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sapphic-quarian · 7 years

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Bioware and wlw

(No pics since I’m on mobile..booo) So, we’ve all probably seen Cora Harper at this point. And she is pretty! She worked with asari commandos! She’s a romance option! Yay! But there’s one thing I’m wondering (besides her possible relationship to the Illusive Man). Is she just a romance just for BroRyder, or can SisRyder romance her too? Considering Bioware’s history with characters like her, she probably can’t. Now, going just by appearances and the little we know about her, Cora seems queer. She’s got that whole “shaved side” look that screams “butch” (not trying to say all wlw are butch or all girls that look like that are wlw, Cora’s appearance is just similar to stereotypical perceptions of a lesbian.) She is also connected to the asari, which are a LITERAL RACE OF BISEXUAL WOMEN. But let’s look at wlw in bioware’s past games.

I’m gonna start with Jack, cause I played ME2 recently and feelings about Jack are fresh in my mind. Jack is a badass. The galaxy’s strongest biotic, a master criminal, and also a bisexual woman. “But Kate,” you cry, “Jack was only a romance option for male Shep!” Yes, yes she was. But if you talk to Jack about her criminal past, she mentions a couple she used to “share a bed with.” So Jack has canonically had a relationship with a woman. A poly relationship with her and man, but still. And let’s take a look at Jack’s appearance. Like Cora, she has masculine look to her, with the shaved head and bound breasts. Jack would not be out of place at a gay bar. And yet, she’s still presented as exclusively heterosexual, and rebuffs a female shep’s advances.

And, going back to Bioware’s early days, their very first non-heterosexual romance, is Juhani, from Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Juhani is a “romance”, but her feelings towards a female PC are only vaguely referenced in one conversation, as opposed to the fleshed-out romances male and female PCs get with Bastilla and Carth, respectively. Now, this has a simple explanation. This game was co-developed with LucasArts. George Lucas was vehemently against any queer characters in Star Wars, and had his fair share of complaints about Han/Luke fanfics back in the day (they published gay fanfic in magazines! Respect.) So Juhani’s treatment is more the best Bioware could do while still meeting LucasArt’s wishes than intentional portrayal of f/f relationships as meaningless.

And then we come to the asari! Everyone loves the asari right? It’s a race of sexy blue bisexual women! While I could write a whole other meta on the asari and femininity, right now I’ll focus on their sexuality. Liara T'Soni, in Mass Effect 1, is the only bisexual romance, being available to both genders of Shep. But the femshep version has one big difference. Liara assures Shepard that their relationship is okay, because asari are a monogendered, female-presenting race. She’s basically saying “I’m not REALLY a woman, so it’s totally not gay if we kiss each other.” When i heard that, I went back and romanced Kaidan instead. I did not need to go through this feeling like my sexuality was being invalidated. And Samara in Mass Effect 2 is no better. While both genders of Shepard are rejected when attempting to romance her, Samara serves as a weird cautionary tale-thing to asari. She was the product of a marriage between two asari, and she married another asari who also had two asari parents. Their daughters were asari afflicted with a genetic condition, known as Ardat-Yakshi, that caused them to consume their partner’s nervous systems when they mated. Two of her daughters agreed to basically become prisoners-slash-nuns, but one of them escaped. Samara’s loyalty mission involves you tracking the third daughter down, and killing her. Morinth, the third daughter, is a textbook example of the perception of wlw as predatory. She’s literally a space vampire in a leather catsuit. You find a journal from her latest victim, a girl named Nef, and she describes how Morinth seduced her, implies Morinth convinced her to take drugs, and eventually killed her. Once you find Morinth, you then have to seduce her. Then, her mother kills her, or you recruit her. If you recruit her, she flirts with Shepard and you can eventually sleep with her. Of course, your nervous system melts. The idea of the Ardat-Yakshi only being born through a union of two asari makes no sense from an evolutionary point of view. In their home world, asari are the only sapient species, therefore it makes no sense to have breeding with other species being a safer option. The only way it would make sense is if they evolved alongside another sentient species. Basically, asari are all feminine, and they are discouraged from beginning and given consequences for having a relationship with another asari. The idea that cross-species relationships are healthier kind of gives off the “a child with two moms can’t develop well argument.” Then we move to Kelly Chambers. Kelly is your yeoman in Mass Effect 2. Basically, she tells you when your squadmates want to talk to you and when you have mail. She’s also the closest thing the game has to a same-sex romance. Kelly’s pan, and she’ll take all kinds. She frequently gushes about how attractive the alien members of the crew are, and Shepard can lightly flirt with her throughout the game. At a certain point, you can invite Kelly to Shepard’s cabin for dinner. A brief scene of her dancing for Shepard and cuddling ensues, and that’s it. No achievement, no other conversations, nothing. It doesn’t even conflict with existing romances. You can be romancing someone and still invite Kelly upstairs. Her only function, besides informing you about who you need to talk to and that brief moment, is being dissolved by the Collectors if you don’t come for the crew right after they’re taken. She plays a smaller role in the third game, where you can either get her killed, convince her to change her identity, or convince her to change her identity and start a relationship, which only adds a few conversations and the inability to romance anyone else. Then, there’s Samantha Traynor. Samantha’s a lesbian and the Normandy’s comm specialist in Mass Effect 3. She serves the same purpose as Kelly in Mass Effect 3 (informing you about mail and missions) except she can be romanced only by a female Shepard, and she has a full, fleshed out romance. My only complaint about Traynor is that she should have been introduced earlier. She was a good character and I would have liked to see her in more than one game. Now, we go to Bioware’s other cash cow franchise: Dragon Age. Specifically, Dragon Age Origins. Our female love interest for a female Warden is Leliana, a spy-turned-nun. Admittedly, Leliana is a pretty good character in terms of representation. She’s not predatory or overly violent in terms of our setting. However, there’s her former mentor, Marjolaine. Marjolaine embodies the predatory, manipulative wlw stereotype, as shown when she had a relationship with the sixteen-year-old Leliana. Marjolaine’s age is not stated, but she is older than Leliana by a good amount seeing as she had been married once before meeting Leliana. She groomed Leliana into becoming a bard, which in Dragon Age is a spy who can also double as an assassin. She then betrays Leliana and frames her for treason. Later, when Leliana asks the Warden to check up on Marjolaine, Marjolaine plays the victim, and tries to convince the Warden Leliana is not to be trusted. In Dragon Age II, we have two bisexual female characters, Isabella and Merrill. Both are great characters with facets and unique flaws. Honestly, there’s nothing negative to say about them as bisexual women. In Dragon Age Inquisition, we have a trio of lesbian characters. Sera is an elf who’s part of a vigilante group called the Friends of Red Jenny. While Sera is on your side, if a female elf inquisitor tries to pursue a romance with her, it gets a little difficult. Sera berates the inquisitor for being “too elfy”, and at one point breaks off the relationship if they don’t admit the eleven gods were demons. None of the other romances have something like this, where one choice can ruin the relationship, so why does Sera’s romance get it? There’s also Celene and Briala. Celene is the empress of Orlais, which is Dragon Age’s equivalent to France. There’s no other way of putting this, so I’m just gonna say it. Celene is a racist manipulative bitch. She oppresses the elves of Orlais, hurls racist insults towards her handmaiden and lover, Briala, and actually had Briala’s parents killed to maintain her grip on the throne. So, yeah, not a nice lady. But what’s the happy ending of the segment she and Briala appear? Getting them back together! Briala had left her after she did nothing for her people, the elves, and because she couldn’t take Celene’s abuse anymore. I will give Inquisition this, it’s bisexual women, Harding and Josephine, are better written. And in Dragon Age II and Inquisition, last but not least, there’s Cassandra Pentaghast. She’s only available to a male Inquisitor in Inquisition. However, depending on how far you take it, she actually can gain approval from a female Inquisitor’s flirting. “But Kate,” you say again, “Cassandra probably just think’s the Inquisitor’s joking and rejects you when you go too far!” we see in her romance with a male Inquisitor that’s she’s a romantic at heart. Flowers, candles, poetry and all that mushy stuff. She’s probably rejecting a female Inquisitor if she flirts too much, cause she wants a fairytale romance. Also, have you seen Cassandra? For the same reasons as Jack and Cora, that’s a gay if I ever saw one. So that’s why I don’t have too much hope in Cora being a bi romance. Just related to Bioware’s track record of including wlw. We can still dream tho. (In case someone asks why I didn’t include mlm in this meta too, as they arguably receive worse treatment in Bioware games 1. I am not a man attracted to other men, so I would feel like I was talking over actual mlm, and 2. This is already long enough. This was just supposed to cover Cassandra and Jack but I got carried away.)

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