The Romance Problem in Video Games
While discussing my recent playthrough of Dragon Age: Inquisition with @beowulfoflegend, we brought up out playthroughs of the past regarding the DA series, especially the often reviled Dragon Age 2, or as he called it, “Medieval Fantasy Dating Simulator 2”. (I ended up with Fenris, by the way.) Bioware’s romance subplots have long been a trademark of the series since the days of Baldur’s Gate and Knights of the Old Republic, and they’ve grown more diverse regarding LGBT-inclusion in recent years, even including exclusively gay characters and the addition of a gay party member in Inquisition.
But there’s still a problem with a lot of Bioware’s romances, and in a lot of video games. It isn’t the quality of the writing, through there is a definite difference in Mass Effect 3 between FemShep/Garrus and GayShep/Kaidan. It’s not the staff, either, as diversity is often vaunted by the studios to make sure that characters are being portrayed correctly instead of a caricature or whatever was pulled off Google. It’s not the audience, either, even though the overwhelming majority of gay male characters outside of video games are written by women for women and that tends to have a significant influence on their appearance and personality.
It’s not even that video games turn romance and love into a simple matter of saying the right things, buying the right gifts, and making sure the person of romantic interest is present when you do something awesome. It’s not that sex is, thanks largely to Bioware, something that’s saved for the hours before the climactic showdown. It’s not that if someone’s married or otherwise off the market there’ll be forums devoted to cracking that safe.
No, it’s that no one ever approaches you to say they find you attractive. Granted, there was that time I was accosted by two women in Mass Effect to choose between them simply because I was polite and respectful, but that was after many, many interactions. I’ve never had a character approach mine with the same come-ons and witty one liners without me letting them know I’m not interested, or inclined that way. I’ve never had a character, well, treat me like they were the main character. I’ve never had one of the members of my party, or crew invite me out, or walk up to me looking nervous as Hell or with eight kinds of swagger.
It’s not even a “I feel so unpretty” kind of thing, it’s that the main character’s behavior should show that kind of impact. If I’m playing a gay character, I wouldn’t mind a female crew member approach, find out I don’t swing that way, and our friendship either gains a new complexity or she reveals her latent homophobia which adds new levels of complexity to my moral decisions. In Mass Effect, when I was forced to choose between Ashley and Kaidan, like a lot of people I chose Ashley because she was the aggressive and Christian party member. When I played FemShep, though, Ashley was saved because it was a true female friendship and every mission was like Galentine’s Day.
- From Mass Effect
So what if those factors are introduced? What if I have second rate engineer that’s also my hag on one side and a sort of homophobic security wunderkind on the other and one of them has to die or everyone does? What if the nervous sniper character won’t take no for an answer and he quits the team in a huff and I spend the rest of the game afraid a red dot will appear on my character’s forehead? What if I’ve found out I’ve broken up a relationship between crewmates? What if after a major moral decision my SO breaks up with me, and I have the option to go back on it? Romance isn’t just for gratification, it can be a major complicating factor instead of a buffet of fuckable NPCs with B-list voice actors. It’s simply a matter of deepening the story, and will also do more than the simple heart-shaped emotes to let you know that the NPC is datable.
Despite Romance being derided as a distasteful, cliché-ridden genre (and if you think that, you REALLY haven’t read any Romance recently), it’s one of the more progressive genres out there, not just in representation (because it’s got a lot of work to do in representation), but also in plot mechanics, archetype development, narration style, non-traditional/avantgarde relationships, point of view experimentation, dialogue style, and trope conception. Romance can provide a significant shot in the arm to video game plot development, even if it doesn’t involve two characters ending up together.
Because it’s either that, or we wait around for Medieval Fantasy Dating Simulator 4.
Excellent post, but my view is a bit different. I like that the default is that everyone is kinda into my character (well, except Vivienne). And I like that I can't really break most stuff irrevocably. And I think that's why the companions are the way they are. I think it would be emotionally difficult if, say, Sara or Vivienne felt towards me the way they feel about each other.
Oghren and I never really warmed up to each other in any of my many, many playthroughs of DAO, and it had a negative effect on the way I viewed him.
Btw, if you scroll back on my blog, you'll find a series of posts on BioWare that may be of interest.
I can see that argument. There's definitely an element of fantasy in romance subplots, especially in video games, but the main character is never the one that's pursued initially. It's just that there are a lot of complex themes in those games but romance is so often simple, a binary matter when there's so much complexity, not to mention how a failed relationship can lead to deeper friendships or more complicated dynamics.
DA:O... god, the gift element of that game just made your Warden a rampant people pleaser. :)
I already AM a people pleaser, which is something I'm working on, so approval in BW games has always been a big thing for me. Unlike in life, you DAO you really CAN please all the people!
I am an approval maxer. To get everyone to like me in games, I'll tell one DAI character that the chantry is awesome, and another that it's terrible. Games are a good way for me to work that instinct out.
I will say that both Alistair and Anders do pursue the pc in their respective games, and there's a bit of an approval hit to rejecting both of them. A hit I take, because NO to both of those dudes.
Huh, I never got that with Anders, but I couldn't stand him. He was so different from the Awakening Anders, which is explained with the story, I know, but he stopped being a character, honestly. Instead, he became a Tortured Deep-But-Not-Really M/M Romantic Anti-Hero.
There's a difference between gay and M/M, after all. Gay is a sexual orientation, and M/M is a fetish tag. :)
Awakening Anders is the best. DA2 Anders is the absolute worst (except for Solas, who is forever the true worst). But, yeah. People pleaser, so I was nice to Anders, and he did hit on me.
As I recall, this caused an uproar among the homophobic portions of BW fandom. Because of COURSE it did.
I couldn't wait to ditch Solas, personally. It was over a year before I found out about his true identity because he hated practically everything I did. But as the romances go? I usually go with the het ones outside of DA2, because they tend to be written better.
My first full playthrough was my Dwarven atheist archer with Cassandra, because those two were sweet, and in DA:O I had my Dwarf commoner with Leliana because those two were adorable. :)
I usually play female protagonists, and I usually romance the women, so I had to get a mod to romance Cass. Worth it, even with missing audio bits.
Also... wait... doesn't everyone get the Solas post credits scene?
I didn't, mostly because I didn't want to watch 40 minutes of credits for a character I couldn't stand. :)