LGBT Quests

Aluluei

I want to give major kudos to Zenimax/Bethesda for including LGBT NPCs in Tamriel!

I have met several gay quest givers. There was an elf man who wanted me to find magical seeds for him to plant on his husband's grave -- that was a very sweet and sad story. Then there was a Khajiit guy who wanted me to help him impress his boyfriend's father -- he specifically referred to the gentlecat in question as his 'boyfriend' just to make sure there was no misunderstanding. Great stuff!

However, there seems to be a dearth of lesbian storylines. I think that needs to be corrected, so here's my outline for such a quest.

Saving the Date:

We first meet our questgiver, a beautiful young Orc damsel, as she sits sobbing under a tree. On conversing with her we discover that the source of her distress is that her father refuses to allow her to marry the love of her life. We next meet said love, a feisty and hotheaded Bosmer woman. Bosmette is keen on eloping, but Orcette doesn't want to alienate her Dad, given that he raised her as a single father after her mother died in battle. We offer to talk with Dad and see if we can mediate a solution. On conversing with Dad, we discover that his objection to his daughter's suitor isn't personal; in fact he admits that the lady in question is a fine young warrior whom his dead wife would have gladly fought beside. His objection is racial -- as a single-dad and proud cook, he has long dreamed of catering his daughter's wedding, but how the hell can he make a wedding cake for one of those picky, meat-obsessed Bosmer?!?!

The main part of the quest involves setting out with the young couple to find some Bosmer recipe books, and then hunting down (literally) the required ingredients for a wedding feast. Three wolf spleens, a pound of bear ears, half a cup of mudcrab blood etcetera etcetera.

The quest ends with a lavish wedding, featuring a fabulous meaty wedding 'cake'. Everyone lives happily ever after.

So there you are, Zenimax -- my idea for a lesbian quest. No need to thank me or pay me; I just want to see more diversity in Tamriel :-)

Elsonso

There are lesbian quests, too. Finding the wife of a female soldier comes to mind right away.

Aluluei

lordrichter wrote: »

There are lesbian quests, too. Finding the wife of a female soldier comes to mind right away.

Awesome! Though not as awesome as my story, which I think is pretty damn awesome :-)

Where did you find that quest?

Elsonso

It was somewhere in Grahtwood, I think. It was one of those "I have to fight/be scared/do important things, please go find my spouse/husband/son/daughter/pet" quests. Other than the lesbian angle, it was completely unremarkable.

Aluluei

lordrichter wrote: »

Other than the lesbian angle, it was completely unremarkable.

That is something that I very much appreciate about the Elder Scrolls games. LGBT relationships are just part of life, as opposed to being the subjects of Very Special Episodes that come with a Content Warning and notice that Parental Guidance is Recommended.

Ulvich

I ran into a lesbian in the Hollow City. I think she was selling glyphs. I can't remember, though.

Rosveen

Aluluei wrote: »

However, there seems to be a dearth of lesbian storylines. I think that needs to be corrected, so here's my outline for such a quest.

Actually, I've seen more lesbians than gays. In Grathwood I rescued a ship captain's wife. In Stonefalls there was a woman trapped by angry spirits, worried that she'd never see her wife again. A 'nightflower' who said that the men's talk of swords bores her and she'd rather see a beautifully filigreed sheath *ahem* Also an implied Dunmer-Argonian couple - one of them wanted to impress the other and got in trouble.

Anyway, nothing beats oft-unnoticed Majoll. What is he doing on Kaleen's ship? "Following Jakarn, of course! Why else would I be along? I'm looking forward to working alonside him, sweating shirtless in the hot sun. You wouldn't understand."

Aluluei

Rosveen wrote: »

Actually, I've seen more lesbians than gays.

Why am I not noticing these things? Hmm... I think if I were an Argonian my name would be Skips-Quest-Dialog... could be something to do with that.

Kauri

Sadly I have yet to encounter any transgender characters, but there seem to be plenty of gay and lesbian NPCs around.

----Aldmeri Dominion----

Captain Linwen (Altmer) - You can find this quest near the "Cave of Broken Sails" in southern Grathwood.

"Brauti Bloodshark led a mutiny, captured most of my crew, and kidnapped my wife. Once he has the treasure, he'll kill them all."

Hartmin & Mirilir (Bosmer) - You can find this quest near the "Greenheart Wayshrine" in southern Greenshade.
It's not a very long one, but the dialogue is really good and it is sooo sad. This quest made me cry.

Hartmin asks you to pick flowers for his dying husband.
"You are generous to humor two silly old men, but those seeds would mean so much to us. When we were young, we used to sneak away from the clan and come here to be together. Lying here among Nereid's Smile, it seemed like we had forever."

----Ebonheart Pact----

I believe there was a lesbian couple in one of the early Ebonheart areas (dunmer/argonian couple), but it's been a while since I played through those.

----Daggerfall Covenant----

During beta I met a gay sailor. That might have been Majoll whom Rosveen was just talking about.

Kauri

There is also a love song about kissing a woman, which is sometimes sung by female NPCs. Sway as we kiss

SouthernDiscomfort

I've only found one of these quests, one in Bangkorai but I won't spoil the story because I wouldn't want to blind anyone with the in-your-face, obvious underlying plot of this quest when you eventually get to it. While it was nice to stumble onto this and it certainly put an interesting difference to the two NPCs, the fact that these two were indeed a married couple was being brought up in every piece of dialogue with the them, yelling at the player saying: "By the way, did we mention that we're a married, homosexual couple?" every three minutes; it's just another example of the storytellers' inability to be subtle, like they're afraid that the player might have nodded off during the NPC conversations or suffered recent head trauma and needs to be reminded constantly.

Seabreeze

SouthernDiscomfort wrote: »

I've only found one of these quests, one in Bangkorai but I won't spoil the story because I wouldn't want to blind anyone with the in-your-face, obvious underlying plot of this quest when you eventually get to it. While it was nice to stumble onto this and it certainly put an interesting difference to the two NPCs, the fact that these two were indeed a married couple was being brought up in every piece of dialogue with the them, yelling at the player saying: "By the way, did we mention that we're a married, homosexual couple?" every three minutes; it's just another example of the storytellers' inability to be subtle, like they're afraid that the player might have nodded off during the NPC conversations or suffered recent head trauma and needs to be reminded constantly.

Sounds a lot like they're just trying to hammer home how amazingly diverse and accepting the characters/devs/etc are. However, at that point, it starts becoming more of a spectacle, not something normal. If you want to portray it as a normal thing, then you have to not mention it fifty million times. Treating gay NPCs exactly the same as any straight NPC should be enough. They don't have to be over-inflated.

Pyatra

Ulvich wrote: »

I ran into a lesbian in the Hollow City. I think she was selling glyphs. I can't remember, though.

Yeah, you can pretty much play match maker between the 2 vendors. There several quests out there, they are just spread out so you don't see a pattern. Of course I'm a bit of a competionist so I may have found more than most.

Ragnar_Lodbrok

Please mods close this thread.

nudel

@Ragnar_Lodbrok‌ Why?

Lovely

There's plenty all over already.

The funniest one was with this cat lady who said she wanted to impress this dunmer lady and she's done everything she could to show her affection, even left a dead skeever...

Blackwolfe5

SouthernDiscomfort wrote: »

I've only found one of these quests, one in Bangkorai but I won't spoil the story because I wouldn't want to blind anyone with the in-your-face, obvious underlying plot of this quest when you eventually get to it. While it was nice to stumble onto this and it certainly put an interesting difference to the two NPCs, the fact that these two were indeed a married couple was being brought up in every piece of dialogue with the them, yelling at the player saying: "By the way, did we mention that we're a married, homosexual couple?" every three minutes; it's just another example of the storytellers' inability to be subtle, like they're afraid that the player might have nodded off during the NPC conversations or suffered recent head trauma and needs to be reminded constantly.

I've met straight couples like this IRL, it gets tiresome to listen to pretty quick.

oldkye

Blackwolfe5 wrote: »

SouthernDiscomfort wrote: »

I've only found one of these quests, one in Bangkorai but I won't spoil the story because I wouldn't want to blind anyone with the in-your-face, obvious underlying plot of this quest when you eventually get to it. While it was nice to stumble onto this and it certainly put an interesting difference to the two NPCs, the fact that these two were indeed a married couple was being brought up in every piece of dialogue with the them, yelling at the player saying: "By the way, did we mention that we're a married, homosexual couple?" every three minutes; it's just another example of the storytellers' inability to be subtle, like they're afraid that the player might have nodded off during the NPC conversations or suffered recent head trauma and needs to be reminded constantly.

I've met straight couples like this IRL, it gets tiresome to listen to pretty quick.

I think we can all agree that's just a "couple" problem lol which if you look at it that way the quest is fairly reflective of real life I've had a girlfriend that I had to tell she shouldn't remind people every five mins that we were together cause they may have figured it out lol.(if you can't tell she was excited haha)

Aluluei

I am reminded of the show "Yes, Minister" and the character Bernard's joke about irregular verbs: I have an original mind, you are eccentric, he is stark raving mad.

What to some people seems like innocuous social chitchat (a woman says, "My wife and I went camping over the weekend" or a man says, "My husband and I took the dogs for a walk") may be perceived by others as SHOVING THE GAY AGENDA DOWN MY THROAT.

My perception is that sexual orientation is treated as a complete non-issue in ESO. So much so that, although I recognize many of the characters other people have mentioned, I didn't even notice that they were gay at the time. As @lordrichter said, there are a ton of quests where you have to rescue someone's wife/husband/dog, but I can't remember which characters were gay/straight/pet-owners because no particular attention was drawn to it.
NPC's never talk about being gay or straight, they just refer to their husbands/wives/girlfriends/boyfriends. The language they use is completely neutral and interchangeable, in the same way that, if you were wearing an Amulet of Mara, you'd get the same expression of interest from an NPC regardless of the gender of your character. I think the orientation of any particular NPC only sticks out if you are consciously looking for it, or if you are personally sensitive about such things.

Aluluei

Lovely wrote: »

There's plenty all over already.

The funniest one was with this cat lady who said she wanted to impress this dunmer lady and she's done everything she could to show her affection, even left a dead skeever...

*snort* That's awesome! Where did you find her?!

seanolan

I play a male character, and it's awesome that many male characters give their flirtation dialog to my character regardless. I loved hearing a male voice say, "You look like trouble. Are you...trouble?" And to hear the male rogue in Kenarthi's Roost (forget his name) address me as "Beautiful" during one quest. Small details like this are what makes the Elder Scrolls such an awesome game series, IMHO

Maotti

So it was a dunmer lady she was referring to? Awesome. And i who looked for a dunmer male. haha

nudel

@Aluluei‌ Your analysis is spot on I think. As for only seeing it when you're looking for it, I bumped into the Bangkorai quest on the PTS. At first, I thought it was a bug in dialogue when the quest giver mentioned his 'husband' because it was offhand. This had already happened in a previous quest in which a male NPC was referred to as female in the dialogue at one point. So I thought, "Okay this is probably a bug, but I'll go and meet this character to confirm it before I report." I get to his husband, who is in fact male, and I'm shocked. Had not expected ZOS to include LGBT NPC couples and I was very impressed. From then on, of course, I kept my eyes open for others.

Even though you could marry anyone in Skyrim regardless of gender, there were no same-sex NPC couples. That game lends itself to the attitude, "Do what you want with your life, but your choices are definitely not normal." Don't get me wrong. I applaud them for even taking that step. However, I see the current incarnation of same-sex relationships strewn throughout the NPC population in ESO as a very ballsy move. Someone else may disagree and, in pointing to current events, say ZOS is just jumping on the gay bandwagon. However, given the gaming community's usual trend towards heteronormativity, this extra step towards inclusivity is a much riskier maneuver than "*** Eye for the Straight Guy". Kudos to ZOS for taking that risk.

EDIT: Wow can't believe the forums censored that.

Nox_Aeterna

There are "many" (when compared to the usual atleast) homosexual NPCs in this game and , atleast in AD , they give many quests.

Honestly , i dont think they added nothing to the game in general , they were just more NPCs giving quests, i will admit , i guess it did call my attention more than if they were standard couple material , but that was pretty much it.

If anything , i think a thread like this , that calls attention to it , is what goes against the idea. If they were trying to make it all look normal , you just called it out here heh :P.

Rosveen

nudel wrote: »

Even though you could marry anyone in Skyrim regardless of gender, there were no same-sex NPC couples.

Hrodulf&Bjornolf
Of course they're both dead. Just like Viranus and Eduard from Oblivion. That leaves Morrowind with uncle Crassius and Vivec, one of whom is a god and all sorts of weird.

ESO isn't the first Elder Scrolls game with LGBT characters... and as far as heteronormativity goes, Vivec is anything but. But it's the first to show them as a completely normal part of Tamriel. No need to dig for clues in journals, they're openly married, not dead and hidden in a shack at the end of the world. And it's handled very well, in my opinion (no, "help me rescue my wife" is not forced gay agenda *sigh*)

Seabreeze

I found one of the quests yesterday. "Luck of the Albatross," it's called. After playing it, I can agree that whoever wrote it was trying too hard to push the sale. As opposed to saying her wife's name, the NPC kept saying "my wife" repeatedly, to the point where the words lost their meaning. There was only a couple instances in which she used her wife's actual name (I can't remember it, offhand; big surprise).

I contrast this with the quest "Until Death," about an inter-racial couple (Bosmer and Khajiit). The Khajiit quest giver does not keep saying "my Bosmer husband" to hammer home that she is married to a character of another race. She refers to him by name. It's kept very inconspicuous, until you actually find her husband. Then the player may say, "Aww, that's kind of sweet. They overcame racial tensions to find love." It makes more sense (and is more respectful) because the player comes to this conclusion on their own. It isn't drilled into his or her head.

It's nice of them to include gay characters in the game, but I really think they should have written them better. "Luck of the Albatross" comes off really poorly, like the characters are wearing t-shirts that have "I'M GAY" written on them. I'd really prefer that every character is treated both realistically and fairly, not have an abnormal amount of attention drawn to their sexual orientation (or anything else, really).

Disclaimer: I am a LGBT person, though I'm pretty loathe to use the identifier, because I feel that it puts me in some different sphere than those who aren't. I just don't like it when the issue is forced, because it doesn't seem right to me. It should just be a non-issue and treated as a normal, everyday thing. Not pointed out, and not made a spectacle of. Just there if it exists, and not there if it doesn't. I hope that makes sense to folks.

Blackwolfe5

Well, some people do constantly refer to their significant other as wife/husband no matter if it is a hetrosexual/homosexual relationship. And some overdo it (ESPECIALLLY if they have not been married for long). Some gay people might as well have gay written on their foreheads (because it's that obvious sometimes), while others don't. I don't see why it could not be the same way ingame.

Seabreeze

Because fiction isn't real life. For instance, people in real life are rarely as witty as they are in written works, because the writer has time to sit down and think of how to portray his or her characters in the best possible way.

If the intent is to portray gay characters well, especially in a world in which it is a non-issue, then they should act as though there is no pride involved. There would be no reason to be so overt in this case, as it is widely accepted in this world.

Draaconis

Now if only they could write in some code to add characters to acronyms for lazy people so EVERYONE knows what you're saying.

Zarec

Allyah wrote: »

Zarec wrote: »

Allyah wrote: »

I was curious about the exclusion of heterosexual couples in the subject matter. It was like a big sign was on the thread saying "LGBT only" except covered up with nice people and nice words.

You did read the title right?

Yes. And since I don't have much to go on from your short question, forgive me if I assume too much about what you meant by the question. My point was that excluding those who aren't LGBT is just as bad as those who exclude LGBT. This thread could have included all love stories in the game instead of someone separating LGBT and everyone else who loves someone as if they are not the same thing. I realize that isn't the intention of this thread but that is the effect.

Obviously you did not read the title. LGBT Quests is the title if you misread it. Therefore it is mainly focused on LGBT quests. Talking about heterosexual quests would derail the conversation from its original thread starter. Please stop trolling and trying to derail the conversation. Also on your other post, I read it after it was closed and the way it was written came off as making fun of this post as this post was started for people to come in and celebrate the diversity in the game for including LGBT content and share their experiences from playing it as well as offer ideas for future LGBT content.

Jadakin

What I think is awesome is that while the thread brings light to the quests, ZoS nor many at large felt the need to. We are FINALLY getting to the point where it's like - oh it's a same sex relationship - <shrug> on to the next quest. I think that's fantastic. So I agree with the OP, but partly because ZoS didn't make a big deal about doing it and even more that the community seems (for the most part) accepting of it as well.