Gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans (GLBT) characters seem to be pretty rare in RPGs, at least at first glance. Looking closer, trans characters and situations are actually pretty common, but the most obvious examples are often used for their humor more than anything. Flea of Chrono Trigger and Cloud's cross-dressing episode spring to mind. Sheik being revealed as Zelda is the best exception that I can think of. More subtle "transgender" (if looking at it in terms of things that transgress the ideal "masculine" and "feminine" stereotypes) is what you really find in abundance, though, and it is often a more matter-of-fact or positive portrayal. "Tomboy" girls can especially be found in abundance, as well as the occasional "sissy" male characters (emotionally-senstive, quiet, and/or studious types). But there are the more-or-less androgynous characters that are also treated pretty matter-of-fact, like Nikki of CC and Sydney of VS (a lot of the non-human characters seem to fit in this category also, which might be a whole other topic).

With GLB characters, I am hard pressed to name one that was definitely portrayed as such. Most often, if anything, it is implied through stereotypical appearance or transgender aspects of the character, or just lack of an opposite-sex love interest. This is simply one part of looking for subtext, which can range from the elegant subtlety of "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" to the more apparent "Xena" approach. And I think for GLB persons such as myself, looking for the subtext, or just making up our own stories, is part of the fun. Though of course I'd like to see a few "out and proud" characters here and there, or at least allow the choice to be there in the storyline. But for any person, just having an awareness of the possibilities can change how you see the stories, or at least the possibilities of the stories. Some of the other characters I've wondered about or just made up stuff about for fun are Lucca, Magus, Glenn & Cyrus, Impa, the Gerudos (read:Amazons), and of course, the perennial couple, Vicks and Wedge (heh).

Legolas

This persisted for a long time, too. And it was so believable because Laguna looked like a woman, and Squall looked like a fancy boy. Beaujolais to stereotypes!

Which is just it: gay or transgendered RPG characters are the last thing we need right now. We can't even break the straight ones out of their stereotypes yet. It'll be like all those stupid tearjerker movies they make now, where the women always have a gay friend who supports them and hits on their men.

Wall market was too much. Let's not get too progressive on ourselves, here.

- Zen

Super Saiya-jin.

I give thanks every day that I can respect and value the good things in every person.

I'm a 15-year old gay male, and have played console RPGs for a significant portion of my rather short life, along with becoming moderately involved in American anime fandom :cough-gag-cough:. Big shocker there, huh?

Being as such, I've observed a cross-pollination of interests among like fans; namely, yaoi. I probably don't need to explain to you what that particular acronym means, but just in case this gets published (hah!) I'll make this side note - gay Japanese cartoon porn. It's a lot more complex than that, but I'll dive into the semantics of it in a sec.

Okay, back on track. Yaoi has never held much appeal to me in general. A lot of it can be pretty nice, aesthetically speaking, but I mildly resent the majority of it, particularly the ethos behind it - a hobby dominated primarily by young women and girls, it represents an aspect of freedom from THEIR gender roles. The violent humiliation/rape fantasies, the subversion of sex identities, these are (particularly in Japan) all facets of escapism in a society that encourages very basic and rigid sexual identities - it allows the female reader to relate to the male character as and on the level of a male character, while supporting aspects of female sexualities. And this is why, as a young gay man, I do not consider there to be any actual gay characters represented in anime (certainly not in RPGs, where relationships and sexuality are handled on an almost Disney-like level) - because these are not gay characters, these are avatars for girls to vicariously obsess over.

Now, disclaimer. The preceeding was, obviously, a great sweeping generalization, and it shouldn't be taken that I meant the entire thing literally - I know lots of guys and girls who seriously like yaoi, and usually only because they dig on the boy-boy action. Key word being boy-boy, of course. And that's part of what triggered my rant, your implication - and I'm fairly certain that this is what is meant to be taken from your statement, but correct me if I'm wrong - that the high number of bishounen in console RPGs (that is to say, Japanese RPGs) is easily an indicator of homosexual identities. And I suppose it's this fairly narrow view of masculinity and with whom particular masculine ideals are held as attractive that hit me. I honestly don't know many other gay guys who hold the hyper-feminized masculine identity as an ideal. Yes, I suppose masculinity (depending on context) is a term open to interpretation - that's my point. My definition of masculinity is not inclusive of pejorative connotations, but I know some people who do define it as such, making blanket statements... and, um. Brain fart. o_o*

*There were no doubt many flaws in the above rant (aside from my atrocious grammar - apologies), but I *really* needed to get this stuff off my chest. I hope it was at least mildly coherent - yes, it's composed mostly of non-sequiturs, but I was just straining to get out all my Ideas that after a while, I wasn't sure what point I was making...

-Adrian Langston, who obviously has no great shortage of free time...

If selling a whole crap load of games and being admired as a videogaming god, but then having one bad year is grounds for someone to be demoted due to Japanese culture/customs (Sakaguchi earlier this year).... Why hasn't Yamauchi (or as I like to call him, Mr. Constipated-san) committed suicide yet?

Darien Kivemlam

I'm hardly what you'd call 'hot and bothered' about Sydney. After all, that's what other bishounen are for; to distract me (and possibly a few other female gamers) from getting all hot and bothered about just one guy. That's what today's column is all about, right?

As much as I love bishounen in my videogames, I wouldn't be fond of an openly gay character in a game. Transgendered, fine, but not straight out in-your-face where the hero/suporting character declares his love for a member of the same sex. Not because it's morally wrong or anything, but because it takes the fun out of the whole story. I doubt I would've enjoyed Vagrant Story if Sydney and Ashley/Guidenstern/Rosencrantz/Hardin were happily declaring how much they want each other 'that' way instead of happily trying to murder and outdo each other.

Pairing bishounen up after the game is something I enjoy, because I pair them according to what I feel is right and how I interpreted them in the RPG. When a gay character is stated in the story and actually pairs up with someone else, the fun flies out the window and chances are I'll probably gripe and whine and say, "I want the OTHER guy to be gay, not this one! And those two don't belong together!" But I can't do anything, because the story made it that way. I don't live for the straightforwardness, I live for the hinting, and hinting was done in a nice way in Suikoden 2 between the hero and his best friend.

So in other words, the fellow RPG bishounen can go and grope and go all touchy feely between each other in whatever I'm playing; just make sure they don't whisper "I love you" to each other and I'll be just fine.

DMJ, who feels that there'll never be any openly gay charas; look what they did to Edward.

Gay characters are firmly entrenched in RPG's, and in many other forms of entertainment, in the form of villains. The traditional super villain is a sado-masochistic, leather-wearing, homosexual British man, anywhere from early 20's to late 50's. And this ideal villain has formed the basis for many of the villains we see in RPG's. Sephiroth is a perfect example. As is Kefka. As is Ghaleon. As are a score of others we know and love. Well, maybe not British...but you know they all had SOME sissy method of speaking intended to (hee hee) ACCENT their villainy.

-DragonBarrel

As a minority of a minority--a queer girl gamer--I occasionally feel just a wee bit underrepresented in RPGs (my genre of choice). I don't expect the gaming industry to suddenly start a fad of queer protagonists, nor do I expect sexuality to come up as a main theme of a video game.

What I'd like to see, however, are these:
I'd like to see a girl-girl couple that isn't just eye-candy for horny thirteen year old boys.
I'd like to see a boy-boy couple AT ALL.
I'd like to see the swashbuckling, flirtatious character come onto both women and men.

(I think, and correct me if I'm wrong, that the gaming industry is far more likely to explore lesbian relationships than gay ones. First of all, the target audience gets off on it, and second, there's the whole Lesbian Chic phenomenon. Also, I imagine many adolescent male gamers would be, or would at least act like they were repelled by a gay male protagonist.)

And, ideally, I'd like to see a gaming public that doesn't really care whether protagonists are gay, straight, bi, or have a penchant for farm animals, but rather like or dislike them based on personality and gameplay.

But honestly, I'd settle for a female protagonist in comfortable clothing =)

-rachel

SonicPanda, pretty sure that if 'Must-See TV' had a Mr. T wannabe, Barret would've gone unnoticed

The only actual transgendered RPG character I can think of is Birdo from Mario RPG (and Mario 2, of course.) Birdo was a young creature that thought he was a girl. He dealt with this sexual identity crisis by putting a bow on his head, then stealing a whole bunch of eggs from somewhere, shoving them all in his mouth, and spitting them at Mario. If Mario was hit with two of these eggs, he would DIE. But if Mario was able to pick the egg up and throw it back at Birdo's head, he would be charged with a hate crime.

BUT HERE'S THE CRAZY PART! If you were one of the lucky few who beat Super Mario 2, you know that the whole thing was Mario's dream! So Mario INVENTED this crazy transsexual bird in his own warped mind! Which can ONLY mean that Mario wants to be a woman. In which case Princess Toadstool isn't getting ANY nookie no matter how much cake she gives him.

Chris Kohler

Now, to what my letter is actually about. I read last night on The GIA about how the president of Nintendo is now claiming that if the Gamecube isn't received well at E3, he will shelve the product. All I can think of to say about this is WHAT THE HELL??

Let's think about this for a moment. Nintendo works for at least a year or so on a console. They get developers to make games for it. The Gamecube all but exists this very moment. And he says they'll throw it all away over one little convention?

Personally, I think this is just a ploy on Yamauchi's part to make people flock to the Nintendo booth so that they WON'T shelve it. I don't know. I just couldn't see a company spending all this time and money on a product just to forget about it before it's even out.

But then again, this is Yamauchi, the same person that said he'd NEVER allow Square to design games for Nintendo again, which I think is a really stupid decision. So I wouldn't put it past him to actually go through with this. Think about it though. If they did shelve the Gamecube, it would destroy Nintendo, because what self respecting third party company would spend time and money designing a game for a system that may or may not ever arrive?

FLee

Instead, I find it hard to believe that you would misconstrue his comment as a threat. There was no threat in his comment. He is not saying that the Game Cube will be definately be abandoned if it does not go over well at E3, nor is he telling us to either pay attention or get lost, as some believe. It was merely his thoughts on the Game Cube's prospects. If you'll take the time to look into the Game Cube's situation, you'll see that it actually makes sense.

The market that the Game Cube will be entering is as crowded as it has ever been. The PSX, and to a lesser extent the Dreamcast, are both dying out, but both of them command enough of a market share and fan loyalty to earn a fair share of money throughout the year. Furthermore, the GC would have to compete with two newer systems, the X-Box and the Playstation 2. The Playstation 2 already has a good start, and it has a lot of momentum behind it. As for the X-Box, while it is true that it's Japanese prospects are still in doubt, there is a very likely chance that it will be a big player in the U.S. gaming market. Also, Nintendo would be indirectly competing with itself if it were to release the GC at it's current release date. The Game Boy Advance has a lot of hype around it, and from all of the signs it looks like it will outdo the Game Boy's amazing success. Since so many people are going to be buying a GBA, not everyone is going to be willing to pick up a new system so soon after getting a GBA, even if it is cheap. And those people who do buy both will have less money with which to support the GC. Finally, while the N64 succeeded despite being outclassed, it is unlikely for Nintendo to repeat that success with the GC. The N64 had many things going for it, mainly Nintendo's reputation after the SNES, but many gamers will be wary of picking up a Game Cube at launch after what happened with the N64. So, with all of these things going against it, it's not hard to see why Nintendo might choose to cancel the GC if it is poorly received at E3.

However, I seriously believe that everyone is overreacting. Nintendo is unlikely to completely abandon the GC, no matter how poorly it is received at E3. First, because Nintendo has invested too much in the GC to shelve it. They'd be more likely to delay it until a time when it will be more likely to succeed, or release it anyway and recoup some of the cost of developing it, rather than to take such a huge financial blow. Second, they won't cancel it because such an act would cause them to lose a lot of face with third party developers. Nintendo's fate could rest on the GBA right now, and canceling the GC would give many companies a reason to not support Nintendo or the GBA. Finally, as someone else pointed out, Yamauchi's word isn't final. Has not this man publically avowed a dislike for sequals? Obviously he doesn't hold complete control over Nintendo, since his above mentioned dislike for sequels hasn't stopped Nintendo from milking Pokemon or other franchises for all they're worth. So, I think we all need to just settle down, and wait to see what happens at E3 before jumping to conclusions.

George Young

At the very least, the "Sephiroth, Sydney, Kuja transgendered character" is better than the "Cait Sith, Chu-chu annoying puff ball sidekick" craze...

Or is it? I'm not really sure anymore...

--The Steve