't a good respond because it doesn't even allow me to know what you're saying "no" to. And furthermore, it's a lazy response.

I'm saying I want them because straight players have gotten nothing but good characters and canon supports. Why can LGBT players not get a few good characters who they can identify with just as well? This goes for skin color and other features too (as long as it works with the setting.) Legend of Korra of all things used this well, having people from all skin tones and even one woman with no arms as a major character.

And you're implying that homosexuals have gotten bad supports? I haven't seen any bad supports that can be taken as gay. There are some. Especially in the newer ones that are released globally. Raven and Lucius (and Raven ONLY has an ending with Lucius, and he even supports women), Lyn and Florina could be bisexual, and Ike with Ranulf and Soren could be considered another one. This has already been done-- in the first release globally even. Legend of Korra didn't "use this well." What it had was a diverse set of characters with various backgrounds and cultures. Say what you will about the writing, but the setting was actually pretty good. That's my issue, there should be "using" anything well.

I'm not saying "Fire Emblem: If" needs to go that far, but would it be so bad if there were 1 Gay, 1 Lesbian, and 1 or 2 Bisexual characters on the roster? It's a feature we want for some of the characters; NOT all we want the characters to be.

And my answer is yes, it is bad to have them for the sake of simply having them. It's why you have stupid things like that 1 black guy in that one movie who serves no purpose in terms of the plot, so what do they do? Slap him in the cast, give him "comic relief" as his role, and never have him do anything significant. There, cast diversity. That's what happens when people are in the game for the sake of having them. You shouldn't have to

No. I don't support that in the sense of how you've stated it, but I don't have a PROBLEM with any sort of character in the game.Exactly what I said in my first post. That's why you're getting a ton of "if they are well written," because the vast majority of the world is not going to outwardly rage at the notion of a character that isn't exactly to their liking (if they even care enough to pay attention to the sort of thing) to stop playing a game.

But I will rage at the notion of there being quotas that must be met each game. I want each cast from each of my Fire Emblems (or any media that I read, play, or watch), to be unique beast from each other. Not meeting some arbitrary quotas placed on them. Fire Emblem has been pretty good about having diverse casts overall, so I don't think it's even something worth really talking about for Fire Emblem.

Edited June 6, 2015 by Augestein

[Thor Odinson]

I think you're misunderstanding me. I personally would like to see more inclusion and that I've said it several times, but I'm merely trying to explain why a lot of (again, many of them actual LGBT people) have reservations about IS handing LGBT characters and it's not entirely unfounded fears there. I think most of us would be happy to see IS implement them well. But between a lot of already stated reasons it's just as important to consider people's valid concerns.

Found the blog post on Kyza, anyway. http://amielleon.dreamwidth.org/90765.html

I do think in order to have good representation there should be a number (does not have to be majority) of characters who exhibit a wide range of personalities who also happen to be gay. With more representation one gay character doesn't have to act as a spokesperson in representation for all the other gay people (a problem common to women in action films). This doesn't mean I can't respect some valid concerns regarding the social climate in Japan, IS's previous track record, etc

[Augestein]

How is this any different from real life? Obviously the percentage of gay people you meet will be much smaller than the percentage of straight people, and if it takes a while to meet someone that suits your tastes then you have to deal with it.

Read my post. I clearly state that this is awful from a gameplay perspective, and it is. In real life, there are perks to being hitched, but you don't literally "lose stats" for doing so. A man that's married to his wife doesn't suddenly do his job better than you because he's married and you're not.

You're also largely overstating the importance of S supports during the main game. We don't know how it will be handled in If, but in Awakening the only advantages S supports had over A supports were 10% higher dual strike chance, a negligible increase in dual guard chance, and +5 in one of Hit/Avo/Crit/Ddg. It makes close to no difference on lower difficulties. On higher difficulties, where support bonuses might actually matter a bit, people regularly do things they might not have done otherwise if they confer a gameplay advantage. For example, I could really like Galeforce and be angry at the game for not letting me get it as a Male Avatar. Or I could just play as a female if I decide Galeforce is that important to me, and not make a big deal out of the fact that I'm not playing as a male.

Let's see what you miss: stats, defense chances, offensive chances, a child, yeah, you miss a lot. Not to mention, you'd be hurting another unit by doing this, as Robin is using a clutch support for the time being and then starting back over to NO SUPPORT in my example. That was my point. Yes, we don't know how it's handled in If, but Fire Emblem is not a game that goes well with that if they keep marriage in the games. Most games with romance do not even bother to give you bonuses, it's merely a cosmetic or roleplaying choice. Here? It's not. Which is why I believe they opted to not have homosexuality here so no one would get screwed over.

And there's a reason that most people say Female Robin is better than Male Robin from a strict unit perspective. The biggest edge Male Robin has is that he can produce 2 sets of full class units with more women than female Robin can do with men. She can only do this with Chrom while Male Robin can do it with pretty much anyone that isn't a post act 1 unit. And more specifically, this has nothing to do with homosexuality on the direction you've dragged it. Because if that were the case, a gay man could just play as Female Robin and a lesbian woman could play as male Robin. That doesn't actually solve the problem.

[NekoKnight]

It might seem off topic but it's not. Homosexuality is a part of life and it's not something we can ignore, so why not include it in FE:if. Religion shouldn't get in the way of doing that.

What I mean is, the person to whom you are replying to has a set of religious beliefs that are rigid and unchanging. They can't be reasoned with so there is no point into trying to make a logical rebuttal. The rules of Catholicism won't change, but you need not concern yourself with one person's personal beliefs. That's beyond the scope of this thread.

*After reading posts, seems you may disagree on this one? She's kind of a jerk to Brom at first but that's partly because she misreads his overtures (also at that point she is trying to stealth around the battlefield stealing things without a big guy in plate mail drawing attention to her) but this never manifests itself again in her (admittedly limited) screentime. If she was supposed to be man-hating it would have been easy to work this into her support dialog, but there's no hint of it to be seen there.

You might want to read that conversation again. Even after clearing up the confusion of Brom's intentions, she was super bitchy to him. I can see how that could be construed as man-hating in general.

[Augestein]

And I see nothing wrong with making a man hating character. It's just another character in a cast of people. Not all of them have to be nice people. Heather just doesn't have enough characterization to really be MUCH of a character in general, but such is Radiant Dawn.

[goodperson707]

^^ uh i am Catholic and don't feel that way and neither do most of the people in my Catholic community.

Edited June 6, 2015 by goodperson707

[Trickster]

If she was supposed to be man-hating it would have been easy to work this into her support dialog, but there's no hint of it to be seen there.

You might want to read that conversation again. Even after clearing up the confusion of Brom's intentions, she was super bitchy to him. I can see how that could be construed as man-hating in general.

I actually want to point out that Heather's supports with Volke have her being really friendly and since they're also unique (not the fill in the blank ones) I'd say she doesn't hate men.

[Florete]

I can't agree with people saying that we would be better served to have no LGBT characters at all because they might be written badly. That attitude just gives the writers a (cowardly) excuse not to write them. I'd much rather see an attempt. If it's bad, okay, I'll be on board with the rest of you complaining that is bad. But I'd rather see the attempt anyway. The more examples of such characters we get, good or bad, the more future writers can learn from the previous examples. I don't think homosexuality should be regarded as so "special" that it is treated as something which only proven "good" writers should be allowed to write about.

Yes, this. If they never attempt it, how can they get better at it? As long as it looks like they tried, then I'll at least applaud them for that and hope for better next time.

If they were to just treat it as some dumb joke, obviously that would be a problem, but I think it should go without saying that supporting their inclusion is supporting a serious inclusion. Also, if IS were to include them and have them be romance candidates, I honestly doubt they'd treat the characters that poorly. And remember that it goes two ways in such a situation: if you have a gay character marriageable only by a Kamui of the same gender, then in the world where that romance happens, Kamui is also a gay character.

I guess I don't agree with calling Heather a stereotype. She's a lesbian (probably. You can read her lines otherwise but it's a bit of a reach IMO) but I don't find her be especially stereotypical? There aren't as many lesbian stereotypes as there are gay man stereotypes, but I don't really find Heather to fall into what ones exist (she is neither stereotypically butch nor femme, she doesn't have an exaggerated hatred of men*), and she's motivated at least as much by her desire to raise money for her mother as she is by her desire to protect and fight for attractive women (Nephenee and Elincia), which is one more personality quirk than I can remember about Gatrie despite his being in two games.

For me, Heather's inclusion certainly added to Radiant Dawn. I can see disliking her, of course, but to dislike her so much that you would be opposed to future LGBT characters for fear of someone else like her is something I don't really get.

*After reading posts, seems you may disagree on this one? She's kind of a jerk to Brom at first but that's partly because she misreads his overtures (also at that point she is trying to stealth around the battlefield stealing things without a big guy in plate mail drawing attention to her) but this never manifests itself again in her (admittedly limited) screentime. If she was supposed to be man-hating it would have been easy to work this into her support dialog, but there's no hint of it to be seen there.

This, too. One can certainly make the point that Heather isn't a very well-rounded character, but I don't really see where she's stereotypical.

And while there haven't been any other cases of clearly gay/lesbian characters in FE to my knowledge, there have been potentially implied situations that, if you did take them to be gay, could be considered good examples, such as Legault and Ike/Soren. Neither of these characters are definitely gay, but I think it's undeniably possible, and if you look at it that way, clearly their (potential) homosexuality isn't their defining trait.

I understand people being worried, but we can have at least a little faith in IS, right?

[Bovinian]

Let's see what you miss: stats, defense chances, offensive chances, a child, yeah, you miss a lot. Not to mention, you'd be hurting another unit by doing this, as Robin is using a clutch support for the time being and then starting back over to NO SUPPORT in my example. That was my point. Yes, we don't know how it's handled in If, but Fire Emblem is not a game that goes well with that if they keep marriage in the games. Most games with romance do not even bother to give you bonuses, it's merely a cosmetic or roleplaying choice. Here? It's not.

The increase in stats stops after A support, so you don't lose stats by not having an S support.

Yeah you miss out on a child, but what can you do about that, really? Not being able to produce a child in a homosexual relationship is just a fact of life and isn't anyone's fault. The game could offer a solution to that by including an adoption mechanic, but it would probably have to work in a similar way to the replacement children in FE4 where they are inferior in some way to the regular children, otherwise there would be no incentive to acquire children in the usual way.

Not sure what you meant by the comment about starting back over to no support. If your ideal partner is available early, you build up supports with him just as you would build up supports with a female. If he is available late like Basilio, this is no different than if you wanted to marry a female that comes late such as Flavia. You have to make do with somebody else in the meantime.

And there's a reason that most people say Female Robin is better than Male Robin from a strict unit perspective. The biggest edge Male Robin has is that he can produce 2 sets of full class units with more women than female Robin can do with men. She can only do this with Chrom while Male Robin can do it with pretty much anyone that isn't a post act 1 unit. And more specifically, this has nothing to do with homosexuality on the direction you've dragged it. Because if that were the case, a gay man could just play as Female Robin and a lesbian woman could play as male Robin. That doesn't actually solve the problem.

I know that the male/female example has nothing to do with homosexuality. I only brought it up in response to your claim that it isn't fair to be excluded from certain gameplay advantages because you chose to design your avatar a certain way.

Which is why I believe they opted to not have homosexuality here so no one would get screwed over.

So we probably agree that there are some things, such as not having a child, that are inherent disadvantages from a gameplay mechanic perspective that comes with playing as a homosexual avatar. If IS does decide to include homosexual characters in the next game (which I have no problem with, in case my post is coming off otherwise), what do you propose they do to address the gameplay-related discrepancies? I personally don't think they should have to resort to doing things like make 50% of the cast gay/bi, since that will break suspension of disbelief for a lot of people. If a player chooses to make a homosexual avatar, they should accept that they might not get certain perks that hetero couples have access to. IS could include bonuses solely available to homo couples if they feel they need to compensate somehow, but they should make some sort of sense and not be something that "they felt compelled to do for the sake of equality".

[ClevelandSteve]

In Heather's defense, pretty much every character in Radiant Dawn that didn't appear in Path of Radiance (either as a playable character or an NPC) was pretty bland and one-note, except for Micaiah and Pelleas. The lack of real, meaningful support conversations in Radiant Dawn, combined with the sheer size of the cast in that game, really hindered character development.

Edited June 6, 2015 by ClevelandSteve

[Yunanuy]

I didn't read the whole thread, so forgive me if most of this has already been said sorry not sorry

Rather than LGBT, I want variation. If the (proper) inclusion of set and varied sexualities can aid in that, then I support that to hell and back. However, Nippon being what it is, I doubt they'll enter the riskiness of adding gay options when they're working hard to appeal to a larger audience. Granted, you could say that the inclusion of LGBT will aid in that, but remember that the majority of the general gaming communities are straight, and gay characters could then possibly scare (it sounds stupid, but is unfortunately true) them off.

On the other hand, I don't doubt in their ability to write good LGBT characters, but I do think that if it was included, they might take the 'safe route' like Persona 4 did with Kanji - is he gay, is he not? Kanji's crush on "male" Naoto was a big defining trait of his personality (unfortunately), and even when Kanji so-to-speak 'accepted' his homosexuality and received his Persona, he spent the rest of the game denying it, which was really stupid. Not to mention that he was still attracted to the female Naoto, which made his homosexuality even more vague, and honestly made me feel like the "gay" was only there for comic relief, and wasn't meant to be taken seriously. Which was probably the case.

Personally, I'd like a character who was asexual/aromantic (Nyx plz) and turned down their opposites in their respective A/S-supports, but meh, you can't have everything. For the sake of the LGBT community, I do hope that they include LGBT-relations somewhat though, even if it is pretty horribly implemented. Inclusion is never a bad thing.

[BrightBow]

Being into girls wasn't Heather's hat anyway. It was being into money.

Edited June 6, 2015 by BrightBow

[goodperson707]

I didn't read the whole thread, so forgive me if most of this has already been said sorry not sorry

Rather than LGBT, I want variation. If the (proper) inclusion of set and varied sexualities can aid in that, then I support that to hell and back. However, Nippon being what it is, I doubt they'll enter the riskiness of adding gay options when they're working hard to appeal to a larger audience. Granted, you could say that the inclusion of LGBT will aid in that, but remember that the majority of the general gaming communities are straight, and gay characters could then possibly scare (it sounds stupid, but is unfortunately true) them off.

On the other hand, I don't doubt in their ability to write good LGBT characters, but I do think that if it was included, they might take the 'safe route' like Persona 4 did with Kanji - is he gay, is he not? Kanji's crush on "male" Naoto was a big defining trait of his personality (unfortunately), and even when Kanji so-to-speak 'accepted' his homosexuality and received his Persona, he spent the rest of the game denying it, which was really stupid. Not to mention that he was still attracted to the female Naoto, which made his homosexuality even more vague, and honestly made me feel like the "gay" was only there for comic relief, and wasn't meant to be taken seriously. Which was probably the case.

Personally, I'd like a character who was asexual/aromantic (Nyx plz) and turned down their opposites in their respective A/S-supports, but meh, you can't have everything. For the sake of the LGBT community, I do hope that they include LGBT-relations somewhat though, even if it is pretty horribly implemented. Inclusion is never a bad thing.

fire emblem has been (arguably) going the safe route of not actually stating that a character is LGB since the games came to america, but they kept it kinda in the background in some cases.

brightbow i would say heathers main points were, getting money for a love one, (castor,dorcas,ect) getting money in general (classic rouge trope) and flirting with girls. (sain,alec ect.)for that last one i find the fact that she happens to be a girl immaterial.

Edited June 6, 2015 by goodperson707

[eclipse]

I was originally thinking 3 - 6, it that balances things out more. Either way, only 2-3 would be locked out from the player in any one playthrough. Lesbians and Bi would work for Women and be, Gays and Bi would work for Men. Only Lesbians would be locked out for Men and only Gays would be locked out for women. Meaning max 2 - 3 in a single playthrough.

I always disliked the way they handled Tharja's character. I got very excited when I saw the supports were the same, but crashed right back to earth when I saw that for some reason, the 'less natural' femalexfemale route couldn't end in an S.

There is a bit of a dilemma there, but I hardly think it would be as noticeable as you are stating. Depending on gender, only 2-3 would be locked out from romance in any one playthrough. That's less than LGBT players have been locked out of in the history of the series and in games in general.

That first sentence is - quite frankly - extremely rude and immature. And Regardless, it's not meant to support my position. I'm happy with the outcome, but I don't need any additional support from a random internet poll to know that all love is equal, regardless of gender.

I'm simply happy more people know that than the opposite here in Serenes Forest.

Regarding the rest of your post, I want them to treat the characters with respect first and foremost, but even if the writing for everyone is bad - like I've seen some people arguing it is in Awakening and such - I'd want them to include LGBT minorities, as it's the right thing to do.

Even if they're written as badly as all the straight characters. It would mean a lot to have them included.

I have to be pretty annoyed before that thought crosses my mind. This is being used to "support" your notion, and this which is mostly agreeing with everyone who agrees with you and disagreeing with the guys who don't? That's tasteless, and I do not support people whose sole purpose seems to be to seek out others with their exact same position.

I'd sooner have all straight couples than have another game turn someone's sexuality into a personality quirk. Since I don't think that'll happen, I don't support it. But according to your black-and-white poll, I'm a "no" vote. See the problem?

Lastly. . .

Nope, nobody needs to be offended - religious reasons or otherwise, it's not your life. Nobody is making you change your sexuality. (Not that that's even possible.)

Someone way back in the past on SF mentioned that sexuality is fluid. Given the various stories of straight people going gay and vice versa, I find it hard to believe that each and every one of them was wrong about what they liked their entire lives.

I'm a fan of the least amount of character dialogue as possible, because then you can insert your own flavor and personality in the game with imagination. This works in favor of whatever sexuality you want to impose. Oguma doesn't say much, and neither does Merric - want them to be gay? Imagination. Don't want them to pair? Imagination. I ended up caring more about the Akenia characters than the others in the series because I was able to create my own backstories and imprint myself on them. No reason that can't work again - less sometimes is more.

Give Shadow Dragon a whirl. Many of the characters have one line of dialogue, which is a death quote.

It's pretty rare that I run across someone that shares this sentiment. It also means that I can write about the characters, and I don't feel as stifled by the creators as, say, the Greil mercenaries in Tellius (not 'cause they're badly-written, but because so much is written about them).

And here's my issue with that: sexuality is something that is literally a character trait that doesn't even need to be brought up. We could simply ignore romance, and it really doesn't matter. Sexuality never appears because no one is showing interests in each other. The players can be what they want to be. I'd say sex and race and gender are even more of a problem than sexuality. For cripes sake, I can't even make a dark skinned Robin in Awakening, and my dad IS darker skinned in game!

My issue is that I don't WANT any type of character to be in the game. And neither should you, because there's no heart put into a character that's put in the game for the sake of having a character that's in the game. If they're going to be gay or lesbian or bi, I want it to be in the way that is Lyndis or Ike, if you think of them that way. Where if they are, it's like it's just there, and not that the character was MADE to be a homosexual character.

Huh. Forgot about the skin color thing! I suppose part of the reason is because of the light/dark split in Ylisse (Gangrel's skin doesn't look normal, and check Aversa/Walhart/Validar's skin tone versus the Ylisse guys that aren't Vaike). I doubt there will be a darker-colored option in if, though, since Kamui's supposed to be born in Hoshido.

Also on those who are afraid of badly done LGB characters, there have been implied some quite heavily same sex pairings before in fire emblem, and at least some of those were well done in my opinion. But i would much prefer those be Canon rather than implied.

I, too, remember Raven and Lucius.

Unfortunately, FE6 sort of invalidated that.

I'd be fine with 3-4 LGBT characters. I'd be fine with 1 character.

As long as there's representation and selection for LGBT players, it's a step in the right direction, and one that Nintendo has promised it would make.

With 1 Gay, 1 Lesbian, and 1 or 2 Bisexual characters - just like Valkyria Chronicles, oddly enough (1 of each) - it'd have the options open to the player, while not locking out more than 1 character romance per gender. It would also remain realistic according to current statistics.

Would THAT be an admirable compromise? (It's certainly better than the Dragon Age option...)

Ah, Valkyria Chronicles. Couldn't take the gay characters seriously because that was their defining trait. Like, hating guys because you're a lesbian (that's Dallas, IIRC)?

The point is not people not wanting LGBT characters in general, but given IS's track record, their fears are not unfounded. It's not about whether or not it's possible to write a good character who happens to be gay; It's whether or not IS's writers are up to that task. In theory writing a good character who happens to be gay should be about as difficult as writing a good character who happens to be straight, but in practice a lot of people struggle with it and end up writing stereotypes, for some reason.

Character first, everything else later. If we got whoever did the death quotes from Shadow Dragon back, I'd be a lot more confident. Since I don't have enough confidence in the strength of the characters, I don't think they'll do anything that isn't straight well.

'sides, if the writer has to tell me "oh BTW this character's gay", that's not good writing. Show, don't tell.

I can't agree with people saying that we would be better served to have no LGBT characters at all because they might be written badly. That attitude just gives the writers a (cowardly) excuse not to write them. I'd much rather see an attempt. If it's bad, okay, I'll be on board with the rest of you complaining that is bad. But I'd rather see the attempt anyway. The more examples of such characters we get, good or bad, the more future writers can learn from the previous examples. I don't think homosexuality should be regarded as so "special" that it is treated as something which only proven "good" writers should be allowed to write about.

Not might. Will. Because sexual preference isn't a personality quirk (do you REALLY want to give people who are against the movement more ammo?).

How would you write Heather as a lesbian with the amount of dialogue provided without being so direct?

Introduction - "A wink and a smile, and yet another unwitting man who's gladly forked over his gold. Can't say that he's my type, though. Hang tight, Mom, I'll be home soon!"

Brom recruitment - Have Heather's usual flirting with men for their money fall flat on its face because Brom's married and faithful, and then have her tag along when he mentions that he came with Nepheenee ("only showin' interest when I mention Nepheenee, eh?").

Nepheenee recruitment - That can stay the same.

Lastly, have Makalov attempt to get money of out Heather (and have her be rightfully offended, maybe have Marcia save the day and Heather being VERY appreciative), and another base convo where Gatrie attempts to hit on Heather. If I had the full scripts, I'd be willing to give this a shot, as a writing exercise.

It might seem off topic but it's not. Homosexuality is a part of life and it's not something we can ignore, so why not include it in FE:if. Religion shouldn't get in the way of doing that.

Let's include Christians as the main characters while we're at it. And make Muslims the bad guys. That's how it is in real life according to the US, right? (and for anyone who can't hear tone, I'm being sarcastic - I wouldn't support this kind of game, ever)

It's a video game - if I want a representation of real life, I'll go outside.

I guess I don't agree with calling Heather a stereotype. She's a lesbian (probably. You can read her lines otherwise but it's a bit of a reach IMO) but I don't find her be especially stereotypical? There aren't as many lesbian stereotypes as there are gay man stereotypes, but I don't really find Heather to fall into what ones exist (she is neither stereotypically butch nor femme, she doesn't have an exaggerated hatred of men*), and she's motivated at least as much by her desire to raise money for her mother as she is by her desire to protect and fight for attractive women (Nephenee and Elincia), which is one more personality quirk than I can remember about Gatrie despite his being in two games.

For me, Heather's inclusion certainly added to Radiant Dawn. I can see disliking her, of course, but to dislike her so much that you would be opposed to future LGBT characters for fear of someone else like her is something I don't really get.

*After reading posts, seems you may disagree on this one? She's kind of a jerk to Brom at first but that's partly because she misreads his overtures (also at that point she is trying to stealth around the battlefield stealing things without a big guy in plate mail drawing attention to her) but this never manifests itself again in her (admittedly limited) screentime. If she was supposed to be man-hating it would have been easy to work this into her support dialog, but there's no hint of it to be seen there.

Heather's intro quote wants a word with you.

This, too. One can certainly make the point that Heather isn't a very well-rounded character, but I don't really see where she's stereotypical.

And while there haven't been any other cases of clearly gay/lesbian characters in FE to my knowledge, there have been potentially implied situations that, if you did take them to be gay, could be considered good examples, such as Legault and Ike/Soren. Neither of these characters are definitely gay, but I think it's undeniably possible, and if you look at it that way, clearly their (potential) homosexuality isn't their defining trait.

I understand people being worried, but we can have at least a little faith in IS, right?

Heather's problem is that one of her two defining characteristics was which way she swung.

Now, of the others. . .I think I wrote a wall somewhere in the past about Legault (pretty sure he doesn't trust anyone enough for any sort of meaningful relationship, and I'm sure liking women is somewhere in that spectrum). Ike/Soren would've been okay if Priam didn't exist (neither of them are really sterotypical, and Soren dislikes people for reasons that aren't their gender).

IS needs to show me that they can write characters first. I do NOT want something with Awakening-level characterization. It's still a volatile subject, and the last thing I want is for this to be yet another game where I shake my head because someone checked off "okay, we have the gay guy, let's call it a day".

[Jedi]

If they can do a show don't tell character, sure. Like maybe a mention or two, but don't make it like OMGTHISCHARACTERISSOGAY.

If the entire characters premise is being homosexual, no thanks. Agenda setting is not something i'd like to see in FE anytime soon.

[Yunanuy]

IS needs to show me that they can write characters first. I do NOT want something with Awakening-level characterization. It's still a volatile subject, and the last thing I want is for this to be yet another game where I shake my head because someone checked off "okay, we have the gay guy, let's call it a day".

This pretty much sums up my worries about the issue.

Like I stated previously, I honestly just want variation, and I'm pro-anything if it helps in creating that. But lazy writing is lazy, and abusing tropes for the sake of variation is horrible and should be avoided at all costs.

fire emblem has been (arguably) going the safe route of not actually stating that a character is LGB since the games came to america, but they kept it kinda in the background in some cases.

This is not necessarily a bad thing though...because it just means that said character's sexuality is not their defining trait, which is nothing but good in my opinion. My issue is with having a character being downright flamboyantly gay to prove their sexuality (I'm not saying these people don't exist, but it's lazy writing), or having a character come out of the closet, only to have their outing being downplayed as a comedy skit as the story progresses.

I don't care whether it's LGBT or some other supposedly defining trait. What ticks me off is having a writer who's scared of what the readers might think about their character, that they really go out of their way to somehow assure that "even if this character happened to be different, he/she is really really really just your general plain old normal typical average person". Nothing strange about that, huh!

[Trickster]

Perhaps we should change the poll to say, "assuming the character would be well written, would you support a LGBT character?" Because right now every is just bickering about how they'll be written and I don't feel like that was what the poll was trying to go for (OP correct me if I'm wrong). I mean, it's clear that no one wants to have a poorly written character ever, so why does this have to be the topic where, let's face it, everyone is just worried about bad characters, it's just manifesting as worrying about a bad homosexual/bisexual/pansexual character.

Edited June 6, 2015 by Trickster