by Hannah Thaggard
As far as LGBT+ representation goes in the media, video games have always made leaps and bounds with their queer content. Indie games, like Caper in the Castro, have been known to explore topics, like homosexuality, that might have once been considered taboo. As the gaming world progresses and becomes more inclusive, more people are producing LGBT+ content, and that content is something that has carried over to games with higher profiles. In triple-A games like Skyrim and Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, players are able to express their sexuality freely by interacting and romancing non-playable characters, or NPCs, regardless of gender. These “relationships'' that the players form with these NPCs affect their playing experience, but these characters can also influence the mindset of the players when they’re outside of the “magic circle,” a term often used to refer to the world that takes place inside of the game.
Because many video games nowadays feature prominent characters that fall under the LGBT+ category, this type of emotional investment that’s built on the in-game interactions with these characters can provide an impact on how the player views people who identify as LGBT+ outside of the game’s magic circle. The increase in LGBT+ representation in Triple-A games puts players in the position of empathizing with characters that fall under the LGBT+ category. Games like Dragon Age: Inquisition and The Last of Us, specifically the game’s DLC, are two early examples of games known for their representation of the LGBT+ community and the strong reaction they received from critics and players alike.
I: The Players and The Characters
It’s not unusual for people to become emotionally invested in works of fiction, there are countless blogs, essays, and GIF-sets dedicated to characters from things like Supernatural or Star Wars, so it should come as no surprise that this emotional attachment can be found in players over video game characters. In their article, “Real Feelings for Virtual People: Emotional Attachments and Interpersonal Attraction in Video Games,” Mark Coulson and his associates did a study on the emotional attachments that players felt for the NPCs that made up their party in the video game, Dragon Age: Origins. After studying 77 players of different age ranges and gender who played the game and then took a survey on how they felt towards the NPCs, Coulson and his associates found that the data that they gathered suggests that “virtual characters may be genuinely liked, and even loved, by the real people with whom they interact” (Coulson et al.180).
II: Last of Us
Naughty Dog’s The Last of Us (2013) might not have been originally classified as a game with strong LGBT+ representation when it initially came out for PlayStation 3, but the release of its DLC revealed that one of its two protagonists, Ellie, was queer. In the DLC called The Last of Us: Left Behind, it’s shown that prior to the main game’s events, Ellie, a 14-year-old girl, had developed a crush on her friend, Riley. As Bridget Kies states in her article “Death by Scissors: Gay Fighter Supreme and the Sexuality That isn’t Sexual,” The Last of Us: Left Behind deals with “teenage sexuality… specifically, lesbian identity” all throughout the DLC (Kies 215). While playing the DLC, the players have to act as Ellie while navigating through the world’s apocalyptic setting and through her feelings towards Riley. Unlike other games that feature romances, the players have no choice when it comes to partaking in the brief relationship with Riley. Ellie’s sexuality was pre-determined by the game’s developers, so the players are stripped of any agency with regards to the girl’s sexual orientation. Because of that loss of agency, players are forced to play as a character who is a member of the LGBT+ community regardless of the player’s sexuality and therefor must gain some insight into the life of a queer individual. While this may not seem appealing to all players, the fact that the players have already built a relationship with Ellie’s character prior to the discovery of her sexuality may make it easier to empathize with her.
The reason that Ellie, as a character, is able to resonate with players prior to Last of Us: Left Behind is because of the relationship that the players form with the character in the main game. In Last of Us, the player takes on the role of Joel, who becomes a sort of father figure to Ellie, while Ellie is restricted to the role of an NPC. In her essay in How to Play Video Games titled “Masculinity,” Soraya Murray states that a “distinctly paternalistic relation between Joel and Ellie evolves over their engagement—one that is reinforced narratively and visually within the game itself” (Murray 105). Because the player has developed this type of paternal relationship with this character, they’re more inclined to feel empathetic towards her struggles and the loss of her lover, regardless of their gender or sexuality. While I was not able to find any articles discussing the empathetic feelings that one might feel towards Ellie regarding the parental relationship that players develop towards her and regarding Ellie’s feelings after the death of Riley in the DLC, I was able to contact and interview three different gamers about the topic. All of the interviewees identified as straight males, and all but one chose to remain anonymous. Each one stated that their feelings towards Ellie’s sexuality was greatly influenced by the relationship that they had established with her in the main game. Two of the interviewees acknowledged that they were not accepting of people who belonged to the LGBT+ community before playing the game and that their views of the people in that community had become slightly more favorable since (Anonymous). The sole interviewee who did agree to let me publish his name, John Harlowe, stated that while he didn’t feel any ill will towards people in the LGBT+ community beforehand, he became extremely invested in the struggles of the community after watching his “virtual daughter fall in love with Riley” (Harlowe).
III: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Keeping up their streak of strong LGBT+ characters, Bioware’s Dragon Age: Inquisition (2014) is another game that made waves because of its representation. Released for most major consoles, Dragon Age: Inquisition is the most recent game that is featured in this paper and possibly the one with the strongest reactions towards its representation. The fantasy RPG features several queer NPCs and the first transgender character to make an appearance in a Triple-A game. While the addition and treatment of the transgender character in the game is certainly worth examining, the reaction that one of the game’s gay characters, Dorian, received from players is what I found most interesting. In the game, Dorian is a mage from the nation of Tevinter Imperium, which is found in the northern part of Thedas, the fantasy continent in which the Dragon Age games take place. Besides being a member of the player’s party, Dorian is also one of the eight NPCs that can be romanced by the player. In his “companion quest,” the player is tasked with arranging a meeting between Dorian and his estranged father. During that meeting, the player learns that Dorian left his home because his father put him through a type of magical ritual in an attempt to rid Dorian of his homosexuality. The player then has to decide to help Dorian reconcile with his father or cut him off completely. The scene does an amazing job at evoking empathy from players for many reasons. To get to that quest, the player would’ve had to establish a positive relationship with Dorian up until that point. The ritual that Dorian’s father performed on him is supposed to sound similar to conversion therapy, which is a topic that exists outside of the game’s magic circle. Because Dorian is facing rejection from a parental unit who has tried to harm him in the past, the player can sympathize with the character’s experience of facing that rejection.
While the scene is an extremely important one in the context of the game’s story, it’s also a super impactful scene in the eyes of the player. If the player chooses to play as a male in the game, one of the decisions that the player can make during that scene in response to learning about Dorian’s sexuality is to have the player’s character kiss Dorian. This action will then initiate a relationship with him. While that response may be expected of players who identify as queer, the developers of Dragon Age: Inquisition did such an amazing job at creating such a likable and well-developed character that it convinced many players who identified as straight and male to make that decision as well. In his article “How I Realized My Dragon Age: Inquisition Character is Gay,” Mike Rougeau details how his experience playing the game was drastically shaped by encountering Dorian. Starting his article off by stating that he makes his characters looks and choices to mirror himself outside of the game’s magic circle, Rougeau then reveals that, through the course of the game, he came to the realization that the NPC romance-option that he had become most attracted to throughout his playthrough was not one of the options for the straight male characters like he had originally thought he was going to choose but instead the one option that was exclusive to queer male characters (Rougeau para 1-8). While some may state that Rougeau’s experience is an isolated one, a popular Reddit thread that began to make rounds shortly after Dragon Age: Inquisition was released shows that many other people had similar experiences. In a Reddit thread titled “So, How Many Other Straight Males Romanced Dorian..?,” a man with the username of “Shellbullets” posts that he had played the game with the intention of having his male character romance one of the female NPCs, only to change his mind and romance Dorian after completing his companion quest (Shellbullets para 1-2). After creating the initial post, more than seventy other Reddit users who identify as straight and male responded and gave similar accounts on their similar experiences with Dragon Age: Inquisition.
The documented experiences of Rougeau, “Shellbullets,” and countless other straight men who have played Dragon Age: Inquisition and romanced Dorian because of their feelings towards his character and his story prove that the increase of characters that identify as part of the LGBT+ community put players in the position of empathizing with these characters. Unlike Ellie’s romance in Last of Us: Left Behind, Dorian’s romance is completely optional. In their article, “Cultures of Experimentation: Role-Playing Games and Sexual Identity.” Ciaran Devlin and Anne Holohan state that “avatars that we choose to embody and customise have a direct impact on how we behave in the online world and can have a role in shaping our behaviour offline also, with potential for using role-playing games to increase empathy, tolerance and to boost confidence in marginalized populations” (Devlin and Holohan 4). These players are choosing to have their avatars venture from their sexuality outside of the game and instead choose a male character to romance because of the empathy that they feel towards him.
Conclusion
Though video games may have a long way to go towards creating perfect LGBT+ representation, they are already on the right track towards getting players to care about it. The reaction that The Last of Us and Dragon Age: Inquisition received from critics and players alike show that players are in the position to care about LGBT+ characters if exposed to them. Both games had strong, fully fleshed-out characters that made it easier for players to be attracted to them and their personal narratives. Whether it is a professional blogger, a person on a forum, or a man who answered a mass-email’s call to interview, these games have proven to have made an impact on the players playing them because of their relationships that they have built with NPCs and the empathy that they feel towards them.