On Taash and the thought of queer characters who really feel ‘too protected’

It is a story about worry and anxiousness.

It’s additionally about Taash, the fire-breathing qunari companion in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Once I was enjoying by means of the sport for my evaluate, they have been one in all my favourite people to have alongside on missions. There are numerous the explanation why and a few are simply sensible: I used to be enjoying a mage, so having a warrior available for Warrior Stuff™ was helpful, however I additionally loved Taash’s snarky and sensible method to the world. Each time one other get together member would get misplaced in their very own head about one thing, Taash’s “That’s vashedan!” would inevitably yank them again out in a enjoyable approach.

Taash can also be nonbinary, which is one in all two axes their character battle and improvement rotate round. The opposite is that they have been born within the lands of the Qun, a spiritual and deeply stratified society, however they have been raised in Rivain, a close-enough Mediterranean analog with a sharply contrasting tradition. In each respects, Taash is offered to us as a personality who feels pulled between opposing poles by these forces of their life. Taash’s mom, Shathann, is an knowledgeable in Qun historical past and a stern and lecturing sort who appears to disapprove of all the pieces “nontraditional” her little one does, together with each not being female sufficient and never following the Qun sufficient.

My second of worry about Taash got here once I encountered a selected in-game codex entry: Taash Notes: Assembly Shadow Dragons to Discuss Gender Stuff. A hefty variety of codex entries involving Taash are framed as notes they tackle varied topics (together with one on how you can set traps within the Lighthouse, which I loved). Their notes on gender unlock after a dialog with Neve and Rook about Taash’s discomfort with their gender identification; the implication is that Neve hooked Taash up with trans people within the Shadow Dragons faction who may need helpful info on the topic.

Sadly, this codex entry feels each awkward and misplaced. Not essentially dangerous — there’s nothing in it that made me go “that’s clearly unfaithful” or something of the kind. That mentioned, if this have been a Mass Impact recreation and never a Dragon Age one, it might be extraordinarily straightforward to color this codex entry as Taash’s web search historical past. It has extraordinarily sturdy “child queer individual googling what ‘queer’ means and writing it down” power, as a result of that’s mainly what it’s. With out an in-game web, Taash has to depend on chatting with precise individuals; with out in-game social media, they get their ideas out on paper to make sense of them.

Taash’s notes cowl all the pieces from what dysphoria is, to scuffling with the definition of the time period “nonbinary,” to uplifting testimonials from mentioned trans NPCs about what gender means, to the actually said “Trans girl IS girl.” Talking from expertise, and as somebody who was figuring out their sexuality at a time when the web was not even remotely as broadly obtainable as it’s as we speak, these are the form of notes and scribbles I might have written, it’s true, however within the course of they will come throughout in a really “right here’s Taash’s Being Genderqueer 101 weblog publish” form of approach.

Since Taash’s approach of talking is already comparatively casual and “modern-sounding” in comparison with different get together members, that contributes to the sensation that that is simply ever so barely misplaced. Critics and followers have argued that “nonbinary,” an already trendy time period, wanted an in-universe equal, which I disagree with. Harvey Randall at PC Gamer argues that as an alternative, Veilguard’s writers wanted to ascertain extra of how the time period was located within the DA world’s tradition and historical past, and I do suppose contextualizing “nonbinary” in Thedas tradition/language would have helped, but it surely’s not strictly talking required.

As I learn by means of the codex entry, I had a pit-of-the-stomach feeling getting larger with every new phrase. I wasn’t anxious concerning the anti-woke crowd; one, they might hate this recreation regardless, and two, who cares what fools suppose? What anxious me was what my fellow queer gamers must say about it, as a result of in my creativeness, the potential for a deeply unfavourable response loomed massive. That was knowledgeable by my very own studying, too; as a result of the related codex entry had a considerably “101-level” tone — and was delivered in a codex entry and never by means of, say, a scene the place Taash interacts straight with these trans NPCs about this — made me anxious that queer gamers would really feel it didn’t go far sufficient, or would imagine it to be focused at non-queer gamers as an alternative.

Nonetheless, a big a part of my anxiousness got here from private expertise. In the summertime of 2011, I used to be a postdoctoral researcher on the MIT Recreation Lab, which was on the time the Singapore-MIT GAMBIT Recreation Lab. Our partnership with the Singapore Media Growth Authority meant that each summer season, Singaporean recreation dev college students from our Singaporean sister lab would come to Boston, break up into groups alongside native college students from MIT, Berklee Faculty of Music, and Rhode Island Faculty of Design, and make video games in an intensive eight-week program. Particularly, they might make video games that furthered the analysis of teachers working in video games, who utilized to have their tasks chosen.

That summer season, one crew was making a recreation for my analysis. The research sought to know a crew’s course of as they constructed a recreation with a really broad mandate: “Make a recreation with a queer-resonant theme.” In recreation improvement phrases, I used to be product proprietor; one other lab researcher was our recreation director. Whereas we did spend time within the room with the crew to watch them and supply enter and oversight, the sport’s inventive route — story, artwork, sound, gameplay — was within the arms of the scholars, and it was actually their efforts that drove the mission.

The outcome was a recreation referred to as A Closed World, a brief and easy Flash-based RPG. When the sport was launched, it bought good press each internally and externally, with protection by a number of recreation publications, together with Kotaku, in addition to non-games information retailers. Looking back, I’m positive the MIT title opened doorways for us which may not open as simply for different queer creators, notably indie queer creators engaged on their very own. My crew was thrilled to see our little recreation discover constructive reception on this planet, nonetheless.

This isn’t to say we didn’t obtain criticisms for missteps or issues we neglected, and of these, many have been nonetheless the merchandise of intense dialogue and debate among the many crew, or between the crew and myself or my colleague who was serving as recreation director. The sport’s story includes escaping from a seemingly haunted forest; at one level, I recommended the ending contain the primary character discovering a cliffside over clouds and taking a leap of religion to depart their residence and begin a brand new life. Members of my crew argued, convincingly, that such an ending would possibly learn like an try at self-harm as an alternative. Discussions of that sort have been quite a few, and that was a couple of factor that didn’t make the ultimate lower, not to mention what did.

Nonetheless, some high-profile queer indie devs took severe difficulty with it, for varied causes. In one of many extra placing examples, Anna Anthropy made a parody recreation referred to as “A Closed Thoughts,” utilizing an identical visible type however written to counsel our recreation believed intolerance may very well be defeated like a JRPG boss. Lots of the criticisms we obtained on the time recommended that it was a waste for MIT to spend cash having my crew make this recreation; that we didn’t perceive how you can make queer video games, or perceive the problems.

On the time I wanted to be diplomatic in my public responses, since I used to be representing the lab and the college, however in hindsight, issues like “A Closed Thoughts” and accusations that my crew didn’t actually perceive the problems in any respect really feel not solely misplaced however extraordinarily petty. For the members of my crew who recognized as someplace within the vastness of the queer spectrum, accusations from queer devs that the crew wasn’t queer sufficient, or didn’t perceive queer experiences, have been deeply hurtful (and to be sincere, they damage me too). It’s one factor to dislike what we did; that’s pure, and placing artwork on this planet means needing to be ready for individuals to dislike it. This felt like one thing else solely.

That have is what made me scared for Taash’s and Veilguard’s reception. Was it going to get the “not queer sufficient!” label as a result of it had, admittedly, tackled issues at a extra primary and newbie stage than some would possibly like? Would individuals use issues just like the “Taash Notes” codex entry to say that the author(s) didn’t perceive the problems?

Criticism of queerness — or, certainly, a deal with any marginalized identification class — in an inventive work is fraught from the soar. You need to assist creators who make makes an attempt to be inclusive, who actively work to usher in a majority of these characters and themes, however on the similar time, it feels really easy for even essentially the most well-intentioned try at inclusivity to move considerably off the rails anyway — one thing that’s occurred to BioWare earlier than. Thus, it’s obligatory that such criticism have the ability to name “queer work” into consideration for its errors too. It’s such a cautious line to stroll.

The issue is that I feel we as each critics and followers have, over the previous decade plus, created an setting the place creators expertise huge fears about getting it flawed, and producing one thing that isn’t pitch-perfect on the problems in each approach is straight away painted as so dangerous or detrimental the work must be thrown out solely. The anxiousness is actual, however the concrete steps devs can take to deal with considerations may result in constructive outcomes. The rise in sensitivity readers, variety consultants, and different such steps devs can take to move off errors earlier than video games attain the cabinets are an unalloyed good, and so they have roots in an identical place.

Are our solely two choices “getting it proper” and “getting it harmfully flawed,” although? Issues aren’t, for those who’ll excuse the sorta-pun, binary in that approach. I don’t essentially suppose the presentation of Taash’s gender journey is as clever because it may very well be, for positive; I feel it may have been smoother, extra built-in into the setting and into their broader story about selecting who they want to be (Taash’s large, oft-repeated line is “You don’t get to inform me who I’m”). Is it dangerous, although? Or simply to not some gamers’ tastes? With every new take and article and weblog publish I’ve learn, I discover it more durable to justify excoriating the writing crew for Veilguard on this one, of accusing them of “getting queerness flawed.” That’s wild, and I’m not gonna put myself within the place of people that instructed my crew, again in 2011, that their earnest try wasn’t queer sufficient.

I mentioned this was a narrative about worry and anxiousness, and that’s what it’s now, though the pitch I made to Polygon about this story had a really completely different type at first. The unique concept was much less about Taash and extra about how I felt the method to “playersexual” companion story and romance designs in Veilguard was a step ahead from Dragon Age 2 (spoilers: it’s); Taash was extra of a footnote in that story. As I wrote it, although, I used to be getting increasingly more blocked, and I spotted it was as a result of I used to be slicing and rearranging and rewording and watering down what I used to be saying within the curiosity of not upsetting anybody. I didn’t need to criticize too exhausting and have Trick Weekes (Taash’s main author) and the Veilguard crew really feel I used to be attacking them unduly, however I used to be additionally afraid of drawing backlash from queer readers who felt I used to be too forgiving or didn’t go exhausting sufficient.

I feel because of this I’ve such mounting frustration with accusations I’ve seen from critics and gamers saying that Taash is only a cardboard stand-in for the writers’ ideas on gender, or that the writing surrounding it was too “protected” or sanded down or not messy sufficient. After all it’s not messy! Queer gamers and critics have been in remark sections, blogs, and social media posts for years tut-tutting everybody — even different queer devs and indie devs with nowhere close to the assets at their disposal! — for not getting issues pitch-perfect, for not utilizing the actual proper phrases, for being messy in any respect. It’s completely plausible this case is the outcome. Which would you like? Messiness, or infallible politics? You can not have each! They’re antithetical!

Maybe being too protected, too “polished,” is certainly the issue with regards to Taash, or Veilguard’s dealing with of gender broadly, however I’d a lot relatively have an earnest and too-safe try based mostly on an ethos of making an attempt to do proper by us queer gamers than one thing actively dangerous to the neighborhood at massive. Too protected shouldn’t be actively dangerous; too protected is “room for enchancment.” Too protected is a studying alternative.