Breaking down borders in video games.
Dragon Age: Gender and Sex Quandary
This past week on GayGaymer I wrote about my encounter with characters that were either trans or intersexed in Dragon Age: Origins; I say either because it is not clear to myself, and while it may have been to the designers, it does not translate very well.
The characters show up in the brothel, The Pearl, in Denerim. When selecting the option that you want both males and females in your lineup of choices, you are presented with the following screenshot:
Aeazel next to "Female Companions"
Originally I had read these characters as trans, though a commenter on the site also posed that they (both of the females in the screenshot have the “female companion” tag, with the quotation marks clearly othering them from others in the lineup) could well be intersexed. Granted.
The problem is that this is not explored any further. The depiction is dropped in the game and then left with nary a further thought. There is nothing to distinguish if these are MTF persons or perhaps people who do not fit the gender/sex binary to which we are accustomed at character creation. If the former, then there are questions about their perceived status in this world (the game has some distinguishing treatment between selection of male and female, and crossing this would obviously have a large impact), and if the latter, it begs the question why I could not make such a choice at character creation (as well as the former question of status).
Of course, regardless of the aim, either group is faced with being completely sexualized, and played for humor. With husky, stereotyped masculine voices that speak in a sultry, stereotyped feminine manner they bring you to bed, and occasionally (I attempted this many times to see any variances) state, “Oh, don’t be surprised now.” Both trans and intersexed people are no stranger to being purely sexualized and regarded as only interesting because of what genitals they may have; nor to the fear-mongering behind the bait and switch routine of having sex with a cisgendered person. This depiction, unfortunately, falls into such a trope, making little else memorable about these characters.
Of course, the concept of the sex worker is not fully fleshed out in the game either, as they exist merely to serve you, and then you are done with the interaction. Again, in a game of perceived status, little mention is made of these people beyond the brothel. Dragon Age is a large game, and one I enjoyed quite readily, but it is obvious that while many thoughtful touches were added in places, it becomes odd and jarring to see other spots where things seem to have been put in with what I perceive as little awareness.
Meanwhile, as I stated in my GayGamer post, how does one begin to distinguish trans or intersexed characters in a videogame in a tasteful manner that is not hinged on their genitals and what actions they may or may not perform? Since most games predicate you finding out about the character in some manner, and for many in these groups, passing is key, it seems like it would be a difficult road to navigate with how many games are currently approaching character-NPC relationships.
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| Print article | This entry was posted by Denis Farr on November 29, 2009 at 12:58 am, and is filed under Console Games, PC Games. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
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about 9 months ago
Weird, I had no idea about any of this because I declined to take part in the Pearl’s services.
about 9 months ago
Great post. There is a lot to like about Dragon Age so this is really disappointing. Surely they could have figured out something more respectful and not gone for the cheap laughs. It’s not only nastily transphobic, it’s a tired, unfunny gag.
about 9 months ago
Would “transwoman” and “transman” be acceptable, with appropriate pronouns? I have seen people self identify with those terms and have seen allies use them.
about 9 months ago
Oh, and no quotes in the text of the game, of course.
about 9 months ago
Since it’s really not explained what they are, it could very well be that they’re forced into that position, or just pretending for the money. In that case, they could still be cis-genered full males, that do it with men for an extra gold. I think the “female” tag would be more appropriate than transwoman or transman.
Perhaps I’ll look through the lore I gathered so far to see if I can find something out. I believe there was a volume somewhere about these sex-workers, but don’t quote me on that.
On a related note, the game does seem to have a relatively open view on sexuality. Gay and lesbian relationships seem to be fully acceptable within the game. Which is a whole lot better considering how our planet was when people were wielding around swords and going on
“adventures”.
- SG_01
about 9 months ago
If there was any additional development or exploration of that particular character at the Pearl in the game design, the publisher would have axed that in post-production, IMO.
That’s really quite a common thing with publishers of single-player RPGs.
about 9 months ago
Transwoman and transman are not acceptable without a space: trans woman and trans man are the preferred usage. Trans people who identify as women and men are women and men period. Trans is thus a modifier the same way other identification categories are: disabled, theist, brown, working. (This has changed — trans$GENDER without the space was once considered acceptable but these things evolve as the community works them out. As they do when it comes to identities. It’s a process.)
As nouns without the space the implication is that trans people’s gender and sex identities are other than cis people’s gender and sex identities. With cis and binary-normative attitudes endemic in language and society, other than very rapidly becomes less than which we see rather enough of already.
about 9 months ago
Well, I was not able to find anything in-game, if I find anything later, we’ll see.
Anyhow, aside from what they actually are, I think there is also the implication of accessibility. If the game would label these `trans female’ instead of `”female”‘ it may be more correct according to these ever fluctuating terms the trans community uses. Unfortunately to the rest of the world, they don’t mean much.
I am not going to judge them on their word usage, as I do understand why they used it. If 80% of your target audience does not understand your game, you are doing something wrong. Note that part of this target audience is an audience that only uses English as a second language: many countries in Europe receive English copies of the game, and in those countries, some may not even understand the nuance the game makers put in right now, let alone terms that are not even familiar by a lot of native English speakers. As such, most games will limit themselves to mainstream terms that everybody knows.
I also do not think it is up to a game such as this to try and make these relative new terms main stream. If a minority such as the trans community finds a definitive term that it wants to spread out, an initiative should come from within to make these terms known. That is my opinion anyhow.
- SG_01
about 9 months ago
“The problem is that this is not explored any further. The depiction is dropped in the game and then left with nary a further thought. There is nothing to distinguish if these are MTF persons or perhaps people who do not fit the gender/sex binary to which we are accustomed at character creation.”
Granted it would be interesting to know what the background is as a gamer. But wouldn’t it be better not to label them at all?
about 8 months ago
Sadly, I think they fixed this in the console version. I get “Sometimes you have to slay a dragon to get your princess”.
I also would have found Transexual Female extremely jarring as it does not fit the culture of the world in any way.
“Female” is offensive only if I think about it with a “Modern” eye. For the time period the game simulates, and with the fondation of the culture being fairly sexually open, “Female” is how they would denote a female born male for a sex worker.
The fact that there is a fairly intersexed to the female side companion on the female side, and a fairly intersexed on the male side companion on the male side, shows that it is supposed to be the Pearl’s rainbow of options. (The far male being all but a twin of Alistair is highly entertaining to me.)
In this culture, there is the Maker, in all his forms, however the Maker has a “wife”, and sexuality is not specifically guided. From multiple origins It seems that the Genders are still differentiated, however they are not the end all and be all.
In this world, there may be an alchemist in a tower slaving away with blood magic to make a potion to cure people like him or her self. To give them the body they know their mind is. To the common Trans person in the game though, “Female” or “Male” may be the best they can achieve when Gender is important.
However on the same token, I see Dwarven males married to Human females, and as a Dwarven female I got a romance ending with Alistair. That’s a pretty hefty size difference, and a huge gap in reproductive ability. As in it might as well be a gay couple.
It’s no stretch to think that a middle class Trans individual would have no trouble living whatever life they wanted, fairly well accepted as a Woman or Man, as sexuality is fluid, thus Gender seems to be fairly fluid as well.
But that’s just my take on it, coming at it from the console version.