Guild Wars 2

Now first off, I don’t have a problem with homosexual people or even characters in the game being homosexual. I have a suspicion that Lord Faren in the Human storyline is gay, I’ve never seen it confirmed, but the gaydar is off the charts. You know what I think of that? I think he’s fabulous and that’s okay. Heterosexual couples in the game in general are mostly hinted at, Logan having unrequited feelings for his Queen, 2 Asura pact members hint that they like each other but it takes awhile for it to be openly stated, etc. They’re not thrown at you.

Meanwhile in Sylvari story I can’t point out a single heterosexual couple I’ve encountered among Sylvari, but they sure do make sure that the first romantic couple you encounter in your personal story is gay, and your destiny’s edge member is a lesbian, and another lesbian Nightmare Court member is vying for Faolain’s attention and there was at least 1 other homosexual couple I remember encountering in the Grove. It wasn’t hinted at, it was overtly thrown at you. This makes it seem forced to me. It particularly stands out as I haven’t encountered any openly gay characters in any other race, only Lord Faren MIGHT be gay but is unconfirmed (he’s just fabulous), and no straight sylvari that I know of.

It’d just be better if they weren’t so blatant about it, made it come into things more naturally, and if there were a proportional amount of subtle heterosexual sylvari as well.

Key word is subtle, all these sexual orientation things need to be subtle.

Except with Sylvari there is no such thing as sexual orientation and they just like who they like.

this is a spoiler

you got Ysvelta and Tiachren who are lovers and suffer the same story that Caithe and Foalin suffered.
I think Sylvaris have no orietation they are all either Pansextual or Asextual for that matter.
A developer stating he is not a lore expert said they can have sex with anyone they want but have no need to repreduce because of the Pale Tree.
take the Shield of the Moon path in the Sylvari story line and you will face as a main starting which is losing your love to the nightmare court.
Theres i think NPC heterosextual lovers in the grove somewhere if i remember but i think they don’t force it rather show it like its naturual no one is surprised by Sylvaris having a same sex couple really. either way Sylvaris are Fabulous!

Sylvari are not human. It would feel more forced to me if they were forced to live by human ideals. They have a different culture to us.

Sylvari are just big on love. It’s a huge part of their culture. No matter the orientation, most of them are very vocal about their commitments to their partner. So far, I have met more ‘straight’ sylvari and they are no different than the couples you have pointed out. The race was done well in my opinion. :)

I just never saw any that were straight but had encountered several that were homosexual and it struck me as odd. Thanks for pointing out that there is balance perhaps afterall I just hadn’t encountered it.

There’s also a couple sylvari here and there in the grove who talk about their heterosexual love life in passing.

Yea, I speak to almost all NPCs I walk by and a majority of the dialogue is a female sylvari in love with a male or vice-versa. :) I don’t think any of the relationships are unnatural though, they act like any normal pair of young lovers. It suits them well, being a young race and all. A lot of these sylvari seem to be experiencing their first love too, so it makes sense to me. Surely you remember how you acted the first time you dated?

Firstly, Lord Faren is not gay or there is nothing to indicate he’s gay. Indeed, if you play through the human storyline you find that he’s romancing two women at the same time.

As for the Sylvari, as the others have said – most Sylvari couples you encounter involve a man and a woman. I suspect that you have been caught by a stereotype and because of the Sylvari accent and the register in which they speak, you think they might be homosexual – just like Lord Faren, when they are not.

Tinni.4351:

Firstly, Lord Faren is not gay or there is nothing to indicate he’s gay. Indeed, if you play through the human storyline you find that he’s romancing two women at the same time.

As for the Sylvari, as the others have said – most Sylvari couples you encounter involve a man and a woman. I suspect that you have been caught by a stereotype and because of the Sylvari accent and the register in which they speak, you think they might be homosexual – just like Lord Faren, when they are not.

actually it’s because I first played Sylvari in BWE3 and took green huntsman, very first thing is a homosexual couple thrown in your face, and I didn’t play a Sylvari at launch but did Twilight Arbor and it’s Caithe and Faolain and I can’t remember her name lesbian love triangle. Then just hearing about it from others it seems to be pointed and a bit forced as well.

Well during the Beta I played a Sylvari and chose “Shield of the Moon” and that was a guy whose girl had been taken by the nightmare court. So hetero romance there. At launch I choose “White Stag” and there is no romance in that quest chain.

Walking around in the grove, I heard a conversation between two guys about one of them losing his girl to someone else and wanting to duel the new boyfriend with his friend discouraging him from doing anything that stupid and telling him to find another girl.

There is also another guy who complains about being bored and suggests to his female companion, most likely his girlfriend, that they go find a human or a norn to have dinner with them.

So the only homosexual Sylvari, and I am avoiding the topic of whether homosexual and heterosexul even apply to the Sylvari, I have encountered is Caithe and Faolain. So I don’t know what choices you and your friends have been making but I haven’t seen homosexuality among the Sylvari being either pointed and certainly not forced.

There are no homosexual or hetrosexual sylvari, the concept does not apply to them as gender is arbitrary and they do not reproduce that way.

also, I always cringe when I see people make disclaimers about how they dont have problems with homosexuals….when clearly they do.

That’s what bothers you? The first thing I thought when romantically involved sylvary popped up was how they both have the same Mother. Of course, it doesn’t work quite like how it does for humans(Or most other life.), and they don’t reprodouce that way anyway, but it was still a bit of a wow-moment for me. That they would be capable of romance just didn’t occure to me before that.

They actually are very deep into the ‘romantic’ aspect of romance itself. Chivalry, loyalty, doing things together, etc, mean a lot more to them as an aspect of the relationship than it would otherwise, since sex takes a back seat. Reproduction isn’t a concern, so neither is sex for the most part.

Apparently the poster has never encountered a young teenager after he gets his first girlfriend.

The sylvari are an open, honest, expressive race. Mostly (Oh, Caithe, we love you!). Nothing’s really forced on you, in context. If the start of the Green Knight had a heterosexual couple, I bet you would have just written it off as sappy, rather than “forced on you”.

I like Caithe! xP The only thing I don’t like about her is that she does a fairly sudden 180 as far as Destiny’s Edge is concerned, and seems kinda wishy-washy, especially with the Faolain thing.

Yes, I probably would have, I don’t like romances thrown in my face, I prefer something more subtle, or something that has to be worked at and is not the normal course of the game. Knights of the Old Republic it was okay, you have to really push for it to make it happen, future Bioware games, it was as simple as saying hi and you were suddenly locked in a relationship. Didn’t like that.

It was especially bad in the last few games Bioware made, where when it came to the gay romance options it was like walking a minefield to avoid it, it was just thrown at you. It was hard to just tell this guy “look you’re a good shipmate and a friend and I respect you, but I’m not interested.”

Not saying the same case is here, but that whole experience leaves me kind of wary when it comes to how far a developer will go to appease 1 vocal community.

I really don’t think anyone’s being ‘appeased’. The Sylvari aren’t Human. Sex means nothing to them other than a natural part of romantic relationships. Gender means nothing to them because they don’t really -have- gender. They just ‘appear’ to be one gender or the other because the Pale Tree copied Humans.

This isn’t Bioware, and they’re not trying to appease anyone.

To appease one vocal community? You’re assuming they only put this in there because someone asked them too? You do realize what a negative connotation that is, correct? If you read the Dev post on Sylvari sexuality, they feel love for those who inspire them – love is far deeper than it is for humans. Think if the person you found to be most vital to your inspiration, the person who keeps moving you forward was about to die. How would you feel? And for Caithe and Faolin, Caithe does avoid the topic for a good amount of the time. So, again, I hardly see anything forced upon the player here.

here’s the thing, the sylvari don’t reproduce through sex, so their culture hasn’t got this built up precedent of male-female relationships that humans do, they have relationships for purely non-reproductive reasons. so while humans have a heterosexually driven urge to mate the sylvari don’t have that urge at all, instead they choose to form a close bond to better their lives in all ways.

here’s a question for you, would you rather have purely non-sexual relationships with a person of your own gender or the opposite gender? think of it less like marriage and more like being best friends (like, THE BEST FRIENDS EVER FOREVER) because that’s probably closer to how the sylvari view it.

The one thing I think Anet could have done way better is explore this sense of diversity.. Yes there are plenty of kitten themes but they are mainly left unexplored. Have other races question the choice, people vilified and accepted, getting through the differences and working together.

Promote discussion surrounding this unique aspect.. (I also think they should explore the religious themes a little more as well)

Zoridium JackL.7463:

here’s the thing, the sylvari don’t reproduce through sex, so their culture hasn’t got this built up precedent of male-female relationships that humans do, they have relationships for purely non-reproductive reasons. so while humans have a heterosexually driven urge to mate the sylvari don’t have that urge at all, instead they choose to form a close bond to better their lives in all ways.

here’s a question for you, would you rather have purely non-sexual relationships with a person of your own gender or the opposite gender? think of it less like marriage and more like being best friends (like, THE BEST FRIENDS EVER FOREVER) because that’s probably closer to how the sylvari view it.

If it comes to purely platonic friends.. I don’t have a preference for male or female, I have friends of both genders. Again the issue was not the homosexuality itself, but how it was presented.

What I said about appeasing.. well, okay, again, Arenanet is not Bioware, but Bioware and EA just showed how far a dev will go to appease that vocal community. In SW:TOR, there were no homosexual romances. This sparked a community movement to push for SGRA’s (same gender romance arcs). Honestly, I was okay with having the arcs, because all the romance arcs in the game were player initiated rather than thrown at the player, okay, why not, equal representation, but let’s get the more important bugs fixed first okay? Not for this community. Bioware promised them after launch, and every time major gamebreaking bugs are fixed, this community steps in and complains about the SGRA’s. Like they’d rather have those than have the game being fixed. Of course now that the game is in dire straits and going F2P, that might not happen since a lot of the dev team was laid off.

But anyway. I was wrong about there ONLY being homosexual Sylvari which is what I was asking about anyway. Since there are both homosexual and heterosexual Sylvari apparently in pretty equal numbers, I was wrong and we can just drop the subject.

Honestly, I do kind of feel it’s forced, but in a slightly different sense. Their “genders” feel somewhat forced so when you get into issues of love like that the distinction of gay and straight (which is brought over from us as players being human) feels jarring. I would have preferred if the race in general had been more gender-neutral as a whole. They should have just had one template for sylvari with the choice of gender being more one for armor style you wear (but with very little difference to the cultural armor). Present the first couple you come across as almost completely androgynous and then slowly present more gender-colored sylvari as you get further into the story (taking on more male/female characteristics as they get older and more set in their perceived gender).

I hate reading all these people playing Sylvari characters and complaining how homosexuality is being thrown at them. Sylvari are Pansexuals. They do not reproduce and gender to them is just an appearance. They can romance a “female” and then decide to romance a “male”. They do not have the weight of 2000+ years of homophobia to guide what they do. They are a free people who want to experience everything the world has to offer.

Gender is not a barrier to them. If you find offense to that or feel that “homosexuality” is being thrown at you then play a different race. A Charr perhaps, as I have yet to see anything romantic from them.

Sylvari mimic genders because that is what the Pale Mother decided.

There are no homosexual or heterosexual sylvari because, there are no female or male sylvari in a sexual connotation. They are made in the image of humans, therefore some “look male” while others “look female” but they are not humans. They have no reproductive organs, in a sense, they are genderless.

If you really have to attach a label to them I would say bisexual fits them best. There is no sylvari that is physically attracted only to females or males. Sylvari are attracted to other things, like how that person makes them feel, is he/she courageous, kind, etc.

The only thing that makes us male or female is what’s between our legs… well sylvari have nothing between their legs, therefore they don’t look for someone who has a specific thing between their legs either.. So if someone makes a sylvari feel all warm and fuzzy inside and gives him/her butterflies in their stomach, they fall for that person, regardless of their perceived gender

They have no reproductive organs, in a sense, they are genderless.

Yes they do.

They just can’t create ‘life’ with them.

And you care because…?

Personally I think the world needs to take a leaf (lol) out of the Sylvari’s book. Love who you love because of who they are, not being restricted by gender.

Heck you know how it is, alot of gamer guys want a gamer girl, they’d pair up with their other male gamer friends if they could make them female but keep the personality. They are restricted by gender. Sylvari are not.

So i tried the Green Knight pass, and i just realised it was two male lovers after 30 mins that i finnished the quest.
I was like OH!!!! when i did a jump puzzle. So it doesn’t feel like it

It’s not homosexuality at all, so the question in the OP is already misleading.

Each and every sylvari is capable of loving every other sylvari; the sylvari are pansexual or “omni-sexual.” This is different from our own real world view because while there are pansexual people, most of us have feelings of attraction to one specific gender (whether heterosexual or homosexual).

You have to think about it differently and from the perspective of the sylvari themselves. Once you step out of our own narrow world-view and put on the spectacles of the sylvari, you realize that their love is not defined by who their partner is, but by how they feel about them.

For the sylvari, love simply is or isn’t.

Forced ?! The sexuality of the sylvari feels like the very opposite of forced.
They can choose to pursue whoever they think is awesome without being bound by biological wiring to a certain gender.

Way I see it is that the Sylvari are much like Asari from the Mass Effect trilogy. They are not bound by genders as far as their reproduction goes. Every single time I played trough any of those games I always used female Shepard and had a relationship with Liara. Why you may ask, because she’s just so awesome in every aspect. Who cares if they both look and act like women?

The way I see it that you just should be with someone who makes you happy no matter what you might find between the legs.

I picked the Green Armour Guy option at the start, and in that part you deal with a female Sylvari who mourns at her boyfriend’s grave all the time.

I think that the Devs made Sylvari simply a very open hearted race. Heck, if you talk to them in their zones it seems to me like they’re all linked in some mental-subconscious way (The Dream). There is that faction of Sylvari that distance themselves from the Tree in order to silence out the dream or whatnot right? Leads me to believe that secrets are impossible between Sylvari. While perhaps not as much as before they awake, they all share each other’s experiences.

IMO While OP is consciously homo-fine, the amount of openness in the race seems to have caught him off guard.

I don’t really remember seeing any homosexuality during my Sylvari storyline. In fact I distinctly remember doing one major quest where I was attempting to rescue a male Sylvari’s girlfriend.

But if all the Sylvari during my storyline did turn out to be in homosexual relationships I wouldn’t give akitten because one only has to read a few lines from the wiki page for the Sylvari to realise that gender/sexuality in Sylvari culture is completely irrelevant.

So no I wouldn’t say it was forced at all. But then again I don’t really see the ‘forced’ argument in respect to portrayals of homosexuality to ever be particularly logical. Homosexuality is never ‘forced’. It’s just simply there.

I didn’t read the whole thread, but from the OP it sounds to me like the couple you save in the first encounter with the Green Knight has simply been blown out of proportion here by applying it to the rest of the game. This particular couple IS absolutely all up in your face about their relationship, arguably stopping the story dead rather than being part of it. Whether gay or straight, to arbitrarily shove a relationship all up in the player’s face like that is a bad design decision.

A person or couple’s sexual orientation should simply be part of their character and it is shameful to both players of GW2 and the gay community to use it a commodity by essentially announcing “ha-ha; we have a gay couple in our game!” instead of allowing it to be a natural part of the game like the other homosexual relationships I’ve thus encountered in GW2.

Not gonna lie, I see what you’re talking about. I think Anet went just a tad too far… I don’t have a sylvari character, but I have seen first hand in my travels through the grove how “in your face” the homosexuality of the Sylvari is. (I know they’re supposed to all be bi sexual, but it simply does not come across that way to me from what ive seen).. I would have just as much of a problem if there were similar instances of overt heterosexuality, but I simply have not seen them in this game. Do whatever you want to do, but that doesn’t mean you need to scream it from the rooftops, and then only when it is what is, and go ahead and hate me for saying htis, an alternative life style.

Having played a Sylvari and spent a lot of time in the Grove, I’ve yet to feel as if homosexuality is being forced on me or waved around in my face. I’m actually quite baffled where people are getting this feeling, unless any mention of it whatsoever, even subtle mentions, are enough to qualify as “in your face”.

No. Acknowledging your relationship is not forcing it or putting it “in your face”, as a poster suggested. Plenty of straight couples acknowledge their relationships without this being forced. Why is it only forced when same-sex individuals do it?

The Sylvari story lines seem to have more that involve relationships, but they do not make it any more forced when handling same-sex relationships. I play a Charr, so I haven’t see any relationships in mine, just idle conversations in the city and such.

MasterFhyl.3014:

Do whatever you want to do, but that doesn’t mean you need to scream it from the rooftops, and then only when it is what is, and go ahead and hate me for saying htis, an alternative life style.

Really? Scream from the rooftops? What game are you playing?

Personally I think this is more to do with the fact you are noticing the homosexual style relationships more than the heterosexual style ones.

For instance the big one that everyone went crazy for was the green knight personal story couple… what people also fail to notice is the Sylvari you help at her lovers grave is a female at a males sylvaris grave. TA-DA there you go. Now may we go back to important things

Lord Faren is just a bragging Ted Darcy from Married with Children.
The Shield and Moon mission, others have stated there are heterosexual couples in the game.
During NPC conversations I’ve listened to a female Sylvari tell her female friend that she’s going after this one guy and such.

Overall though the idea of hetero/homosexual relationships is moot with the Sylvari.
Ree Soesbee said it best:
“Romance and sex is practiced among the sylvari, disregarding gender between those involved. To a sylvari, love is about inspiration, and it has nothing at all to do with the physical form.”

Not gonna lie, I see what you’re talking about. I think Anet went just a tad too far… I don’t have a sylvari character, but I have seen first hand in my travels through the grove how “in your face” the homosexuality of the Sylvari is. (I know they’re supposed to all be bi sexual, but it simply does not come across that way to me from what ive seen).. I would have just as much of a problem if there were similar instances of overt heterosexuality, but I simply have not seen them in this game. Do whatever you want to do, but that doesn’t mean you need to scream it from the rooftops, and then only when it is what is, and go ahead and hate me for saying htis, an alternative life style.

You haven’t seen “in your face” heterosexual relationships? Really?

No, it’s more like you noticed “homosexual” relationships because they deviate from what you consider to be “normal,” but that doesn’t make them any more “thrown in your face” than the heterosexual relationships showcased in the game.

Can Sylvari even have sex? I mean, they have no need of reproduction because of the Pale Tree and their underwear seems to be a part of their natural foliage. Maybe they just pollinate.

Sylvari can have sex. Devs specifically said so. It just doesn’t make babies. It’s purely for…I’m not sure if pleasure is the right word, but they have it.

I bet doing the deed with a Sylvari would be like making love to a salad.

Must not make salad joke
must not make salad joke
Resist!

I don’t think that you people understand that Sylvari do not have a gender. They may look like males and females, but they aren’t. They are all just plants, so if one “female” sylvari likes another “female” sylvari, its not gay, because they don’t have a gender in the first place. Its just the overall appearance.

It’s no more forced than the umpteen times some human mentions their girlfriend/wife/boyfriend/husband/logaaaaaan/jennaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.

Firstly the Green Night and the opening couple is not “being thrown in your face” it makes sense with the story. It’d be no different than if a boyfriend/girl friend of the pair had come up to you asking to intervene.

The Green Night then jumps to helping a “female” Sylvari who’s boyfriend was killed by the Green Night and if you’re a “male” Sylvari even makes overtures to you sometimes.

Sounds like your first sentence is bearing false witness honestly.

And to add, had you gone with the “Moon Shield”, you’d have helped out a “heterosexual” couple with their tangled love mess. And that’s “thrown in your face” from the bat too.