Do you think all the characters' sexual orientations should be revealed?
I am asking for original characters ofcourse, BHVR have no power on licensed characters.
We have one gay character: David. And some straight characters: Felix, Nurse, Frank & Julie (That's all if i am not mistaken).
So how you would feel if BHVR reveal all of og characters? Or keeping them for our imaginations is better idea? What do you think?
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For killers, it seems entirely unnecessary to say, unless their backstory specifically requires it.
For survivors, I don’t think all og’s require it, but a few more LGBTQIA+ wouldn’t hurt.
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And in these days, sexual orientation has to worm its way even into horror video games. Sigh.
It wouldn't hurt? Is it hurting now? Apologies, just trying to understand.
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Some people do. You are one of them. You clicked, read it and then answered it. Tysm.
I'd support more LGBT+ characters tho but actually i want to know all of them. For killer part, i think i agree with you. For killers, it's not so necessary.
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No it's not necessary. Ambiguity and the ability for players to insert themselves into characters to some capacity is a good thing. But so is some positive representation as well, (an active presence rather than an inactive lack of exclusion). A mix of both is the best route.
I think they could get away with a couple more character backstory reveals that allude to a characters relationships, (among other things so it's not one-note or box-ticking) but most characters should remain undisclosed.
To brainstorm a little, I think Yui would make for a decent backstory that involved a female love interest, and a new character who was non-binary/gender-ambiguous could work as well.
3-4 LGBTQ+ characters out of 37 survivors isn't a lot to ask for, or 'in your face' either.
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I know right? Seriously, its like we cant get away from every single character being straight now...
Oh wait, did you forget thats also a sexual orientation? You dont have an issue with that though I'd imagine. God forbid gay people also get represented.
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Yui is lesbian and you cannot change my mind.
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It's not official tho but i believe same thing.
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I think its all or nothing. We either confirm no orientations at all or we include everyone.
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Watch them make Kate into lesbian, to subvert the expectations, and fight toxic stereotypes.
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This leaves as much room for disappointment as it does inclusion. Especially when 95% of characters are inevitably confirmed heterosexual... you simply can't 'include everyone' when you have a small selection of characters. 37 isn't enough to represent all forms of sexuality without heavily skewing it into an LGBTQ+ exclusive game.
If you hyperfocus on the sexuality of every character, this game becomes more of a character/dating-sim game.
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I highly doubt they will risk their popular survivors. Kate is one of the moneymakers. Feng, Kate, Meg, Yun probably won't get this. Even Yui even it's so obvious she is lesbian.
I mean they just killed David's pickrate and David was making money for good before.
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I don't really get how it should matter in any way. Sure, representation and such, but I think that having to specify sexual orientation does in fact goes in detriment of it rather than helping. You have to love a character regardless of its sexual orientation. Would it matter if an apparently beloved character such as Feng Min was revealed to be homosexual / heterosexual / bisexual / whatever? It's like if they like rock music or classical music, it doesn't make them any more or any less of a person.
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I don't think it's necessary to reveal everyone's sexual orientation. If they reveal for some more it wouldn't be a bad thing, just please don't make the tomboys lesbian and the flamboyant guys gay. It's really silly.
After all, sexual relationships aren't really the focus of the game, just like I don't need to know if they have any weird or obscure fetishes. If the game was a visual novel revolving around their every day lives, it would be more relevant imo.
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Why not tie it to the LGBTQIA+ percentage of the population?
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Doing it for every character leads to bad writing.
There are two ways you could approach it
First, you could give every character a 'stat block' - list age, height, sexual orientation, blood type, etc. That would be the easiest way to handle it, but would also be cumbersome.
Second approach, you could have it come up within the lore. This leads to hamfisted writing where characters will go out of their way to refer to their partner by gender to make it clear. This is additionally difficult within a horror genre because many of the elements that get focused on don't have to do with romance.
When it works for a character, it makes sense to bring it up, but otherwise seems strange. Take Claudette, her whole character background is around science. It would seem strange to force in that in addition to being all about botany and online chat rooms, there's also a guy she found cute (it would likewise be weird to work in other details that many might consider important if this was a real person: religious affiliation for example).
Bisexual characters can be especially tricky to work in - just because a character is in a monogamous heterosexual/homosexual relationship doesn't mean they are straight/gay, so within the writing you now have to indicate the gender of the relationship they are in as well as indicate some past relationship or attraction.
Finally, it risks stereotyping by doing it for every character.
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I think it would be more interesting if instead of their orientation it had their political preference, what temperature they prefer the thermostat at home, and/or if they put the TP roll under or over.
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No. This is hardly what the game should focus on. It doesn't matter, if the Meg that is brutally murdered by an evil man with a machete is straight, gay, bi or whatever. What matters is that she is murdered.
The more we focus on things like this, the more we make room for things like Blackface Bubba. Someone plays a character that is gay and is also getting tunneled? Better ban the killer because clearly they are homophobic. We all know things like this would happen eventually, if this is pushed too much.
If you want to believe your favorite character is gay, bi, straight or whatever else, you're welcome to do so. But please don't make this the focus of a game that is based around an evil entity sending survivors and killers into trials for eternal suffering.
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I don't think we need to know every characters orientation, but I definitely want more than what we have already.
Half the responses in this thread are the same complaints people gave when they released the first pride flag two years ago. Ugh. My eyes are gonna roll outta my head.
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Not the point. The point is straight, gay, whatever, its a stat that doesn't affect the game, so why do we need labels for game characters?
Im not trying to step on toes, Im trying to learn. I understand representation is a need to some, so to those Im asking why is it a need? Will it increase or decrease your satisfaction with the game? Thanks in advance!
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No, she's bisexual because she's my favorite and all my favorites are bisexual /hj
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Dont know. As we have had previous discussions before. If they reveal a gay character they will most likely be forgotten right after with no new skins. So i honestly. I dont know if they should
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I think it's better to keep it ambiguous so that anyone can create whatever headcanon they want for the characters, i think revealing everyone's sexual orientation is just going to alienate people more than it'll benefit.
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I think having a few openly LGBT characters is great, but it's also nice to have characters stay ambiguous so people can project their headcanons on them.
Like, let's say an ace person likes to headcanon that Zarina is ace. If she was revealed to be bisexual, she couldn't be the ace rep in this person's perception, because what was formerly a headcanon is now hard contradicted by canon, and keeping their former opinion on Zarina could be seen as erasing bi rep.
It's okay to leave some things open to interpretation.
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No. DBD is not a dating sim, and it’s not the focus of the game. Giving killers an orientation or sexuality especially would feel wrong and forced.
Just leave it up for interpretation for players to connect themselves with their favorite characters on their own.
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Yk how everyone used that as an argument against David being revealed as gay then he was revealed as gay and nothing happened?
Remember when people used that as an argument against pride charms and then they added pride charms and the only people banned from that were those repeatedly targeting someone across multiple games (which was part of the in-game rules pre-pride charms)?
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
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If they do decide to reveal another characters sexual orientation, PLEASE BHVR, treat them better than David. Dude hasn’t received ANY skins aside from his Rift one since they revealed he’s gay.
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Everyone going "don't make it the focus" "No we don't need it" etc etc, where were y'all when the Legion tome released and gave us TMI ab Frank and Julie? Or Nurse and Andrew? Or Felix and his girlfriend? Or-
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And my post is not about give us more LGBT+ characters. I am just asking should we reveal all of them or not. Which means we will get more LGBT+ characters with straights as well. And probably most of them will be straight, like real world population.
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I have not seen anyone talk about that before. Not 1 person. Might be I missed it but I didn't see anyone talk about it at the time.
Having 1 survivor be gay specifically so that people can identify with him is completely fine. Nothing against that. And if someone feels like they need to have all of these flags (I've lost count of how many there are by now, so please forgive me for that) that's fine as well. I really don't mind and I 100% support you in living your life the way you want (as long as you don't break the law). I start to care when this is what the game revolves around. And I'd argue that this is also where the problems would begin.
It doesn't look particularly good when there are 3 LGBTQ+ survivors and 1 straight survivor and only the straight guy escapes. I've been called horrible things in this game over much less (one time I was called racist because I defended my last hook, which happened to be an Adam, haven't repeated that mistake since) and seeing how BHVR went to action in Bubba's case (rightfully so) I really am not too keen of finding out how they'd act on this when the reports start to roll in. The same thing would happen when there is only one LGBTQ+ survivor and they die while everyone else escapes. Sometimes people are just so salty they'll report you for anything.
Again there is nothing wrong with having representation but it should not define the game. And basically that would happen, if we focus on every character's sexual preferences over the actual premise of the game itself.
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There's a big difference between doing something sometimes versus doing it all the time, which is what the poster asked about.
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Nay, I don't care. I support LGBTQ+ rights but, for the moment, everywhere I look I see it. Why bring it here too?
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My post is not about LGBT+? I did not even ask to add more LGBT+ characters on my post. I just asked should we reveal all of them. And this does not mean they all will be LGBT+ characters. Only few of them are LGBT+ most likely.
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Bisexual Vittorio would be so epic.
Also lol @ people suddenly caring about immersion when you can wear onsies and tbag.
Plague, Billy, and Trapper literally have weapons made of candy.
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I don't really feel it's all that important. Sometimes it's best to leave things to the imagination, rather than spelling out every detail.
It's understandable that a few were disclosed earlier on when BHVR unwittingly went against their original idea to purposefully ignore sexual preferences in characters, as well as maybe future characters. However, there could be an issue with characters having their sexuality as their defining characteristic. People are much more than just their sexuality and some characters are there to tell stories based on other aspects of who they are (religion, race, beliefs, etc..).
I'd have no real issue with it, but it would feel rather pointless and take away from people's ability to just come up with their own headcannons.
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Fair point.
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Do you even hear yourself? "I support lgbt rights but not when they're visible enjoying those rights"
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kate, jane, yun jin, zarina, and elodie are straight. Licensed characters cannot be changed or revealed. The rest of the characters can be lgbt and I wouldn’t care
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I would vote no.
I'm a believer you shouldn't try and label or categorise people one way or another. People are people, your value in them or lack there of should not be tied to their sexual orientation, gender identity, race, age, sex, religious beliefs or otherwise.
The moment you start labelling people as a particular demographic, you inevitably start making assumptions as they are part of that "group", which in turn leads to prejudice (positive or negative).
Someone's sexual orientation is inconsequential to who they are as a person, not making a big deal of it is when you achieve genuine acceptance.
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I believe that some characters should be left ambiguous, but more representation is always welcome! The reason that I wouldn't want all sexualities revealed is that while representation is important, it can also be seen as a positive when players can project themselves onto certain characters, the less specific/developed a character is, the easier it is for this to be done!
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Seeing as each and every original character in the game has quite extensive lore, and romance is a part of almost everyone's life at some point or another, that alone is reason enough to justify the inclusion of LGBT+ characters.
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It would hurt more than help it. If all chars are left ambiguous , you could see each to be whatever you would want them to be. If we label everyone to be something specific , it would lock away chars from people. Imagine 85% of chars being hetero. Suddenly you could only identify with a few.
But right now most chars can be seen by everyone whatever each individual wants them to be.
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Thankfully they ditched the everyone is ambiguous approach on August 2016 when The Nurse released so this argument doesn't really work
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They did a fantastic job introducing David's sexuality, I don't see why they should stop.
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Mikaela is straight girl because i made it.
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Ok but there is a massive difference in having a COUPLE and doing ALL of them. Giving a label to every single character would cause problems. LGBT or Hetero alike, it doesn’t matter.
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That's because you're viewing it as an announcement purely for sexuality. Which, it isn't your fault, the OP worded the thread as such.
I guarantee if they had asked "Should BHVR put more time into fleshing out a character's lore more?" this thread wouldn't be so spicy.
Survivors are not robots or avatar characters, they all have personalities, its not a far reach to assume romance is part of it, however they may swing. Its not really BHVR's fault if their canon clashes with a headcanon, ambiguity is nice, but I prefer something concrete and personally would enjoy the survivors getting more in the lore department outside of rifts.
It would also help if people didn't get so defensive over the topic and worded their opinions in a grounded manner, because it just looks like closeted bigotry instead of a matter of taste to me.
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The game has revolved around the trials the survivors and killers go through since it’s development. You're “worried” about nothing.
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Do I really have to explain this to you?
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Lol go ahead
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So, if I remember correctly: David King and the Chatterer (Cenobite's legendary skin) are homosexual, the Look-See (Doctor's legendary skin) is pansexual. We definitely need some rep for women.
We also got the Mordeo (Huntress' legendary skin) as genderqueer and the Birch (Hag's very rare skin) as transgender. We somehow got more rep in licensed character than in BHVR's originals.
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