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FE16 Same-Sex Relationship Discussion


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44 minutes ago, sothis said:

The romance options are pretty much the only reasons I'm going to choose female Byleth. I will forgive even the ugliest of design choices if it means I can S rank with so many of my faves.

At least her dlc outfit is pretty cute if you have it.

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1 hour ago, Adam Revlan said:

So I made an account just so I could chime in on the topic here.

Honestly, I feel like the options we were given for M/M are quite original when compared to what I've seen from other games so far. Even though Linhardt fits the stereotypical feminine gay option that a lot of games have, I think choosing Alois and Gilbert to be the other 2 options is quite strange, I can't help but feel like this choice was deliberate on the part of IS, I think they have a story to tell here with both of these characters and I'm very curious to see how these options come about and whether they work or not. The reasons I say that is that there is no way they looked at the age disparity between Byleth and them and thought that it made sense to choose them as options unless they have something in mind.

I do have a bit of bias here seeing as I think Alois is very handsome and will be who I romance my first go around. I still feel like there's something pleasantly new about some of the options we're being given.

 

I mean, both Gilbert and Alois still fill that idea of an older man with a younger man, as has been said before, so I'm not entirely sure how original they are. It's still a stereotype, just one far different than we've seen in this series before. The choice was deliberate, but we've yet to see what those choices could mean. I'm also excited for Alois, though the fact that he's married still concerns me even though I know IS won't have us be a homewrecker. Personally he's been my favorite out of the three so far.

I think the issue isn't with the characters themselves, but rather looking at the potential options as a collective. I mean, the same problem arose in Fates, because Niles and Rhajat aren't necessarily bad as individual options, but the issue arises when you look at the totality of all your options. By having only these options available, it essentially sends a message about how we as queer people are thought of. Yes, the options are better than in the past, but they're not perfect. And part of this issue concerns the limited pool of options we have. Because it seems strange to me that very particular views of queer men are chosen to represent us. And I have similar thoughts about the f/f options, particularly if Rhea and Sothis aren't actually options. I'm glad we have more options and that they appear to be somewhat different, but there are also a lot of similarities that can be drawn between these choices too.

But that's why we need to talk about how our identity is portrayed and what those portrayals may mean. And part of that includes asking for more options and more varied representation. For all parts of the queer community.

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Bit off-topic and I don't mean to throw more oil on this trash fire, but..

I saw some leaked screenshots and apparently ...

Spoiler

...teachers units don't seem get portrait upgrades in the time skip, so Gilbert and Alois will not get new portraits. What you see is what you get. LOL. I base this claim based on the fact that Shamir's time skip portrait is the exact same as her pre-time skip.

Should that be the case, that was rather lazy on Intelligent Systems's part. =/

 

Edited by Leif
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17 minutes ago, Leif said:

Bit off-topic and I don't mean to throw more oil on this trash fire, but..

I saw some leaked screenshots and apparently ...

  Reveal hidden contents

...teachers units don't seem get portrait upgrades in the time skip, so Gilbert and Alois will not get new portraits. What you see is what you get. LOL. I base this claim based on the fact that Shamir's time skip portrait is the exact same as her pre-time skip.

Should that be the case, that was rather lazy on Intelligent Systems's part. =/

 

I've got mixed feelings about it, but I'm also not surprised at all

Spoiler

In a general sense, I'm disappointed because it means we've lost out on further characterization that could be seen through them aging. In a more gay sense, I'm glad b/c I really like Alois's current design and aging Gilbert anymore would make him look outright elderly, considering he already has grey hairs pre timeskip

 

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Spoiler

Even in real life, a lot of people don't noticeably age much in the middle of their lives. So while five years is super dynamic for a teenager, for a 40-year-old not so much. Case in point: Keanu Reeves hasn't aged in 20 years (unless he is an immortal vampire).

So doesn't surprise me that none of the older teaching staff is going to get new portraits. Personally I'm okay with that, as Hanneman's is too dapper to mess with.

More concerned about how they're going to resolve Alois' wife, as while the 20+ age gaps do freak me out I'm as equally disturbed that his wife either has to die during the timeskip and I date a widower or I'm a homewrecker. Both leave a sour taste in my mouth.

 

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I've had time to mull it over and while I have somewhat accepted the state of affairs I'm still pretty bitter about it. Even though I find Alois cute design wise, the age gap between him and Byleth is just too much for it to be an option I'd consider going for. 

More than anything, I'm just confused. How we went from Niles (who, for all his flaws, was a pretty great and popular) character to this is beyond me. 

I just don't get it. They want to sell merchandise, characters on Fire Emblem Heroes and alts on Fire Emblem Heroes, right? So why choose three of the least appealing male characters to the audience at large to be bisexual? If it was because of discrimination they wouldn't go through the effort to make three relatively non-stereotypical and well developed bisexual male characters in the first place. And I find it hard to believe that it was just a case of them misjudging the fanbase because between Niles and the artist for the game being a woman who has drawn stereotypical hot BL before, they clearly know what appeals to that crowd. 

If Gilbert was gay and it was a part of his character story and why he left Annette and Her mother, that would actually make sense and be pretty cool. But he's bi so... 

Why? Why why why why why?

Edited by EJ107
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27 minutes ago, EJ107 said:

I've had time to mull it over and while I have somewhat accepted the state of affairs I'm still pretty bitter about it. Even though I find Alois cute design wise, the age gap between him and Byleth is just too much for it to be an option I'd consider going for. 

More than anything, I'm just confused. How we went from Niles (who, for all his flaws, was a pretty great and popular) character to this is beyond me. 

I just don't get it. They want to sell merchandise, characters on Fire Emblem Heroes and alts on Fire Emblem Heroes, right? So why choose three of the least appealing male characters to the audience at large to be bisexual? If it was because of discrimination they wouldn't go through the effort to make three relatively non-stereotypical and well developed bisexual male characters in the first place. And I find it hard to believe that it was just a case of them misjudging the fanbase because between Niles and the artist for the game being a woman who has drawn stereotypical hot BL before, they clearly know what appeals to that crowd. 

If Gilbert was gay and it was a part of his character story and why he left Annette and Her mother, that would actually make sense and be pretty cool. But he's bi so... 

Why? Why why why why why?

 

Well as others have stated before in this topic; there is a possibility that they are appealing to certain demography of individuals in japan; as they are fans of Yaoi; which basically portraits bishounens (good-looking, slender and most of the time either slightly masculine or androgynous young males),  on the other side of the spectrum there is Bara, which doesn't limit nor very frequently focus on illustrating only young males with the features found on bishounens ; instead; more stocky builds, facial hair and wider age ranges are more common in this gender.

From my point of view, Alois and Gilbert could have been chosen to target the Bara community that exist in japan.

And, well, being bi doesn't mean that divorcing his wife(I didn't read the spoilers so I just assuming things base on what you are saying) has less sense compare if he were gay. I mean; yes; it would have the impact of accepting a part of him that he might have been denying for decades, but as a bi man his decision of separating is not necessarily related to his sexuality; after all; he must have had his reasons to do so and is unlikely that he will say something like he got tired of his wife because she was a woman and more sensible to assume that maybe they just weren't getting along and it was time to let things go at some point in his past... I'm trying to say that if someone decides to divorce; their sexuality being a focal point on that decision in this sort of case is something that we should try to avoid assuming so we don't hurt someone's feelings in the process. 

Oh; and, if it turns out that Byleth is a homewrecker; I'm just going to eat my words with mayonnaise XD. 

 

 

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25 minutes ago, Edrey said:

 

Well as others have stated before in this topic; there is a possibility that they are appealing to certain demography of individuals in japan; as they are fans of Yaoi; which basically portraits bishounens (good-looking, slender and most of the time either slightly masculine or androgynous young males),  on the other side of the spectrum there is Bara, which doesn't limit nor very frequently focus on illustrating only young males with the features found on bishounens ; instead; more stocky builds, facial hair and wider age ranges are more common in this gender.

From my point of view, Alois and Gilbert could have been chosen to target the Bara community that exist in japan.

And, well, being bi doesn't mean that divorcing his wife(I didn't read the spoilers so I just assuming things base on what you are saying) has less sense compare if he were gay. I mean; yes; it would have the impact of accepting a part of him that he might have been denying for decades, but as a bi man his decision of separating is not necessarily related to his sexuality; after all; he must have had his reasons to do so and is unlikely that he will say something like he got tired of his wife because she was a woman and more sensible to assume that maybe they just weren't getting along and it was time to let things go at some point in his past... I'm trying to say that if someone decides to divorce; their sexuality being a focal point on that decision in this sort of case is something that we should try to avoid assuming so we don't hurt someone's feelings in the process. 

Oh; and, if it turns out that Byleth is a homewrecker; I'm just going to eat my words with mayonnaise XD. 

 

 

Oh, I'm more than familiar with the Bara genre. I tend to prefer it to Yaoi myself, since it is more often aimed at gay and bisexual men men. And if that was the intention then I do at least appreciate that the developers tried to appeal to more than stereotypical Yaoi stuff. 

But Bara is  about having more muscular, bulky, hairy and generally more masculine characters. From what I know of the genre it isn't about massive age differences or men who have been married to women and have children. It is often characters in their 20's or 30's. Of the other characters in the game I'd say Raphael, Setheh and even Caspar all generally fit the Bara trope as well to some degree, and having at least one of them would have been much better than two middle age men with children. 

Edited by EJ107
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5 minutes ago, EJ107 said:

Oh, I'm more than familiar with the Bara genre. I tend to prefer it to Yaoi myself, since it is more often aimed at gay and bisexual men men. And if that was the intention then I do at least appreciate that the developers tried to appeal to more than stereotypical Yaoi stuff. 

But Bara is  about having more muscular, bulky, hairy and generally more masculine characters. From what I know of the genre it isn't about massive age differences or men who have been married to women and have children. It is often characters in their 20's or 30's. Of the other characters in the game I'd say Raphael, Setheh and even Caspar all generally fit the Bara trope as well to some degree, and having at least one of them would have been much better than two middle age men with children. 

Well, Bara does have a wider age range, but you're right in that there are definitely younger characters like Caspar and especially Raphael that could fit that role. So if their goal was simply to appeal to Bara fans, then it still doesn't make sense to just choose older options. Especially since Raphael and Caspar seem like they fit the Bara stereotype more than Gilbert. I'm currently figuring out the best way to send my criticism to IS about their choices., and once I do I'll post about it here, so that others can do the same if they want. Personally I'll also be asking to patch in more options, preferably Claude (b/c once again then we'll have a major male as an option) and possibly Catherine or Shamir if it's true that f/f only have 3 options that are actually romantic.

Edited by firewitch912
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Spoiler

There was conformation that Alois's and Gilbert's endings are purely platonic. No romance involved at all. 

See the spoiler for details regarding Alois's and Gilbert's respective S supports with male Byleth. 

 

Edited by Leif
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3 minutes ago, Leif said:
  Reveal hidden contents

There was conformation that Alois's and Gilbert's endings are purely platonic. No romance involved at all. 

See the spoiler for details regarding Alois and Gilbert S support. 

 

Well then. I'm going to be doing a LOT more complaining to IS than I thought if that's true.

Do you have a link to the confirmation? And is there anything about the other same sex S supports?

EDIT: found the link. I've put their entire message in this spoiler just in case, because it has some interesting things.

Spoiler

Since the text dump was released, I found something curious when looking at Byleth's endings: there are way more bi endings than expected, and some of the supposed same sex options we'd known about since before release were, in fact, platonic all along. I recall people getting quite upset about this, so here's a list that might clear some things up. This is all based off the text dump.

Edit: Having confirmed that many of my assumptions were wrong due to the dummy text, it seems that we will have to go off the pre-release information as far as same-sex supports go. I will delete the post after a short time and apologize terribly for the confusion! I can, however, confirm Gilbert, Alois, and Rhea have platonic endings.

 

Edited by firewitch912
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8 minutes ago, Leif said:
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There was conformation that Alois's and Gilbert's endings are purely platonic. No romance involved at all. 

See the spoiler for details regarding Alois's and Gilbert's respective S supports with male Byleth. 

 

Wow now I ACTUALLY feel bad for anyone who might've been stoked to marry those older men only for those endings. Ooof. Looks like Linhardt is the only actual romantic option. I mean, platonic S supports are a thing (look at some of the Fates kids) but... wow. no one can tell me they're "trying to appeal to that crowd" anymore, that's for sure.

 

I will also be writing up a criticism/feedback to Nintendo America and  Nintendo of Japan if I can't directly contact IS because... wow. IS really is doing the m/m crowd dirty with that.

Edited by Tuna
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3 minutes ago, firewitch912 said:

Well then. I'm going to be doing a LOT more complaining to IS than I thought if that's true.

Do you have a link to the confirmation? And is there anything about the other same sex S supports?

Spoiler

 

Link is in the spoiler. There shouldn't be any story spoilers, but enter at your own risk. This data is all from text strings in the game's files.  

Edited by Leif
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14 minutes ago, firewitch912 said:

Well, Bara does have a wider age range, but you're right in that there are definitely younger characters like Caspar and especially Raphael that could fit that role. So if their goal was simply to appeal to Bara fans, then it still doesn't make sense to just choose older options. Especially since Raphael and Caspar seem like they fit the Bara stereotype more than Gilbert. I'm currently figuring out the best way to send my criticism to IS about their choices., and once I do I'll post about it here, so that others can do the same if they want. Personally I'll also be asking to patch in more options, preferably Claude (b/c once again then we'll have a major male as an option) and possibly Catherine or Shamir if it's true that f/f only have 3 options that are actually romantic.

 

I had wanted to ask a few pages before but I lost the chance; how are you going to send the feedback to IS? directly to their page? if so; will you translate it to Japanese before sending it or there is a way to do it through NOA so they can then pass it over to them?

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6 minutes ago, Edrey said:

 

I had wanted to ask a few pages before but I lost the chance; how are you going to send the feedback to IS? directly to their page? if so; will you translate it to Japanese before sending it or there is a way to do it through NOA so they can then pass it over to them?

I'm not really sure. The contact info IS has are all very particular. I'm planning on messaging/calling NOA's customer support to see if they have any ideas, or if I can pass a message through them. Once again, I'll make a post in here when I find out the best/recommended way to give my thoughts to IS. Because if this new info is true (and it appears to be so) then there's a lot more problems than we thought

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Based on my research, here are some more confirmations:

Spoiler

Linhardt is the only romantic S support for male Byleth.

Gilbert, Rhea, and Alois are purely platonic relationships. 

So female Byleth gets four options and male Byleth only gets one. LOL, IS hates the gays. 

 

Edited by Leif
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I can’t think of many cases where someone/something manages to double down on the disappointment. And I thought mlm options got the short end of the stick but in reality we didn’t even get a stick because there’s literally no improvement from Fates (quantity wise). 

Edited by zuibangde
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Spoiler

Wait whose the 4th option? Eldegard,Dorothea, Mercedes and who?

Spoiler

I mean at the very least some of the paired endings for male characters have gay subtext... just not M!Byleth 

 

Edited by mrwanton
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16 minutes ago, Tuna said:

Wow now I ACTUALLY feel bad for anyone who might've been stoked to marry those older men only for those endings. Ooof. Looks like Linhardt is the only actual romantic option. I mean, platonic S supports are a thing (look at some of the Fates kids) but... wow. no one can tell me they're "trying to appeal to that crowd" anymore, that's for sure.

 

I will also be writing up a criticism/feedback to Nintendo America and  Nintendo of Japan if I can't directly contact IS because... wow. IS really is doing the m/m crowd dirty with that.

I was genuinely excited for Gilbert since his design and personality/backstory appealed to me, so I'm really crushed by this news. I like Lindhart so I'll happily go with him instead. It just sucks that he really, truly is our only m/m option.

I wouldn't be quite as upset if Alois and Gilbert's supports weren't universally hyped all over as being same-sex romance/marriage. Did no one writing about these supports actually see them through to the end? Did they just assume that s rank = romance since that's how it was in previous games? 😞

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Spoiler

Woah wait what? I see people in the reddit mentioning that Caspar, Hanneman, and Raphael are bi!? Can anyone confirm? Hate to get my hopes up but hearing that Caspar is possible option really makes me happy as much as I'm trying not to get excited about it.

 

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5 minutes ago, NegativeExponents- said:
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Woah wait what? I see people in the reddit mentioning that Caspar, Hanneman, and Raphael are bi!? Can anyone confirm? Hate to get my hopes up but hearing that Caspar is possible option really makes me happy as much as I'm trying not to get excited about it.

 

Spoiler

Nope. That was just dummy text. I wouldn't get your hopes up because they cannot be S supported. 

 

9 minutes ago, mrwanton said:
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Wait whose the 4th option? Eldegard,Dorothea, Mercedes and who?

 

Spoiler

Sothis

 

Edited by Leif
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9 minutes ago, mrwanton said:
  Reveal hidden contents

Wait whose the 4th option? Eldegard,Dorothea, Mercedes and who?

  Reveal hidden contents

I mean at the very least some of the paired endings for male characters have gay subtext... just not M!Byleth 

 

Spoiler

I'd assume the fourth is Sothis, since she's the only other S support available

And honestly gay subtext is not enough anymore. We've had explicitly queer characters for a few games now, so it seems ridiculous that we'd suddenly return to subtext. This is 2019, and frankly it's just unacceptable, especially when they made a statement about having same sex romance (even though it was very short and had no actual info besides that it exists)

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2 minutes ago, GiveMeCuteness said:
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Ok so I've never used reddit and I can't find where this text dump is, can someone tell me please? I'm very cunfuzzled.

Also I have no idea how to feel about all of this.

 

It was deleted due to misinformation. Essentially...

Spoiler

Linhardt is the only romantic S support for male Byleth.

 

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