LGBT Quests

Laura

There are lesbian quest lines. Plenty of them in ebonheart I can confirm.

I don't really think this needed to be a thread. I thought the flow of the LGBT quests was natural and really didn't need to be called out. Its difficult for it to feel like the norm if we keep doing things like this.

Before someone says I'm trolling my son is gay and as he would put it "it would be cool if people would just accept it as normal instead of putting the spotlight on me in the name of acceptance"

Please close this thread.

Ariane

I think of them in a very natural way, without need of pointing those quests out, but this is because to me they're not a big deal.

They are a big deal to many people, because of the repression they've suffered along history, so I can understand why people may want to create a thread to thank for making this a natural way of expressing love.

It doesn't hurt

MasterSpatula

I love that the legacy of Uncle Crassius lives on.

(Or rather that Uncle Crassius is part of this legacy, in a sense.)

nudel

I do not agree with those calling for this thread to be closed. As others have already said, it's good to let the producers know that some like this change. There are still people out there who will probably right hatemail to ZOS for it being in the game. Why can we not applaud them for the same design so that they know it wasn't largely unappreciated by the community?

Further I have to agree with those who keep saying that the constant reference to 'my husband' or 'my wife' does happen in real life with straight couples as well as gay. It's just something people do and I don't see the big deal. Perhaps those who think it's too obvious and "pushing the gay agenda" are a little oversensitive about the topic. I've also played quests where someone kept referring to "my sister" all the time instead of calling her by name. I don't see anyone complaining that the quest giver was pushing the sibling agenda. People talk in different ways. Some keep highlighting their relationship, while others don't feel the need. I have encountered same-sex couples in the game who did not constantly call attention to it. The Dunmer and Khajiit in the Hollow City are a good example of this, so much so that people who only find part of the pairing often mistake the other half for being a straight male. Their dialogue in that case calls attention to their race differences more than gender, but it's not trying to push the race card either. The point of highlighting the race differences is to make the joke funny. The Khajiit is trying to show the Dunmer enchanter that she likes her and in so doing, she does a lot of things common real-life house cats do. The head bump. The leaving of a dead skeever. Anyone who does not find this a cute moment is just reading way too much into it.

ZOS_MichelleA

Hello, all. We have removed several posts from this thread, and wanted to explain why. If anyone ever has questions or concerns about a decision we have made on the ESO forums, such as a thread being closed, we ask that you please contact http://help.elderscrollsonline.com/ to do so (please specify that you are contacting about a forum-related inquiry or appeal). Discussing it in a separate thread is not constructive, and easily derails the existing conversation. Thank you for your understanding.

Ahnjil

Jadakin wrote: »

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.

I don't. Not because I fear gays, but I don't think they fit into a medieval setting.
Players should be allowed gay-marriage of course, but seeing npcs in gay-marriage
is immersion-breaking and takes me from the gaming experience. I don't want Tamriel to be part of the real-life quarrel (right word?)of gays being accepted or not.

Arato

I don't mind the lesbian and gay NPC's in this game, or the ability for gay marriage between players. I don't mind them at all as long as its balanced with heterosexual relationships. Too often in an attempt to be "progressive" developers kind of get to a point of being preachy about it. GW2 has more high profile Lesbian relationships than any other type, and its kind of goitten preachy.

The relationships just need to be treated as a matter of fact in the game world like heterosexual relationships. Like, a female NPC asking you to help her find a cure for her wife's illness... just leave it at that. What we don't need is a question we have to ask to take the quest where our characters get incredulous and force the NPC to explain why she has a same sex wife, and hear her story about how she was persecuted in their old village, etc. That to me is immersion breaking because it seems more like trying to push real world politics into the game. I don't need real world pol;itical agenda, to me.. those relationships have been treated just like any other in Tamriel and have been socially acceptable for a long time, my character shouldn't be questioning it, my character should just be saying okay so where can I start looking to help your wife?

Ahnjil

Arato wrote: »

I don't mind the lesbian and gay NPC's in this game, or the ability for gay marriage between players. I don't mind them at all as long as its balanced with heterosexual relationships. Too often in an attempt to be "progressive" developers kind of get to a point of being preachy about it. GW2 has more high profile Lesbian relationships than any other type, and its kind of goitten preachy.

The relationships just need to be treated as a matter of fact in the game world like heterosexual relationships. Like, a female NPC asking you to help her find a cure for her wife's illness... just leave it at that. What we don't need is a question we have to ask to take the quest where our characters get incredulous and force the NPC to explain why she has a same sex wife, and hear her story about how she was persecuted in their old village, etc. That to me is immersion breaking because it seems more like trying to push real world politics into the game. I don't need real world pol;itical agenda, to me.. those relationships have been treated just like any other in Tamriel and have been socially acceptable for a long time, my character shouldn't be questioning it, my character should just be saying okay so where can I start looking to help your wife?

Fair enough. If they are in the game,
it's better that they aren't "preaching" so that I can just try and ignore them.

Arato

Ahnjil wrote: »

Arato wrote: »

I don't mind the lesbian and gay NPC's in this game, or the ability for gay marriage between players. I don't mind them at all as long as its balanced with heterosexual relationships. Too often in an attempt to be "progressive" developers kind of get to a point of being preachy about it. GW2 has more high profile Lesbian relationships than any other type, and its kind of goitten preachy.

The relationships just need to be treated as a matter of fact in the game world like heterosexual relationships. Like, a female NPC asking you to help her find a cure for her wife's illness... just leave it at that. What we don't need is a question we have to ask to take the quest where our characters get incredulous and force the NPC to explain why she has a same sex wife, and hear her story about how she was persecuted in their old village, etc. That to me is immersion breaking because it seems more like trying to push real world politics into the game. I don't need real world pol;itical agenda, to me.. those relationships have been treated just like any other in Tamriel and have been socially acceptable for a long time, my character shouldn't be questioning it, my character should just be saying okay so where can I start looking to help your wife?

Fair enough. If they are in the game,
it's better that they aren't "preaching" so that I can just try and ignore them.

For the most part they aren't preachy, I have heard there is one example where it gets preachy and it's dialogue like I mentioned where your character asks why they have a wife and forces the NPC to explain they were persecuted blah blah blah real world politics and agenda blah blah.

Most times I've seen it though, it's never questioned, your character accepts it as any other relationship

nudel

Ahnjil wrote: »

Jadakin wrote: »

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.

I don't. Not because I fear gays, but I don't think they fit into a medieval setting.
Players should be allowed gay-marriage of course, but seeing npcs in gay-marriage
is immersion-breaking and takes me from the gaming experience. I don't want Tamriel to be part of the real-life quarrel (right word?)of gays being accepted or not.

Tamriel is not Medieval Europe.

Ariane

nudel wrote: »

Tamriel is not Medieval Europe.

I'm grateful for that. If this was Medieval Europe, we couldn't be playing strong female hero characters.

I also think most of the quests with LGBT couples don't involve any kind of preaching, probably it depends on the faction and the quest. There are so many quest that it's totally understandable that some of them are about themes as intolerance or racism, but most of them don't

Ahnjil

nudel wrote: »

Ahnjil wrote: »

Jadakin wrote: »

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.

I don't. Not because I fear gays, but I don't think they fit into a medieval setting.
Players should be allowed gay-marriage of course, but seeing npcs in gay-marriage
is immersion-breaking and takes me from the gaming experience. I don't want Tamriel to be part of the real-life quarrel (right word?)of gays being accepted or not.

Tamriel is not Medieval Europe.

It is very much like it.

Aluluei

Well.

I missed all the excitement, but I gather than this thread became a little heated over the past few days. What a pity. I made the original post because I wanted to share a funny quest idea I had which lampooned a number of common tropes: not just heteronormativity, but also the Damsel in Distress, the Star-Crossed Lovers, the Stern Father, and the (ubiquitous in Skyrim) quests where some lazy NPC demands that you do their job for them and go off and fetch 15 bear pelts/soul gems/mountain flowers.

I'm sorry that things devolved. I'd like to thank the ZOS staff who stepped in, both for nipping any nastiness in the bud and for not just nuking the whole thread. I think that shows considerable mindfulness, and an admirable willingness to take a moral stand. I imagine it would have been much easier for ZOS to have omitted gay NPCs and deleted any threads on the topic. I'd like to think this is an acknowledgement of the old saying that if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem precipitate (which in this case consists of **** raining down on gay people).

Aluluei

Ahnjil wrote: »

Not because I fear gays, but I don't think they fit into a medieval setting. [...]
seeing npcs in gay-marriage is immersion-breaking and takes me from the gaming experience.

Hmm. So out-and-unpersecuted gay NPCs break your sense of immersion in a medieval setting -- but not the talking cat-people, aedra and daedra, teleport stations, magic potions and insta-horses? I accept your word for it that you don't consciously fear gays, but you might consider reflecting on why that one thing disturbs you, but none of the others do.

On a lighter note, I finally found the Khajiit/Dunmer pair mentioned by @Lovely, who turned out to be the same couple that @Ulvich and @Pyatra posted about. They are hilarious and adorable For others who want to find them, Irrki the Khajiit has a weapons stall at the Hollow City marketplace, and Davilia the Dunmer runs the enchantment shop around the corner. I recommend speaking to Irrki first and Davilia second.

Ahnjil

Aluluei wrote: »

Ahnjil wrote: »

Not because I fear gays, but I don't think they fit into a medieval setting. [...]
seeing npcs in gay-marriage is immersion-breaking and takes me from the gaming experience.

Hmm. So out-and-unpersecuted gay NPCs break your sense of immersion in a medieval setting -- but not the talking cat-people, aedra and daedra, teleport stations, magic potions and insta-horses? I accept your word for it that you don't consciously fear gays, but you might consider reflecting on why that one thing disturbs you, but none of the others do.

Insta-horses and teleport stations would hurt immersion, but they're game mechanic so it doesn't matter. Just like menus don't, and skills etc. The other things- it's a fantasy setting, so as long as those things are lore-friendly, they don't break the immersion.

Back to the matter at hand: If there had been gays in previous TES games and there would have been lore on how they are tolerated in such a primitive world, I would accept them in TES.

Let's look at the facts: Other games that are set ~800-1000 years after TESO, have only one gay and he isn't married or anything. But in ESO there are gays and that is so obviously because of the attitude changes that have happened in real life.

There is racism in TES, even though it's not accepted in real life. There is slavery in TES, even though it's not accepted in real life. There are wars in TES, even though they aren't accepted in real life. So, because of lore and realism, I don't like that there are gays in ESO.

Seabreeze

Aluluei wrote: »

Well.

I missed all the excitement, but I gather than this thread became a little heated over the past few days.

It really wasn't anything major at all. One person felt they were being excluded because they aren't LGBT, so they got a little cranky. Personally, I don't think it was worth deleting comments over, but it's not my place to decide how that works.

Allyah

Seabreeze wrote: »

Aluluei wrote: »

Well.

I missed all the excitement, but I gather than this thread became a little heated over the past few days.

It really wasn't anything major at all. One person felt they were being excluded because they aren't LGBT, so they got a little cranky. Personally, I don't think it was worth deleting comments over, but it's not my place to decide how that works.

One person got "cranky" because an alternate thread that mentioned Heterosexual Quests got taken down while this one survives. Double standard at its finest.

You are right about it not being worth deleting the comments over, though.

Ahnjil

Allyah wrote: »

Seabreeze wrote: »

Aluluei wrote: »

Well.

I missed all the excitement, but I gather than this thread became a little heated over the past few days.

It really wasn't anything major at all. One person felt they were being excluded because they aren't LGBT, so they got a little cranky. Personally, I don't think it was worth deleting comments over, but it's not my place to decide how that works.

One person got "cranky" because an alternate thread that mentioned Heterosexual Quests got taken down while this one survives. Double standard at its finest.

You are right about it not being worth deleting the comments over, though.

I think you can't exclude the minority.
For example if there was a party for... mythbusters fans, it would be only for mythbusters fans. However, if there was a party for everyone, it would be wrong to disallow mythbusters fans access, just because they have their own party.

But if you were calm, then removing your posts sounds like opinion censorship, I'll give you that.

Seabreeze

Allyah wrote: »

Seabreeze wrote: »

Aluluei wrote: »

Well.

I missed all the excitement, but I gather than this thread became a little heated over the past few days.

It really wasn't anything major at all. One person felt they were being excluded because they aren't LGBT, so they got a little cranky. Personally, I don't think it was worth deleting comments over, but it's not my place to decide how that works.

One person got "cranky" because an alternate thread that mentioned Heterosexual Quests got taken down while this one survives. Double standard at its finest.

You are right about it not being worth deleting the comments over, though.

I meant no ill will toward you by saying you were "cranky." It was simply the nicest way for me to explain it. I also don't think you were trolling (there was obvious sarcasm involved, but I don't think that makes you a troll). I think you genuinely feel left out, hence why you made that thread. You seemed annoyed when you made it, and I understand that the closure of it made you more upset.

Just remember that not everyone is out to separate themselves or to push you away. There might be some people like that (I know there are, as I've dealt with many in LGBT communities), but there are also those who try to be inclusive. Try to focus on the good ones, if you can.

Rosveen

Hey, I tried, but that thread was 95% personal jabs and so doomed to die.

Back to TES, you're not entirely correct, Ahnjil. There's been more than one gay NPC in the previous games, there were couples; look up my post on the previous page. We don't know if they were married, the games didn't say, we don't know how they were perceived by other people. But there is no evidence that they weren't accepted, so we cannot assume this to be true just because we think it should be in a medievalesque fantasy setting. Tamriel has magic leaking through the sun and spaceships and time travel; why should its society be exactly like ours?

What we do know is that nobody has a problem with the player character's same-sex marriage in Skyrim; that at least some Khajiit are open-minded about it (Ahzirr Traajijazeri, "Life is short. If you have not made love recently, please, put down this book, and take care of that with all haste. Find a wanton lass or a frisky lad, or several, in whatever combination your wise loins direct, and do not under any circumstances play hard to get. Our struggle against the colossal forces of oppression can wait.") And now that it's completely normal in ESO.

So there really is no basis for saying that it's lore-breaking. This is not a political statement, it's been there for years.

Allyah

Seabreeze wrote: »

Allyah wrote: »

Seabreeze wrote: »

Aluluei wrote: »

Well.

I missed all the excitement, but I gather than this thread became a little heated over the past few days.

It really wasn't anything major at all. One person felt they were being excluded because they aren't LGBT, so they got a little cranky. Personally, I don't think it was worth deleting comments over, but it's not my place to decide how that works.

One person got "cranky" because an alternate thread that mentioned Heterosexual Quests got taken down while this one survives. Double standard at its finest.

You are right about it not being worth deleting the comments over, though.

I meant no ill will toward you by saying you were "cranky." It was simply the nicest way for me to explain it. I also don't think you were trolling (there was obvious sarcasm involved, but I don't think that makes you a troll). I think you genuinely feel left out, hence why you made that thread. You seemed annoyed when you made it, and I understand that the closure of it made you more upset.

Just remember that not everyone is out to separate themselves or to push you away. There might be some people like that (I know there are, as I've dealt with many in LGBT communities), but there are also those who try to be inclusive. Try to focus on the good ones, if you can.

I actually didn't make that other one because I was annoyed. I think some people mistook my sarcasm for bigotry. I wasn't even annoyed by the people outright calling me a bigot. I see where they might have got the idea. That doesn't change the fact that they missed my intent by a mile. I actually wasn't all that annoyed by this thread until the alternate one got taken down. In any case, what's done is done. Not worth making a big deal over (anymore than it already has, anyway).

Rosveen wrote: »

Hey, I tried, but that thread was 95% personal jabs and so doomed to die.

You don't know how much I appreciated a real response from someone. I probably shouldn't have responded at all to anyone. Only seemed to escalate the ire. I did try to keep it lighthearted but people seemed to want to think the worst of me. Viva la internet.

Ahnjil

Rosveen wrote: »

Hey, I tried, but that thread was 95% personal jabs and so doomed to die.

Back to TES, you're not entirely correct, Ahnjil. There's been more than one gay NPC in the previous games, there were couples; look up my post on the previous page. We don't know if they were married, the games didn't say, we don't know how they were perceived by other people. But there is no evidence that they weren't accepted, so we cannot assume this to be true just because we think it should be in a medievalesque fantasy setting. Tamriel has magic leaking through the sun and spaceships and time travel; why should its society be exactly like ours?

What we do know is that nobody has a problem with the player character's same-sex marriage in Skyrim; that at least some Khajiit are open-minded about it (Ahzirr Traajijazeri, "Life is short. If you have not made love recently, please, put down this book, and take care of that with all haste. Find a wanton lass or a frisky lad, or several, in whatever combination your wise loins direct, and do not under any circumstances play hard to get. Our struggle against the colossal forces of oppression can wait.") And now that it's completely normal in ESO.

So there really is no basis for saying that it's lore-breaking. This is not a political statement, it's been there for years.

This amount of gay marriages a thousand years before the other games is a little lore breaking. About Tamriel being a fantasy world: This is not about what there is, but what is accepted. If there had been magic in real life and in common use, it would have been accepted. But it's a primitive world, like ours was and the people are like our people were and are, with same sins and same virtues.

In real world, gays were rarely accepted. But in ESO, they are accepted everywhere. That amount of gay acceptance is just not realistic in a world full of intolerance like Tamriel is. As for player marriages - let players do what they want. Forbidding them would also be seen as taking part in the gay quarrel.

Allyah

Ahnjil wrote: »

Rosveen wrote: »

Hey, I tried, but that thread was 95% personal jabs and so doomed to die.

Back to TES, you're not entirely correct, Ahnjil. There's been more than one gay NPC in the previous games, there were couples; look up my post on the previous page. We don't know if they were married, the games didn't say, we don't know how they were perceived by other people. But there is no evidence that they weren't accepted, so we cannot assume this to be true just because we think it should be in a medievalesque fantasy setting. Tamriel has magic leaking through the sun and spaceships and time travel; why should its society be exactly like ours?

What we do know is that nobody has a problem with the player character's same-sex marriage in Skyrim; that at least some Khajiit are open-minded about it (Ahzirr Traajijazeri, "Life is short. If you have not made love recently, please, put down this book, and take care of that with all haste. Find a wanton lass or a frisky lad, or several, in whatever combination your wise loins direct, and do not under any circumstances play hard to get. Our struggle against the colossal forces of oppression can wait.") And now that it's completely normal in ESO.

So there really is no basis for saying that it's lore-breaking. This is not a political statement, it's been there for years.

This amount of gay marriages a thousand years before the other games is a little lore breaking. About Tamriel being a fantasy world: This is not about what there is, but what is accepted. If there had been magic in real life and in common use, it would have been accepted. But it's a primitive world, like ours was and the people are like our people were and are, with same sins and same virtues.

In real world, gays were rarely accepted. But in ESO, they are accepted everywhere. That amount of gay acceptance is just not realistic in a world full of intolerance like Tamriel is. As for player marriages - let players do what they want. Forbidding them would also be seen as taking part in the gay quarrel.

Actually, I was leaning more on the side that it wasn't lore-breaking until you said that. It's strange but I never even thought about why the "issue" of gay/lesbian marriage is shown more tolerance than other "issues" such as race. Guess I have more to think about.

Aluluei

(Note: I've had this post sitting in drafts for over a day, going back and forth over whether to post it, because it contains personal information. Given the number of views this thread has attracted, that may be risky -- and, more pertinently, one of the points I want to make is that this isn't all about me. Unfortunately, I can't think of any way to make that point without explaining why that's the case.)

Seabreeze wrote: »

One person felt they were being excluded because they aren't LGBT

I find that attitude disappointing. Western popular culture is saturated with heterosexual romantic content. From Nicholas Sparks novels, to popular music, to primetime TV family sitcoms, to celebrity gossip magazines, to every romantic comedy movie ever made... the overwhelming majority of cultural content concerned with romantic relationships is about straight couples. Looking only at ESO, almost all the couples you encounter are straight. Where quests are concerned, fully one quarter of the quests in Malabal Tor concerned the love triangle between the Silvenar, the Green Lady and the Hound, with the storyline culminating in a beautiful wedding. There was just one short side-quest which involved a gay couple, only one of whom we actually meet.

Some straight people seem so accustomed to having a monopoly on romantic content that the scant handful of gay couples in ESO are seen as marginalizing -- even threatening -- their dominant position. Others seem to feel that they are being tolerant by being willing to accept that players should be able to enter into gay marriages, so long as gay NPCs aren't visible or are, at the very least, easy to ignore.

Those attitudes seem very sad to me. Other people's happiness does not detract from mine; the acknowledgement of other people's lives does not mean I am being ignored. Human rights are not a zero-sum game. If the nice young men who live up the street were allowed to legally marry, it would not result in me being forcibly divorced from my husband. I am a 44-year-old stay-at-home-mom and part-time school librarian, and I don't think you can get much more respectably "traditional-family-values" than that. The issue does not directly affect me or my family, yet I care passionately about gay rights. I cheer every time another state adopts marriage equality, and I am filled with joy when I see pictures of all those happy newlyweds. I have volunteered to phone-bank for political groups working on this, something which several of my acquaintances met not with hostility but with a puzzled, "But why do you care?" Well, I care because I believe that the more happiness and love there is in the world, and the less sadness and loneliness, the better that world is. I care not because it is about me, but because everyone should have a right to recognition and acceptance. I care because I care about other people.

I wish more people agreed with me.

Milanna

We are talking about Tamriel here.
Why would homosexuality or the acceptance of it be lore-breaking?

Have you MET the daedric princes?

seanolan

Ahnjil wrote: »

nudel wrote: »

Ahnjil wrote: »

Jadakin wrote: »

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.

I don't. Not because I fear gays, but I don't think they fit into a medieval setting.
Players should be allowed gay-marriage of course, but seeing npcs in gay-marriage
is immersion-breaking and takes me from the gaming experience. I don't want Tamriel to be part of the real-life quarrel (right word?)of gays being accepted or not.

Tamriel is not Medieval Europe.

It is very much like it.

Oh, dear GODS, do you need a history lesson.

1) Well-fed people
2) Nobility and peasantry actually interacting
3) Money - people have it and use it to trade (MOST medieval transactions among peasantry and even middle class was barter, up until the late medieval period)
4) People walking around armed without being challenged
5) Complete lack of filth
6) Building sizes
7) Furniture, beds, books - BOOKS! A "library" in medieval times might have 20-100 books at most, and a household might own 2-3 books and consider themselves well-read!
8) No dominance of religion - religion exists, but has nowhere near the political power
9) Ease of access to guilds - guilds were hereditary or based solely on apprenticeship where not exclusively hereditary. You didn't JOIN a guild. You apprenticed for 7 YEARS under a master, and then tested, and maybe you were accepted, maybe not.

This, of course, is ignoring the matters of races, magic, daedra, teleporting wayshrines, armor made of ebony, short distances between settlements, the few farms compared to the number of people, the fantastical creatures, the time frames for crafting, lack of sleeping and eating for players, etc. that are just part and parcel of an MMO. This is NOTHING like medieval times.

luizterra23

I totally support the LGBT quests, but I feel that something is lacking: Where are the poligamic NPCs?

seanolan

Allyah wrote: »

Ahnjil wrote: »

Rosveen wrote: »

Hey, I tried, but that thread was 95% personal jabs and so doomed to die.

Back to TES, you're not entirely correct, Ahnjil. There's been more than one gay NPC in the previous games, there were couples; look up my post on the previous page. We don't know if they were married, the games didn't say, we don't know how they were perceived by other people. But there is no evidence that they weren't accepted, so we cannot assume this to be true just because we think it should be in a medievalesque fantasy setting. Tamriel has magic leaking through the sun and spaceships and time travel; why should its society be exactly like ours?

What we do know is that nobody has a problem with the player character's same-sex marriage in Skyrim; that at least some Khajiit are open-minded about it (Ahzirr Traajijazeri, "Life is short. If you have not made love recently, please, put down this book, and take care of that with all haste. Find a wanton lass or a frisky lad, or several, in whatever combination your wise loins direct, and do not under any circumstances play hard to get. Our struggle against the colossal forces of oppression can wait.") And now that it's completely normal in ESO.

So there really is no basis for saying that it's lore-breaking. This is not a political statement, it's been there for years.

This amount of gay marriages a thousand years before the other games is a little lore breaking. About Tamriel being a fantasy world: This is not about what there is, but what is accepted. If there had been magic in real life and in common use, it would have been accepted. But it's a primitive world, like ours was and the people are like our people were and are, with same sins and same virtues.

In real world, gays were rarely accepted. But in ESO, they are accepted everywhere. That amount of gay acceptance is just not realistic in a world full of intolerance like Tamriel is. As for player marriages - let players do what they want. Forbidding them would also be seen as taking part in the gay quarrel.

Actually, I was leaning more on the side that it wasn't lore-breaking until you said that. It's strange but I never even thought about why the "issue" of gay/lesbian marriage is shown more tolerance than other "issues" such as race. Guess I have more to think about.

A large amount of the bigotry towards homosexuality has a religious basis. While numerous religions in Tamriel mention racial superiority, none mention sexuality. Hence I have no trouble believing in a society that hates other races, yet has no bias against sexual orientation. Some of the most aggressive and war-like Native American tribes, xenophobic and hostile, still had no bias against the homosexuals, who took in children who had lost parents. The Spartans are another good example of xenophobia without homophobia. So I don't find intolerance that doesn't match our society's to be particularly implausible.

Sephirajo

Ahnjil wrote: »

nudel wrote: »

Ahnjil wrote: »

Jadakin wrote: »

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.

I don't. Not because I fear gays, but I don't think they fit into a medieval setting.
Players should be allowed gay-marriage of course, but seeing npcs in gay-marriage
is immersion-breaking and takes me from the gaming experience. I don't want Tamriel to be part of the real-life quarrel (right word?)of gays being accepted or not.

Tamriel is not Medieval Europe.

It is very much like it.

You do realize that even in Medieval Europe there were gay, lesbian, bisexual and pansexual people, right? And they often formed loving relationships with each other, even if it wasn't marriage, right? Sorry, your argument is totally invalid and besides, "LOL MEDIEVAL EUROPE" is a sorry reason NOT to include this stuff in a fantasy game. It doesn't break immersion to be reminded that people exist.

luizterra23

seanolan wrote: »

; A large amount of the bigotry towards homosexuality has a religious basis. While numerous religions in Tamriel mention racial superiority, none mention sexuality. Hence I have no trouble believing in a society that hates other races, yet has no bias against sexual orientation. Some of the most aggressive and war-like Native American tribes, xenophobic and hostile, still had no bias against the homosexuals, who took in children who had lost parents. The Spartans are another good example of xenophobia without homophobia. So I don't find intolerance that doesn't match our society's to be particularly implausible.

Just to me reminded that in ancient greece homosexuliaty was not only tolerated, but incentivated! Women were seen as an incomplete being, and even philosophers were supporting the idea that true love could happen only between men. Apprenticeship was supported by homosexuality, implying that the knowledge could be only effectively transfered through the master's ***.

In native american society, homosexual men are seen to have stronger spiritual communion, so they are usually taking roles of utterly importance in their tribes such as shamans and even chieftains.