Assassin's Creed

If your story requires the player character to make a baby, don't insult the players with Lie Back and Think of England bullshit.

Lie Back and Think of England is the improved version.

They patched that in. The original version is "Nope, I'm straight now, no mattered how you played me."

And again, it's worth Emphasising that Ubisoft marketed the fact you could play as gay/bi/heterosexual when they announced the game. This was an advertised feature.

Edited by Ghilz on Aug 13th 2019 at 11:57:45 AM

There's a bit of difficulty with the underlying premise of the Animus. In order to be able to recover the genetic memories of a person, they have to have had a child, and that lineage must have been carried forward into the "present". This means that "makin' bebbehs" must have occurred somehow, regardless of the character's orientation.

Zero Punctuation said at one point that it's fine if your character is canonically straight, if that's the story you are intending to write. Geralt in The Witcher goes exclusively for the ladies no matter how you RP him in your head. But if you give the player the freedom to choose the sexuality of the character, forcing them into a particular orientation to satisfy a story requirement is a dick move.

All of the above said, it's a historical truth that many a gay or lesbian person has had natural children, willingly or not. If you want to be historically accurate, you need to deal with this, warts and all. If players get mad about being forced to experience historically accurate actions in a history simulator, they have only themselves to blame.

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 13th 2019 at 12:14:42 PM

That's not been the case in Origins (DNA from Bayek and Aya's mummies), or Odyssey (DNA from blood on the Spear of Leonidas).

Needing a child has not actually been a limitation of Animus for several games

Is that so? Well, never mind then. The points about player choice still stand, though.

Edited by Fighteer on Aug 13th 2019 at 12:21:24 PM

The only reason they did the baby thing is for some thematic resonance. Otherwise Odyssey mostly exists in its own bubble from the rest of the franchise, minus the limp ass modern day plot Ubisoft shows no interest in. But doing the baby thing lets them retroactively make Aya a descendant of the Eagler-Bearer, and thus it ties the protagonists to the Assassins despite pre-dating them for centuries.

And whilst yes, they can get the memories from DNA, they still decided to show this branch of the bloodline spreading descendants (For Desmond et al to come from).

So, whilst it doesn't matter for THIS user of the Animus, it does matter to explain the propagation of the Bloodline into the modern day.

Still a damn hamfisted way of doing it.

I should note that nowhere does the game or Kassandra say that she is suddenly straight now. She could very well still be bisexual. Claiming that she is suddenly hetconned comes purely from the fans, who can't seem to grasp the idea that a bisexual woman can still fall in love with a straight man and have babies.

I should also note that no one was complaining about Ezio being a straight womanizer, and ignoring the advances of Leonardo.

Also, the game, especially the DLC, seems to heavily imply that Isu bloodlines are being cut off left and right by various cults, and that Kassandra will function as somewhat of an Eve to all future Assassins in her Isu bloodline.

Edited by Redmess on Aug 13th 2019 at 6:48:26 PM

I'll counter that at no point before the DLC does she ever say she's bisexual either.

Claiming that she is suddenly always has been Bisexual comes purely from you, who can't seem to grasp the idea that a player playing a game advertised with the feature "You can choose the main character's orientation" expect to choose the main character's orientation, not have it dictated or altered by DLC. No one's claiming bisexuals can't have babies. That's not the point.

Again, choosing their sexuality was an advertising point. You can't go "Well she always was Bi and the fandom doesn't get it man".

If you always played her a bi, sure. If you always played Alexios as bi, also fine. But the entire point is that Ubisoft made a point that this choice was up to the player.

No one advertised "You can pick Ezio's orientation". In fact, you get no input on who Ezio expressed affection towards (or not). So of course no one was complaining. It's an entirely different scenario.

Edited by Ghilz on Aug 13th 2019 at 1:09:24 PM

I never claimed the PC was bisexual before that point, either. I'm just saying the game never claims it one way or the other.

The point is that the advertising for the game made a big deal about how players could choose the orientation of their character, only to release DLC that pretty much took that choice away. Naming the Achievement that goes along with having the baby "Growing Up" didn't exactly help either.

I think it's another reason of being unnecessary too because we already have the Eagle Bearer having the Staff of Hermes to connect the series.

See, my questions probably come off as ignorant because I've not played Assassin's Creed Odyssey and my memories are very fuzzy on how exactly the Animus works.

However, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Couldn't, say, a brother or sister or cousin provide the genetic connection? Isn't it possible for the connection to not be a direct descendant? Why does it have to be the player character specifically who has to provide the child?

Heck, couldn't there be a new Animus that allows for that sort of thing?

...What's the best way to say this?

If you want to portray historically accurate trends, O.K. However, if your player character is advertised as having the choice to be whatever orientation you please, you could try to present the trend with side characters while still letting the player character stay as gay as "a treeful of monkeys on nitrous oxide".

A historically-accurate story is still a story and with a story, you can choose how and with what characters you want historically-accurate trends to affect in what ways.

Would it really be inaccurate for your player character, specifically, to be a gay person who did not sleep with another person of the opposite sex for appearances or for the family?

Even if you consider it "representation pandering", it's better then nothing. If it comes to a crappy meal or starving, having a crappy meal is better then starving. Even "pandering" representation is better then no representation.

Except in this case, you can't even have the crappy meal because you have to barf it right now because they say so. Even if it wasn't any good, it's better then starving yet you're not even allowed to digest a crappy meal.

In the end, this was not a good idea in the slightest. It's boneheaded on the most important levels it affects.

It's a bad idea on the level of game design because of ludonarrative dissonance. When a game advertises that you can make a free choice here and goes on later to mangle that choice by saying that no, you didn't make entirely the choice you thought you did because screw you, that's Anti-RPG 101. If you're going to put in a choice, please do not try to say later on that we didn't choose what we actually chose. Nobody is fond of being railroaded.

It's a bad idea when it comes to representation because by claiming that you can choose your character's orientation to be either straight, gay, or bisexual and then putting in a later event that suggests that your character is, at best, bisexual, you're not really leaving anything for those who aren't attracted to the opposite sex.

Sorry, everybody who thought you could play a gay character! We only care about the "B" part of "LGBTQ+" when it comes to sexuality! (If even that much because I'm not sure this was done with an eye towards bisexual representation.) We're only allowing sexualities that still have you bang a person of the opposite sex!

I'm sure you'll be O.K, everybody who doesn't sleep with the opposite sex! I mean, it's not as though you're part of a demographic that half a decade ago had to fight for the right to be married! What does representation matter to you?

Was a story where the player character had a child even necessary? Why was this the one they chose to make?

Ooooh...

Edited by fredhot16 on Aug 13th 2019 at 10:53:18 AM

I see it as more an issue of not being able to have it both ways. No one objects to Bayek and Aya, they're fairly beloved AC characters despite their short existence. Indeed, Bayek may be the only Assassin who doesn't seem to be a shitty spouse (sad that it doesn't work out between them). However, if you give me the reigns of a story and I'm playing them then some basic facts should be available. Usually, this being related to love interests as, "Who would my character Kiss, Marry, or Kill" is a basic one.

In the Witcher, it's a basic choice.

ME

and so on.

My Kassandra has a deep and passionate love for Odessa. Because when you make a story with you in control, you do that.

It's iffy if she's forced to marry someone else because it takes you out of the story you've been given the option to craft.

Like if you're 100% Team Leliana (as I am) and then told, "Oh, your character marries Aveline instead. I know they never met."

While gay characters being forced to have kids is bad, I'd say it's the forced romance period as well. Plenty of people were irritated as hell Cole was suddenly having an affair and that wasn't even an RPG in LA Noire.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 13th 2019 at 10:53:43 AM

Well, that first one is easy enough. It couldn't be a sibling because they would not have the genetic memories needed for the Animus. Genetic memories are only passed from parent to child.

Honestly, the RPG romances were always a bit crappy in the way of representation. They do not affect the plot whatsoever (nor does your actual family in the DLC, by the way... this is clearly a wider issue for this game), are not all that long or deep, and a lot of them are clunkily written into missions. Odessa's romance is one of the worst in that regard, where the flirting comes off as incredibly tone deaf and insensitive next to what is actually happening in the missions.

Also, you have to wonder how representational these romances really are for the LGBT community, when the player can also choose the gender of the PC. The gender of the PC doesn't affect the romantic encounters whatsoever. They will sleep with you regardless of your gender, making all of them effectively bisexual. Their dialogue is written as gender neutral as possible to limit having to record lines double.

The mission creator does not help with this, by the way. Once you've seen the machinery of how these missions work, it tends to take the magic out of them a little.

Yeah, I was annoyed by the sudden affair of Cole too in LA Noire, especially since we don't even see his wife for most of the game, save a cutscene way at the start. The affair made sense from a noir thematic view, but not from the narrative, which had completely ignored Cole's wife throughout the game (did you realize he has kids, too? I didn't.)

Edited by Redmess on Aug 14th 2019 at 10:41:19 AM

You really don't. Even a cursory glance in lgbt circles will tell you that they are welcomed and appreciated.

Fair enough. I guess it only falls apart when you look at it too closely.

I would also point out that, considering said lead in this installment apparently gains immortality and survives into the modern era, why couldn't we have had the 'genetic bloodline' pass on in the timeskip?

As already discussed, this stopped being a relevant thematic point after Desmond died (since there was no 'Main Descendant' for the genetic memories to build towards and tie everything together) and stopped being even a plot point after Origins when direct DNA is now enough to read the DNA bloodline. There is 100% no reason for Alexios/Kassandra to have a child because there's, currently, no further for that child's existence to serve in the plot.

Additionally, if they absolutely must, why not have it during the 2000+ year time skip that Kassandra/Alexios is functionally immortal and apparently walking through history if they're going to show up at the end in a nice suit? You get your damn genetic bloodline child that the writers are so determined to have and the player gets the freedom to in-character justify how that happened which, given the character is 2000+ years old, it's more than reasonable to suggest that even the gayest of gay characters might attempt to have a child at some-point given the amount of time they have to kill.

Okay, I get that it is disappointing for roleplayers, but it isn't THAT heinous either to have Kass have a child during the game, either. They certainly could have handled things much better, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't have done it at all.

Actually, that's what I was getting at. The story just isn't very interesting. You barely know your partner and your child is unimportant in the grand scheme of things.

Isn’t the problem that the child is only important in the grand scheme of things?

Well put.

I think a bigger issue with the DLC is how it simply ignores everything from the main game story. It ignores the fate of your family, who may very well be alive and well at that point, and of your crew. Kassandra acting like she is all alone in the world feels incredibly out of place when her whole family is happily bickering on your flamethrowing pirate death ship, as does her worrying about not being able to protect her child, despite having potentially slain thousands, including two entire cults' worth of baddies.

This is, I think, the bigger issue with the RPG elements and having choices: it hampers the DLC's ability to connect with the larger storyline of the game. This becomes even more apparent in the Atlantis DLC, which conspicuously focusses only on characters who die in all possible story paths in the main game (but, notably, NOT your dead love interest from the other DLC) showing up in the underworld.

I have other issues as well like why I should care about some Persian Proto-Assassins.

They're trying to draw connections to Darius, Kassandra, and the Hidden Ones and...why?

Buddy, we're talking about a demographic that doesn't get representation 95% of the time in media and got the right to marry half a decade ago.

It is bone-headed, tone-deaf, and, quite frankly, disgusting to make it an advertised feature that your player character can be gay, straight, or bisexual then put in downloadable content that suggests two things, neither of which are that good.

Worst Case: Your character was actually heterosexual and when we said we were giving LGB representation, we had our fingers crossed. Sorry, but it's not like you'll miss playing a gay or bisexual character! Go find another one! It shouldn't be too hard!

Best Case: Your character was bisexual! I guess our fingers were only crossed when we said you could play as a gay character! Ignore how we seem to care about having a sexuality that still allow you to bang another person of the opposite sex! I mean, come on! You've got to have loads of gay protagonists lying around, right? What's one less?

Anybody who complains about a crappy meal probably wants a better meal, not to go back to starving. Erasure is never a thing to take with no complaints.

Not a single iota of this was a good idea and anybody who complains about how it's a diversity betrayal is not complaining about how "It ruins my gay-exclusive, No Bisexuals fantasy about ancient Greece".

If I sound angry, it's that this was representation, no matter how you feel about it. And while I'm not LGBTQ+, I can see how anybody would be angry for giving representation with one hand and taking it away with another.

No representation is what they had to settle for for who-knows-how-much-time. Here, this was subtractive representation.

Edited by fredhot16 on Aug 14th 2019 at 3:06:18 AM

I'm on YOUR side, buddy. Calm down.

I'm not saying it wasn't representation, I'm saying it wasn't enough, and was half hearted at best, if not somewhat cynically implemented as optional content only.

And yes, I want a better meal, too.