“Ardmccloud, save us! Talanji-Zekhan are lapping at our knees; Baine is making eyes at Mayla; oh god there’s a whole STORY surging at us about Thalryssa and Lor’themar, with BAD POETRY! If we get another wave of Malfurion-Tyrande we could lose the short people altogether under the stifling blanket of romance! Gnome and goblin lives are at stake - hell, Vulpera, your own people, Ardmccloud, they will suffer and drown!”
Ardmccloud stares vigilant into the utterly empty horizon, eyes steely and voice hard. He does not turn around as the tides of straight smoochies rises above his neck.
“Speak not to me of trifles, brother. The GAYS are coming, possibly, maybe, and by humpty dumpty, they shall not set foot upon our entirely apolitical land as long as I draw breatblublbublblblublblubPSuhactuallyIwasjokingyeahthat’sitIwasjokingahahahaallajokeIdon’tcareaboutanyofthisreallyjustaprankbroblooooooop.”
….Is it Sunday?
Let me guess, big Warhammer 40k fan?
Oh yeah.
Love it.
It’s not about this. It’s not about fixing the story with a gay character, it’s not about retconning the characters we already know and love to be gay, it’s not even about putting gay characters in the forefront.
It could be as simple as just switching the gender of one or two characters in a Shadowlands questline to be same-sex rather than heterosexual. I’m really just asking for 1. And the amount of resistance that idea has received is concerning me.
Good idea pal. A few more inexplicable right turns and non sequiturs and we’ll all forget allllllllll about the entire reason you came in here in the first place. You know. To claim that the existence of gay people was inherently political.
Wait shoot I ruined it whoops my bad. You’d better start over. Use some memes or something.
I certainly hear more voices advocating for its politicalness than contentment.
I gave you an example of an in game event (not the novel)- of a guy waking up from a bi-threesome, but somehow that is “divergent from the point of the discussion”.
What is “accurate representation” to you? Do we actually have to witness penetration for it to count?
(Commentary): My apologies, I did not explain myself very well, in that case. I had attempted to say that a straight couple serves a narrative purpose through procreation. Take, as an example, Game of Thrones. Imagine if Cersei Lannister was gay, that she never had children. We’d never have had Joeffrey, or Tommen, or Myrcella, or the plotline between her and Jaime, etc… Of course that’s not to say her sexual proclivities for her own gender were never explored. I’d even argue they were done in a most fascinating and organic manner for her character.
(Extrapolation): As another example, let’s assume Rob Stark was gay, that he never married Jeyne, because he was never attracted to her and thus wasn’t, “comforted,” by her when learning of the death of his brothers. The Red Wedding, a notorious bit of writing that is going to go down in literature for generations, wouldn’t have happened. He’d have married his Frey girl, done his duty, and from there, who knows?
(Commentary): This isn’t to say that a gay couple cannot have an influence on a narrative, but it will arguably be different than that of a straight couple. For a story as simplistic as WoW, asking for a gay couple seems superfluous, because Blizzard will not dedicate the necessary time, resources, and depth of lore to flesh them out in all the relevant ways. A gay couple, or even openly gay characters who aren’t in relationships, help us explore the cultures of a world, but that’s something Blizzard doesn’t really delve into very often outside of whatever is currently relevant.
(Speculative): Take BFA, as an example. Let’s assume for a moment that the character Tandred Proudmoore, is gay. Ignoring that this plays into the gay sailor trope, might it not explain why he isn’t Grand Admiral of Kul Tiras? If he is outwardly gay, then it’s fairly certain he isn’t continuing the line of the Proudmoores. That sets up a certain interesting narrative that would be enticing to explore, in my opinion at least. He doesn’t even need to have a love interest, because we could delve into the culture of Kul Tiras in relationship to this one thing, and possibly extrapolate from that how other human kingdoms see gay relationships and individuals. The fact he wouldn’t be procreating suddenly lends relevance to the story being told, to the narrative, and it opens questions; would the Kul Tirans have preferred him over Jaina? What would have happened to the House of Proudmoore if Jaina had not returned? Is his reputation among the people good or bad?
Let’s look at it this way.
There are thousands of people on Azeroth. Each character represents different facets of a personality that build upon who they are and what their purpose is in the world. Many of them also happen to have a relationship with someone of the opposite gender. That is one way to represent heterosexual relationships in a piece of media.
A man casually walking into a tent with another couple and walking out saying “That was unexpected…” is a joke. It’s not meant to be taken seriously. It doesn’t even confirm that he is bisexual.
And no, I assume you aren’t being serious when you ask about having to witness penetration for it to count. Obviously not.
You trust Blizzard to pull this off?
They’d just *&^% it up.
I knew it would get to this.
Obviously we do because…
I’m pretty sure we know what happened with Marcus and the Freeseekers. If there was any question about what happened in there- it’s actually supplemented by a steamy romance novel.
The moment anyone uses Game of Thrones as an example is the moment I stop listening
I agree OP, it would be nice to see some confirmed LGBT characters in WoW. Blizzard has already written several pairs of very close friends who were of the same sex (I say “friends” because we’ve not been explicitly told they were anything beyond that) wherein their closeness was relevant to the story, and of course we’ve had several straight pairs show up in the story with their feelings for each other driving character motivations (hello Val’sharah). If it’s fine to have same-sex friendships drive story, and it’s fine to have straight romance drive story, then how is same-sex romance suddenly different? We’ve already got close relationships like Tholo and Anren, Koltira and Thassarian, Kaja and Rakera (some of which could be taken as romantic with very little change to quest text and dialogue). Kaja and Rakera’s questline could play out exactly the same if they were lovers (which is why some players are inclined to think that they are). Romantic relationships can absolutely be shown in questlines without being the main focus. Not every romantic relationship has to be Tyrande oversharing with the player how much she likes to watch her husband sleep. (Not that we can’t have that too, but I did find it strange that she insisted on telling my Horde characters that.)
On the topic of adoption: we know that adoption happens in Azeroth. Obviously there are the orphanages, but also Liadrin was raised by a close friend of her parents after they were killed, and she in turn takes custody of Salandria, the Blood Elf orphan from Children’s Week. Being raised by a foster parent isn’t all that unusual amongst the major NPCs; see Bolvar Fordragon’s involvement in taking care of Anduin while his own daughter was raised in Kul Tiras by Cyrus.
I’d love to hear more of your thoughts on the discussion that you pulled the quote from. Do you think that Marcus in Highmountain is accurate representation of the LGBT community?
Personally I think that an unexpected tent threesome is actually derivitive and falls into a lazy trope of gay people only existing in spaces where they are secretly having forbidden and illicit sex but that’s just my take, whats yours?
I think you keep moving the goal posts. You claim to speak only for yourself but talk as if you are the authority on what the LGBT community is. I say that people of that mindset will not be happy with what Blizzard does and you’ve expressed exactly that. If not you specifically complaining about the lack of “appropriate” representation it will be someone else saying an NPC or 2 isn’t enough.
EDIT: Also, there was nothing hidden or forbidden about the stuff with Marcus. It literally happens right next to Thunder Totem. You don’t even have to go into the tent to trigger the event, merely walk by it.
EDIT: It did make me and my spouse chuckle though. Marcus was the little spoon.
Shout out to my lesbian ghosts, Priestess Driana and Enchantress Ilanya from Legion.
Shame that you could only get to enjoy the quests if you were training enchanting.
How did you even come to this conclusion? Did Mayla ban gay sex in Highmountain? What seemed forbidden or illicit? Of course the location is discreet! Do you want them to do it right in the middle of Thundertotem?
If one were to go this route of exploring gay characters in WoW - the first and most obvious race to hit with it would be the Night Elves. You have large female population without any males around - they are mostly sleeping for 10,000 years. Either they don’t have much sex drive or they’d make due with whoever is around.