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Trans Characters in Guild Wars 2
Mar. 6th, 2022 04:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
olivermossI've been wanting to post about Sya from Guild Wars 2, but she is also a very minor character. But now that the game has a second known trans character, Yao, I can talk about them together.
Guild Wars 2 players first met Sya pre-transition when the game's many hub city was attacked. She's an aid worker we coordinate with to evac the city. We run into later and she recognizes us, and if we choose the 'Have we met before' dialogue she explains about how the events taught her that life is short and she needs to embrace herself.
The character was written by Jessica Croft, a transwoman who was a Guild Wars 2 dev at the time. She wanted to give a realistic vibe to why the player might know a character was trans and drew from her own experience. Most of her friends know she's trans because they've known her a while and seen part of her journey.
While this is a very interesting example of a good approach to a video game character, to date Sya is a very minor character and has very little dialogue.
"I added Aid Worker Sya thinking a couple people would notice in GW2. Im overwhelmed by the positive reaction to her" Jessica tweeted at the time.
( And now we have Yao in the new End of Dragons expansion. No real spoilers below the cut, almost all of this was in the promo materials )
Guild Wars 2 players first met Sya pre-transition when the game's many hub city was attacked. She's an aid worker we coordinate with to evac the city. We run into later and she recognizes us, and if we choose the 'Have we met before' dialogue she explains about how the events taught her that life is short and she needs to embrace herself.
The character was written by Jessica Croft, a transwoman who was a Guild Wars 2 dev at the time. She wanted to give a realistic vibe to why the player might know a character was trans and drew from her own experience. Most of her friends know she's trans because they've known her a while and seen part of her journey.
While this is a very interesting example of a good approach to a video game character, to date Sya is a very minor character and has very little dialogue.
"I added Aid Worker Sya thinking a couple people would notice in GW2. Im overwhelmed by the positive reaction to her" Jessica tweeted at the time.
( And now we have Yao in the new End of Dragons expansion. No real spoilers below the cut, almost all of this was in the promo materials )
