A Competent Gay Character? Hurray!

[Laddy]

I picked up Fallout New Vegas (very good game, pick it up) and I noticed something very, very much awesome in this game.

In New Vegas, you can have one humaoin and one non-humanoid character at a time. Well, Arcade is one such companion. He's a funny, extremely intelligent, and very moral genius, doctor, scientist, philanthropist, and general do-gooder. He has one of the highest Intelligences out of any companion (he's the max at 10) and is very much a Good character. (He spends his life healing the sick and fighting for justice and his own expense often times.) He's charming, cool, competent, useful, deep, and likable. And he's gay. He's not wussy, but she's not stereotypically bear-ish. He's very much open of his sexuality, but not promiscous. He's not a novelty, he's not a joke, and he's not a stereotype. In fact, his endings are all (SPOILER)noble sacrifices at the expense of his own life. He's well-voiced by Zachary Levi and is a step forward from positive potrayls of gay people in the media.

Discuss gay characters in video games.

[Madame Adequate]

I saw the thread title and I was totally going to use New Vegas as an example. Only I was going to say you can be a gay character and nothing bad comes of it, in fact it can open more dialog options etc.

Hurrah for Obsidian!

[Bolivar]

Well I'm playing Valkyria Chronicles DLC: Enter the Edy Detachment right now, and the game goes to lengths to make you sure just how gay the buff lancer is on your team. He has subtle hints of make-up, speaks with the expected actor gay-voice, a lisp, calls everyone sweetie (even the tanks he blows up), and has character abilities such as "Fancies Men" where he giddily proclaims "Look at all these muscles!!!"

While he's a strong dude who reliably gets a considerably macho job done, with a strong sense of fighting for what's right, he's unfortunately nowhere near the forward-moving character Arcade seems to be.

He's a stereotype within a stereotype, but honeslty, that's what the cast of Valkyria Chronicles characters was meant to be. You pick a large roster out of a large pool at the beginning of the game, and not all characters work well together, even disliking eachother, and when they're in eachother's vicinity, and both of their abilities going down. I wouldn't be surprised if there was an insecure, overcompensating homophobe available as well.

[Madame Adequate]

Oh, also, ending spoilers about Arcade Gannon for New Vegas:

(SPOILER)If he gets captured by the Legion and forced to be Caesar's personal doctor, he guts himself with a scalpel to escape it. Bad. Ass.

[kotora]

Solid Snake and Otacon were pretty competent in their respective fields

[Laddy]

Yeah. Arcade's pretty win and very well-written. I believe Veronica is gay too, but I haven't picked her up yet.

EDIT: I also like how much of a smartass is, it's a nice contrast to his very moral personality. He's kinda like Zervran, but good. In fact, he's one of the most moral characters I've seen in a CRPG.

[NeoCracker]

Veronica is gay, possibly by, and she's my favorite companion. I love the line 'PUnching, the gift that keeps on giving' so much.

[Madame Adequate]

Wait, Veronica is gay? God damnit why didn't I pick her up with my last character instead of sticking with Boone forever Now I'm a MAN and I have Veronica but her adorable love is forever beyond my reach.

[Roogle]

The media will eventually want to avoid the use of this trope: Bury Your Gays

I think that it is a very progressive approach to include a moral, upright character in the roster that happens to be homosexual. Like any minority, proper care needs to be taken to make sure that they are properly represented without unfortunate implications.

[NorthernChaosGod]

Dude, why would you link to two TVTropes pages?

[Madame Adequate]

Because there is no kill like overkill, of course!

[DMKA]

Aside of games like Fable where the character is one of your own shaping, I can't think of any game I've ever played where there was a gay character that wasn't stereotypically flamboyant/effeminate, except for the electric dude in Metal Gear Solid 3...but he was technically bisexual.

So that's pretty cool.

[G13]

Wasn't there a gay character in Enchanted Arms? I'm not sure it was a dude tbh, I didn't play enough of that game to find out. :/

[Roto13]

Zangief is gay. Believe it.

[DMKA]

Zangief is gay. Believe it.

Eh it's implied in a few of the SF games but never really confirmed. But I like to think that he is.

I think the only SF character who is 100% confirmed gay was Eagle (though I think this was lost in translation), and that's only because Capcom decided they wanted to pay tribute to Freddie Mercury.