no no champ…burden of proof is on you. you claim there was “PLENTY” of lore then prove it.
what lore did we actually learn? that has substance to it.
retribution is probably the only thing
calm down kiddo…seriously there’s no need to be as aggressive as you’re being.
You’re not entitled to my time over something that’s easily googleable.
I will not be writing an essay with details on every single lore details we learned in a whole year, especially not with you addressing me as kiddo and with a known history of not being even remotely interested in changing your mind.
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and that was in response to his overly aggressive attitude. thread police him. i didn’t say a thing to warrant how he came at me but sure, i can see why you’re siding with him and that’s fine.
i’ve kept up on the “story progression” in OW and other than retribution i haven’t seen anything of substance come out of the lore. he didn’t agree so i’m asking what he felt was so important. i can’t google his opinion.
My “aggressive” attitude comes with a context of us being constantly told we’re being pandered to by having 0.1% lore information being about LGBT topics. I haven’t seen anyone complaining about Torb having a family being lore or about Reaper having a family being lore or about the incessant whining about how a romance between Ashe and McCree didn’t happen and how that’s lore that was unjustly stolen from us. It’s really damn odd how that would’ve been splendid new fresh amazing lore, but talking about Soldier’s life isn’t. It’s just highly suspicious to me, as it should be, because the only issue is when it’s gay.
These things exist among other lore because that’s how Overwatch decided to do lore. Tiny character details, minimalist storytelling, a lot of hints and a lot of setups. It’s been 3 years, it won’t change into a sudden lore dump of trilogy books with 100k words each.
It also comes with the context of people blatantly ignoring every piece of information given to them in order to claim that Bastet was about Soldier being gay. You can’t google my opinion and I also can’t make you actually read the story and implement reading comprehension.
I’ve even given you a source. Hammeh, for example, has half an hour video on Bastet information and lore, if you really didn’t notice anything other than Soldier being gay in 5k words and 14 pages of the story.
Things of interest, in line with how Overwatch delivers lore, in Bastet:
- Soldier canonically doesn’t have the healing station, he heals on his own which he has a power related to the SEP (Soldier Enhancement Program). Interesting info on the extent of SEP as well as possible hint on how Reaper ended being like he is (symptoms manifesting wrong on him? Moira’s interference with SEP chemicals?). Lore talking point!
- His self-heal isn’t working well in the spot where he was shot by Reaper, hinting at Reaper’s shotguns having some odd technology that halts tissue regeneration. We can debate whether or not this is something Reaper has as a personal power and consequence of his changes, if this is something Moira created (similar to how her weapon works), or something else. Lore talking point!
- Two past Overwatch missions: Prague and Cairo. Ten years ago, Overwatch participated in a mission in Cairo to shut down the God AI which left Cairo in a bit of a disarray. Potential Archives story? We don’t know about Prague, but who knows, maybe it becomes relevant. For now, I think shutting down the God AI must come up at one point as Archives because it’s a good opportunity for a lore mission to expand on omnics. Lore talking point!
- Ana is in contact with Dr. Faisal, who is an archaeologist working with the archaeologist faction we know very little about but they’re excavating both Petra and Ilios. Ilios is the only map without lore, but a connection between Ana and this person might hint at a future importance of this faction as well as further explanation on what is going on with Ilios. We must also remember that there was Talon activity on Ilios, specifically in ruins. Connection between Talon and archaeologists/Faisal? Why is Ana in contact with this person? How close they are? Is there more to this faction? Could be also that Faisal or someone else from this faction might end up as a hero. Lore talking point!
- Reyes and McCree were both still very much involved with Overwatch up until the very end. We know this because Reyes personally sent McCree to find out what happened to Ana after she got shot and that’s pretty close to the final Swiss HQ explosion. Previously, we had no idea when McCree left Blackwatch (some speculated immediately after Uprising, which we now know isn’t exactly true). We also had no idea when Reyes went rogue and how. Him still being 100% loyal and looking for Ana this close to the end of Overwatch changes some theories and also tightens the timeline.
- Highly suspect detail about Ana noticing that Soldier knows more about Reaper’s movements than he should have, implying that he must be getting this information from somewhere(someone) else. This is one of the many hints that Sombra is leaking Talon information and that’s she helping some of the ex-Overwatch members with their missions (in this case, she’s giving Soldier info on Reaper, whether Soldier knows about her personally or not). Huge lore talking point that has been discussed among lore enthusiasts for ages and got us pretty excited that the Sombra theory might be correct.
- Story progress by having two people solving a problem (Hakim’s rule over Cairo) and deciding to team up and go after Talon and Reaper. This is literal story progress. Ana and Soldier have moved on from the spot they were previously in and are moving forward with their story.
- Various minor details on character relationships and interactions: Ana and Soldier were very close, she considered Jack and Gabe as brothers, she wrote to Fareeha but hasn’t received an answer yet (which tells us that Pharah does indeed know her mother is alive but isn’t ready to confront her), Ana has some regrets over not being able to have a stable family life and evidently misses her husband, Gabe had some sort of a family, Jack wanted a normal life but gave it up in exchange with his duty and keeping the world safe (his gritty persona is largely a mask, he’s inherently a good person with the need to protect others and he will do anything to fulfil this goal, even sacrifice his own happiness).
- Dozens of other details I’d have to refresh myself about by re-reading the story
This is literally all easily accessible by simply reading the story. Anyone with even a fraction of any lore knowledge will have noticed these details and wondered about them.
I absolutely feel like a complete fool for wasting my time while you do nothing but complain and I’ll feel like even more of a fool when you say none of this is meaningful lore, but there you go.
Not that it will change anything because it’s been a month since Bastet and people simply adamantly refuse to actually read the story and try to do an elementary school analysis on it to find information besides Soldier being gay or even that Soldier being gay isn’t the focal point of it at all and it’s a story exactly the same as Ana’s about people who gave up a family life to protect the world.
I’m also not a he.
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Again, this is because samurai are depicted in popular culture as being akin to knights, in that they don’t have romances.
And my complaint isn’t that they existed, it’s the using that existence as a vehicle for depicting bisexuality feels shallow and gross.
Kinda, yeah. Given the trope of bi men being flirts, having a character that does flirt (even if it is with one character) as bi representation is not as good as depicting a character that doesn’t flirt.
Who’s to say the Spartan’s in 300 weren’t gay/bi? There is absolutely nothing that contradicts that view in the comic/movie, the closest is Leonidas saying “boy lover Athenians”, but that is a reference to pederasty, not general homosexuality. The Spartans were manly, but I’d hardly say they were portrayed as straight. I haven’t seen it in a while, mind you. And the issue is that it doesn’t bring us any closer to wider acceptance in my mind. Also, Ancient Greece is terrible to use as a “accepting” culture. Like, most of the stories involve hedonism and some form of assault. It’s were the image of bad bisexuals comes from. How about having LGBT characters based in the modern world.
Maybe, he’s more of a fallen from grace McSadBackstory, he’s basically Cap turned Punisher. But you have a fair point. However, I still will refer to the fact he dodges most tropes that exist for bi men.
True, but Doomfist is good representation, like you said, because he dodges tropes that exist against black men. And there is Lucio, who is probably the purest soul in OW by far. (Does not contradict that he plays into bisexual tropes) Which is my point, there are virtually NO bisexual males out there, and those who do exist are usually evil. Bisexual men have like 4 positive characters to relate to. 3 of which are trope-ish, which leaves Darryl Whitefeather. It’s supposed to be yin and yang, not 80 yin and then 1 yang.
Again, I would have no problem with him being bi, if we had representation that is not based in some kind of trope. Currently, even outside of OW, that kind of representation is rare to non-existent.
Maybe. I’d still say that having a character exist in something more analogous to current culture is better than just having a character exist in a culture that has long since passed.
I wouldn’t do it arbitrarily to pander to the LGBT community.
that makes no sense. if they lgbt samurai existed then they SHOULD be represented. not having them be represented because they existed doesn’t make sense. its actually pretty lgbtphobic to never represent them when they existed. it would be erasing history, it wouldn’t be “using history as a vehicle” when it hasn’t barely been done.
it seems like your problem is any gay rep involving the past, which i see what you mean. but your acting like character with a samurai/soldier motif would be bad rep which doesn’t make sense. cause overwatch takes place in the future.
how is a character not flirting at all, good bi rep? how would we even know there bi without it being straight up said. the idea of bi rep not being allowed to flirt is liking saying fat characters shouldn’t be allowed to eat ever, . like how would you have wanted soldier to be revealed as bi besides micheal chu saying “he’s bi” on twitter?
the director of 300 straight up said “What’s more scary to a 20-year-old boy than a giant god-king who wants to have his way with you?”” and when asked if the spartans were supose to be homoretoic, he said “no’ its just suppose to make the teens in the audience giggle” so yeah seems like the villain is suppose to be the creepy gay, and the heroes are suppose to be straight. not saying them being bi would the best rep, 300 itself is a pretty bad represention of greece in general, but i’m just saying that there’s barely any actual gay/bi greek heroes let alone heroic ones. and using greek history to make gay/bi characters isn’t bad aslong as its not every character. and it isn’t. i can think of alot more modern bi/gay characters in modern media then bi/gay greek characters in modern media
but there’s plenty of heroic lgbt greek heroes like Achilles.and the reason alot of the gods were bad people weren’t because they were bi, it was because they were gods who had no respect for humans.
yeah, and hanzo doesn’t have any traits against bisexual men. he’s not even a straight of villain as more of a neutral character. not saying i personally think he should be bi rep but i don’t think a character being morally grey makes them bad rep.
but again overwatch exists in the future not the past. for example while hanzo is and archer, he lives and exists in the future. or if there was a future hero who was greek, they would still exist in the future not the past
There is the sticky issue that the gay/bisexuality in samurai was rooted in pederasty. It was often between young students and their mentors, however it was noted to last after the mentorship ended and samurai did not have anything in the Bushido that forbade homosexual relationships.
Because it destroys the idea that bisexual men are just going from person to person. And very simple, you have your character have two or three partners of different genders. For Soldier specifically, how about he carries two photos, one of him and Vincent and another of him with a woman (lets use Jennifer) at say a dance event or possibly at the base. Ana asks him about it, “Who’s she?” Jack shifts, “Jennifer. I met her after the London uprising, she was working as a volunteer. We tried to make it work, and it did for six months, but I guess I didn’t learn the first time. I could never put anything above my duty. Everything I fought for was to protect people like them… That’s the sacrifice I made.” Boom, Jack’s bi and his overall arc remains intact. Obviously I’m a terrible writer, but still, I feel my point is made.
Agreed. 300 is fun as a movie and it has a brilliant excuse for why the Persians are evil (It’s literally a storyteller retelling it to drum up resistance) but it’s absolute TRASH for historical accuracy. But in any case, of course there are more modern LGBT characters than ones set in ancient Greece, that’s because it is a much more common setting.
I know. But Achilles was gay, not bi. And again, just because they weren’t dicks because they were bi doesn’t change that they were terrible. Like, Hitler was a vegetarian, but just because that did not factor into him causing the most heinous acts ever committed by humans doesn’t make Hitler a good example of vegetarians. Like, hyperbolic I know, but the point remains.
Again, Hanzo is a person who attacked his own brother because he wasn’t being a good criminal. You can say that he regrets it but that doesn’t wash the stain away. And again, morally grey characters are fine when you have other examples of positive representation. There is only one positive character representing bi men, in ALL culture… Compared to the dozen that exist for gay men.
He lives and exists in the future but is entirely characterized by the past. Same with Genji, McCree, Brigitte and Rein. They act like and are representative of cultures from the past, not the future.
ok. i still don’t see the problem there. besides maybe the power imbalance, i still don’t see how having a gay samurai is bad.
reinhardt flirting with ana once doesn’t mean he would be flirting with everyone thats not how it works. if i eat a hotdog it doesn’t mean i’m eating every single food. Reinhardt can complement ana, and also have a husband.
ok no offense but that seems really weird for him to have two separate photos. like story wise that would be really sloppy. like there are people who complain how soldier having that photo is out of place, having two separate photos of two separate people would be pretty weird.
ok thats pretty ridiculous. there’s plenty of bi men who aren’t evil.
yeah so i don’t see what the problem with having lgbt people who take inspiration from the past when that isn’t a problem. thats just an imaginary problem.
your saying that gay charactes taking inspiration from the past would be bad but also saying that most lgbt rep is modern? so it literally isn’t a problem. having 3 lgbt characters take inspiration from the past out of 100 isn’t a problem.
Blizzard obviously knew what opinions the reveal would unleash.
Well pederasty is “child love”. I can’t say the common word for it because for some reason it’s blocked by blizz. However, you are right in that a gay/bi samurai would not be “bad”, but again I feel that having a character’s bisexuality be rooted in a past culture is not progressive.
So you want to make him flirt with a woman while he’s married. You basically want to reinforce the stereotype, is what you are saying.
Yes, Jack carrying around a photograph of a man who he loved decades ago is kinda weird. How would him carrying also around a photograph of a woman he loved more recently be weirder? In my version, he’s carrying it for the same reason as Jack carries Vincent’s picture, as a reminder for who he is fighting for and it also still shows what sacrifices Jack had to make for his duty to Overwatch. It’s a much better and less stereotypical way to reveal a character as bi, as opposed to having a character make finger-guns at everyone and try and get them into bed, which is how every straight man writes us, because that’s all they understand about bi/pan sexuality. “You like both, therefore you have no standards and just want EVERYONE” So far the only good depiction of a bisexual male has come from a woman.
Not who aren’t stereotypes. There are many examples of not stereotypical gay men (Apollo, Kung Jin, Steve Cortez, Shiro, Midnighter and I know he literally just came out, but Gibraltar in Apex Legends), and again, Darryl Whitefeather is the only not stereotypical bi man. And again, he’s not a hero. He’s a lovable dad character in a musical comedy.
I don’t think I said it was a problem, I said it was worse than having a character being more contemporary to modern culture. By basing a character into a archetype of the past, you add that much separation between that character and the audience.
ah okay i understand what you mean. i though you just meant someone being in relationship with their teacher which can have a power dynamic but thats way worst. still i don’t think using the past is automatically bad.
no, complimenting and flirting are two different things. if i told someone “you look nice today” that doesn’t mean i’m flirting with them. ana said reinhardt aged well and reinhardt said she looked lovely. thats not even flirty, thats complimenting. i said earlier that, thats the closet thing to flirting reinhardt does but its not even that.
neither of those are weird. what is weird is carrying two seperate photos at the same time, in the same story. thats what i’m saying.
again i can think of many bi male characters that aren’t stereotypical.
but you can say that with any minority. you could say having a japanese character who uses samurai motif is bad because it has a seperation from modern culture. but that doesn’t mean its always bad.
Sure. I always tell my friend she looks “lovely as ever”. Yes, it’s a compliment, but the tone is definitely romantic. And another point, how would Rein complimenting Ana make him bi? Gay men don’t compliment their female friends?
Well, I mean he’s also carrying a photo of Gabe, Ana and him already. So your point about two photo’s is kinda moot. Unless you are implying that a man cannot feel love for two ex-partners, which again far, far from unlikely.
You can say that.
So list them.
You are correct, again, the fact is that while there have been numerous depictions of Japanese men as things other than Samurai, bisexual men do not have that same level or variety of depiction.
no, i’m saying that he could still be bi while also complementing someone. you said that him being bi would be bad because he’d be a “flirt” but i don’t agree
i don’t think that was in the same story. that was in old soldiers. what i’m saying is story wise if in bastet if he did the whole “look at photo and reminisce about his lost love” back to back or at the same time i’d be weird.
javier walking dead
ike fire emblem
prodigy young avengers
bob belcher Bobs burgers
Tatsuya Suou persona 2
Magnus chase Heroes of olympus
Those are some i came up with on the top of my head
okay could you name a couple of bi samurai characters? cause i can’t think of any and it doesn’t really seem like much of an issue.
Given the romantic connotation of what he says, it would be.
Ana and Jack directly joke about the picture in Bastet. And it mentions Jack’s carrying a “STACK” of old photos. Page 13 in the pdf. Again, remind me how it is weird that Jack could have two people in his life who he cares for deeply but had to let go? It’s not even like he’s the one who looks at the photo’s, Ana is the one who causes the situation. She’s the one looking at the photographs, just have her look at both of them.
Ike has no confirmed sexuality.
Bob again is not confirmed, and in many ways can just be seen as a straight man who is comfortable with finding other men attractive.
Tatsuya is the player character, therefore he is whatever you want him to be. This is like claiming Commander Shepard as bi. They are not, they are whatever you want them to be. A man or a woman. Straight, gay or bi. It’s ultimately up to you.
Javier just barely counts since he is confirmed as being bisexual, but again he can either be a good or terrible person based on your actions.
So of those you listed, Prodigy and Magnus are the only one’s who I agree with. And Magnus is pansexual, so it can be debated that he counts, but let’s say he does.
So we have 3.
The only samurai that I can name that has a sexuality/romance is Samurai Jack. Again, Samurai are depicted as being committed to their craft and celibate. Outside of anime, they aren’t depicted as being romantically inclined. My point is that couching bisexuality as being part of past cultures is not progressive.
Edit: Eep, I may have to reword this a bit. A had just woken up and it seems super aggressive.
This post is going no where and it’s sad. It’s really just a person finding a way to deny everything else other people says to fill what his selfish desires want for a character.
Open your minds… please. There are many ways to express things and it doesn’t have to be a specific way to fit every single check box of what one should deem acceptable.
The character is allowed to be good or bad.
The character is allowed to fit a trope or not.
The character doesn’t have to be a perfect example because nobody is perfect.
I can find something wrong in anything everybody says. If we don’t open our minds to receive information, we will be stuck on one lonely path.
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i wanna add a fourth here…john constantine
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- who cares
- who cares
- not enough
- we knew already
- who cares
- good.
- who cares
Not enough after 3 years of waiting.
This goes back to my initial point with Blizzard pandering to certain groups that the lore for this game has pretty much flatlined.
Nothing goes forward. Nothing gets developed besides so and so has this disability or is part of so and so minority because that = content.