A few thoughts on the Baldur’s Gate expansion backlash
First, a confession; I have never played the original Baldur’s Gate games. I was just out of high school at the time the first game was released and still very much a console gamer. I did eventually buy a gaming PC, but that wasn’t until around 2003 and by then a boxed copy of the game wasn’t something you’d stumble upon all that often, so I completely forgot it existed. That said, having seen everyone getting a bit up in arms about some of the writing in the new expansion, Siege of Dragonspear, I wanted to jot down a few thoughts about the situation that just wouldn’t work in tweet form. Bear in mind though that I haven’t played the expansion, so what I’m about to write shouldn’t be taken as a recommendation or warning for/against buying it; there’s plenty of reviews out there for you to make your own decision. What I want to cover is just some observations about storytelling and dialogue in games, particularly fantasy games, and this situation happens to be a good base to start from.
As you may well know, the writer of the expansion for Baldur’s Gate: Enhanced Edition previously suggested that the original games were rather sexist in their portrayal of women. Having never played them I can’t offer any insight as to whether that’s true or not, but thankfully this isn’t a key part of what I want to discuss so, in this case at least, ignorance is bliss.
No, the thing I want to discuss stems from two story elements that have been singled out for criticism repeatedly in my Twitter feed; firstly, the use of memes and references to memes within the dialogue, and secondly, the appearance of a transexual NPC who offers a brief bit of dialogue nothing how they were raised as the wrong gender, before realizing their true gender at a later age.
The memes, OH GOD! THE MEMES!
So there’s memes in the game, apparently. In particular, the one I’ve seen mentioned repeatedly is the use of an “Actually, it’s about…” statement meant to parody the oft-repeated cry of GamerGate supporters; “Actually, it’s about ethics in journalism”. I guess that of the few people that read this many would be familiar with this term; the controversies, claims and actions surrounding GamerGate have been amply documented on Twitter and many of the people I follow on Twitter were actively discussing it in the past, though not so much now.
And that’s the problem when adding such references into dialogue; GamerGate kicked off in August 2014, less than two years ago, and the memes referencing it are already feeling dated. If that’s the case now, how will this dialogue sound in two decades? Bear in mind that the original Baldur’s Gate was released in 1998 and is still popular today, so it’s not entirely out of the question that people will still be playing the expansion twenty years from now. I would imagine that even now, given the relatively niche impact of the GamerGate saga in the first place, the majority of players won’t have a clue what the dialogue is referencing.
For me, adding memes to dialogue is simply a bad idea, unless you have a strong desire to make your game a period piece. I’ll defer to the Editor-In-Chief of GameRanx, Ian Miles Cheong, for this one, as his mini-rant on Twitter summed it up for me:
Sure, those memes in your dialogue might seem like the height of hilarity now, but gamers discovering the expansion for the first time two years from now will be hard-pressed to understand what the hell the characters are going on about. Also, unless you’re making a fourth-wall-breaking comic fantasy, it’s probably best not to put memes in your fantasy games; it makes the world seem so much less ‘real’.
Exploring a Complex Issue
In this shiny new expansion there is a character whom you can speak to while at a camp; from what I understand the NPC isn’t vital to the story, instead just there to add some flavour text to the world. In this case, the flavour text is a short piece of dialogue describing their life and how they were raised as the wrong gender:
Now, the backlash at first seemed rather misplaced to my eyes; having a transexual character isn’t, in itself, a problem. In fact, I’d be quite interested in seeing more transexual, gay or bisexual characters in games; there’s a wealth of interesting dynamics and story beats that could arise from such representation. However, if you’re going to do this, it’s better to commit fully to the idea; simply adding an NPC trans character and having them essentially say “I am trans, and everyone in this world accepted it without question” isn’t offering any insight; it’s just feels like preaching, like everybody should be automatically accepting of transexuals (a view I generally agree with, but it’s not reflective of the real world). I’m not trans so I can’t offer much in the way of perspective here, but from what the people I’ve talked to on Twitter have told me the whole process of transitioning is long and exhausting; there’s doctor evaluations, medical treatments with a host of side effects to contend with, as well as what must be a challenging decision of whether to have surgery or not, and that’s not even getting into the social expectations put on the genders that one must readjust to; wouldn’t it be better to actually depict this struggle in some manner?
Fantasy as a Reflection of the Real World
Sci-fi and fantasy occupy a special place in my heart because they can use fantastical constructions to discuss real-world problems in a unique, memorable way. It’s for this reason that I love the work of Terry Pratchett; something like Reaper Man examines the fragility of life, the human condition, and the danger posed by sentient shopping malls, but if you ignore the meta discussion it’s still a rather amusing romp through a magical world where everything’s a bit weird, with a Death that manages to be both funny and endearing. In games, one can look to the Witcher series, which does an amazing job of presenting its issues as shades of grey rather than pure good/evil. I guess that’s why you’ll often hear people citing the Bloody Baron story arc of The Witcher 3 as the most memorable; it took a troubling issue from our world (domestic violence) and used the setting to offer a nuanced perspective that challenged our preconceptions.
With this in mind, I believe that, while trans issues are something worthy of discussion and representation in games, it should feel organic and natural to the world the game is set in. For example, instead of having a character say “I was born a man, now I’m a woman”, use fantastic imagery; I’m no writer so I apologise for the cack-handedness of the following concept, but what about a story arc where a troubled but gentle male character (let’s call him Steve, because there’s always a Steve somewhere in every town) has his gender swapped by a magical device, and discovers that while she feels more comfortable in this skin, her homeland’s culture demands that females act as warriors and it conflicts with her pacifistic nature; an issue that didn’t arise before because the men have non-combat-related duties?
Ok, so that’s a pretty shoddy example (like I said, I’m not a writer!), but it still offers more substance to work with than what we appear to have in the expansion. Despite the laments I frequently see from the media I don’t think that gamers are opposed to LGBT characters in general; they just have to be written effectively within the setting and without blind promotion of a particular real-world ideology. We’ve managed to create such a gulf between various factions that it’s become hard to have a civil discussion and find some middle ground, but I’m hopeful that we’ll get there eventually.
Alright, I was originally just going to put a couple of words down but I ended up writing too much and now my head hurts, so I’m off for some aspirin and Baywatch videos (on the subject of dated references; cookie for anyone who can remember where that line’s from!).
