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God, Noah is doing such a good job explaining why fantasy has become such a queer genre
That sounds condescending, I don't mean that in a "Look at the straight boy go!" way, I mean it in a "Oh, wow, that's a connection I never made but you're absolutely right" way
Hang on I'm gonna have to transcribe about 2 minutes of video here, this shit is so good
"Bigots will complain about how games like Dragon Age and other cRPGs are somehow broken, compromised failures because they contain queer content and progressive themes, but what these people fail to consider is often why fantasy games in particular so often arrive at an inclusive position. What makes a character heroic is so often their integrity, their compassion, and their bravery; fighting orcs or skeletons or whatever is just the metaphor through which we typically explore these traits in a fantasy universe. The fantasy of it, the narrative objective, is to get to follow along with someone as they actively try to be a better person and to better the world around them.
"Queer stories are often stories of self-actualization and engaging authentically with a world that is actively hostile; positive stories end well, negative ones end in tragedy as the world's hostility proves too much for even the self-actualized protagonist. There is significant overlap with the way heroic fantasy is already structured. Not all heroic fantasy is queer, of course, or vice-versa, it's just that the idea that people should shut up, conform, and allow themselves to wither so that the selfish can prosper is typically seen in fantasy as a villain's perspective." ~ Noah Caldwell-Gervais, A Thorough Look at Dragon Age [Revised/Expanded/HD]
