Torb and Ana was seen but not much attention was drawn to it - more so it was drawn to their children : Pharah and Brigitte who are now part of the roster. As for Widowmaker, that became a part of the larger story and why she is who she is. Also, Gerards death was a massive impact not just for Widowmaker but Ana, Reaper, Soldier - the whole of Overwatch.
Tracer and Soldier being gay doesn’t add anything other than the fact they’re gay. It was unneccessary to know as it didn’t alter anything canon wise - only disappointed a bunch of fans who maybe had fanfictions about a straight soldier/tracer.
It’s not that they’re homosexual that people are annoyed. It’s more that it’s information that gives nothing other than media that opportunity to praise overwatch for being with the times.
The LGBT community is accepted though and the numbers who are a part of that group are continuously growing. It’s not like it was in the 60’s or whatever where it was seen as a sickness and people were opressed for being who they were.
Also, not everyone in the LGBT community is -good-. There are criminals who are LGBT and there are criminals who are straight…it’s not really a good idea to go to video games as a source of validation.
What I mean as in ‘it doesn’t add anything’ is that it neither hinders or progresses the story or development of that character. There was no attention made when it was revealed that Soldier was - dun dun dun! - Blonde! Another piece of information about him that he was born with…so why does it matter if he’s gay unless it’s something to do with storyline?
What they -could- have done if they were so desperate to reveal he was gay was make it a part of the storyline. For starters :
“He’s happy and married now” - okay so this is kind of a dead end and this is what they ended up doing.
“Ive no idea what happened to him…we lost contact years ago” - potential future story - what happened to him? Did he lose contact for a reason?
Hell I don’t think so many people would have cared if they just introduced a new character and in his origin story, there was a mention about him being gay or involved with someone : kinda like how they did with Tracer.
We’re accepted, but you continue to claim that our sexuality needs to have a plot reason to be included in a piece of media. This implies that we should be invisible to you unless our sexuality is doing… something in the story. That’s not acceptance. That’s defining us only by our sexuality and disabling us from being characters in a story without that story being only about our sexuality.
Sexuality doesn’t have to be a plot point. As a matter of fact, we’re kinda tired of same old gay melodramas where people are supposed to watch our pain and struggles. Sometimes we just want an action hero to be gay and do action hero stuff without the story being about him being gay. You know, like every single straight character that isn’t a protagonist of a romance novel.
Not true, to boot. People keep claiming that him being gay adds nothing to the story, but they’re only saying this because they’re only focusing on the gay aspect of his story.
What we learned about Soldier is that he gave up a family life and a person he loved in order to fulfil his duty and to protect the world. This tells us Soldier’s motivation and his goals; he’s someone so dedicated to keeping the world safe that he will give up his personal satisfaction in for the greater good and it also tells us that this is something he will continue doing until this goal is reached. Knowing what drives a character and what is a character’s goal is relevant to the story. That’s the point of us being told about Soldier’s past in Bastet. We were given information about a character that allows us to know more about him as a person, what drives him forward, why he made decisions he made and what is his ultimate goal: relevant story information about a character in that story.
Ignoring this in order to focus on the fact that his loved one was a man is illogical. To say the least. Our media is littered with action hero protagonists who give up their families in order to go fight the bad guys (and often lose those families) which gives them motivation to move forward. Nobody ever says “Did we really need to know this dude is straight?” because it’s not about sexuality. And it’s not about sexuality when it comes to Soldier. He’s gay because he happens to be gay. His plot doesn’t have to revolve around him being gay. Gay characters can do things that don’t relate to them being gay.
Once again, the story didn’t drop the fact that he’s gay on us randomly with no context.
He was holding on to a bunch of pictures, one if which happened to be if an ex-boyfriend. That led to a conversation about him sacrificing his personal life for work. It also revealed that Ana and (probably) Gabe as well had failed relationships too.
Soldier’s partner just happened to be a man in this case.
Like… does it matter that Ana’s partner was a man?
In certain parts of America, Asia and Europe, sure.
Not the case in like 70% of the world. Russia, China, pretty much the entire middle east, South America and Africa.
And even in America it’s not completely accepted. Just because it is better doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good.
And you are right, not everyone in the LGBT community is good.
But if we are talking about representation, you usually do not want to represent a group with a villain. Hence why male (and female, to a lesser extent) bisexual representation is so bad, 90% of the characters are villainous.
That’s not what i’m saying at all. What i’m saying is that a defining detail about a character should not be just that they’re gay. Soldier has had varely any storyline and there really isn’t anything gripping about him. He was a soldier, he was leader of overwatch, something happened (no idea what) and now he’s a vigilante…and that’s all we’ve ever known about him.
You’re preaching to the choir here, i’ve been in a same sex relationship for 6 years. I’m all for gay characters in video games the same as i’m all for varying races in a video game. But that shouldn’t be their only highlighting feature.
I think it’s safe to assume that everyone figured that Soldier gave up on having a married life because of his dedication to Overwatch. We already know that he gave up so much for Overwatch.
This reveal would have been a lot better if he acknowledged Vincent but left the crytpic message of ‘I don’t know what happened to him…one day he just disappeared’. At least with Emily, she still holds some sort of relevance but Vincent? Oh yeah he’s married and happy now, end of his story.
It was such a minor detail blown up for the sake of PR. It wasn’t the fact he’s gay that left people with a bit of a sour taste, it was more that we’ve waited so long for an Ana cinematic (okay we got a comic instead, i’ll take that) and we were desperate to learn more about the lore…and we really didn’t get much of anything at all.
Him being gay didn’t change his personality, his goals or anyone perception of what he went through in Overwatch. It was never stated he was treated any differently because he was gay so it wasn’t a hardship. If McCree one day blurted out ‘I had an ex girlfriend once. She’s married now though’, no one would care about that either.
How do you put these two things together? You don’t want him to be defined by being gay (agreed!) but then you lament how being gay didn’t change his personality (??), his goals (??) or didn’t provide a storyline where he goes through hardships (??). All of the latter would define him by being gay. Something you say you don’t want?
Again, as I said, him having had a boyfriend isn’t the point here. The point is to explain how some people sacrifice personal lives for the greater good. Ana has the exact same identical story and that’s directly stated in Bastet. Both Jack and Ana talk about their pasts and regrets and how their family life didn’t work out.
Why are you so focused on Vincent? Vincent and Sam (Ana’s ex-husband) are complete nobodies. They are civilians with no lines that only exist in one comic panel and one spray. So does Torb’s wife Ingrid. Ana’s husband Sam could’ve easily been a wife Samantha and the story would’ve been identical (before you latch onto Ana having a child: adoption and medical fertilisation exist).
Regarding the ‘it didn’t change his personality’ was more in contrast to what you were talking about. Hang on, lemme quote it…
Which i’ll say again, we already assumed all of this way before it was revealed he was gay. He heavily implied he gave up on a lot of things for the sake of Overwatch. We can see he’s a driven man by his constant pursuits of criminals and his search for answer regarding what happened to Overwatch. So…what does him being gay do to all this? Nothing. And that’s the gripe people have. Not that he’s gay but that it was useless information. So what he had an ex-lover : i’m assuming most of the people in the Overwatch roster did. (Though i’m going to quickly delete that idea out of my head for characters such as Winston and Hammond).
At least with Emily for Tracer, she still has an impact on her life. She’s still seen in comics and has even offered sage advice and comfort to Tracer. Vincent…really does nothing.
And people said something about Ana’s husband or whatever? He really hasn’t been touched upon at all. In fact, I don’t even think he’s been given a name. And he has an impact on both Pharah and Anas life (though he presumes the latter dead).(edit, you mentioned his name. I honestly didn’t even know it!)
If they’d hinted at some point that he’d faced some harships because he was gay and that was majorly why he severed his relationship with Vincent, okay fine that would give -something-. But it was quite literally ‘yeah I liked this guy. We broke up. He’s married and happy now. The end’.
I disagree that Blizz made a big deal about it. The fandom did.
I feel that you can critique Blizz for doing LGBT representation not as well as they could in this case.
For instance, while it is not as bad as JK, the fact is that in OW currently there is not a MLM relationship. Jack being gay is explicitly mentioned, but not explicitly shown. While it’s good that they have a character that is gay, it is substatiatlly less powerful than having a character that is both gay AND in a committed relationship.
Like, suppose they had Reinhardt have a husband that he’s been married to since the Omnic Crisis, or if they introduce Baptiste and he also has a partner who he’s helping make the world a better place for.
Both of these options are much better than Jack and Vincent, since we would get the possibility of having a actual homosexual male relationship be depicted and be spotlighted in a similar fashion to Emily and Lena.
Also, Jack was the only male character that makes for great and novel bisexual male representation.
Also Jack is from Bloomington Indiana. Home of Alfred Kinsey and the Kinsey Institute, literally champions of bisexuality. How did they not realize this?
Perhaps you did, but as you said yourself, we had barely any information about Soldier at all. I don’t know which information you used to assume all of this, but I did not. I sincerely doubt you had a way to anticipate so much about Soldier when you didn’t even know the name of Ana’s husband that has been stated many times already, including in the Bastet short story.
Him being driven through a passion for keeping the civilians safe has never been shown or hinted at anywhere. We never understood his advocacy for rules and peace or why he struggled with his position as a leader of Overwatch. Showing us a side of him that didn’t actually want any of that is interesting. We have never been told or hinted before that Jack actually wanted to end his military career after the Omnic Crisis in order to settle down. The Vincent talk tells us about it.
Unfortunately, the war and the problems the world had went on and Jack ended up making a tough decision that, in his old age, he clearly regrets, at least a little bit (alongside Ana), but because he has already committed, he decides to see it through the end.
Yes, Vincent himself isn’t important and I doubt he will be in the future. Neither is Sam and neither is Ingrid. They’re here to expand on the characters and their backgrounds, to humanise them and make them more real. To show they have emotions and that they had plans and goals before something got in the way.
I’ve written quite a lot explaining why this goes against your own idea that gay characters shouldn’t be defined by being gay and also why it’s entirely reductive to say that delving into Jack’s personal life is in any way useless. It’s just as useless as knowing about anybody’s personal life and history. I don’t know why single him out.
They did in the sense that the Bastet comic…really, the only thing that really revealed was Soldiers sexuality. There was nothing else really amazing story wise which was exactly what they wanted. They did it with the intent of stirring up attention - which kudos to them as it brings attention to the game.
I’m not saying they have to be in a committed relationship to have impact, Tracer was just an example of how it impacts her.
There also isn’t a scottish character in Overwatch nor an african american female playable character or a horse character in Overwatch. Just because it isn’t there doesn’t mean we should just rush to get one out there. If they tried to make heroes represent everyone in the world so we all feel included, it would get incredibly cluttered. Not saying ‘so we should just bar them out’, not at all. But people need to stop looking to video games for representation because that’s not what a game is there for, really. It’s nice to relate to a character of course but when people start making demands for very specific details, it gets a bit eye rolling.
The whole reason I did not like ths reveal was simply for the fact it could have been handled in a much better way. But it just wasn’t.
Barely any information but enough to work out that he worked his butt off for Overwatch and gave up on a lot of things along the way. A common thing that both he and Reaper share is that they feel they were shunned unfairly despite all they did whilst in Overwatch. One of them is just channeling that anger for ‘evil’ while the other is doing ‘good’.
You’re saying they’re there to expand on characters but Vincent doesn’t expand anything. Sam and Ingrid are literally only there because Ana and Torb both had children who became part of the Overwatch roster.
But that’s just it, you haven’t said anything. You’ve just rambled on about how he’s passion driven and why we didn’t understand why he struggled with his position as overwatch leader and such…but him being gay doesn’t do that either! Everything you listed out there - none of that became apparant because of this reveal.
Him being gay never made anyone go ‘Oh so that’s why he’s a vigilante, that’s why Overwatch fell apart!’. That’s just you making the assumption that was why he did what he did.
If they had hinted that it had been a secret relationship and that they found out and demanded he ended it or whatever, fine - that’s something! But they seemed pretty open about it. In fact I wouldn’t be suprised if homosexua relationships are completely fine in that universe - as from the looks of things, there are people who are married to omnics too. So to me, it just looks like he’s talking about an ex that he liked.
So next are we going to hear about all of Genjis ex’s? Why not go through the roster and just talk about all their past relationships? Because they want to talk about things that will catch the medias attention and give good PR. That’s all it was.
Again - making this clear - NO problem with him being gay. I’m saying it was executed poorly and that’s why there are people who have a problem with it. Because we’ve waited months upon months for something - anything to do with progression of the story. The game has been out for 3 years now? And it’s still at a stand still. It’s frustrating to a lot of players that out of a comic, we got so little and don’t have any answers.
I disagree that is was the only thing revealed, it’s just the easiest to understand.
I’m saying that depicting a mlm relationship would be more impactful for representation and help get rid of the stigma that exists against male homosexual relationships.
And I agree, it wasn’t all that well done, but I feel that it isn’t well done because it’s so safe.
Whereas showing Rein or Bap with a husband is actually depicting it out in the open. No hiding.
But to your point of representation, these aren’t very “specific” things.
Having a black female character is not some uber niche thing, neither is having a bisexual man.
And Blizzard has made representation a point for Overwatch. They themselves have said that this element is important to them.
So I will criticize them for doing such elements poorly in my eyes.
I’m not saying that they should have hand him with a husband. I’m saying that they could have built on it even if Vincent never made an appearance ever again. Used that to highlight hardships he had - perhaps when he was younger, it wasn’t acceptable. Or even if they highlighted how ever since his break up with him, he feels he’s becoming more detatched from his emotions and wonders if he’s any better than the criminals he beats down. Some sort of self reflection and personal growth. Yes there was mention about how at least Ana and Gabriel got married and had kids but I think that was more a statement then a self reflection, though that’s subjective.
There was so much they could have done with it but at a writing perspective, it’s lazy writing.
It’s almost as lazy as when Capcom make their main villian suddenly have a kid out of nowhere with no logical reasoning and say ‘just because we can’. xD
Isn’t that what basically happened to Reaper? He had a vague “family”, which probably means a child. What a dead beat dad he was, since apparently this is the first time we hear about this.
I’m not saying that’s what you were saying.
But you seem to be treating sexuality as something that needs to be justified/relevant to the narrative.
It does not have to be that way.
Ok, let me try and put it in the simplest terms possible.
This was not a “gay reveal” for the sake of gay. That’s why him being gay isn’t his defining characteristic and his story doesn’t revolve around him being gay.
What we learned about him is that he had different plans for a different life. We did not know this before, despite what you want to claim in hindsight. We knew that he was a soldier and a leader of Overwatch. Bastet revealed that he planned on leaving the army and retiring to settle down. It further reveals that being unable to do so put a strain on him as a person and that he has regrets, but that he will finish his job the best way he can.
This story could’ve easily been told if Vincent was Vivian, the ex-girlfriend that moved on without him. The “gay” isn’t the relevant reveal, it’s just what people focus on for no reason other than stereotypes.
You said it yourself: you don’t want a gay hero that’s only defined through being gay. That’s what we got with Soldier. He’s a gay hero that isn’t defined through being gay by making his sexuality simply a thing that just is. It isn’t a plot point. It isn’t the central point of Soldier’s story. That’s what you said you want.
At least with him we know he was a pretty normal guy prior to becoming Reaper. And we can assume now that the family he was stalking in the shadows at christmas time is related to him in some way.
I strongly disagree with this. Given the whole Ellie situation, this to me seemed more like a PR attempt. The picture of Vincent has been in for a long time but if you look at the image, the two bear an incredibly similar resemblance. The only difference between them really is hair colour. Now obviously this is just speculation on my behalf but I seriously think that it wasn’t planned for him to be gay. It really wouldn’t have taken more than a few minutes to edit the ending of that comic with the changing of words.
I think Vincent was originally going to be a son or brother. Again that’s just personal speculation but given how diverse the overwatch roster is physically, it just seemed really weird to make Vincent a carbon copy of Morrison but brunette.
I think your point of him having different plans for a different life…I think that’s a really vague take away from the Bastet comic. I’m sure Ana and Gabriel didn’t plan for their life to turn out the way it did and that they had intentions of doing something different.
We already knew he had regrets about his decisions not only in Overwatch but with his life. He’s stated that prior to this comic. And yes your depiction could be told if it was Vivian but it wasn’t because him being gay is better for PR.
That’s the issue. We waited so long for development and we’re met with a PR stunt to fix the big oopsie they had with the whole Ellie thing. Think about it, as soon as this was revealed, no one spoke about the Ellie fiasco anymore which is what they would have wanted.
I dunno, I feel like we’re going in circles at this point. A lot of what we’re saying is subective - as to whether this is revealing that he planned to settle down or not, though let’s be real - most people plan to settle down eventually.
I just feel like the Tracer reveal was done in a much more meaningful way that resonated better with the audience.
I’m not saying sexuality needs to be justified or relevant to the narrative but a character like soldier needs more sustenance. As it stands, he is a very niche ‘once a soldier, I feel betrayed so now i’m a vigilante’ character. I’m just saying out of everything they could have possibly done for him - for his story, for the lore of overwatch, for his personality and growth…that was what they decided to which they revealed it in a very bland and unproductive way.