Trans Tuesdays - Krem from Dragon Age: Inquisition

[olivermoss]

Krem was a popular minor characters in Dragon Age and close friend to one of the romance options. It's hard to make much of a post on him because so much ink has been spilled already on the topic. He was initially widely loved, but there have since been some critiques on how awkward him bringing up being trans was. (But, still loads better than Mass Effect: Andromeda or the Dragon Age comics). Letting an audience know a trans character is trans is sometime Bioware has struggled with.

Patrick Weekes has spoken at a few conventions about nearly messing up his character intro badly, but I haven't been able to track down a video of it on YT. But, he did seek feedback from local trans people in his area and did rewrites based on their feedback.

Comments

[mistressofmuses]

I haven't played Dragon Age, though I heard lots about Krem. Both positive and negative. I'm usually inclined to feel like a slightly awkward introduction is better than nothing, but... awkward isn't always great.

[olivermoss]

Bioware needs to relax it's 'players must know immediately' fixation. Stories take place over time. In GW2 we know Sya is trans because we knew her pre-transition.

I'll post about them in upcoming weeks, but Mass Effect literally had a character go 'I'm trans and my deadname is' In the comics Maevaris has her dress ripped off in the overly-done 'body reveal' approach. And often writers of that approach don't... get the impact. They just go 'ooh, big drama' and don't even parse that it can be sexual assault.

[mistressofmuses]

PLEASE. Let stories happen without needing to dump ALL THE INFO RIGHT NOW.

Oof, that's a... rough intro. As is the "uh, actually that's assault??" approach. Yikes, I wish that particular style of "reveal" would take a long walk and maybe not come back. I think that there's often a serious lack in respect for bodily autonomy ANYWAY, but it seems to be ten-fold a problem for trans characters. (And real people, for that matter, but ugh.)

[olivermoss]

I feel like so many writers just can't resist a high drama reveal, strong emotional reaction and the clarity of it. In Guild Wars 2, Sya was written by a trans dev and she wrote a reveal that is .... it's the sort of finding out that happens a lot in real life. "oh hey, yeah, this is awkward but uh..."

Maevaris will likely be in the upcoming Dragon Age game, since it's set where she lives.

[mistressofmuses]

Yeah, I guess the high drama appeals to a certain style of storytelling, and too many people don't think through the ramifications of that being the way something so personal is revealed.
And the more realistic, mundane "reveal" is so often just kind of... yeah, a maybe-kinda awkward conversation. And ideally, low-drama!

[olivermoss]

Easy emotional buttons to push! SO tempting!

Yeah, I think pulling from real life is more compelling and interesting, but harder to do.