![]() The framing of queer people as psychopaths But Fire Emblem goes further it’s not just the relative lack of presence of queer characters, but the disturbing, backwards, and regressive way they’re being represented. Representation doesn’t mean proportional representation it’s about visibility and awareness for marginalised groups of people in media, not mirroring real-life figures as closely as possible.īut even a tiny step forward is still a step forward, right? Was the small number of queer characters the only problem, it’d be fine. One character per game.īefore anyone starts talking about how only “2% of people are gay” or whatever figure you want to use – those figures are both flawed (because of the difficulty of getting accurate numbers, even with anonymous self-report data), and irrelevant. (There is another lesbian character, but she cannot marry female characters, for really gross, disturbing reasons that I’ll get into below.) Trans characters? I haven’t heard anything, which – given the context – I’ll take to as a likely indicator that they don’t exist at all in this game.įor all Nintendo’s talk about gameplay experiences that “reflect the diversity of the communities in which we operate”, this really the most minimalistic approach to representation they could have taken. In a game that will have tens of available party members (the previous game, Fire Emblem Awakening, had over 40 characters to recruit), there is a single queer romance option per version. The third path will have both Zero and Shara, but (a) you have to shell out extra for it, and (b) it still doesn’t address the heart of the matter. If you want your character to be a lesbian, but the Conquest storyline interests you more – tough luck. Conquest has a male character called Zero, who can marry the player’s character (Kamui) regardless of chosen gender in Birthright, there’s a woman called Syalla who can likewise do the same. It’s great, except that your queer romance options are limited by which version you buy. This sounds great! Especially for a series like Fire Emblem, that typically presents a nuanced, complicated exploration of themes of war. The alternate path will be available as DLC, as will be a third “neutral” path. Choose one: gay or lesbianįire Emblem Fates is divided into two versions, which are sold separately, called Conquest and Birthright each of these tells the game’s story from the perspective of one of the two warring factions. We feel that Fire Emblem Fates is indeed enjoyable to play and we hope fans like the game.”īut is it as dramatic a move as it seems, at first glance? Plenty of people have been praising Nintendo for this move, but others have – rightfully, I think – criticised it as being something of a backhanded compliment as Nintendo doing the absolute bare minimum to avoid controversy, and once again throwing queer folk under the bus in the process. Yes, same-sex marriages are in the game, but the ridiculous caveats accompanying them and shitty representation only serve to undermine any sense of progression. “We believe that our gameplay experiences should reflect the diversity of the communities in which we operate and, at the same time, we will always design the game specifications of each title by considering a variety of factors, such as the game’s scenario and the nature of the game play,” Nintendo said. “In the end of course, the game should be fun to play. It’ll be the first Nintendo-published game at all to have same-sex marriage, and marks a dramatic about-face from the company’s dismissive comments about criticism of the lack of such on Tomodachi Life. It’ll be the first time that the 25 year old series will allow same sex characters to marry, despite love and marriage systems featuring as far back as 1996’s Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War. Last week, Nintendo confirmed that the upcoming strategy role-playing game Fire Emblem Fates would include same-sex marriage. This post deals with homophobia and gay conversion therapy, and as such comes with a strong trigger warning. I just want to clarify that all this was written based on the Japanese version, prior to the Western release. Since then, the English version of Fire Emblem Fates has come out, and it improves on some stuff, but also falls flat in other ways. ![]() Update 28 April 2017: Even almost two years since posting it, this article still seems to get a lot of traffic.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |