#i'm reading all the characters as political mouthpieces more than characters now

[b-b-b-b-bones]

Who cares about Hannah Burley, honestly, the Bones character who deserved to come back with justice and better writing more than anyone is Amy, the defense lawyer from the Innocence Project who represented Howard Epps. She was sweet and likable but unfortunately she was only there to be a anti-death penalty strawman (aka the only person in the episode with the correct opinion???) to be struck down. This isn't nearly as bad as Medium, a show which was so up the death penalty's ass that eventually you feel the need to sit the showrunners down and tell them "State-sanctioned murder isn't gonna fuck you." But still. Yuck.

[qqueenofhades]

Hi. You made a post a couple of days ago about how queer historical fiction doesnt need to be defined only by homophobia. Can you expand on that a bit maybe? Because it seems interesting and important, but I'm a little confused as to whether that is responsible to the past and showing how things have changed over time. Anyway this probably isn't very clear, but I hope its not insulting. Have a good day :)

Hiya. I assume you're referring to this post, yes? I think the main parameters of my argument were set out pretty clearly there, but sure, I'm happy to expand on it. Because I'm a little curious as to why you think that writing a queer narrative (especially a queer fictional narrative) that doesn't make much reference to or even incorporate explicit homophobia is (implicitly) not being "responsible to the past." I've certainly made several posts on this topic before, but as ever, my thoughts and research materials change over time. So, okay.

(Note: I am a professional historian with a PhD, a book contract for an academic monograph on medieval/early modern queer history, and soon-to-be-several peer-reviewed publications on medieval queer history. In other words, I'm not just talking out of my ass here.)

As I noted in that post, first of all, the growing emphasis on "accuracy" in historical fiction and historically based media is... a mixed bag. Not least because it only seems to be applied in the Game of Thrones fashion, where the only "accurate" history is that which is misogynistic, bloody, filthy, rampantly intolerant of competing beliefs, and has no room for women, people of color, sexual minorities, or anyone else who has become subject to hot-button social discourse today. (I wrote a critical post awhile ago about the Netflix show Cursed, ripping into it for even trying to pretend that a show based on the Arthurian legends was "historically accurate" and for doing so in the most simplistic and reductive way possible.) This says far more about our own ideas of the past, rather than what it was actually like, but oh boy will you get pushback if you try to question that basic premise. As other people have noted, you can mix up the archaeological/social/linguistic/cultural/material stuff all you like, but the instant you challenge the ingrained social ideas about The Bad Medieval Era, cue the screaming.

I've been a longtime ASOIAF fan, but I do genuinely deplore the effect that it (and the show, which was by far the worst offender) has had on popular culture and widespread perceptions of medieval history. When it comes to queer history specifically, we actually do not know that much, either positive or negative, about how ordinary medieval people regarded these individuals, proto-communities, and practices. Where we do have evidence that isn't just clerical moralists fulminating against sodomy (and trying to extrapolate a society-wide attitude toward homosexuality from those sources is exactly like reading extreme right-wing anti-gay preachers today and basing your conclusions about queer life in 2021 only on those), it is genuinely mixed and contradictory. See this discussion post I likewise wrote a while ago. Queerness, queer behavior, queer-behaving individuals have always existed in history, and labeling them "queer" is only an analytical conceit that represents their strangeness to us here in the 21st century, when these categories of exclusion and difference have been stringently constructed and applied, in a way that is very far from what supposedly "always" existed in the past.

Basically, we need to get rid of the idea that there was only one empirical and factual past, and that historians are "rewriting" or "changing" or "misrepresenting" it when they produce narratives that challenge hegemonic perspectives. This is why producing good historical analysis is a skill that takes genuine training (and why it's so undervalued in a late-capitalist society that would prefer you did anything but reflect on the past). As I also said in the post to which you refer, "homophobia" as a structural conceit can't exist prior to its invention as an analytical term, if we're treating queerness as some kind of modern aberration that can't be reliably talked about until "homosexual" gained currency in the late 19th century. If there's no pre-19th century "homosexuality," then ipso facto, there can be no pre-19th-century "homophobia" either. Which one is it? Spoiler alert: there are still both things, because people are people, but just as the behavior itself is complicated in the premodern past, so too is the reaction to it, and it is certainly not automatic rejection at all times.

Hence when it comes to fiction, queer authors have no responsibility (and in my case, certainly no desire) to uncritically replicate (demonstrably false!) narratives insisting that we were always miserable, oppressed, ostracised, murdered, or simply forgotten about in the premodern world. Queer characters, especially historical queer characters, do not have to constantly function as a political mouthpiece for us to claim that things are so much better today (true in some cases, not at all in the others) and that modernity "automatically" evolved to a more "enlightened" stance (definitely not true). As we have seen with the recent resurgence of fascism, authoritarianism, nationalism, and xenophobia around the world, along with the desperate battle by the right wing to re-litigate abortion, gay rights, etc., social attitudes do not form in a vacuum and do not just automatically become more progressive. They move backward, forward, and side to side, depending on the needs of the societies that produce them, and periods of instability, violence, sickness, and poverty lead to more regressive and hardline attitudes, as people act out of fear and insularity. It is a bad human habit that we have not been able to break over thousands of years, but "[social] things in the past were Bad but now have become Good" just... isn't true.

After all, nobody feels the need to constantly add subtextual disclaimers or "don't worry, I personally don't support this attitude/action" implied authorial notes in modern romances, despite the cornucopia of social problems we have today, and despite the complicated attitude of the modern world toward LGBTQ people. If an author's only reason for including "period typical homophobia" (and as we've discussed, there's no such thing before the 19th century) is that they think it should be there, that is an attitude that needs to be challenged and examined more closely. We are not obliged to only produce works that represent a downtrodden past, even if the end message is triumphal. It's the same way we got so tired of rape scenes being used to make a female character "stronger." Just because those things existed (and do exist!), doesn't mean you have to submit every single character to those humiliations in some twisted name of accuracy.

Yes, as I have always said, prejudices have existed throughout history, sometimes violently so. But that is not the whole story, and writing things that center only on the imagined or perceived oppression is not, at this point, accurate OR helpful. Once again, I note that this is specifically talking about fiction. If real-life queer people are writing about their own experiences, which are oftentimes complex, that's not a question of "representation," it's a question of factual memoir and personal history. You can't attack someone for being "problematic" when they are writing about their own lived experience, which is something a younger generation of queer people doesn't really seem to get. They also often don't realise how drastically things have changed even in my own lifetime, per the tags on my reblog about Brokeback Mountain, and especially in media/TV.

However, if you are writing fiction about queer people, especially pre-20th century queer people, and you feel like you have to make them miserable just to be "responsible to the past," I would kindly suggest that is not actually true at all, and feeds into a dangerous narrative that suggests everything "back then" was bad and now it's fine. There are more stories to tell than just suffering, queer characters do not have to exist solely as a corollary for (inaccurate) political/social commentary on the premodern past, and they can and should be depicted as living their lives relatively how they wanted to, despite the expected difficulties and roadblocks. That is just as accurate, if sometimes not more so, than "they suffered, the end," and it's something that we all need to be more willing to embrace.

[kob131]

*Sigh* Floof uploaded a "review" of volume 8 to the critics sub. Feeling masochistic enough to read it and tear it apart? I swear to God he's going to have a coronary from ranting about the show one of these days.

Sure, it's easier to read a review then listen to one. I could handle a lot of video if I'm just given the manuscript.

Part 0: Jingling Keys

I'm gonna go ahead and condense Floof's (and really, way too many's) beginning down to its essential point.

*pulls out a set of keys labelled 'Fuck RWBY' and starts jingling them*

FUCK RWBY! FUCK RWBY! FUCK RWBY! FUCK RWBY! AREN'T I SO SMART?!

I don't like reducing arguments down to such simplistic terms but that's what his beginning reads like. It gives the exact same tone and feeling from a political meme: reductionist and reliant on triggering your innate bias. I get that showmanship is a part of good argumentation but there's an art to it and Floof's skill is on par with a fart joke. Next.

Part 1: The Script...Is Not Talked About.

His section is labelled 'The Script' but he doesn't talk about the script. He talks about the production...barely and really could have just been replaced with the keys from earlier. I really can't comment on this.

Part 2: Floof's Coherency

Finally, an actual claim and reference to research!

Nothing any character says makes any sense at all outside of the scene that the character says their lines in, and sometimes they don't make sense in the very scene they're spoken in. There's no oversight for what characters say, so they'll say completely random things. For instance, when Nora has her fourth-wall breaking existential crisis pulled from nowhere in the episode where Ruby's group encounter the Ace Ops, Blake responds to something Nora says before Nora even says it!

... And we've apparently lost coherency for it.

This is the dialogue in question.

Blake: I hope the others are okay. I’ve never seen Yang and Ruby fight like this.

Weiss: Don’t worry, they’re sisters. Sometimes sisters just have very different ideas about what’s right.

Nora: Yeah, they’ll be fine. Jaune’s a great leader, Oscar’s grown a ton, and Yang is more than capable of protecting them all in a fight.

Blake and Weiss wait for her to continue. When she doesn't, they both tilt their heads in puzzlement.

Blake and Weiss: Hmm.

Nora: Oh, and of course Ren is- um...

Nora's usual happy-go-lucky composure breaks, and she averts her eyes.

Nora: I don’t know what he is. Every time I think the two of us are making progress, he… (sighs) We’ve been together our whole lives but I feel like I understand him less now than ever. And I don’t know if that’s his fault or mine.

Blake: When you’ve been at someone’s side for so long, after a while they become a part of you. But that’s just it, they’re only a part of you. Don’t forget about the rest.

Nora lets out a mirthless chuckle.

Nora: I don’t actually know who I am… without Ren. Pretty sad, huh?

Weiss: Well, maybe take this opportunity to find out? Do something only Nora can do.

Nora: Like what? Be strong and hit stuff?

I think this is referencing the bit where Nora talks about her issues with Ren and Blake's response. Which while a bit janky...isn't hard to get. Nora's issues partly stem from seeing herself as one part of their duo with Blake emphasizing she needs to know that isn't just it. Which given that this the first time they've disagreed- makes sense. But it's not incoherent nor is it even close to breaking the fourth wall.

I...can only get this by completely ignoring everything I know about Ren and Nora and thinking that literally everything they say is just a mouthpiece for the writers. Which is stupid and wrong to do.

Characters say random, unrelated things (even if it doesn't suit that character) and it makes everyone's dialogue have "the same voice". As though they were dummy dolls controlled by the same puppeteer. The only attempt at any kind of distinction between what these characters speak is the type of quip that's tacked onto their lines, and their voice actor. No one has unique dialogue which makes for forgettable, bland, and boring exposition dumps. Most of this Volume was dedicated solely to poorly done exposition and characters talking about the things they could be doing but choose not to.-

And we've lost the claims now too. I'd love to argue it but there's nothing to argue. I also cut about 40% of the paragraph because the rest was jingling keys.

Scenes lack any cohesion. The level at which they lack is awe-inspiring, as they'll contradict previous and future scenes not just from prior Volumes but also from scenes within Volume 8 itself.- -A notable example of this issue was Team RWBY not having a plan in Volume 7, before suddenly having Ironwood's original plan from Volume 7. Amity Arena wasn't completed in Volume 7 because Ironwood set up a trap for Watts whose fight scene predicated on this idea. But in the first episode of Volume 8, Amity is somehow magically ready to work right off the bat. How can this be?

*starts banging head against desk*

A. It was never stated nor shown they didn't have a plan. That's just a strawman that people cooked up. Am I to believe Ironwood was secretly evil all along too since we're buying strawmen?

And B.

Pietro: Uh... We’ve made decent progress on construction and fuel collection, all potentially manageable, but uh… hm… Amity was designed so it couldn’t launch itself without first being granted clearance from General Ironwood’s terminal.

'Managable' implies uncertainty, amplified by 'potential' making the very assessment unreliable. Supported by 'decent progress', not 'completetion'. And even if you argue that it was said it wasn't finished-

Watts: Hmm… This will certainly do the trick. Although I wouldn't exactly call it finished.

Watts even noted in the episode BEFORE the one you referenced that it was useable, just not finished. Finished and inoperable do not operate on an on-off light switch.

The rest is yet more him jacking off. Well, maybe not-

Part 3: Floof Unzips His Pants

Oh god damn it- THERE'S NOTHING HERE. It's just a bunch of assertations without any references to support it. I can literally defeat it by saying 'Yes they did' because all Floof said is "They didn't."

Part 4: The Artist Can't Talk Art

Floof says nothing. AGAIN. Even the stuff he does mention (From Weiss's limp push on Ruby, to Yang's basketball bounce, to Winter A-Posing and the fight animation covered up by particle effects and shoving things offscreen,) is unexplained. Floof is an ANIMATOR, by the way. All I can really say is-

The claim that Rooster Teeth is still using crunch is, as far as I know, dubious. Even the Glassdoor reviews recently are more positive (but still some bullshit mind you). I hate RT for pulling this shit in the first place so I have no real personal stakes here.

Part 5: Excuses

Floof says he didn't explain anything because the flaws have been discussed to death...which begs the question- Why did he bother making a review? Same with his claim that RWBY is just noises and colors on a screen- Why act as though you're a critic when by your own admission you'll never see improvement?

It's just more bitch basic showmanship to encourage an extreme response. I pull this stuff SUBCONSCIOUSLY and have to work around it.

You could replace his review with jingling keys and it'd serve the same purpose. Be more honest too.

I ain't rating his review. He's not worth it. Not even for some sadistic pleasure.

[sprawa-przybyszewskiej]

What I haven't done in a very long time is a good old scene analysis and nitpicking at translation choices, which is why, after an overdue rewatch, I'm gonna look into this short passage here.

"Na granicy" means "on the frontier" in its more literal sense, but also "barely" in its more metaphorical one. Which is why I don't buy into the choice Bolesław Taborski made and will forver be angry with him for it. He strippped Saint-Just from an important layer of defense and of his own, hurt feelings in writing what he wrote. What I'd much rather see is:

ROBESPIERRE Everything alright? SAINT-JUST Barely so.

Of course, one won't retain the play on words, but it is lost to us either way - and it's a shame, 'cause playing on words gives us yet another glimpse into Saint-Just's soul. He's just been tried almost too cruelly by his enemies, his heart has barely survived the torture of thinking Maximilien had betrayed him. This is fine, he's strong, he's fearless, he's "the favourite of the gods" and will survive anything. But there is still a bitter taste n his mouth, for he understands and recognizes than while Robespierre had not, in fact, betrayed him just yet, he might as well do it soon, this is not such an impossibility as one could think.

Playing on words is sort of snapping. He is doing his best to remain polite and unmoved in the way he's greeting Robespierre, mostly because they are being observed by enemies, but he allows himself this small menace, like pricking a skin of someone who (though inadvertently) wronged him, because he cannot do anything worse than that. This is both being wary of the person whom he has just started suspecting and giving a cold shoulder to someone to whome he was riding day and night from the military camp (didn't even stop to change from the muddled clothes). Speaking only about the frontier could be read in a similar way - he's deflecting, he's purposefully talking about more technical matters - but it would be a stretch, in my opinion.

I just so, so wish it was translated in a better way! It fleshes Saint-Just's character out, gives him more depth than a mouthpiece he becomes in various adaptations. "My" version of this line is giving an information about the frontier, being mean, trying to remain in control of his own reactions and reassuring himself for the moment. Oh, and also signalling to Maxime just under the radar that something is colossaly notalright. All at once.

Thank you for humoring me on this fine evening, this line bugged me for a while. Next in line we will have "Women and female sexuality", and then onto a new series of posts which is yet forming in my brain, but whose colective title I can now reveal to be "Noli me tangere!".

[dictionarywrites]

my main problems with the Les Mis fandom- too many modern AUs, not enough Combeferre (the best boy!). Which... like, man, this was supposed to be a request, I was supposed to think of a request, but instead I'm just shouting into your inbox... (I mean if you are looking for someone to request a quiet moment between Combeferre and Enjolras then that someone will be me, then, with or without Courf, whatever you feel)

MMM, shouting in my inbox is ever and always encouraged, my friend!

I also got frustrated at modern AUs, and Les Mis is probably the fandom that I can attribute to my like, abject hatred of modern and mundane AUs these days, honestly. For me, it always felt like there was something a little lazy about shoving these really interesting characters into the modern day, and it just bored me to tears, because it always took away like, any element of nuance?

I wrote literally hundreds of LM fics back in 2013 and like, so many of them were just complete garbage - I improved a great deal in doing it (although back when there was an anonymous wank board for the LM fandom, people were furious that I kept producing so much dreck lol - impressed by the quantity, but not by the quality), but like… Gee, I’m glad I don’t do that shite anymore.

It’s like…

It’s definitely a frustrating fandom, because I completely understand why people are intimidated by the canon era - not only is it not set in America, it’s set in France, and you’ve got all this complicated politics and relationships and costume, et cetera. That’s all without taking into account the language and how it might differ from the modern setting. 

But like, for me… I never read like, more than a handful of modern fics the whole time I was in fandom, lol, and I just detested them, especially when the characters kinda ended up becoming mouthpieces for modern queer politics without any nuance and any like… Allowance for the characters to have their own flaws and prejudices?

Ah, well. It’s a big fandom, so there is canon-era stuff, but still.

You can totally always just come and talk to me about fandom stuff and discussions, honestly, Anon!

[mllemaenad]

Personally... I feel that WEaWH tries to remove itself from TME because it realizes that TME is fucking irredeemable garbage, and tries to make its WLW representation less appalling. So I'm entirely willing to overlook continuity errors for the sake of one relationship between women in the entire series that can go well.

I’m sorry, but I don’t believe that. I’m not going to argue with you on the merits of The Masked Empire, as you’re entitled to like or dislike any media you choose, but I don’t think Bioware is trying to distance itself from the novel. I also don’t think their motive is positive representation, or that they’re seriously suggesting a happy ending. However, even if they were I would call the choice to reunite Celene and Briala without any serious examination of the issues that drove them apart … disquieting.

1) On distancing themselves from the novel.

To begin with the obvious, several of the Dragon Age novels provide not only context for the quests in Inquisition, but also promotional material maintaining audience interest between games.

It’s hardly an accident that Asunder is a prequel to In Hushed Whispers/Champions of the Just, The Masked Empire is a prequel to Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts (as well as giving you a roundabout introduction to Solas) and Last Flight provides you with some context on why Weisshaupt is just no help at all during Here Lies the Abyss.

They do kind of want you to buy all their stuff. And if you started with Inquisition and liked what you saw, they want you to run back and buy all the earlier stuff for context. Video game tie-in novels aren’t generally considered high art, so they’d need serious reasons to want to reject the novel as part of their canon. Just in case, I checked The Masked Empire’s Amazon page, and it’s currently got 4.4 stars – so it doesn’t look like something they’d be particularly desperate to ignore. They’d rather you bought it and gave them money.

To move more to the specific, the game references the novel constantly. In addition to devoting a whole main quest to resolving its plot, it also includes cameos from Mihris, Michel and Imshael, which really serve no other purpose than to provide a bit of closure to the people who read the novel and wondered what became of them. This is actually more than it provides for, say, the characters of Asunder: Rhys and Evangeline appear only in a war table mission, Adrian doesn’t appear at all – and who knows where Shale has wandered off to.

It also references the murder of Briala’s parents directly:

Cole: She’s still behind the curtains in the reading room, watching the blood pool on the floor.

Briala pulled the red velvet curtain aside. Her hands shook as she did. There was a pool of red on the floor of the reading room, staining the rich Nevarran carpet. It had spread almost to the curtain.

At the other end of the pool were Briala’s parents.

– The Masked Empire

If they really wanted to distance themselves from The Masked Empire, they wouldn’t put that in there. If they wanted to say that that this didn’t happen, they’d have retconned the story – or at the very least not mentioned it.

In fact, the choice of words is particularly distressing. Cole senses pain. When he says Briala is ‘still behind the curtains’ he’s emphasising that the trauma and anguish are still very much with her, making a reconciliation, particularly a reconciliation that utterly fails to address a thing that they have confirmed happened, even stranger.

 I would say that one motive for their choice to reconcile the two characters is simplicity. I like parts of Inquisition, but honestly it’s over ambitious. They set up a series of continent-wide catastrophes, each one intensely political: the mage rebellion, the Orlesian civil war, the collapse of the Chantry.

Each one probably requires its own game for a satisfactory solution. I realise they were probably going for something similar to the galaxy-wide political collapse in Mass Effect 3, but the Dragon Age games are at a serious disadvantage because they lack continuity of characters.

Mass Effect 3 had its own problems, of course, but for example – I think most people have fun curing the genophage for the krogan. But what they remember is Mordin Solus and ‘There’s a reaper in my way, Wrex!’ When it worked it was able to build on characters who were present across the series.

Inquisition is faced with trying to find resolutions for groups of people that have no direct connection to each other, and whom the protagonist has never seen before (even if they player has). This is hardly the only time their attempt to fix everything in a single quest ends up making no sense.

2) On positive representation

I’m afraid I don’t think what we get in Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts is especially positive. I think it’s … kind of infantilising, really, and has a whiff of sexism about it. I mean – again, I’m not asking you to like The Masked Empire. But this:

“It would have been a locked suite in the palace for a few years, nothing more!” Celene kept her voice low, aware that Michel and Felassan had stopped planning and were looking their way. “It would have changed nothing for us.”

“Your hair still stinks of the smoke from the people you burned,” Briala said. “That is a change.”

The dead leaves crackled under Celene’s feet as she stepped forward. “How many wars can our empire survive in such a short time? I wanted my legacy to be the university, the beauty and culture that made us the envy of the world. Instead I may be known as the empress under whom Orlais fell. You have the luxury of mourning Halamshiral’s elves and holding my heart hostage. Sitting on my throne, I see every city in the empire. If I must burn one to save the rest, I will weep, but I will light the torch.”

Briala swallowed. “You’re not weeping, as far as I can tell. Nor are you sitting on your throne. She stepped away, her movements fast and jerky. “With your permission, Your Radiance, I shall go indulge myself in my luxury.”

– The Masked Empire

… is at least an argument between adults, with the details of what they believe laid out. Celene honestly believes that the empire and her legacy are worth 'a few thousand elven lives’: she believes that maintaining the strength of Orlais is worth thousands of lives in sacrifice, as is the vision she has for the country’s future. Briala is facing up to the fact that this is the bargain she’s made: stay with Celene and she might see an elven scholar graduate from the university – but she’ll likely also see elves burn every time there’s a crisis, because elves are the most expendable people in the empire.

Briala wavers throughout the novel, obviously, because there is genuine feeling between herself and Celene. But the discovery that this has all happened before, that this is not the first time Celene has shed elven blood to impress her rivals and gain power, and that her own parents were among the victims, brings her to a decision.

You don’t have to like it, but these women are serious about what they want and believe.

But in Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts we get stuff like this:

Sera: Elves-elves-elves, but it’s really a pissing match with an old lover. Don’t know the rest but that explains a lot.

It’s hardly coincidental that they chose Sera to say this. Sera the commoner, who despises the nobility. Sera the Red Jenny, with contacts in every corner of Thedas. True, Sera’s background has led her to reject a lot of elven culture, but her biggest objection is usually to ‘moping’ about the past. This:

Briala thought for a moment. “Celene and Gaspard saw an army, but that would be fighting their fight. With the paths, I could get food to alienages where elves would otherwise starve. They would let me move ahead of an oncoming army and warn the target, or move behind them and attack their supply lines.”

– The Masked Empire

… sounds more like the practical stuff she favours: she’s said getting revenge would be a preferable option, and this is getting food to the poor, terrorising the nobility and giving little people a shot at being part of something bigger. But now we can’t take it seriously, because Sera has reduced it to a lovers’ tiff.

That isn’t meant as a criticism of Sera, to be clear. They do this when they want a mouthpiece. This is the equivalent of having Cole approve of Cullen.

And as for it going well, this is their epilogue slide:

Where once war raged, there is now a shaky peace. Orlais is resurgent, the empress a patron of arts and culture.

Many attribute this recovery to her lady love, though others wonder how long their reunion will truly last.

– Epilogue (Inquisition)

I mean – maybe they’ll forget about this. They have been known to forget their epilogue slides. But it doesn’t read as though the intent was to write a strong and loving partnership. Rather it looks as though they are selling the relationship as tempestuous.

That’s one place where I am very uncomfortable. This is the revolt of an oppressed people, and the politics an empire. And there’s a sense that they’re saying ‘Oh, those women and their emotions! Today they love each other; tomorrow they’ll hate each other; the day after they’ll probably love each other again. You never know, with women.’

I appreciate that Bioware is fairly progressive, for a game company: the character choices, the romance options, the NPCs – they are trying to represent a variety of races, genders and sexualities. But it doesn’t mean they never fuck up. I mean, there’s a bit in Mark of the Assassin where Isabela tells Hawke that Gamlen has been sexually harassing her and two responses blame her (You find something inappropriate?/Break him. And wear pants.).

Given that they are already struggling to resolve a massive plotline in a ridiculous amount of time, I’m not surprised they fell back on this. It’s narrative shorthand, and that can be handy for desperate situations. But it’s still sexist shorthand, and I very much wish they hadn’t done it.

3) Removing The Masked Empire from the equation doesn’t solve the problem

I mean, it makes some of the bigger issues like Briala’s dead parents a little easier to miss, sure, but it doesn’t make the problems go away.

I appreciate that representation is important. I do. But romantic relationships between women are not the only representation issue at stake, here. There’s no single source for the elven people, of course, but it’s easy enough to see that Bioware has borrowed from the experiences of Jewish, Romani and aboriginal peoples living under empires and/or colonialism.

And have we ever established that it is shit to be an elf. The city elf origin story in Origins is an abduction/rape/murder combo. The Dalish clans in Origins and DA2 can be slaughtered. It’s terrifyingly easy to kill off clan Lavellan in war table missions, and even though this is the protagonist’s family the game doesn’t make a thing of it. There’s a whole side quest in DA2 about a serial killer who targets elves, and who keeps getting away with it because no one gives a shit. We are up to our eyeballs in codex entries on the treatment of elves.

And here we have Briala, the leader of a rebellion in Orlais – one of the nations best known for oppressing the fuck out of the elves and trying to destroy their culture.

Even without The Masked Empire this is:

a) providing only the most minimal description of the nature of her rebellion and what she hopes to achieve.

b)allowing her to be dismissed as primarily involved in a lovers’ tiff.

c) pairing her with a woman the game actually says massacred the Halamshiral elves.

d) using the massacre as evidence against her because she was sleeping with Celene, rather than as evidence against the woman who actually committed it.

That’s … all pretty shitty, even at the simplest level. The game doesn’t address any of this. It doesn’t even force the characters to discuss what happened before throwing them back together. It spends as much time tsking at Briala for destabilising Orlais as it does Celene and Gaspard. It loves the idea that they’re all as bad as each other – which allows the player to justify just about any ending.

And this is a thing they do repeatedly: they tsk at the mage rebellion as well. They seem to be very good at describing the sufferings of the elves, the mages, the casteless dwarves … but don’t approve of them actually doing anything about their oppression. At least not anything more forceful than writing a stern letter of complaint (for those lucky literate characters!) to the local lord or revered mother.

And so minimising the problems of Celene and Briala’s relationship, and waving a locket around (which, even out of context, does not seem like a forceful enough declaration of love to startle Briala) does … not strike me as very respectful of peoples who have suffered under empires, and who have had to fight tooth and nail for every sliver of justice.

It’s not that I want to exclude a healthy, positive romance between two women in order to have Awesome Revolutionary Briala. I just don’t understand why we couldn’t have both.

Couldn’t Briala show up with a new girlfriend? Do it properly: give her a codex entry and make her active and important in the quest. Show the two of them both being affectionate and working together for the cause. Make sure that at least some of the possible quest endings leave them alive, together and continuing to better the lot of the elves.

I can understand that you may not like The Masked Empire and may want to exclude it from your personal headcanon. That’s absolutely fine, obviously. But I do not believe that was Bioware’s intent in writing the the Briala-and-Celene reconciliation, and I still have serious issues with it.