Guild Wars 2

I’m sorry that you feel like heterosexual relationships are not being represented in game, you must be so overwhelmed by the massively over-representation of heterosexual couples in game that you have become blind to it. Wouldn’t it be nice if homosexual couples got that equal treatment?

Aren’t you forgetting about Bloomanoo and Peneloopee?

There were definitely heterosexual relationships in the personal stories. A couple I can think of off the top of my head. In any event, I’m not even sure why it matters.

snowflame.1560:

Just because I don’t agree with the lifestyle doesn’t make me homophobic.

You’re right. The use the word “lifestyle” generally points more to ignorance than homophobia.

Taygus.4571:

Imperios.2543:

Taygus.4571:

Imperios.2543:

elfycara.1572:

Heterosexuality may be mainstream and the norm in real life but who knows what sexuality is like in Tyria? Everybody could be aggressively bisexual so having a lot of homosexual relationships wouldn’t really be seen as uncommon.

->This.

Especially since Kryta is mostly based on Mediterranean countries, which were traditionally quite lax on the whole homosexuality thing.

I’m fine with LGBT romances myself – I loved the Caithe/Faolain storyline, personally. KasJory was a bit more forced and kinda felt like fanservice/affirmative action to me, but was still fairly interesting. BUT I’d like some traditional romance too… It’d be nice for a change.

That, and I asked my 4 year old sister (who is generally watching me play GW2) to look away when Kas and Jory were kissing… does that make me homophobic?

would you have asked her to look away if it was a male x female?
And if not…why did you ask her to look away at this scene?

I thought she was too young for that kind of stuff. She could ask questions about why they are kissing and that would be embarassing for me to explain. Same for my parents if they got to know, we’re, you know… Russian (okay we’re also Asians and do not oppose the LGBT community but still).

She even asked me if Marjory was a boy when Kasmeer hugged her!

But , not to young to see a male&female kiss?
Thats what I was asking.

If you think it’s ok to see that, and she asks questions about lesbians, just say that they love eachother the same way mom & dad does.

Thats if it would even occur to her that it’s something odd, kids aren’t prejudiced till we teach them to be.

I wanted to add my 2 cents here as well. Telling a child to look away from something is teaching that child that it is wrong, something to be ashamed of, or inappropriate for their age. You need to send a clear message if you do this, and it doesn’t sound much like you know how you feel or what you think about this issue.

It SOUNDS like you have an aversion or fear of displays of homosexuality and don’t want to discuss it. This is pretty much the definition of homophobia.

However, if you did it because you don’t think it’s appropriate for a child to see physical love in general, that’s something else entirely. But I sort of think that if this child sees their mother and father kiss, she gets it. You don’t have to shelter her, and in my opinion you shouldn’t. It is just reinforcing an association that gay couples are something to hide.

Sorry if this tangent is off-topic. I’m posting a 2nd post in response to the original topic creator.

Nesukia.7561:

This topic.

WOW.

See this is why I wish I had a time machine so I could zip forward to a place where this nonsense doesn’t happen anymore. Ah well, it’ll come so long as we keep working for it.

Stopped taking it seriously the second the word “agenda” came up. Honestly, was this topic just a troll attempt? Keep this topic respectful, eh mods? Sorry, but this topic didn’t start from a place of respect for all human beings and it ain’t gonna get there.

Your last sentence bears repeating over and over because it encapsulates what is wrong with this topic and the subsequent discussions.

I don’t really understand how the inclusion of two lesbian relationships in two different parts of the game could ever be considered some sort of social agenda. Seems like a real stretch to me.

I personally quite like that the Anet writing team are obviously comfortable with the reality of multiple sexualities and can therefore happily write them into their stories.

Now, I’m not against left-handed people, in fact I have left-handed friends. One of my aunts is even left-handed. And I love how far people have come in accepting lefthandedness – I’m all for it! But Anet seems to have a disproportionate obsession with left-handed characters, and I’m starting to think they might be pushing some sort of agenda.

I’m again disappointed that the discussion is turning towards a metadiscussion about homosexual relationships where for me and many others the beef has ALWAYS been about lackluster writing. I personally couldn’t care less what race or gender Kas and Mar were, but the whole thing is just so cliché, feels forced and sappier than a Harlequin novel.

Marjory: Kasmeer, I could gaze into your blue eyes for all eternity!
Kasmeer: Marjory, please tell me you’ll stay by my side for ever!
Braham: Get a room, you guys!

Imperios.2543:

elfycara.1572:

Heterosexuality may be mainstream and the norm in real life but who knows what sexuality is like in Tyria? Everybody could be aggressively bisexual so having a lot of homosexual relationships wouldn’t really be seen as uncommon.

->This.

Especially since Kryta is mostly based on Mediterranean countries, which were traditionally quite lax on the whole homosexuality thing.

I’m fine with LGBT romances myself – I loved the Caithe/Faolain storyline, personally. KasJory was a bit more forced and kinda felt like fanservice/affirmative action to me, but was still fairly interesting. BUT I’d like some traditional romance too… It’d be nice for a change.

That, and I asked my 4 year old sister (who is generally watching me play GW2) to look away when Kas and Jory were kissing… does that make me homophobic?

would you have asked her to look away if it was a male x female?
And if not…why did you ask her to look away at this scene?

Morfedel.4165:

Kitta.3657:

Pipra.7580:

Arosche.7438:

I would have liked to see more male homosexual relationships but my gut feeling is gw2 player are just not going to take a male relationship as well as they will take a female one. It’s horrible but true I wish it was different.

There is a male Sylvari couple early in one of that race’s personal stories. I’ve never seen any objection about it.

Also, Rytlock and Logan are clearly the #1 couple in the game.

This is an old reply but I saw nobody reply to you. Actually there was a loooooot of qq threads (that literally was it, people complaining for no actual reason) about it while in beta and launch. People just got over it with time because they are further in the game’s story. The people that cared back then have either left or passed the phase in the story so are not “being shoved down their throats” the relationship between these two characters.

I am honestly afraid Anet could not have a canon male gay couple in the main cast without horrible homophobic backlash as we have already seen it happen. And the amount of complaints about Kasjory is even more telling that a loud minority of players can’t accept homosexual relationships as normal and demand “equality” (seriously? are you kidding me????). You [general you] are simply ignoring all of the heterosexual relationships because it is default in our society. Of course a queer relationship will stick out like a sore thumb to you because of the status of our media – you’re not used to it.

Empty complaints. What if the sole cast of characters were aaaaaaaaalllll gay and women???? Who cares. It’s not like the opposite (all male and hetero) is not something that happens in other games. The “acceptable” ratio you are wanting is actually already equitable and you are making a big deal out of n-o-t-h-i-n-g.

I wouldnt have a problem with a male-male romantic plot either… as long as they start giving more screen time to more standard relationships too, OR if they would start exploring more unusual relationships like interracial.

Actually, interspecies would be more accurate I suppose.

Heh. I want to see an Asura who invents a “love golem.” LOL

The problem with this thinking is you’re saying homosexual relationships aren’t ‘standard’, and you’re calling them ‘unusual’. They really aren’t, they’re rarer, yes, but they’re just as ‘normal’ as a heterosexual relationship.

I’m not saying you’re trying to be homophobic, and it’s clear you’re not maliciously being homophobic, but you’re arguments could be considered unintentionally homophobic, because you’re giving a double standard. If there we two major heterosexual relationships in the game, you wouldn’t bat an eyelid most likely, but because there have been two ‘major’ lesbian relationships, suddenly it’s ‘odd’ and ‘unusual’, and something should be done about it. And I’m using the term ‘major’ loosely, since Caithe x Foalain was hardly a major relationship, it was only mentioned briefly in the Personal Story and a bit more in the Twilight Arbor dungeon, not to mention that the actual relationship was already over when we learnt of it. I’d argue their relationship has about as much focus as the relationship between Logan and Jenna.

The Kasmeer x Marjory relationship has had a bit more screen-time, yes, but it’s hardly been thrust into our faces, with the possible exception of their kiss, which is all it was, a kiss, hardly anything that major.

If they added another couple of lesbian relationships before adding anything else, then I’d partially agree with you, but think about it, you made this thread because a game has -two- lesbian relationships in it, -two-.

CharrGirl.7896:

The reason why I feel it’s wrong to accuse it is because heterosexual relationships, being the usual norm as they are, are represented in more then 90% of every stories, including books, movies, video games, comics, etc. Most*stories don’t even touch the subject of homosexuality, or anything that is out of the norm.

We, as heterosexuals, are represented more then enough, to the point where it has become so stale, boring and overdone, that we’re expecting such things to happen in every major story we come across. And all of sudden, you don’t feel “represented enough” because once in 100 years your “privileged right”, and what is natural to YOU has been taken away from you. We live in age where everybody has gone lazy and we go through life with a sense of entitlement like everything belongs to us even though we don’t deserve it.

And for once, I think that something that is less commonly seen deserves to be represented more. They’re not pushing a social agenda on you, me or anyone else – if you have a problem with it, you create your own agenda behind it.

It is alright if you don’t like it, or can’t even relate to it, but demanding to be represented more, when you’re clearly over-represented in almost every form of media (often in a really forced and annoying fashion where the woman will end up with a man no matter what) would be the same as me complaining there isn’t enough white people featured in leading roles in movies.

Thank you, CharrGirl, for saving me the trouble of writing just such a post. I couldn’t have put it better – although the number is more like 99.9%. Heterosexuality is trumpeted from the rooftops all day, every day. It is a never-ending party celebrating how awesome guy-on-girl/girl-on-guy is supposed to be. It is everywhere, a ceaseless blaring media inundation of self-congratulation, and non-heterosexual individuals are expected and forced to put up with it every moment of their lives.

But the moment WE get some representation that is beyond the very occasional token single example, oh no! How threatening! How dare someone spoil the party! Heterosexuality is suddenly so downtrodden and underrepresented!

Does it not occur to you how irrational and petty that sounds?

Well, I’ll stop here. I know I’m wasting my time, and as I pointed out, CharrGirl said it all perfectly anyway, but it’s just too ridiculous to hear heterosexuals whine that there’s not enough het in their media.

Morfedel.4165:

timmyf.1490:

Look, I just want to add that I personally don’t see much evidence that the OP is homophobic. Or that the posters here defending him are homophobic. I think that’s a pretty strong word and we shouldn’t just casually toss it around.

What I do think is that you are privileged. As am I – a white, college-educated, straight male.

What do I mean by privileged? Specifically, in this case: a relationship which mirrors the kind that I would have in real-life can be represented in game without being seen as social activism or social commentary.

When we make a big deal over this sort of thing, we’re sending small, (I assume) painful messages to people who are already marginalized that the behavior or choices they find most natural are somehow unnatural, strange, unwanted, or wrong.

For my LGBT friends who constantly have to deal with this nonsense: don’t let the kittens grind you down. <3

Well, thanks for that. Let me ask you a question though: in a society where hetero relationships define the vast majority, isn’t it ok to be ok with ONE of these, but protest it when it’s two in a row?

I mean, as I said, the first one didnt bother me. the second did. So how would you define that?

Caithe and Faolain don’t really count in my opinion.

ALL Sylvari are pansexual, they don’t care about genders. I don’t think it’s fair to compare it to human relationships. If you play a sylvari, that means that your character is canonically interested in both genders, whenever you like it or not.

Reason why people don’t know about it, my guess would be, they didn’t read about sylvari before launch, and there is not enough evidence in game currently supporting the fact that sylvari are pansexual. We have 1 male-male relationship consuming whole 10 minutes of your personal storyline, and Caithe isn’t really in any kind of relationship with Faolain anymore, they’re…exes.

So there you have it, one official, legitimate non-straight relationship currently in the spotlight, as part of the bigger story. The biggest thing to happen in this patch was the reveal of a new dragon, I think we should focus more on that.

Also, even if you feel bothered by it, if you’re against same-sex pairings, or against representing it, you WILL come of as homophobic in the eyes of readers, no matter what you were trying to say.

The reason why I feel it’s wrong to accuse it is because heterosexual relationships, being the usual norm as they are, are represented in more then 90% of every stories, including books, movies, video games, comics, etc. Most*stories don’t even touch the subject of homosexuality, or anything that is out of the norm.

We, as heterosexuals, are represented more then enough, to the point where it has become so stale, boring and overdone, that we’re expecting such things to happen in every major story we come across. And all of sudden, you don’t feel “represented enough” because once in 100 years your “privileged right”, and what is natural to YOU has been taken away from you. We live in age where everybody has gone lazy and we go through life with a sense of entitlement like everything belongs to us even though we don’t deserve it.

And for once, I think that something that is less commonly seen deserves to be represented more. They’re not pushing a social agenda on you, me or anyone else – if you have a problem with it, you create your own agenda behind it.

It is alright if you don’t like it, or can’t even relate to it, but demanding to be represented more, when you’re clearly over-represented in almost every form of media (often in a really forced and annoying fashion where the woman will end up with a man no matter what) would be the same as me complaining there isn’t enough white people featured in leading roles in movies.

And if you think about it , you are being represented – all the emotions you feel towards somebody when you’re in love and when you have those feelings returned are portrayed there. Some people start of their relationships for shallow reasons, then develop as time goes on. Some take their time knowing each other before engaging in a relationships. It’s no different really.

Morfedel.4165:

timmyf.1490:

Look, I just want to add that I personally don’t see much evidence that the OP is homophobic. Or that the posters here defending him are homophobic. I think that’s a pretty strong word and we shouldn’t just casually toss it around.

What I do think is that you are privileged. As am I – a white, college-educated, straight male.

What do I mean by privileged? Specifically, in this case: a relationship which mirrors the kind that I would have in real-life can be represented in game without being seen as social activism or social commentary.

When we make a big deal over this sort of thing, we’re sending small, (I assume) painful messages to people who are already marginalized that the behavior or choices they find most natural are somehow unnatural, strange, unwanted, or wrong.

For my LGBT friends who constantly have to deal with this nonsense: don’t let the kittens grind you down. <3

Well, thanks for that. Let me ask you a question though: in a society where hetero relationships define the vast majority, isn’t it ok to be ok with ONE of these, but protest it when it’s two in a row?

I mean, as I said, the first one didnt bother me. the second did. So how would you define that?

You keep returning to Caithe and Faolin, and you being ok with them.
But
They are not a romance, their relationship is over before the game even starts and they are both Sylvari- so it hardly matters.
They are also not prominent.

Marjory and Kasmeer are human, and pretty and their relationship is part of the story- because you are their friend you spend time with them.

So basically you are saying you are not ok with one same sex relationship in game

Morfedel.4165:

timmyf.1490:

Morfedel.4165:

But when they have a second romantic relationship taking center stage centered around two females AGAIN, thats what made me begin to wonder what was going on.

It wasnt the fact they exist; its the fact that two in a row took more major screen time back to back.

There are a variety of relationships in the Personal Story and in the Living World. If we just look at Living World, we have:

Hetero Romantic: Peneloopee/Bloomanoo, Faren/prettymucheverybody, Braham/Ottilia
kitten Romantic: KasJory
Hetero Non-Romantic: Rox/Braham, (hinted at) Braham/Taimi, Kiel/Magnus, Kasmeer/Faren
kitten Non-Romantic: KasJory before it moved to the other column, X-o-Tron/Marcello, Thorn/Edrick

There are many relationships and dynamics, it’s just that one of those pairs kissed in a cut scene.

The romantic relationships that took center stage, however, have been pretty much one type.

I totally forgot that Rox had a romantic thing with a ‘bandmate. So that’s another one.

Anyway, we’re obviously never going to agree on this, but I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy the in-game representation of an often-marginalized segment of society. Hopefully ArenaNet will include more heterosexual relationships in the game, center stage, as you say, so that you don’t feel so uncomfortable.

Pipra.7580:

Arosche.7438:

I would have liked to see more male homosexual relationships but my gut feeling is gw2 player are just not going to take a male relationship as well as they will take a female one. It’s horrible but true I wish it was different.

There is a male Sylvari couple early in one of that race’s personal stories. I’ve never seen any objection about it.

Also, Rytlock and Logan are clearly the #1 couple in the game.

This is an old reply but I saw nobody reply to you. Actually there was a loooooot of qq threads (that literally was it, people complaining for no actual reason) about it while in beta and launch. People just got over it with time because they are further in the game’s story. The people that cared back then have either left or passed the phase in the story so are not “being shoved down their throats” the relationship between these two characters.

I am honestly afraid Anet could not have a canon male gay couple in the main cast without horrible homophobic backlash as we have already seen it happen. And the amount of complaints about Kasjory is even more telling that a loud minority of players can’t accept homosexual relationships as normal and demand “equality” (seriously? are you kidding me????). You [general you] are simply ignoring all of the heterosexual relationships because it is default in our society. Of course a queer relationship will stick out like a sore thumb to you because of the status of our media – you’re not used to it.

Empty complaints. What if the sole cast of characters were aaaaaaaaalllll gay and women???? Who cares. It’s not like the opposite (all male and hetero) is not something that happens in other games. The “acceptable” ratio you are wanting is actually already equitable and you are making a big deal out of n-o-t-h-i-n-g.

Look, I just want to add that I personally don’t see much evidence that the OP is homophobic. Or that the posters here defending him are homophobic. I think that’s a pretty strong word and we shouldn’t just casually toss it around.

What I do think is that you are privileged. As am I – a white, college-educated, straight male.

What do I mean by privileged? Specifically, in this case: a relationship which mirrors the kind that I would have in real-life can be represented in game without being seen as social activism or social commentary.

When we make a big deal over this sort of thing, we’re sending small, (I assume) painful messages to people who are already marginalized that the behavior or choices they find most natural are somehow unnatural, strange, unwanted, or wrong.

For my LGBT friends who constantly have to deal with this nonsense: don’t let the kittens grind you down. <3

If you don’t like Kas and Jory, that’s fine. You’re allowed to think the writing is poor or the story doesn’t make sense or it’s pandering to the audience.

What doesn’t seem right is complaining that there are now two lesbian relationships in game – seemingly at the expense of hetero relationships – when there are tons of hetero relationships that are being ignored. Including one in the Living Story that’s been just as much fun to follow: Penelopee and Bloomanoo.

A laser-focus on one particular piece – the lesbian relationship – while having blinders to the rest of the game and then crying oppression? That makes quaggan angry.

X The Manimal.5293:

Dahkeus.8243:

So what if there hasn’t been a hetero romance in the main story. This new romance is really the only active relationship anyways since Caithe and Faolan have only been introduce as exes.

Who care what gender the partners in the romance are anyways. The story and romance itself are really well done and if it wasn’t for culture shock over two girls kissing, there wouldn’t be any of this complaining going on.

You missed the point. It’s not about a kiss or embrace or 10 seconds of a cutscene… Posters brought up valid arguments concerning the poor treatment of key character relationships (even the lesbian sylvari one). Kasmeer and Marj are side characters. It’s just strange that ANet decided to bring them into the spotlight and have their relationship develop further than the others, especially given whats going on in the real world right now. That’s why it seems like a fan-service to me, not much care was taken with these side-characters.

But if you wish to view this post through a narrow cone then sure.

What??

They spent just as much time on Braham and Rox in that scene and this certainly isn’t the first time they explained what is going on between Marjory and Kasmeer or how their relationship developed. If you don’t know how this relationship sprung up, then you haven’t been paying attention to the story.

The reality is, if this were a guy and a girl kissing, they wouldn’t need to put any story or plot or reasoning into the kiss. If this were a guy and a girl that kissed, even if they never hinted at any romance between them, this wouldn’t have caused a stir because of the pervasive hetero-normative perspective that any main male and female character in a story are really just a romance waiting to happen anyways.

Morfedel.4165:

~ Snip ~
it feels like it’s a social agenda being pushed.

I don’t like social agendas in my entertainment. I just want to be entertained, not proselytized to.

Here’s the problem: You’re building a social agenda out of this, so don’t blame the writers.

You may like the same stale trope-filled stories with copy-cat characters and if so, that’s fine. However, ArenaNet has been thinking outside the canned-story box. Just because that includes same-sex relationships doesn’t mean that you’re a victim of some liberal agenda.

If you’re telling us that there needs to be a central heterosexual relationship for this story to be valid, then the only rhetorical agenda at play here is yours.

Of course it is going to ‘feel’ political to a lot of people. Right now (in the US, at least), being gay is a political issue because the debate on gay marriage is in full swing. How must it feel for LGBTQ+ people who are just trying to live their lives and are constantly being told that doing so is pushing an agenda?

Honestly, this thread has come up over and over and over again and there don’t seem to be a lot of arguments apart from ‘I don’t like romance, it makes me feel icky…I mean, feel nothing because I don’t have feelings because feelings are weak!‘, or ’why not equal time for straight people?’ which is both cherry-picking (since there are plenty of straight relationships in the game, as well as non-sexual ones) and honestly, kind of on the same lines as ‘why is there no white history month?’ When things start off unequal, equality is going to feel unfair for awhile for the bigger group.

To my knowledge this is the only kiss scene that’s been in the game. Caithe and Faolain are fairly prominent but the relationship is finished before we even get into character creation, and I would argue that the Queen and Logan get pretty comparable time and importance dedicated to them, seeing as it is touched on during the personal story with regards to the breaking of Destiny’s Edge, during Caudecus’ Manor and then again during Queen’s Jubilee.

I’m not going to say that the Kas/Jory relationship has been written as one of the great love stories of all the ages or anything, but I wouldn’t say that about most of the lore thus far (or in most games full stop.) For me at least it hasn’t felt desperately fanservicey or contrived, their dialogue has shown them as having been friends for awhile with romantic interest flirted around and finally confirmed when things got rough and their lives were in danger. No big deal.

There are always going to be things in the game that one or other of us doesn’t love. But if Anet end up trying to perfectly recreate real-world demographics, or run through a strict cycle of genders, races, orientations, etc. to mathematically give every possible group even screen time in order to placate some players’ need for ‘equality’ and silence naysayers, is that really any less ‘political’ than anything they’re doing now? Because ‘the mainstream being heterosexual’ (or white, or male, or able-bodied, or religious/non-religious, depending on where you live) is political, too.

So what if there hasn’t been a hetero romance in the main story. This new romance is really the only active relationship anyways since Caithe and Faolan have only been introduce as exes.

Who care what gender the partners in the romance are anyways. The story and romance itself are really well done and if it wasn’t for culture shock over two girls kissing, there wouldn’t be any of this complaining going on.

can’t breathe….. laughing too hard…

One little kiss…. one in a heated moment where she was thankful the person she loves wasn’t actually dead and you’re all up in arms (again I might add)!

Oh come on! So what if they are both female. It was a touching moment! Something to help you connect with the characters in the sense that they have depth and emotion. Instead we get “omg yuck cooties!” type responses.

“I don’t like to see any romance in the main plot” I hope you don’t watch television outside of very young children’s cartoons then. Or read anything except very simple children’s books. Or play any game that has any even remote story. Even simple hack and slash console games have romance in their character plots, more often than not.

I’m a 29-year old man with a 25-year old girlfriend and we’ve both been cheering KasJory on this whole time. Those two are adorable.

http://less-l.deviantart.com/art/I-SAID-BLACK-432529661

Azure Prower.8701:

Vol.7601:

We do have quaggan rommance, it started during the Tower LS

Yes. But it was not pushed in our faces where we are FORCED to watch in order to progress through the living story and personal story.

Do you feel forced and embarrassed whenever a kiss scene in any movie pops up?

why poeple cares about this? is just another romance, for me it doesn’t really mater if it is homosexual or not, kass and jory romance was good, Caithe and Faolain are in the same level as Logan and Jenah so its kinda meh and there is Rox and Braham

I find it amussing how people says “I don’t care” or “I’m not homophobic” yet they keep pointing out the existance of said relationships, there is no secret agenda either, just learn to accept it and take it as something normal already!