Veilguard's Trans Representation Critiqued by a Trans Guy

[@btiermutineer]

Due to the overwhelming amount of views and comments I've received on this video, I am unable to answer each and every comment. Please read my FAQ here: 1) nonbinary identities are 100% valid. Even if you personally don't understand it, that doesn't mean they don't exist. Nonbinary identities have existed for so long even if the word "nonbinary" wasn't used back then. 2) nonbinary identities are part of the trans umbrella. There is no need to be trans-exclusionary. Trans = person whose gender identity doesn't match the one assigned to them at birth. Nowhere in this definition does it imply that it's only a binary thing. Transgender is the more general term, nonbinary is a term that falls under the trans umbrella (person whose gender identity doesn't match the one they were assigned at birth, and specifically doesn't identify either as a man or a woman). 3) I am not trying to say that my own experience and opinions as a trans person are the only valid ones. I understand that some people took the wrong message when I discussed the surgery scars. I said that *I personally* don't understand why someone would want to have surgery scars, or why they would want their character to have them. That doesn't mean that everyone thinks the same as me. Some people do take pride and enjoy their surgery scars, and thus it makes sense that they may want to create a character who has them. I still think the Dragon Age setting doesn't make logical sense to have such scars, but that is my autistic need for everything to make logical sense and I know that plenty of people are fine with things that don't fit the setting of a fictional story. 4) you don't have to defend an IP from a multimedia franchise worth hundreds of millions of dollars published by an international corporation just because you think it's your duty as a person of (insert identity here) to do so because you are represented in that piece of media. The representation is of poor quality, the writing is terrible in general (even outside of the representation issues), and the gameplay is mediocre at best. Veilguard is not above criticism simply because it has queer and trans characters in it. In fact, we need to analyze any and all media which represents us, understanding that such representations can have a genuine impact (positive OR negative) on how people like us are perceived and treated in the real world. 5) some people have insinuated that I only made this video out of some kind of need for... attention? Validation? I'm not sure. I'm autistic and I genuinely do not give a sh*t about what people think about me. I made this channel *for myself* because I wanted to have a place where I could talk about things I care about that are related to games and storytelling in games. This video could have gotten a few hundred views for all I care; I made it because representation of "otherness" in media is something that I have cared about for many years and studied for years. If you don't agree with my perspective that is fine, but I would prefer that you keep things civil in the comments section and abstain from insulting me. You may forget this, but I am a human being worthy of respect just like everyone else. There's probably a bunch of other common things I see people write in the comments which are ignorant or disrespectful, but I simply don't have the time or energy to answer everything. If you made a disrespectful comment in bad faith, or misunderstood what I was saying in my video and decided to insult me due to this: shame on you. To everyone else who has left respectful comments even if they disagree with my opinions, thank you. It's absolutely fine to disagree, but please do so respectfully.

[@SideQuestStories]

All identities always were nonbinary, because identity is individual. I miss the 90s when progressives were trying to get rid of labels not collect them like medals.

[@grinstrashcan]

The issue is that you're assuming that this fictional society is written to view non-binary identities as part of the trans umbrella and that their understanding of transgender people fits our own modern understanding. If you actually think for a moment about their culture, same as with genderfluidity, their society cannot work with an idea that some people can be neither a man or a woman or that you can switch between genders, same way you cannot simply 'switch' your role in the Qun. The Qun can accept that a woman or a man was born with a wrong body and will assign you a role fit for the gender you actually see yourself as. Being neither or fluid simply doesn't fit their cultural norms.

[@lunaazul1569]

Unfortunately, there are rules in a society. You can't live pretending that you're in a cabin in the middle of the woods and make up your own rules. On the one hand, I think that in 2024 there are a lot of different terms to refer to something that already existed. Like pansexual or others, which only refer to what has always been known as bisexual. And let me tell you that in 2024 very few people are interested in the sexual preferences of other people. In Western societies at least, these people are perceived as people who need attention and nothing more. On the other hand, we have this non-binary thing. There have always been non-feminine women or tomboys, there have always been effeminate men. That doesn't mean they are both. And we won't enter the realm of intersex because the percentage of this population is so extremely low that they are not even an example, since they generally choose a sex and assume that role for the rest of their lives. Those who want to be non-binary are usually not intersex, they are normal people without any genetic anomaly who simply want to attract attention and look different. And they want to break with the norms of society. Like the use of bathrooms, like the entry into sports. And this is where I ask the question: If they do not pretend to respect the majority of society and want to break with everything, how do they expect society to respect them? I have been a masculine woman for over 40 years. By today's standards, as a teenager many would have tried to convince me that I was trans. I'm just a tomboy. And I feel very lucky to have grown up in the 90s, because I didn't have anyone trying to brainwash me into the healthcare machinery to become a forever patient, which is what many are doing today. And that's why we see endless cases of people detransitioning.

[@jarek94cze]

There is no such thing as non-binary. Humans are binary, always have been, always will be. You are either a male or a female. You just refusing to accept simple truth of life won't change that. Don't wage battle againts reality, you will always loose.

[@AzazelUmbra]

Calling trans an umbrella term is so disrespectful to actual sane trans people. Non-Binary is >> non-binary

[@FWWM0000]

Trans bro here. The Taash coming out scene was so bizarre, because the writers already had the vocabulary to describe a character as non-binary/trans. All they needed to do was have Taash declare that they are “Aqun-athlok.” It has a precedent in the lore, and it avoids the jarring modernity of “non-binary.” This is the ideal situation to introduce a non-binary into the franchise, and the writers still somehow screwed it up.

[@btiermutineer]

Exactly, "Aqun-athlok" already exists within the Qun. I assumed that when they chose Taash to be the nonbinary character, this is why they did it so that Taash would be aware of the Qunari term for trans people. But then Taash gets angry when Shathann says they are Aqun-athlok... makes no sense.

[@ReplicatorFifth]

This baffled me. The Qunari traditional culture is very restrictive in many ways but they have a fluid understanding of gender and that was super cool and unique. So the whole coming out scene was baffling.

[@BBS-dl1lt]

@@btiermutineerI’m confused though…I thought Taash was non-binary, not trans. So how would that word work for describing her?

[@ProphetTruth95]

My only issue with the “Aqun-Athlok” is that Iron Bull & Crem were created & written by Weekes (who is non binary) so they forced themselves into the world of Thedas. Sten made it clear that such as a thing wouldn’t exist. I’ve got NO problem with this representation in these games. Just not within the Qun. 🤷🏽

[@jhepadidaymaypamoa5172]

@@BBS-dl1lt From what I've been told by a trans friend (ally here so I may be wrong), Non-Binary is on the trans-specter. Trans means a change in conformation, so here not conforming to the binarity of gender does count as being trans. At least that's how it was explained to me :)

[@FurbleBurble]

I am not trans, but I am disabled. I would hate to be represented by a character whose sole personality appears to be, "I am disabled." I have found it interesting to listen to your perspective. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

[@livigy]

So you like Neve? She is peg legged and I'm not sure it is even directly mentioned at all.

[@screamingopossum7809]

@@livigy Iron Bull is also disabled. He literally has one eye. IIRC, you can ask how he lost his eye, but it doesn't hover over how his life has changed since he lost his eye. People with disabilities don't particularly want to have those conversations with everyone.

[@FurbleBurble]

@@livigy @screamingopossum7809 I did not realize that Neve is a disabled character. I will take your word for it. I do, however, know about Iron Bull. I like that I can talk to Iron Bull and learn about what happened to him. More important, though, if I don't want to get to know him then I don't have to. He was handled in such a way that his missing eye is not his personality or his sole reason for existing in Inquisition. Iron Bull, to me, is good representation of a disabled person. You have to put forth the effort to get to know him, but _you can choose not to_ if you so desire. Edit: I think Caroline Becker and Max Hass in Wolfenstein: The New Order were also handled well. Their respective issues get discussed multiple times in the game but I never once felt like I was being preached to. There is also Adam Jensen in a couple of the Deus Ex games. To return to BioWare, Darth Malak is disabled. He's missing his lower jaw. I'm not sure if Garrus counts as disabled, but he gets pretty heavily damaged in ME 2. Joker in the ME trilogy is disabled, a big deal surrounds his disability, but I never felt like I was being preached to. Joker's disability is very important to his character and a lot of dialogue surrounds his disability ("What was I supposed to do? Break my arms at them?") but his disability is not his personality. Joker's disability does play an important role in influencing his personality, but he is not defined by his disability and he even makes fun of himself. It's funny... trying to think of a well-written disabled character is difficult for me because when they're written well their disability is not really the thing that I remember about them. I actually had to look up disabled BioWare characters. I *_FORGOT_* about Joker. That should tell you something! IMO, BioWare has handled LGBT and disabled characters in the past and has handled them well. It is sad, but not surprising, that the Veilguard team did not handle things well. BioWare stopped being BioWare long ago and a lot of the original staff is gone.

[@Daniel__Nobre]

@@FurbleBurblethe issue is the commoditisation of such aspects. The corporate trend currently is the focus on gender related complexity, so they try to make it to serve marketing as much as possible. So it comes as very superficial. And since at the top leadership of these companies the ones that take the seats are still mostly people fitting the stereotype of the rich heterosexual white middle aged men, these corporate mandated checklists care not for the actual proper tridimensional representations of characters with such profiles.

[@mikewiskoski1585]

have you seen the game with the trans wheel chair character, might be lesbian too. I don't remember.

[@Alovanes]

The bit I found most despicably galling was the scene that occurred shortly after the end of the Bharv clip shown. Bellara had eaten the last biscuit on the snack table yet it turned out later that Taash had really wanted it (hadn't called dibs though). Bellara apologizes deeply as if she had committed a heavy offense, Taash reacts awkwardly (as if okay but hurt but they'll deal with it), and then Rook steps in with a chat option saying "You messed up Bellara, you know what to do". After being instructed to do a Bharv she then does it while the rest of the group stands in a circle around her mocking her lack of fitness and her inability to do push-ups correctly. Commanded by her team leader to punish herself physically and then mocked while trying to do it, all because she ate the last biscuit that Taash would have wanted. Can't even eat a biscuit without asking yourself first if Taash deserves it more. I can't think of a more efficient way for the writers to demonize Taash, the underlying message here is horrifying.

[@youkofoxy]

I thought someone could not be evil in the game, guess that is one way to be evil.

[@angeliccow]

It was some really shit stereotypical “autism” coding for the character. And that irritates me more than the non binary stuff. Maybe because I am Not queer but I have a lot of experience with the autism community.

[@Mduenisch]

Considering what had been mentioned about potentially narcissistic behavior/minds being involved in the writing, it's very well possible that some part of the writing team, or someone involved in supervision is narcissistic or falls into some part of the dark triad and tries to represent trans and non-binary identities and with Taash being a self-insert, were unable to recognize that being emblematic of narcissistic behavior or fantasy. It's a pretty big stretch of conjecture, but not something that we can easily dismiss. After all, how can one portray decent kind-hearted and empathetic people, when one's either incapable of doing/being so outside of brief moments to manipulate others? Hell, perhaps Isabella's deliberate making it about herself is just one more piece of that, another means to put shame on someone who misgenders, despite the fact that Bilara seems a nice thoughtful and quite empathetic person. I don't know, maybe I'm reading too far into it, but I genuinely don't trust anybody who's this disconnected from reality where they can't even properly portray it, let alone translate it into a fictional scene where they have control over all the people involved.

[@Alovanes]

@@Mduenisch I agree utterly. Very well put. Everyone's actions just don't make sense, they've slid too far down the uncanny valley to explain how adult characters (who are supposed to be heroes, the most superior examples of all races in this fantasy setting) behave like teenagers dealing with middle school first-romance kind of dramas. Have you seen some of the romance flirt clips going around? I'm certainly no romantic champion myself but I read those lines and just cringed, absolutely folded in on myself in second-hand embarrassment. It's why Veilguard hurts me so much, not because it's bad (Bad games are everywhere), but because it was so close to verge of greatness. It could have been great. So why do the characters deal with everything as if you're a child. It's narrative dissonance at its' strongest level. "Lets write a character who is going to lead the Veilguard and challenge gods themselves, the most important individual in the world, the only one who can save the world." "But lets also call that character Rook, short for Rookie, and treat them as if they're some 8 year old kid with no world experience that must be guided through everything using language suitable for kids." Like I get that young kids might play this game but I'm sure even they might enjoy playing a leadership role and getting treated like a leader.

[@Gabrilos505]

Jesus Christ, I didn't think that scene could get any worse but wow! I think I need to give it up to BioWare, they are constantly surprising me, going from bad to worse at almost every turn. I've been thinking that BIoWare hates their fans ever since Mass Effect 3's ending caused a shitstorm for them, but now I'm starting to think that the writers also just hate the projects they work on completely.

[@ravenere]

another trans guy here. Thank you for making this video. My mother, when I came out to her, reacted with questions. Not out of hostility or rejection, but from curiosity and uncertainty, which are perfectly understandable and okay. The way Taash reacted to their mother - so hostile, self-centered and entitled, it made me genuinely angry. And then the fact you can't even call them out on this bullshit, and have to be supportive? Absolutely ridiculous. It is such a shame. Bioware has historically made queer representation that was respectful, fit well into the setting, written as complex people who happened to be queer. This instance almost feels like rage-bait, although it's probably a delusional self-insert of someone.

[@awsome182]

That's exactly what I thought. If Taash wants their mother to be supportive and to understand them, maybe they shouldn't shout at her. Shouting at people rarely convinces them of your cause. Smh.

[@btiermutineer]

Thank you so much for leaving a comment with your own experience. Asking questions and wanting to understand is a perfectly normal thing to do! Taash's mother was only trying to understand her child, and I can't understand how all you can do is talk about how Shathann is a bad person or she "needs time" or something like that. Taash was so hostile and didn't bother explaining what they were talking about, as if their mother should somehow know all the things that Taash themself only found out recently? I loved the representation in previous Bioware games, and I could tell the writers genuinely wanted to include queer characters to make us feel seen and included, but doing so in a lore-appropriate way that was written at the same high quality as everything else. It's extremely sad that this is how Veilguard turned out. I had been waiting patiently for so many years for a new DA game, and I wanted for it to be good. I knew it would likely not be as good as the previous ones because too many people left (especially David Gaider who was the lead writer), but I never ever expected it to be this bad. I genuinely couldn't play more than the first 4 chapters. I tried.

[@andrewgreeb916]

I assume that is how most people react, they are curious, if they are not of closed mind and you approach respectfully they should be supportive or at least not hostile.

[@tartatovsky]

Unfortunately, current Bioware is no longer filled by the same writers that made those older games. Its currently filled by hacktivist that thinks video game is a hammer for their ideologies. Going from Veilguard back to Origns gave me whiplash lol

[@vanyadolly]

And even if someone is upset and confused, that's something they can get over if you help them understand rather than lecture and shout. I don't know what Taash is supposed to accomplish as a character or who it's for.

[@HollandOates]

That scene with Taash and her mom is so painful. The mom is trying so hard to understand-even apoligise-but Taash is a total shit to her. How did they expect anyone to like this?!

[@inoel75]

Gosh, that scene drove me nuts 😂. It was a recipe for desaster. Taash's script went like: 1. Invite someone (a vegan) over for dinner because you want to discuss a (to you) serious issue. 2. Make sure to cook something you know they don't like, eg a nice meatloaf with a side of bacon. 3. Become disgruntled if they tell you they don't like/eat the food you prepared and ask for an alternative. 4. Eat in awkward silence. 5. Out of nowhere spit the important news in the other's face (like spitting fire). 6. Don't explain anything but become more disgruntled when you are not met with instant cheering. Well, who would have thought that this plan could go wrong 🙄

[@wordbear3r]

I feel like some writers use representation as a substitute for good writing . However it's more disrespectful to say you are representing people and the you don't give them good stories and this is not just in veil guard only a few people have handled representation well. GRRM, Shonda Rhymes and the team that worked on the Orvil to mention a few. The push back to this game is partly because of that. This game had potential but it was ruined by bad writing. The level of writing from the first 3 games was much higher and every character felt authentic. Taash is unlikable, a bully who says they are a victim but doesn't see that they are a problem too. Also can they fire whoever wrote the flirting scenes for everyone because "quick think of us having sex" is not it

[@martind5653]

​@@inoel75 yeah it looked like personal experience insertion by writers, how someone with no accountability would behave

[@mungojerrie86]

Authorial self-insertion? Maybe it's just the way the author feels those who disagree with them (or simply not pander them) deserve to be treated.

[@martind5653]

@@mungojerrie86 definitely projection of desilusion writers live in

[@Dizzaton]

Anyone else weirded out by the amount of therapy speak in this game? It felt so out of place. Rook was definitely a shrink before getting recruited

[@thusano2]

Yo this whole game is drenched in therapy speak haha. Rook is constantly getting trauma dumped on, and every character treats them that way, no matter the context. Game: The world is ending, and existence as we know it is being torn apart.Every character in this game: "This is a perfect time to unpack my relationship with my mother..."

[@erickchristensen746]

Good lord yes, i knew i would hate the game and didn't bother buying it despite my love for the last three..but watched a playthrough of it and both me and the person playing it the entire time was SO SICK of the therapy talk. It's like a teen romcom with every conversation and everything was handled poorly, from feeling cringe in many moments, to terrible writing dialogue, and AT BEST *Average* voice acting but most of it was bad voice acting. In the older games you can be a good and nice dude to your companions and random npc's but it never came off so unnatural and overbearing like it did in this game.

[@FeralKobold]

As a woman with a bit of spice, the coming out scene was so fucking painful omg. Like no one talks like this, your mom is being supportive wtf is wrong with you. Half the dialogue in this game is just UNCOMFORTABLE. I feel like a kid at a friends house and they start arguing with their parents and youre just there awkwardly petting the dog trying to pretend it isnt happening and hoping your mom comes to pick you up early. When I came out to my dad he laughed and said, "I just thought you were a crossdresser" queue me finding out we had a doorbell camera and hed been seeing me go to the local gaybar in full getup every weekend the whole time and just didnt say anything. The conversation was filled with love and hugs and reassurances and even though he had questions and got some things wrong it would have never in a billion years accured to me to treat him the way taash did their mom. Honestly I was mostly just relieved I wasnt being disowned, which I thought was a possibility. Even when I came out to my mom, she was a little more hesitant and it took more gentle explaining but by the end of it it was the same way. I'll never forget showing her a picture of me the way I actually am and her saying, "Wow youre prettier than I am" LMAO Anyway yeah honestly hate this game for how it portrayed us and giving the wrong kinds of people more ammo that they didnt need.

[@StrengerKiller]

like did u see the scene that rook trying to romance her, the way she speaks is ridiculous

[@franciscorafaelmontielpale7854]

At this point it honestly feels on purpose that these people write the absolute worst characters as possible... Because no one is this dense and self-entitled. Then again we are dealing with modern day Trans-activists, and those people are basically the "Male feminists" (basically they are creeps just want to virtue signal, and when they don't get what they want they show their true colors).

[@Natsukashii-Records]

Makes sense, the dialogue reeks of the writers lackings experience on the matter and instead of asking people about their coming out stories to get ideas, they instead probably wrote it themselves and they never even came out to their family, just had shower arguments with themselves full of teen angst.

[@MinecraftMartin]

So bad you wonder if it was intentional. Can't help but wonder what their goal really was.

[@hippieyoda1993]

@@MinecraftMartingod it really got us thinking like conspiracy theorists with how poorly done representation has been recently 😭

[@babyatemydingo574]

It seems like it would be more behaviorally appropriate if Tash was like...12.

[@btiermutineer]

Absolutely. I would expect someone to behave this way if they were a teen... but Taash is supposed to be in their 30s, I believe? Oof.

[@65firered]

​@@btiermutineerI mean Taash IS a stand in for the writers. No further elaboration needed.

[@babyatemydingo574]

@@btiermutineer in my...defense? I hadn't gotten to the part of the video where you said you'd have expected this behavior from a teenager lol

[@romulolopes6564]

That's a problem not only with those scenes or with Tash. The whole game feels like you are talking with children

[@babyatemydingo574]

@romulolopes6564 great :/ I haven't played it yet. If this is what it's like, then I doubt i will. If this is what BioWare is cranking out nowadays, let it die.

[@joripien]

Thank god, a space to be critical of veilguard's god awful writing where the comment section isn't flooded with rampant transphobia

[@moosecannibal8224]

except if you include the lgbtq+ community themselves not understanding what the "binary" means in non-binary and considering someone who identifies as neither genders as a transexual

[@ThatAnnoyingBird]

Maybe there wouldn't be transphobia if the writers didn't make the whole LGBTQ community look bad with this game.

[@bagredecartola1289]

​@@ThatAnnoyingBirdthere are some people who just wanna any excuse to be hateful unfortunately

[@vamirinoon]

​@@ThatAnnoyingBird that's not really the reason why those hateful people would hate a lgbtq character, the game could be decent or even amazing and those people would still hate on it. That's the only bad part of someone criticizing something with a progressive aspect, even if the critique is correct some people will immediately show up, disregard everything that's been said and blame all the problems on "wokeness". Kind of like with Concord, the game is trash but it's not trash because of it's diversity, it's trash because it tries to be a type of game that the market is already saturated with and on top of that it costs 40 dollars when it's biggest competitor has been free for over a year, it didn't help that despite their attempt at diversity they couldn't make interesting character designs, like how?!

[@SOBEKCrocodileGod]

@@ThatAnnoyingBird true, the representation is bad. But a lot of these people don’t care much about that excuse and will just make fun of, hate on, or fearmonger trans or non-binary people anyways

[@mistyeyedreamer]

The “ah” from Neve seemed pretty obvious to me as her realizing that Taash was struggling with gender or self hatred, like “ahh, I see where this is going”.

[@heder232]

0😊 17:23

[@kenpanderz]

idk, i could read it as her not agreeing with Taashs seemingly disparaging opinion about women not liking being women, but not bothering to push back on it because she feels Taash is only saying that because of their struggles to "find themself" and deal with the consequences of becoming/acknowledging that they're NB, both personally and internationally. but maybe thats just me

[@ohdeer8920]

@@kenpanderzYup just you. That’s a wild way to read into things given the context of the statement Taash makes.

[@andreagrussu6778]

I interpreted it the same way. Especially because Neve knows and is friends with trans people and non binary people, so maybe she saw them struggle sometimes and so she could see why Taash was behaving that way (and that could be why she didn't say anything about the "nobody likes being a woman" part)

[@danielkaiser8971]

@@kenpanderz agreed.

[@dieyng]

Just had to add that as a fellow fan of Isabella I found that apology scene so insulting, I literally thought "has none of the people writing this BS ever played the second game?" Given her character, if anything she would have mumbled an apology about making a stupid mistake and then totally switched the topic. At least IMO.

[@nemnymeria7873]

IMO she wouldn't give a damn at all. Girl didn't care about anyone feelings. She is a pirate, a thief. Stole 1 thing and cause problems for other no big deal.

[@AMelchPow]

WAIT THAT CHARACTER IS ISABELA? HOOOLY sht I had no idea just from watching those scenes. That is actualyl criminal oh my god

[@Call-me-Creeds]

Same person who slept with her husband's killer as a thank you and uses him as a contact and booty call. Her morals aren't the highest, and they seem to forget she's out for herself 1st and foremost. Friends aren't her strong suit or feelings. So this is... strange and forced. She may brush off certain things or make basic apology or redirect conversations and be a loot goblin at some point.

[@illusionofquality979]

In a way she did (although I think it was unintential). Isabella said that you do 10 push-ups to show that you are actually sorry, especially when you are in a situation where you cannot afford a lengthy apology and that people who apologize shouldn't make the whole thing about themselves. Isabella did only 5 push-ups, had the time to give a genuine and lengthy apology but chose not to, and then female-splained about how to properly apologize for 5 minutes while the person she misgendered just sat there quietly. And from what some straight male and lesbian gamers said, her doing push-up made them pay more attention to her give that she is an attractive character doing push-ups. If the rest of the game wasn't a mess, I would have thought that this whole thing was Isabella sneakily avoiding actually saying that she is sorry and she was gave a speech as a distraction - look at those fake people, me exercising is the real apology!

[@vanyadolly]

Yeah. I'm pretty sure most of the writers didn't play any of the older games besides DAI, and if they did, they weren't paying attention.

[@writerd6910]

If someone walked up to me and said "I'll pay a million dollars to write the most transphobic, non-binary, trans character you can." This is legit how I would do it. Seriously, it's like either some extreme self-insert and they are using Taash as a walking therapy session or they just...I honestly don't know, it's so bad.

[@CrestOfArtorias]

I certainly couldnt come up with a more insulting and more transphobic character than Taash.

[@sub-jec-tiv]

"Nobody *enjoys* being a woman." -actual Taash dialogue

[@earlalva493]

@IronThreads333 surprisingly enough the game director for Veilguard is trans, so theoretically the representation should have made sense at least.

[@CrestOfArtorias]

@IronThreads333 From what I understand this character was written by a non-binary person.

[@jakel2837]

In my experience with this game, Taash isn't just a bad representation of a trans person. They are one of the most objectively unlikeable characters I've ever seen, but you get constant whiplash because no one reacts to it with the aggression it deserves. Them being trans is just sucked into that. Taash as a character is comically selfish and utterly incapable of considering anyone else's perspective.

[@btiermutineer]

It's the strangest thing I've ever seen. I thought Sera was bad in Inquisition because she acted in very aggressive ways, but in Inquisition you could call her out on that. My main problem in Inquisition was that you couldn't genuinely agree with some of Sera's opinions even though they made perfect sense - you could only agree with her to placate her, make fun of her, or argue with her. But now they went 180 with Taash - everything Taash does is apparently fine and you can't say anything about it (or if you say something you somehow get punished for it). Extremely strange decisions made by the writers.

[@btiermutineer]

@puxtbuck6731 usually, big companies making games that have such "inclusive" characters tend to hire cultural consultants to see if the way they portray various characters is appropriate. I assume that Bioware did this, although if you look at so many other identities represented (Bellara with ADHD, the whole way they represent Antiva by combining willy nilly both Italian and Spanish stereotypes...), it feels like they got really bad cultural consultants who have no idea how to represent people respectfully and in complex ways, not just like stereotypes.

[@DarthPingu07]

​@@btiermutineerwait, Bellara is supposed to have adhd? 😅 I have adhd and we are NOTHING like that. We're not inherently clumsy and we can be very articulate in our language. Wtaf? 🤣 I just thought she was an airhead for airheads sake. Like Merrill, only Merrill was absolutely adorable and loveable for it.

[@Yodalemos]

​@@btiermutineer That was supposed to be ADHD?! We're nothing like that! They should get a psychologist on their team instead of a consultant!

[@ThePlatineist]

I still stand by the idea that she is autistic. Her inability to empathize is not a choice. She could be badass if they did it right. Like a big bad dragon hunter, if she had a better background story other than clashes with her mother. But she was simply oblivious and childish. Bioware keeps adding childish tones and characters as companions, Peebee an asari scientist joining last in Andromeda makes it seem like she was supposed to be Andromeda's Liara. But she was too annoying to be attractive. The reason people liked Drack and Vetra so much is because they were people who had something to lose. What does Liam have to lose? Peebee? Back to Veilguard: what did they have to lose? Any personal stakes that we could relate to? Emmerich a little bit with Manfred, Davrin too with Assan, Taash lost her mother but she was busy being angry at her all the time. Although seeing her lose her mother did make her more likeable afterwards. Because she showed she cared. Anyway the relationship with the companions is a bit lackluster overall with Taash being the most bizarre.

[@awsome182]

While I had no problems whatsoever with Krem in DA:I, I simply don't want modern words like "trans" and "non-binary" in a game with a mediaeval fantasy setting. It's so immersion breaking. Same with words like "gay". Dorian in DA:I didn't say he was gay. He said that he prefers the company of men. This wording was very fitting in this setting. Dorian was one of my favourite companions and on my next playthrough I'll play a male, just so I am able to romance him because I like him so much (usually I play a female and romance Cullen (and 10/10 will always pick Cullen again if I play as a female - I adore him, he's my favourite romance option in all DA games)).

[@SandyCheeks1896]

It’s impossible to express this disappointment in lack of immersion without being attacked and mocked by the “let people enjoy things” or the “who cares” crowd. Immersion is important to me, and we can all identify when dialogue is self insertion vs when it’s true world building.

[@Arcukah-eq4tz]

Straight guy here but I loved Dorian as a whole wouldn't romance him but he's one of the main characters i bring with me on any of my playthroughs next to varric Cassandra and iron bull and the dialog between him and bull is always entertaining and they're talks with Cassandra since I almost always romance her

[@kouriichi]

Or even as far back as Zevran. The dude was willing to flirt and lay with whomever he liked and could seduce. But he doesn't just walk up and say, "Yeah, Warden. I'm totally A BISEXUAL with a preference for both MEN and WOMEN. I hope you dont judge me for FOR MY DIFFERENCES THAT MAKE ME UNIQUE from others, because being BISEXUAL is so important to me. Because you know, i've ALWAYS actually been BISEXUAL, it just took time for me to understand my BISEXUAL nature. Anyway, wanna shag?" No, it's called subtlety. Something the writers of the older games understood (to some degree). Characters could be gay, bi, trans, or have oddities that really affected who they were as a person, but it didnt "define" them. Characters like Zevran and Liliana werent great because they were bisexual. They were great because they were well written, and multifaceted. It just turns out, being able to love men OR women was a single, well written, entirely in-character facete.

[@andrewgreeb916]

Back when gay was more taboo we had the term "confirmed bachelor", frankly only a writer lacking in creativity cannot communicate a concept in a way that feel appropriate to a setting.

[@genevievec.8002]

​@@kouriichi So true 😂 They never hid that Zevran or Leliana were bi, or that Dorian was gay, or that Krem was trans. But they didn't make it central to the characters, nor force you to be supportive of it. Heck, with Zevran, if you asked about his past escapades, he'd say he laid with both women and men and ask if it disgusted you, and you could say anything from it's cool bro to yes, that's gross. How often did people choose the latter? I'd guess not much, but it gave you freedom in responding. Personally, I think forcing people to act like they agree if they don't only encourages a growth in silent resentment, and worsens the perception. They did it fine before - why did they ruin it now?

[@Lauren007E]

Legit I feel like Taash is written more as someone with severe internalized misogyny. Which doesnt even make sense in this setting because unless I'm totally misremembering (which admittedly I might be) they don't even have a concept of individual identity and their female gender roles are crafting while men just go to war and priests can be anyone. So its not really that restrictive. Also having Isabel there being an ally and saying "oh we dont steal items of cultural value" as if she didnt steal the Qin bible... Don't make me laugh

[@chinosarah]

Yeah it read as having a lot of internalized misogyny that I would have liked to unpack particularly as the Qun has very rigid gender roles.

[@Lauren007E]

@chinosarah if it was BG3 you probably could have had an ending where you unpacked it and she finally embraced being a woman without any cultural baggage dragging her down, a pathway where you do help her become them or a dark urge path were you can convince her she's just fundamentally broken and can't be fixed. Remember when Inquisition allowed you to convince Dorian to hear out his dad who tried to magically turn him straight against his will? This game you can't even ask Taash not be awful to their mother

[@nerdybirdnerd916]

The Qun has incredibly rigid gender roles. Women serve as caretakers and men as warriors with very few specialized roles being open to both genders such as the Ben-Hassrath. If there is any place in Thedas that would probably give you internalized misogyny it's probably under the Qun.

[@thefaceofdestiny5757]

About Isabela - read the codex. It literally explains that after the Qun tome incident, they stopped stealing cultural things.

[@MintyCoolness]

@@Lauren007E Okay, on that last part, they could have had Isabela say; "I stole a culturally important artifact once, and nearly died for it. Not doing THAT again!~" It would make sense AND fit her character...

[@docmacabre]

What also annoys me about that coming-out scene is how Shathann is set up as someone you're supposed to dislike when she says that your Rook is not good enough for Taash. Shathann barely knows Rook, so, how would she know about Rook's emotional maturity or lack thereof to come to such a conclusion? To me, Taash isn't just a self-insert but also a Mary Sue/Gary Stu. Depending on your choices with that stone tablet, Taash basically turns into some sort of messianic figure for the Qunari. Add to that they can never do wrong and all you and your other companions can do is agree with them. Someone is clearly working out their mommy/daddy issues through them while indulging in a fantasy. Also, the choice of having a Qunari as representation who acts as Taash does simply makes no sense because the Qunari not only have a term for people like Taash (aqun-athlok), but are also accepting of them. A human or elf would've been far more fitting here. Though I wouldn't be surprised if elves, having been around for far longer than humans, had their own terminology/acceptance of such matters. I wonder what went wrong with the writing for this game in general. I've been joking about how, maybe, the original script got lost and that this is what they hastily cobbled together in a week. I've read Weekes' novel and short stories for DA, and I really enjoyed them. This is so far below what I had expected from them, I'm honestly shocked. It reads like bad Tumblr fanfiction written by a 14-yr-old, not something an accomplished author would produce. And as you said, who the hell approved it?!?!? Anyway, great video! (And I agree with you. I'm so glad there are no lesbians in this game, being one myself. I shudder to think how miserable and embarrassing that would've turned out.)

[@btiermutineer]

Thank you! You're absolutely right about Taash being a Mary Sue/Gary Stu. Rook isn't really allowed to disagree with Taash or properly chastise them for how they speak and act towards other people - and even when you do occasionally have such an option, you're punished by the game. If you tell Taash of for criticizing Neve's fashion, Neve says that she's a "big girl" and can handle herself. If you try to tell Taash to maybe focus on more important things than gender stuff when the whole world is on fire, you're once again the bad guy. I didn't even know about the messianice figure for the Qunari stuff... yikes. I've read all the DA novels and even the new short story collection Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights. The writing in these books is good (often great!) and absolutely fits the tone of Dragon Age, so I'm extremely confused as to what happened to the writing of Veilguard. Weekes usually writes so so much better than this. I just don't know how this game ended up the way it is. Even if the writers did for some reason write extremely poorly, who approved this??? And yeah, I'm genuinely happy that trans men aren't discussed or featured more in Veilguard. Don't even want to know how they would have messed that up. So weird that gay and lesbian characters are suspiciously missing, though... like that's so icky to me, especially since Dorian is allowed to appear but we don't hear anything about him being gay. So on one hand it's fine for characters to be more than their sexuality (in the case where the writers wanted to erase their identities or didn't want to include discussions of these identities for some reason), but on the other hand Taash's whole arc is *just* about being nonbinary...?

[@65firered]

Meanwhile in BG3 if you don't like a companion you can do a LOT more than just slightly annoy them.

[@MikeHoney-qy6nl]

For that matter, there are no gay or straight people either. Great diversity there, only one sexuality is represented: pan.

[@lawmanlawman2210]

@@btiermutineer If you're wondering what happened to the writing, a lot of the writers for the old DA games and old Mass Effect games left Bioware a long time ago. I'm assuming the new people were just brought over from EA because they own Bioware now

[@sus-j9g-k8p]

@@MikeHoney-qy6nl Which is so idiotic. They aren't pansexual. They are just playersexual like the Skyrim NPCs who are willing to marry anyone who's wearing an Amulet of Mara. It's literally a step back from meaningful representation of different sexual identities. I had the same criticism with BG3, but at least they have the lore on their side: the creator of the D&D Forgotten Realms setting is on record stating that the majority of people in the Forgotten Realms are in fact bisexual, so there's that. But we know from the previous DA games that this is not the case in Thedas, so it makes no sense that 7 random people you happen to recruit for various reasons just happen to be all pansexual.

[@sillygo0oser]

The writer for Taash is NB too. (See my pfp) it’d be like if I wrote a bi character, had them start a relationship with a character of the same gender, have them cheat on that person and end up with the opposite gender (or vise versa), and just have all the other characters be supportive of them for doing so, because we’re not allowed to be viewed as flawed.

[@SteelSpurs]

Straight guy here. It’s really weird that BioWare has done better LGBTQ representation in a time where it was taboo as opposed to a time where it is normal. I adore Zevran, Isabella, Leliana, and even most of the DA2 cast. I don’t know what happened here or who they were writing for.

[@zackarymedeiros2630]

Couldn’t have described my feelings about the Taash and Shathann scene better. I literally sat there in utter disbelief. I’m a straight male so I’ve never been in that position but Shanthann reaction seemed pretty reasonable to me, she’s simply asking questions and trying to understand them better. While Taash comes off as completely unreasonable. Also the fact that theirs no dialogue option to challenge Taash on their reaction and having to coddle them is so forced and annoying. I miss the days of Dragon age 2 with the rivalry and friendship meter, being able to challenge companions viewpoints is so important to making interesting characters.

[@btiermutineer]

Yes, DA2's friendship and rivalry system was so good! If you can't challenge a companion's perspective you can't really explore that perspective as well as others around it in a meaningful way. Everything is just static and implies there is only one "right" way of doing things, which just isn't true.

[@ethanduncan1646]

They literally have a half-baked "hardening" system for Neve/Lucanius, why didn't they just let us be mean or rivaled to our companions? Why is Taash allowed to call our necromancy names but not the player?

[@brandoncofrancisco789]

The only explanation is rook isn’t really you, they’re their own person. You guide them, but aren’t really them.

[@ViVi1159-d1]

Unfortunately, in DA2, people identified so strongly with Anders that they threw a fit over the idea of anyone pushing back against him.

[@Drums_of_Liberation]

​@@ViVi1159-d1who identified with a whiny terrorist who needlessly killed innocent people because Templars bad.😂

[@hazenwalterstroud7245]

Trans dude here. Taash's coming out scene is so self-centered and a great example of how to make people hate trans/nonbinary people even more. When Taash says "say it better" after their mom speaks The Qun I want to scream because it's like they're trying to misunderstand her on purpose. And an important factor: Taash's mom grew up in The Qun, a culture that puts a lot on gender. Taash is insanely lucky to have a mom that WANTS to understand a concept that I personally think would go against The Qun's teachings just like a woman being a warrior is impossible (Sten in Origins can confront female Warden's at camp and explain The Qun's views).

[@justaquietpeacefuldance]

No one hates anyone. We as audience like well written, complex characters, not feminist slang from 1995 NYC (which also does not translate to other languages).

[@CrestOfArtorias]

Hmm I am not sure "gender" is the appropriate concept when talking about people from the Qun's perspective. Sten is confused by the female Warden, not because of her gender but because of what she is. The Qunari are hyper essentialists so I doubt they even really have a concept for gender (yes I am ware Inquisition introduced that but that already contradicts what we are shown in DAO and DA2). Because in order to have a concept of gender, you first need a concept for individuality which seems practically absent from Qunari society except for those who do not fit and that society deals with them pretty much immediately. Either exiling them or outright killing them. They are not considered people from the Qun's perspective, they are Basra. Trash that does not belong. To Sten, the Warden is a paradox he cannot comprehend, we learn this from his elaboration. "Choice" and being able to steer one's own destiny is a foreign idea. For instance it is unheard of in Qunari society for a junior soldier to disagree, in any capacity, with someone of higher rank. One historic instance actually startled a Tevinter spy at the Arishoks court because of how unusual it was and what the implications (the Qunari learning politics and subtly) of it were. The point I am trying to make is that the Qunari became more human over the course of the games but their initial culture was much more alien to the point where even familiar concepts might not apply.

[@hazenwalterstroud7245]

@@CrestOfArtorias Perhaps the better word would be 'Sex' since, you're right, gender is more expression than essential. The Sten example was mostly to show an example of that strictness, which is technically continued even with the inclusions made in DAI. My point, or the one I was trying to make at least, was that Taash's mother was trying to understand something completely foreign to her. Her suggesting Taash might be trans instead isn't her trying to control or deny them, it's just her trying to understand what Taash feels through concepts she is familiar with.

[@CrestOfArtorias]

@hazenwalterstroud7245 Oh I agree. I was just trying to point out that the Qunari likely view these concepts somewhat different than us. Which makes Taash and their dialog even more confusing since they use our modern understanding.

[@hazenwalterstroud7245]

@@CrestOfArtorias Sorry, I was agreeing with you that I used the wrong term and just used it as a springboard to better explain myself since my original comment wasn't as clear as I would like it to be.

[@business_pear]

Howdy, fellow trans man here. Taash's behavior reminds me a lot of how I acted when I was a preteen, and when you compared their behavior to that of a teenager's in the coming out scene, it really clicked for me. The way they wrote Taash is the way a teenager would be written. Really the dialogue in this game in general seems very...unconvincing. it doesn't feel like things real people would say to each other, more like an alien's idea of what a human conversation would be like. It's uncanny, in a way. Definitely isn't doing any favors for queer representation, that's for sure. Thank you for your honest analysis of this game, can't wait to see more videos from you in the future.

[@brandonperez6932]

I just want a good dragon age game man. They could even add a trans character in the game and it would be fine. I just want my choices from the trilogy to matter. I want to know what happens with Old God Kieran. I want to know if Hawke ever makes it out of the fade. I want to know if the Hero of Felderan ever comes back. I really don’t care for gender politics at all. I just want a good dragon age game like I use to play as a kid. It’s so sad that they blatantly disregarded everything just for politics.

[@btiermutineer]

I know, I also just wanted a good Dragon Age game, with compelling characters and stories as usual. Loved the representation in the previous games because everything was part of the larger story and world. The fact that we couldn't even import choices from previous games, that they ignored all of our previous choices and shat on the previous lore... I can't believe they did this to such a good story and setting.

[@NoOneReallySpecial]

Kieran is assumed to be fine and living wherever it is Morrigan came from. Hawke is dead. Hero of Ferelden is presumed dead because in Inquistion it sounded like they were looking for a cure for being a Warden but there were rumors of them hearing the calling.

[@sanield2782]

For all I care, trans Rook can be straight up canon (as in you have no option in CC) and idgaf as long as the gameplay and writing are up to par...

[@lt.mushroom2993]

I feel you bro 😢

[@forsakenwolfshadow]

we waited so long and were promised so much at the start. I really feel like they were going to make a good game but when EA took over and removed all the older writters then changed the name... thats when we lost dragon age

[@Talulah_Artorius]

I'm so glad I'm not the only one that felt actually attacked by Taash's stupid little comments about femininity and such. I like being a woman, I like dresses and skirts, and the fact that you are not allowed to tell them to stfu and mind their own business is infuriating. Honestly Taash just feels like poorly disguised transphobia, I don't think that's what they were going for, but the writers are so incompetent that they shouldn't have touched the subject matter at all, it truly reflects poorly on everyone

[@btiermutineer]

Genuinely all of the Taash scenes feel like a parody written by transphobes... it's very icky.

[@DocMadfox]

"You don't get to tell me who I am." "*Tells everyone who they are*".

[@vanyadolly]

Yeah, much of her issues just seem like misogyny. Which maybe isn't that unsurprising in a "body positive" game where you can be overweight or have top surgery, but you can't have anything above an A-cup. As a woman that character creator didn't feel particularly inclusive.

[@screamingopossum7809]

@@vanyadolly You can make an ugly as sin character, but you can't make a semi-attractive character unless it's a guy and you're into "Generic white guy".

[@Etherwinter]

@@DocMadfox Taach insisting on calling Emmrich anything but his name is a great example.

[@ImDudeRandom90]

Wow, criticism of Veilguard that isn’t just “nyeeeeh, wokeness.” Refreshing.

[@pozcreative9480]

Fr

[@N5FX]

Well maybe you should LISTEN

[@nabi_zzzs]

As someone who is Gay and has played every Dragon Age game since Origins, I have to agree. I much prefer the writing of Dorian, Leliana, and Zevran as apposed to Taash when it comes to them as queer characters. You can write minority characters without coming across as too preachy and obnoxious, and the writers of Veilguard missed the mark BAD.

[@upsetti6404]

This ^. The issue is that those characters you listed? Their entire personality wasnt their sexuality, they had depth and were interesting and were more than just Gay/Bi, they were actually people. Taash doesn't have a personality, Taash is just a childish cunt.

[@franciscorafaelmontielpale7854]

Sadly that's modern day activists to you my friend... There are good folk trying to help the LGBTQ community, but sadly it seems more and more the bad sheep are getting to be norm.

[@ToiletBread1651]

Dorian was a whiny brat. Also the ham-fisted injection of the gender confused moron in the mercenary group was not well written.

[@PattyOflan88]

​no they've always been there, we shout from the rooftops about them, the whole squad just runs defense for them. It's just that now even literal children can point out how obvious the propaganda is, and mulvaney flew too close to the sun and now youre culturally on the backfoot. If this was 5 years ago, you'd get canceled for daring to question Taash. Just facts homie

[@kellevichy]

@@PattyOflan88 lmfao

[@kkkk-uh1cu]

If a real non-binary person wasn't as involved in creating Taash as they were... the entire left leaning side of the fandom would talk about how hateful and harmful a portrayal Taash is. It's like an unholy amalgamation of the worst stereotypes available.

[@btiermutineer]

Literally! The only reason why people aren't complaining is because they think it would be "disrespectful" to complain about the terrible stereotypical representation just because the nonbinary character was written by a nonbinary writer. But I'm sorry to say that bad writing is still bad writing, no matter who wrote it.

[@BrightWulph]

​@@btiermutineerAgree, I got scoled on Reddid for saying "just because Taash was written by a non-binary writer doesn't make the character any less terrible or bad representation." Like sure it's Reddit, what else should I expect? But I was lectured, downvoted to oblivion and banned from the subreddit...had no idea it was that bad of a crime. 😅

[@revfunk8823]

​@@BrightWulph 😅 i was banned from ALL of reddit for a similar statement 😅

[@vanyadolly]

Unfortunately being trans doesn't make you a good writer... or even a likeable person. I have serious doubts about the author after this lol.

[@polyz911]

You know it's bad when even a mentally ill person for whom this joke of a game was marketed hates it.

[@edsainmuramasa4751]

Taash: "I'm non-binary" Foreigner: "what?" Taash: explains Foreigner: "ah, we call that aqun where we're from" Taash: "the hell d'you say to me you lil sh*t?" Is: "I don't want the apology to be about the person apologizing" *proceeds to make it about herself by doing push-ups unprompted and explaining how it makes her a better apologiser*

[@Carsu12]

And doesn't even do 10 push ups

[@ЛеснойБолван-я4щ]

Russian trans-man in this thread. I hate this "representation" and it only makes it worse for us folks, only helping the society to see us as freaks. The developers didn't understand the responsibility they hold when they made this game. I don't care if people from the developing crew are queer or not, even if they are, clearly they are using the game for their therapy session and political messaging instead of decent representation, and they are narcissistic rich people who can allow themselves to live in their echo chambers and never encounter the outside world and controversy in it.

[@MikeHoney-qy6nl]

They really fed into the "trans people are narcissists" stereotype...

[@RCN2820]

Russian? Shit, my condolences.

[@ЛеснойБолван-я4щ]

​@@RCN2820 The state's propaganda has always made it worse, and things've got significantly shittier since the war started, with some repressive laws having passed. But overall I'm doing okay, working on freelance, avoiding military registration office like a plague and just waiting for this crap to pass.

[@ЛеснойБолван-я4щ]

@@RCN2820 actually I'm having an even better lot than many cis-guys here. There is conscriptive army in Russia and the boys get registered for the military office while being still in school or college. Considering I changed my documents to male (managed it in time before the law ppassed) being already in my mid 20-s, they probably do not know about my existence and I intend to keep it that way.

[@Dizerfullpower]

I have an ftm friend who did get a summons from the military office in 2022 (and has subsequently left the country). It is also strange because if you were officially transitioning in Russia, you had to basically confirm having a mental disorder, which should make you uneligible for the draft

[@daedalron]

Dragon Age 2 had a perfect line to describe how I view Bioware did the whole gender identity thing in their game. "I don't hate you because you're a mage. I hate you because you won't shut up about it." What Bioware did is extremly forced, with utterly cringe dialogues, and an insufferable character. You can't misgender her, but she, on the other hand, refuse to call Emmrich by his name and calls him a skull-f*cker... The amount of hypocrisy is through the roof...

[@btiermutineer]

Yeah, the way Taash is written is absolutely disgusting. Taash disrespects so many people and speaks to them rudely, but then you're supposed to respect and support Taash? They are a bully, a jerk. DA2 was written by writers who at the time were far more self-aware, because that line exactly encapsulates how many people feel about representations of minorities in media nowadays. If things are included in a normal way that doesn't make a big deal about them, that's great! But if you push everything down a person's throat, don't expect that person to just take it and not become uncomfortable.

[@anthonydecimus8169]

You can call out Taash for this. No one said any of these characters would be perfect. Taash has a problem with Emmerich because they don’t believe the dead should be played with. That goes against their belief. So between them is conflict. I wouldn’t say because this character has a strong belief against playing with the dead means the character is all of a sudden an asshole and deserves to be treated less for it.

[@pagetvido1850]

@@anthonydecimus8169 The point is, there's a (semi) interesting discussion about differences. By talking, they overcome them. Activists, like Taash's writer, refuse to allow this natural and healthy activity to occur on their favorite topic. Hence, the irritation. Everyone else is brave enough to maintain their beliefs without universal praise, approval and awards.

[@astarianott4099]

​@@anthonydecimus8169 You can't call out Taash in the scene with their mom. The options are "She needs time", "I don't like her", "I'm sorry" and "She's wrong". The only scene you can really call Taash out on is the one with Emmerich, and even then it hardly feels like a call out.

[@anthonydecimus8169]

@ That’s because you’re partially the reason why Taash does that so it wouldn’t make sense to call them out. In the side quest prior if your rook keeps telling Taash to embrace who they are and/Or abandon Qun culture. It wouldn’t really make sense to call out Taash. Taash mom actually blamed me in my play through and she wasn’t wrong.

[@Leon_SKennnedy]

Taash is written so comically bad that I genuinely considered the writers were transphobes writing a character off negative stereotypes

[@yadakakadu]

Your eloquence and perspective is sorely needed in the broader discussion.

[@robinchirps1775]

I think what kills me is Trick Weekes wrote The Iron Bull, genuinely one of my favorite characters ever in DA. Bull also grapples with his identity, especially religious identity. Is he Hissrad, is he The Iron Bull, is he Qunari, is he Tal Vashoth? Ironically he seemed more ‘trans’ than the actual trans character of Taash. At least he’s talking to you about his feelings and experiences, not in a cruel way but just to show his perspective. I love that you can disagree with him, and there’s an ending where he literally turns against you. It just makes him feel like an actual person with his own opinions, and not just, The Qunari Character or The Big Tough Guy. My guess of what happened is that Taash is just too close to the writer, who then used Taash as a self-insert. Meanwhile Iron Bull is nothing like the writer, so his character was allowed to be explored in an interesting way.

[@Mielipuolukka]

Your guess sounds likely. Or it could be Weekes's internalized misogyny manifesting as bad writing. Maybe they just have this subconscious idea that only men are allowed to be complex characters. Edit: or, even more likely, it's a mix of both.

[@shepardcommander6811]

that's truly crazy to me, The Iron Bull is one of my favorite video game characters ever written and to see Weeks go from him to Taash is baffling. The world doesn't make any fucking sense anymore

[@robinchirps1775]

@@MielipuolukkaThere’s definitely a lot of internalized stuff in there. The “No one likes being a woman” line is a bit too revealing.

[@DrJazzyBonespHd]

As a trans guy, whose partners favorite character is The Iron Bull, and I used it when he was learning about me. It's kinda one of the things that bonded us because it brought two parts of us together. When he started playing the new game he asked if I would play just so he could get my opinion on the trans story line. And he knows that I would hate the enby coming out character just based on my history with coming out with friends and family. I was patient and still love to explain and give people a safe space to ask questions about my experience

[@KutluMizrak]

@@robinchirps1775 No joke, as soon as that line came out, you could tell someone REALLY hates themselves.

[@TenWolf-wb7pc]

I’m not trans but I am autistic and I have to say, this feels like if Sheldon Cooper was said to be autistic and now everyone ignores his bad behavior. I suffered the “you’re like Sheldon Cooper” shit since middle school and this level of representation gave me vibes of that. The difference was people would actually call Sheldon out and treat him poorly if he deserved it. Sometimes he was coddled but rarely was he just forgiven and people treated him like a child. Also the subreddit dismisses all criticism of them because “they’re optional missions”. Bad representation is bad representation; being optional doesn’t negate anything. It’s like dismissing a transphobic comedian with “just don’t watch”.

[@Byroad3]

15:00 yes! I was struggling trying to get a feminine character! As a well-endowed girl I was getting my own gender dysphoria by my character looking like a hardcore body builder because no boobs allowed! Finally someone experiencing the game the same as I did!

[@__-tp4tm]

Feel that totally - I'm like, so anything other is unrealistic huh... in a videogame too, as a cherry on top...

[@drawingsticks5333]

I am trying to make a handsome butch and failing, we should swap sliders because all my female characters come out too feminine no matter what I do.

[@LemonSwirl-r1c]

Exactly! I also have a bigger chest and it was so lame that we couldn’t have characters with anything bigger than b cups. Like, boobs are not an inherently sexual thing, they’re a part of womens’ bodies. For a game that is trying to be as inclusive as possible (it failed, obviously), women should have the ability to see their bodies reflected in the game. Furthermore, there was a distinct lack of any clothing that was even remotely feminine. Like, there was the open shirt crow outfit and that was it. What about people who like skirts or dresses? Or would prefer to wear a ‘girly’ color like pink or purple? There’s nothing! It all came off as very misogynistic to me.

[@Lunautau101]

Thank you for bringing up Taash’s really out-of-line comment about how people feel being women. There’s a difference between a companion being abrasive but still well written and a character that’s just straight up being offensive. I’m a woman and I am so happy I was born a woman. Like I’m so sorry Taash had a bad experience but that doesn’t give them the right to shit on others’ gender identity and then expect me to just take it. That soured me on them immediately. Edit: Also bonus thought, why do writers who try to push progressive ideals in writing often come off as misogynistic? And I’m saying this as a socially liberal person. Like, y’all can speak on gender identity and the like without throwing women under the bus, right?

[@btiermutineer]

No idea why people are being so misogynistic when portraying trans identities. Like yes you could absolutely show that a character has internalized misogyny, but you have to actually call that out and make sure people understand that's not a positive thing.

[@Lunautau101]

@btiermutineer exactly! By all means write about internalized misogyny, but for Pete’s sake, at least let us tell Taash they’re being a jerk about it. You could get mad at Sera for her internalized racism towards elves. You couldn’t change her mind really but at least you could get mad. I wouldn’t be so upset if it wasn’t the fact that Rook’s response is so “gentle” like a therapist trying to explain things to Taash. I would have had much stronger words. 😅

[@theazhang997]

@@Lunautau101 hey, if man would say that....uproar!!!!.... double moral!!!!!...but it's okay coz taash is no man? Noooooooo.... as a women i agree with u and we haven't the dialogue Option: SHUT UP😒

[@drawingsticks5333]

I mean that's the point? Taash saying "No one likes being a woman" is wrong, because women like being women, which means Taash isn't a woman or they would like being one. But Taash thinks no woman does, because they don't like being a woman, so of course no one does. It's like someone says "I mean, no one REALLY likes coffee" and it's like no, it's just you, the rest of us like coffee just fine, stop drinking it if you don't like it. I thought it was sexist in the opposite way - I know a lot of women who don't like being women for various reasons you can imagine (society expectations, misoginy, they don't like being feminine, everything is ten times harder than if they were men, etc etc) but they are still women.

[@robirb_]

Never thought I would be here defending this scene but here goes. Taash saying that "everyone hates being a woman" is not meant to be a statement on womanhood in general, but to THEIR relationship with it and their struggle with their gender. They hate "being a woman" and all that it entails because they are not a woman, feel uncomfortable being perceived as one, but having no point of comparison with how other people feel: they think that everyone feels this way and it's just normal to hate their own self. This worldview can be directly rebuked by a female Rook, who can tell them that she likes being a woman (dunno the option for a male Rook) I'm not saying it's well written (it's not). But I have met more than one person that said some variation of "everyone hates being a man and would just be a woman if they could, it's normal, everyone feels that way" before realising they were actually a trans woman. So while this kind of writing may not apply to every trans person 's experience, I do think it could be a valid way to depict their struggle. (Too bad it's executed so poorly) Signed, a cis woman who is also happy with being a woman and is not offended by a trans character struggling with their gender. Yes, even if this particular trans person is written like absolute arse like Taash is

[@iterationfackshet1990]

What’s insane is that Taash was written by Patrick Weekes, the same guy who wrote Lair of the Shadow Broker, Samantha Traynor, Javik, Tali, Mordin Solus and most importantly relating to this: Krem. In fact this is what Weekes had to say when it came to writing Krem: “Talking over drinks at the bar later, we hit two major challenges. First, any conversation about the subject had to come up naturally in-game. A minor character like a shopkeeper would have no reason to explain that he is trans, so either the conversation would never come up or it would come up because his voice was clearly masculine, at which point it would look like a joke to most players, no matter how we tried to write it. Second, the character had to serve a purpose beyond ‘being there to be a genderqueer person.’ Every character in our game serves a purpose - reinforcing the theme of a plot, character, or area - and we do not have the budget for someone who is just there to tick off a box." The same guy who said that and wrote an excellent portrayal of a Trans Man with Krem and amazing characters like Javik, Tali, and Mordin Solus ended up being the lead writer on Veilguard, and we end up with Taash. Honestly the only thing I can think of is this time Weekes didn’t have input from the trans community like he did for Krem and/or he likely fundamentally misunderstands trans people as he’s shown in the past that he can pretty much misunderstand things. If you’re a fan of Legion from ME2 and the Geth and hate how he and the Geth were portrayed in ME3 you can thank Weekes for that as he fundamentally misunderstood the Geth and the Quarian-Geth conflict. I think when it comes to complex topics like transgender identity Weekes just draws a blank and without input from the community he writes based off of his own experiences.

[@AlexCassinelli]

I guess what irks me the most with Taash is that (while not having played the game) I never heard anything over their personality other than their gender. I mean, I watched a few reviews, some cutscenes and it seems their personality IS their gender. No hobbies, no personal interests, no nothing. Even in promo material, the only other thing discussed is that Taash is a dragonslayer, as in their job is to kill dragons (not even going to dig in THAT can of worms). On another note, your english is unreal, I wish I had an accent as good as yours. Anyway, thanks for the video and the insights.

[@btiermutineer]

Yes, I watched Taash's personal quest and romance online and essentially their personality is all about "ooh dragons" and being nonbinary. That's it. They attempt at times to discuss how Taash feels as someone who is Qunari but doesn't follow the Qun, grew up in Rivain, and also has some fire-breathing powers. But unfortunately what could be a far more interesting exploration of this kind of upbringing ends up being connected back to being nonbinary, and to being a dragon hunter/slayer. It's uh... well. Extremely reductive. And doesn't make people at all more likely to be empathetic towards trans people. Lol, I just grew up watching Disney movies on VCR and lots of American and Canadian movies and shows after that, so I essentially learned English from watching TV. So that's why my accent is like this, hah. Thank you for watching and for engaging in the conversation!

[@__-tp4tm]

In a next game, Dragons are glorified dogs lmao

[@LunaWayve]

As someone who is fairly ignorant and uneducated in trans matters, I can’t help but feel angry and disappointed for the community, they had a wonderful opportunity to delicately handle, share and educate people like me, such a story but they treated the audience like we are 8. I’m starting to think “inclusion and representation “ are being used as shields for talentless writers and directors, they keep getting away with criticism of them being bad at thief jobs and using actual human beings as the shield, it’s gross and downright disrespectful

[@btiermutineer]

Yes, this is absolutely being used as a shield to protect a terrible game from getting properly criticized for its many shortcomings. This isn't what good representation looks like... It's just awful, stereotypical writing pretending it's better than it is.

[@LunaWayve]

@@btiermutineer The only good thing to come from this game is me discovering smaller youtube channels that have generally good balanced takes, very impressed why your other videos and subbed

[@screamingopossum7809]

"Diversity and Inclusion" have always been a shield for that shit. It's why no one really cares about the people that these things are supposed to represent. It's why when a piece of media is proud to have "diversity and inclusion" everyone groans. When Overwatch 1 was first released, no one cared about how diverse the cast was because it wasn't one of the big draws. If you're going to have people from all over the world, then it's a given they're going to be of all different races. No one cared that Sombra was Latina. Her being Latina didn't add or subtract from her character, and outside of her weaving spanish into her verbiage, it wasn't all that high lighted. Symetra comes from India, her speaking Hindi was a given. D.Va was a Korean streamer. More people were either into her being young (ew) or her being a gamer girl. That was the draw for a lot of young women. Her being Korean didn't stop people from seeing themselves in her (regardless of how racists want to push that you can't see yourself in other races).

[@fluidwolf]

Honestly feels like a lot of that in various things these days sadly. Can't be criticized because something happens to have minority characters who sometimes just end up feeling like tokens instead of people.

[@kjwantsanap]

I agree with what you said at the end. But I also wanted to say that you shouldn't be looking to video games for education on important subjects. If you want to understand more you should be going to the source of what you want to learn. Not to people who write fiction for a living and may or may not have any experience in what is being written about.

[@Cassia_Tullius]

Trans girl from Russia here. Thank you, thank you so much. That is very well put together with all things I had in mind about representation (but wasn't sure how to express) layed out perfectly. I am genuinely surprised how many things writers got wrong about being trans considering it was part of PR that trans people were involved in the production. At times it felt like it was made by some bigots undercover since it gives so much ammunition to people who hate us, and most of us got enough on our plate without people saying that those like us ruining games and movies. Taash coming out to their mother scene is especially painful for me personally. God I wish my mom reacted like this and I felt bad for Taash's mother for being disregarded for being protective and curious. It feels like it was written by people who live in a perfect world where everything is so politically correct while in real life you sometimes have to make peace with people who are not 100% accepting. I would love to see your interpretation of representation in the future❤

[@ichigokage]

The entire treatment of Taash only damages trans rep and acceptance. I never have problems with pronouns or extra feature for such people in CCs. It’s your character; the more options available to all the better. But after the Barv scene, coming out to their mother the horrific cherry on top was I guess the beginning of a love scene between Taash and Rook. It was hyper aggressive as Taash; after asking if Rook wanted to have sex with them Rook said maybe. But in a sort of confused way. It wasn’t consent but Taash then lunged at Rook exclaiming “Quick! Think about us having sex!” As they pinned Rook to the wall then dipping to Rook’s neck and growling. Put a man in Taash’s place and everyone would tear this game apart. And with all that Taash isn’t the only issue with this game. Just the tip of the iceberg.

[@btiermutineer]

Yeesh. I just saw that scene today myself as I was curious how Taash's romance was handled in the game, and it's somehow even worse. It's so aggressive, the consent is iffy, and... yeah, I agree. If Taash had been a man, everyone would be yelling about this game and "how dare they do something like this". And unfortunately, it's true - Taash is just *one* aspect out of so many things that are wrong with this game.

[@defiante1]

@@btiermutineer Tbh I am not convinced most progressive writers can write a trans or gay character without making them hyper sexual. Tash literally won't shut up about how she thinks girls smell good or whatever. Growling at people in this odd and very off putting way, making vulgar remarks and so on. I don't think it will ever be right until they can remove the sex from sexuality. I.E a trans character who likes girls but it barely comes up, or a gay man who isn't interested in most men. They practically beat you over the head with the fact that "Tash likes girls, girls smell good!" in Veilguard.

[@screamingopossum7809]

They saw Karlach from BG3 and went "How can we make that worse?"

[@theobell2002]

"Put a man in Taash’s place and everyone would tear this game apart." Uh.. I don't know if you live under a rock but everyone is already tearing this game apart.

[@aquapendulum]

Shathann comes off as way more understanding than many conservative parents in real life. The only issue she has is that she struggles to understand Taash's situation in the lexicon she is familiar with. Taash's response to this was just... antagonizing. Taash escalated unnecessarily. I can't fathom how a writing team in a corporate structure are unable to see how this may come off. Are people just afraid to be critical of any narrative decision when it touches this theme? It matches the output I'm seeing here.

[@snusmumricken]

im putting in my two cents as someone who is intersex and trans. Trash being asked questions by their mother and them getting fustrated is honestly, incredibly vaild given how their mother has treated them up until that point. They were interrogated by a woman who never listens and always critisizes them. I had vivid flashbacks to when I came out in highscool and my teachers who had treated me like shit bombarding with with questions as if trying to talk me into a corner and admit I wasn't serious or making shit up. Also 'Is this beacuse i commented on your clothes' is not a supportive question from a person who knows trans identites exsit

[@luca8479]

I wish media creators would realise that I, as a trans guy, want to play in a world where being trans is as uninteresting as having brown hair, not a world where everything still sucks for trans people.

[@christianvondruska8244]

It's because they want to be victims, evidently they view it as a slight if oppression isn't drawn attention to, even in settings where these themes don't belong. For instance, the plot of these games revolves around potentially world ending events, so why is something like misogyny or transphobia considered a big deal? Not to say those things can't be elaborated on but it just seems out of place. Then again, I'm a white guy so maybe I'm just out of the loop or something

[@moirakadhan745]

Bg3 does a pretty good job, in that regard. Deffo a bit of an exception tho

[@stinkystonky3028]

They already did a great job with Krem in inquisition, not sure how they managed to do such a 180. Great video man you verbalized the issues well and not in a hateful way

[@MrTsukihami]

Krem and Dorian was representation done right. Where their sexuality/gender identity is just a part of character but not a pivotal focal point about which character constructed.

[@robjsmiles]

It seems like the writers of this game thought Krem was some sort of "half-measure" on account of being presented from an in-universe perspective. Not modern enough.

[@zxyatiywariii8]

​@@robjsmilesYeah, and ironically, that made Krem a character whom many people of different genders could love and respect. Krem expanded the lore, instead of breaking the lore with 2024 linguistics.

[@katm8128]

@@zxyatiywariii8it’s crazy because I noticed even the most conservative dudebros referring to Krem as he and as a man. Actual representation and humanization of a character that just happens to be trans does wonders instead of forcibly pushing it on everyone the way they did with Taash

[@FaeQueenCory]

The dialogue options are not propaganda. It's worse. It's toxic positivity. The same reason why all the "conflict" between companions is so... Lacking in conflict. And that's also why Taash's conversation with their mom comes across as so invalid. Can't have an actually disapproving parent story because we can't have the parent disapprove because of the toxic positivity. Everything has to always be sing-song-y "happy" even when the script says to react to a statement as if it was rude/mean/hateful.

[@ioanzatui]

Hearing the terms 'non-binary' and 'trans' in the game was horridly jarring. Suddenly, I wasn't in Thedas but once again squarely in this one. It wasn’t that there were characters who are non-binary or trans, it's the words used specifically. We knew that Krem was trans without using the word, there is a word in Qunlat to describe that he is. And when Dorian mentioned that he preferred the company of men, we all got it. Using the modern words from our world made me very sure that it wasn't Taash or Harding or anyone else talking but someone from our world. And it nearly threw me off of the game entirely, shows how damaging badly written dialogue/characters are to games.

[@sub-jec-tiv]

You don’t like your dark fantasy characters to sound like an insufferable always-on-twitter millennial at a BBQ?

[@snusmumricken]

have you considered, that it is jarring because up until recently, much like gay once was, its been tabbo to have any tans identiies in video games and when they do, its just and hint or bare bones tiptoe around the identity? Trans is a word. It means someone who has transitioned from one gender identity to another. Being uncomfortable of a word being used speaks more about you than the game

[@sub-jec-tiv]

@@snusmumricken Seriously none of that matters if the dialogue is awful. And the dialogue is awful. I played it, it’s terrible. Like poor quality guardians of the galaxy dialogue. Until the last 40 minutes when magically the dialogue is competent. This game is not bad because of any identity politics. It’s bad because the writing is absolutely terrible.

[@snusmumricken]

@@sub-jec-tiv The final 40 minutes? You played through an entire game you hated. Spending at least 40 hours to experince all the writing to form that opinion?

[@robirb_]

​@@snusmumricken I understand your point and if this were another game you would be 100% right. However this game is set in a secondary fantasy world. And while the characters do speak in the English language, because the world is so radically different from ours it feels jarring that they would use words that are so deeply rooted in *our* world. You would not call Sera a lesbian in game, because there is no isle of Lesbos in Thedas. Dorian never calls himself gay, although he explicitly says he likes men, because the word does not carry the cultural significance it does for us in his world. Inquisition went so far as introducing the concept of aqun-athlok to define trans people in the Qun. If we were talking about a game set in our world - whether in the present, near future or distant future - then you could absolutely make this point, but I don't think it stands to scrutiny in Thedas.

[@sanguinus]

I'm a very progressive gay man. I fully support having trans people in games. However Veilguard has done an absolutely massive amount of damage to that, it's pretty much poisoned the well for future trans representation. It's totally jarring and out of universe, it's misogynistic, intolerant, shrill, laughable and detached from reality. Instead of challenging right-wing narratives about trans people, it just confirms all of them! Dragon Age already *had* representation for trans people and nobody had a problem with that, because it fit within the universe of the game. What absolutely does not fit within the universe of the game are words like "trans" (does ancient greek exist in Thedas???) or "non-binary", neat modern mastectomy scars (it's a medieval setting, that type of surgery would probably just straight up kill you), and character interactions that sound exactly like modern day twitter conversations. BioWare need to radically overhaul their processes to ensure this kind of thing never happens again. They need systems in place to actively prevent people from using games as their own personal soapbox, and I'm sorry to say this I also think the writer for Taash benefitted from a lot of privilege based on them being trans, because very clearly nobody felt able to challenge the appropriateness of what was being written. They need to make sure they have a lead writer whose main alleigance is to the integrity of the setting, and that person needs to be able to overrule writers whose output just does not *fit*. It's so nakedly preachy and didactic that the right and transphobes can point to Veilguard as trans propaganda and actually be correct. What an absolute disaster for trans people that is, in the long run.

[@btiermutineer]

Exactly, the trans "representation" in Veilguard is genuinely making things worse for the trans community irl. It's such a mess. We had Krem in Inquisition and he was so well written! I just can't believe this is how Dragon Age turned out after we had such good inclusion of queer characters in previous games. I'm guessing that David Gaider as the lead writer for all the previous games knew how to keep all the "quirky" ideas other writers had out of the game if they didn't fit with the pre-established lore (or couldn't be made to fit with the lore). And Gaider is a gay man by the way and had worked at Bioware for a really long time before leaving. Trick Weekes doesn't seem to be able to be a proper lead writer and make the difficult decisions. Seems like no one was able to say "no" and veto the bad decisions out of fear for making people upset that their ideas are bad. But unfortunately that has to happen if you want to make something good, the bad ideas do have to be cut out.

[@ursmeloman]

@@btiermutineer how about we leave genders out of fantasy games altogether?

[@patrickbarnes9874]

It doesn't sound like you're aware of the politics involved in this. Taash isn't meant to be a realistic character and the gender politics in the game aren't meant to be setting appropriate. This game is political. Veilguard isn't going to ruin representation of trans characters in games because this wasn't a terrible attempt to include trans representation, this was a successful attempt to include 2020s politics in video games. I would be surprised if anybody at Bioware truly cared about Taash as a character in the first place. Taash is a political symbol first and foremost. This is no different than how movies no longer have strong heroes. The hero now has to be a heroine. Female. The first time they tried this, the Ghostbusters reboot, failed miserably and yet they still made the Star Wars prequels with a teenage female Jedi who was better than Luke Skywalker. People didn't like that. Yet they still changed the Marvel movies to focus on female characters. Girl power has been the rule in movies for a decade now, despite nearly all of them failing. Trans will be no different. The goal of these things isn't really to make money, so it doesn't matter all that much how bad the movies and games are. The purpose of them is social engineering, not immediate profit. If you want to say there won't be any quality representation of trans people, I will agree with you. As long as the goal is to affect people's political attitudes rather than tell a good story, there won't be good trans characters. But there will be trans characters. Just not good ones. If you think Taash is a failed attempt at sincerely representing realistic trans characters, that's not the point of Taash at all.

[@kylemorris8302]

@@ursmelomanI mean the way the quanari did it was good. It was established as a set group that have a function that you can use as an identifier to be able to spot and it had its own lore building in it. Note: this lore has been in for years and no one threw a fit because it was a part of their belief system that also functioned as a healthy constructive part of their society. Just don’t use modern terms for a fantasy game that never had any lore established ever about it.

[@Faminetheblack]

It's very surprising to me to see so many lgbtq members actively calling this game propaganda. Because if you're not part of the club and call it that, you're a bigot or some kind of phobe.

[@Louves192]

Something I learned only recently due to a shift in my friend circle is that some people only want to play a self-insert of themselves. There are people who want overweight characters because they are overweight themselves. They want top surgery scars, because they have them too. Can't relate, but the game just provides what people want. Especially straight cis-women love to create self-inserts (from my experience). I don't care about the scars at all, but putting them in a separate tab, instead of under the scar section is just pandering. It also feels like the opposite of what people actually want: being seen as normal. By putting it outside the scar section it's suddenly more than just another scar. As a non-binary person, Taash pisses me off. And the fact that the writer responsible for that train wreck is non-binary themselves is just baffling. Taash seems not just to hate themselves, but anything feminine, including women who are comfortable with their gender. Their mother actually seems very nice and trying to understand, while Taash looks like a toddler throwing a tantrum. Such a toxic portrayal.

[@btiermutineer]

Exactly, it's a completely toxic and harmful portrayal of a nonbinary person. I had no idea that people were so keen on playing self-inserts all the time. I play D&D in person, not just video game RPGs, and I've played women, men, and nonbinary characters. I love actually roleplaying in my roleplaying games, but I guess not everyone is like that. The scars could have been part of the regular scars section just fine if for some reason they wanted to include them. Even though in fact not every trans man has top surgery, and there's actually 2 types of top surgery (one is with the scars under the chest like that, and the other surgery is with scars around the nipples). But I guess they ignored that other type of top surgery, and for some reason wanted to push these surgery scars so much for "pandering" reasons. I can't understand it at all, trans people don't want a target painted on our backs and yet this is what Bioware did with this so-called "inclusivity" that angered so many people. Weekes has been an amazing writer at Bioware until now. Worked on the ME trilogy and then wrote Solas, Bull, the Chargers during Inquisition and was the lead writer for the Trespasser DLC. NO idea how they wrote this absolute mess of a character.

[@LinUzumaki]

the problem in veilguard too is that you cant even make yourself a "sexy" woman, like you can make yourself only look like a very manly woman, you cant make your boobs big or very curvy

[@Lemmiwings]

@@LinUzumaki It's such a weird choice to have details like mastectomy scars, but anything above a small cup B is impossible. As if female breasts were something evil, needed to be eradicated. You can make your fermale Rook unnaturally muscular, though. The creators seem to love testosterone, but hate estrogen for some reason.

[@dinal570]

You are not non-binary; you’re using outdated stereotypes about feminine/masculine and thinking it is something revolutionary to be presenting as something in between … it is not. It had been done for many years before you were born. It’s simply boring and frankly, narcissistic to expect others to change language for you.

[@gogira76]

@@btiermutineer I think the self-insert may - may - be a generational thing. I'm Gen X so most games I started on had only default, usually male, protagonists or very limited character creators. I can spend *hours* in a character creator playing with options, but in the end they don't represent me or an idealized me; they represent a badass who fits into that world. I do short hair or hair pulled up (so it doesn't get grabbed in battle - or clip thru a helmet), make up is minimal if any...I'm here to punch dragons not win a beauty contest. The entire point in a game, for me, is escape. I've played as a male character more than once because I didn't like the female VA or found the male designs superior. but as a woman, I've been extremely frustrated with everything that's come out as far as what is & isn't considered inclusive. It's a B cup at best & the "largest" rear end is flatter than an ironing board. I'd rather women not be an option at all, it's so weird. But ultimately the character creator is just a symptom. The writing killed it. I can forgive mediocre writing if the gameplay is good. I can forgive mediocre gameplay if the story is compelling. This is gawdawful writing, terrible gameplay, terrible design...not just compared to prior DA games but to games in general. I have no idea how this got greenlit let alone released.

[@ronsalimi5631]

Im a trans men that got through hrt and understood he's trans at 26 yo. So, for me, understanding my gender identity took me some longass time since I live in a very conservative environment. So it wasn't really cringey to me. But to etch their own. And I LOVE my top surgery scars. It's part of the journey that I went through that im all, so proud of. But yes, this needed to be in the scars section and not in It's own category. And btw I love your takes! You're really informative and funny ❤

[@haileyharper674]

I'm not trans but my friend who got top surgery at 18 has always loved his scars and incorporated them into his art pieces, so that take in the vid threw me off a little bit! Not in a bad way, I had just never heard that take before

[@VioletDeathRei]

​@@haileyharper674I think people should avoid over attachment to needing a visual sign of their hardships it can be bad. It's perfectly fine to have say lost your eye and embrace it and say it helped you grow as a person. It's another to say you wouldn't want to have two eyes, or worse other people should try it. If someone removed all your visual scars much like all the ones that are not visual you'd still carry them. So in the interest of not belittling scars you can't see or glorifying scars you can keep in mind It's a fine line.

[@ds_petrikov]

i’m aware this is a bit old but i’d kinda disagree. i think top surgery scars are different from other forms of scars because theyre associated with an identity so hated in the modern day. i think showing those scars isn’t glorifying them, but normalizing and humanizing people. i don’t think someone would look at someone with a scar on their spine from a surgery and go “they’re apart of a group of people i hate, they must be glorifying people getting their spines opened!!” i think it’s a bit silly to say that someone existing with surgery scars is glorifying them. you went through the process, you went through the aftermath. why shouldn’t you be proud?

[@OpticallEffect]

22:38 Regarding "No one likes being a woman" scene I think it's better than you are describing. By this phrase Taash just project they worldview and Neve understands it by saying "ah". "Ah" as "Ah, I understood that by standing that no one likes being a woman you are implying that's you are not liking being a woman and that may indicate that you are a queer."

[@btiermutineer]

Fair enough that you understand it that way, but for me "Ah" doesn't mean anything. And it's very weird that Neve didn't at least tell Taash that it's rude to say such a thing because other women DO enjoy being women, and saying that no one likes being a woman is invalidating those other identities.

[@govi1]

@@btiermutineer Taash is very young and confused. She‘s trying to find the right words and expressing her feelings, I don‘t think it‘s insulting. It‘s just her experience.

[@CrestOfArtorias]

A suggestion regarding your comment about the scars: the effect this has is simply othering, it makes "trans" options "special" and thus makes it something divorced from the rest aka it alienates it.

[@btiermutineer]

Exactly. It's othering us instead of including us. Besides, if they actually wanted to be inclusive (instead of just stirring up controversy) they would have also included options for the other type of top surgery you can have which has scars around the nipples. But clearly they don't actually care to include people - they just wanted to put in whatever THEY wanted, to add their self-inserts in there and, I don't know, make some kind of strange political statement that is just making more people angry towards trans people... No idea what Bioware was trying to do here, but it backfired spectacularly.

[@PriyaPans]

​@@btiermutineer what are your thoughts on if it was just an option as a scars section? Maybe even with a single/double mastectomy (like with breast cancer?) option and then some other options like with battle scars. Heck if they want to try and be inclusive then maybe a c section scar? I'm struggling to think of more health related major scars but I have a very niche existence.

[@DrJazzyBonespHd]

​@@PriyaPans as someone who genuinely has pride in my top surgery scars, THIS is how I want it handled. Before my surgery I would get excited and try to use pre made character scars and move them around the body so they would like up where said scars would be. I have played one game where they had both single and double mastectomy scars as scar options and it was great as I could use them on my character while other might use them to represent their cancer survival scars or some people just think that placement is cool. I wanna make characters I can show my grandma (who primarily financed my procedure) to show her my appreciation.

[@CrestOfArtorias]

@@btiermutineer As a former participant in the game development space, particularly the AAA space, I can tell you that there is without a doubt a battle between folks who treat games as media, aka wanting to make something thats cool and entertaining and folks who want their games to "mean something" aka they want to use games specifically to push "the message". A common retort to that observation, usually from that crowd is: but every piece of media has a message or games always had messages. Of course that is true, because everything made can be seen as a statement of a kind to someone else thus everything made carries a "message". However, there is a difference. Tim Cain, the creator of the Fallout series recently made a video about "the message" of Fallout and how he was very confused that people think that Fallout was anti-capitalist or critical of capitalism, when in fact it was not. The "message" he wanted to convey was that no matter the state of humanity, whether we live in an advanced society or are bombed back to the stone age, our nature does not change. War, war never changes. More specifically the reasons for why we go to war. But to him and the team it was important that the game was entertaining first and then to convey "the message" through subtext. Right now, the faction that wants to push "the message" holds the power in the industry, though due to their mounting failures that influence starts to decline. Personally, I would have liked to see some positive trans representation(instead of someones weird self insert), mainly because I ever only interacted with people similar or more "insane"(I realize this a common way to dehumanize trans people, but its not meant that way) than Taash.

[@СлепухинГеоргий]

Oh man, people from both side of the barricade should see this video. You're SO right. I wish there are more people like you. Perhaps we'd understand each other better

[@_Morri_]

If i had felt non-binary, I would have been extremely offended that they portraited me by such an unlikable, annoying and rude character.

[@screamingopossum7809]

It's why I can understand it when people get pissed off at the children on Tiktok screeching and screaming at people. If they want trans ideology normalized then they themselves have to act normal.

[@ToiletBread1651]

Why? That's how they/ you come off to everyone else.

[@Natsukashii-Records]

@@ToiletBread1651 Then you haven't spoken to enough trans people. If you think social media is an accurate representation of real people then I have bad news for you. Try to befriend a trans person and have a normal person chat with them. You'll find that you mostly agree with them more often than not. And if you don't, they most likely won't act all 'triggered' like you might expect but just agree to disagree. By thinking all trans people are terminally online you prove to be terminally online yourself.

[@salamantics]

@@ToiletBread1651 And you come off as a basement dweller. Except in your case it's accurate.

[@Sleepyhead219]

Can someone send this video to Bioware writing team? They need this feedback as a wake up call. I have some acquaintances from LGBTQ community and none of them are as obnoxious as Bioware think they are. I think gaming industry in general do trans people representation better when they don't try hard for it .

[@luthor24127]

Optimistic of you to think they take any feedback.

[@Aki145]

They will likely call Mutineer a transphobic. I wish I was jesting.

[@ViVi1159-d1]

@@luthor24127They do, but it’s from the wrong people for the most part. They’re desperate not to offend game journalists who use “woke” talking points for clout and first-year sociology students on Tumblr.

[@kregorovillupo3625]

"Girls smell good" -Writers with millions worth franchise

[@cazperzero]

All the writing for Taash wasn’t representation.... its..... trans-projection. They imagined what a trans person might be/want to see, rather than asking trans people themselves (who would then be horrified and help them correct their mistakes). The decision to have top surgery scars as an option is sooooooo glaringly telling. It screams performative. It screams validate my allyship. Its as if the writers cobbled together an image of trans identity without truly understanding or respecting it. **Everything** they did with Taash seems more like they reduced her identity to a checklist and then implemented them one by one, rather than have any genuine complexity or depth. Oh, lets make her angry and "own" her family when she comes out to them, because we imagine all trans people want that feeling of power and "winning" that "fight" with her family. Did they honestly believe that the a sexual minority’s dream is being the one in "power?" As if coming out is about winning some imaginary showdown? What BioWare did with Taash's portrayal reeks of a shallow power fantasy masquerading as representation. Its an intensely patronizing. It’s offensive. It’s as if they imagined every trans person is harboring this intense need to "win" against their families, rather than find understanding, connection, and ACCEPTANCE. It takes a delicate, nuanced experience and reduces it to a power trip, a hollow victory against a family member asking questions and trying to understand and contextualize what is happening the way they understand it. This profoundly tone-deaf, patronizing, bullshit writing misses entirely what makes these moments meaningful, trading empathy for conflict. Its an ugly caricature. It’s infuriating. It goes back to the topscars. Lets put this as an option as a shorthand, they can empower themselves with these scars as they made the choice for having them, but during the actual important conversation, we're going to ignore the emotional, social, and personal nuances and have Taash act like a child. A hollow caricature. Virtue signal that rings false and is condescending. This isn’t representation; it’s mockery. Worse than normal misogyny, its a Patronizing Supportive Misogyny that pretends to uplift, while sending trans rights, feminism, down the toilet. It’s baffling how they put it so little effort. So frustrating that they think this is allyship. BioWare's legacy is that of real, authentic, respectful representation. But this isn’t progressive. Its regressive. Merril, oh Merril. The Templars have come. And they say they are here to help. Run.

[@btiermutineer]

Thank you, this is exactly it. This isn't progressive whatsoever. They really just took the most stereotypical things they imagine a trans person would or "should"(?) want, and made that into Taash's arc. The top surgery scars have to be the strangest decision, however. Because not only do they make it a separate option (and have these super neat and tidy scars that wouldn't be possible in Thedas), but they also completely ignore the other type of top surgery you can have with scars around the nipples. It all feels so incredibly performative and narcissistic like "look we have x and y and z, aren't we just amazing for including all these things and pushing them in everyone's faces? Why is everyone getting angry?". I get so upset even just watching scenes from this game. I have no idea how some people can play it and say it's the most amazing thing ever. It's genuinely disgusting to me with how bad the writing is, and how stereotypical everything is.

[@kaydreamer]

It stinks of all of those things but, bafflingly, Taash's writer is non-binary themselves. They're also the LEAD writer of the whole damn game. Taash isn't trans-projection, they're a self-insert.

[@cazperzero]

@@kaydreamer I... I'm struggling to understand. Why. Of all the choices they could have made. Of all the writing they could have done. Of all the storyline they could have written. Even if they wanted to go that way, the Lack Of Choice for players to Respond to Taash is in itself PROBLEMATIC. Any minority would have gone through about 5 bazillion coming-out scenarios. Forcing us to into a single-pathway is tyrannical.

[@flightlesscoffeebirdboy9655]

@@cazperzero I can only say, the writer was former Kotaku journalist. And they are infamous for mostly talking about themselves instead of delivering the game they are covering.

[@heckyeah4314]

Holy shit Taash’s notes are crazy

[@AngelJimenez-cs4yq]

possibly incorrect opinion from a cis man: I tend to dislike when a progressive character is written as a perfect person so I really enjoy that Taash is kind of a self important dickhead, it’s very representative of a person learning new labels and terms that speak to them. I don’t really feel comfortable speaking beyond that aspect though. A part of their character that I do have some authority on though, is as a biracial person. I utterly haaaate how that aspect of their character was treated. If a friend encouraged me to act more germanic and leave my hispanic heritage behind I’d call them a moron

[@DrJazzyBonespHd]

I really like this insight but I would like to counter with that while I myself and trans I also really enjoy when media portrays any group as being bad (you CAN be trans and an asshole) for Taash specifically it feels rushed and it's wild that they use the term nonbinary when they just barely started exploring their identity. Finding your title takes time and lots of self reflection which Taash doesn't really do. It's "oh that's a word? Yeah that's me and I'm going to be very defensive of it" sends a bad message to people who are starting their journey, especially since the player can't call them out on any shitty behavior. It would be better if you could call them out while still being supportive. Like call them out by saying their mom was genuinely trying to connect with them by using a term she was familiar with to understand the term Taash was using. It's the "Taash never needs to self reflect on their treatment" that's the main issue. They would be such an interesting character if they grew into a better less misogynistic character or got into fights over their treatment towards women in the party.

[@tyf.5111]

As another biracial person, while I am glad to hear that you found something to relate to, Taash's experience isn't really biracial. It is more akin to someone being 1st generation, i.e. someone whose parents grew up in India but they were born in France, so they are ethnically Indian but culturally French (though they may participate in Indian culture as well). Taash is ethnically Qunari but culturally Rivaini. Not the same thing as being biracial. (FYI, I have not finished the game, so if it is revealed that Taash's dad was human or something, which is more analogous to being biracial, then please ignore my comment.)

[@snusmumricken]

im putting in my two cents as someone who is intersex and trans and grew up in a conservative BUT non religeous enviroment. Trash being asked questions by their mother and them getting fustrated is honestly, incredibly vaild given how their mother has treated them up until that point. They were interrogated by a woman who never listens and always critisizes them. I had vivid flashbacks to when I came out in highscool and my teachers who had treated me like shit bombarding with with questions as if trying to talk me into a corner and admit I wasn't serious or making shit up. Tash has been picked on and harrassed to be a proper woman by their mother. Of course they don't think people like being women, when their experience has been so horrendous. I am still working through my internalised mysogany over 10 years later.

[@65firered]

The fact that a video like this needs to exist just to prove that there is legitimate criticism about how this game depicts trans people truly highlights the issues with how people are handling that this game is being criticized. We are at the point where people believe only people who are of a particular identity can criticize a game that depicts that identity poorly. This isn't even the first game this year where that's been a significant problem, it happened with AC Shadows as well.

[@btiermutineer]

I know. I didn't even want to make this video at first because I was like "do I really have to weaponize my identity to get people to listen to actually logical criticism"? But it became clear to me that people are just ignoring genuine criticism out of some misplaced "duty" to defend the game just because queer people were involved in making it. Like... Hate to break it to them, but queer people have been involved in making lots of media for a long long time (even if they were in the closet during that time), and just because a queer person makes something it doesn't make it automatically good. You can criticize a game for its faults without attacking the people who made it.

[@65firered]

@btiermutineer Sad thing is I know where you're coming from a different perspective but I understand. I'm African-American and unfortunately, some people only listen when I say that. My identity shouldn't be the only reason why what I think is worth listening to.

[@lostcrusader8053]

I’m autistic and it’s moments like this is why I’m more attached to characters who aren’t or not confirmed to be autistic but can be coded as such than those who actually are. Because they feel more genuine as a character than to throw a narrative towards the audience that can potentially throw negative impression towards someone like me.

[@salamantics]

I partially agree, though I liked abed in community. He was pretty clearly autistic though I don't think they used that word? they might have a few times but I don't recall.

[@alexdoerofthings]

I appreciate this. I’m a cis straight white male ally. At least, I try to be an ally. This game was written by people who didn’t seem to know who they were writing for or about. One could attempt to introduce these topics in a productive manner or one could repeatedly beat the player over the head with a blunt instrument.

[@Alovanes]

I laughed at the comment (13:20) from Taash criticizing how someone's shirt was too low cut to be appropriate, meanwhile the other person in the conversation was wearing a bikini with accessories. I know that was the Rook custom character, so not dedicated dialogue, but the timing was just perfect.

[@snusmumricken]

ill just put in here, that I developed a severe hate of women during my transition. Anything fem i did, had, or said, was weaponised against me by my surroundings and thus I really assosiated everything 'fem' inclucing seeing clevage as bad and I said some horrendous things to women and trans folk who didn't deserve it. Im still to this day trying to be better but I still havent gotten thorugh everything

[@TheFuriousMulatto]

I think it is very important to have trans voices, such as yours, discussing these topics. Not to say that my or any other cisgendered person's opinion is "invalid", but it is very easy for those with a differing opinion to ignore even the most well reasoned argument simply because it comes from someone who isn't trans. And I agree with pretty much everything you said here. Largely because you are focusing not only on the lore implications many of these decisions have, but also the fact that a lot of the dialogue surrounding the trans/non-binary characters is very cringe and preachy.

[@Shunpon77]

It's impressive how much Bioware missed the mark by making Rook only able to be nice to people. As much as the character should be better written, if Rook was able to be a jerk to his teammates and disagree with them, there is a good chance fewer people would hate Taash so much even as Taash is written.

[@lucaszolcsanyi6972]

As a trans woman I agree 100% with everything you said. I am so happy that I am not alone with the feeling that Veilguard represents LGBTQ people very badly. Thank you for this video. And yeah. When Taash says that nobody likes to be a woman really offended me. It attacks my personal journey. Because I had to get there the hard way...

[@LinUzumaki]

as a woman, taash saying nobody likes to be a woman, pissed me off a lot too.. like i dont wear dresses or dress very woman like, but i still like being a woman because i know who i am, it was really insulting of the writers to let taash say this

[@GothicLightingQueen]

@@LinUzumaki Yes I agree, A very BIG mabye, it could have worked is she said something like I don't understand why anyone would want to be a woman. I mean I had those thoughts towards men when I started exploring my indentity (I'm a trans woman) But those was just a reaction to dysphoria, not an opinion or trying to invalidate someone. I remember in high school I was surprised to learn that other guys didn't feel what I felt, like "your telling me it's not normal for guys to dream of waking up as a girl". If Taash was a human teenager in a not fantasy game then mabye it would have worked.

[@poppymason-smith1051]

Its such a rude af thing for Taash to say to a woman. I did feel like Taash being a big hipped, big tiddied person coming into puberty, always a tom boy, hated femininity, hated women accepting femininity, hadnt worn a dress since I found out I had a choice at about the age of 4. But I didnt go around telling people they were wrong for liking being a woman and I KNEW it wasnt right for me to hate other people for being a woman and being feminine. I went and challenged myself, I started watching drag race and that helped crumble the self loathing I spread to how I felt about others. I watched how trans women spoke about how they discovered themselves. I might be non binary but Im not bothered by personal labels and prefer not to be noticed in conversations with non friends being a shy person. I did at one point wonder if I was a trans man but thought it out pretty quick that if I didnt have breasts so large they cause discomfort in or out of a bra, and if my periods hadnt left me fainting and light headed all the time then I wouldnt want to change myself. I also relate to the mother thing but you gotta just stop caring what they think, thats the growth part that Taash just lacks. Realising it doesnt matter what someone who has repeatably hurt you thinks.

[@Andrewexploded]

The way Rook talks about transitioning reminds me of a gym bro talking about their cruntch routine.

[@heavylancer2556]

Just wanna say, I genuinely felt like I learned more about actual trans people's experiences from this one video than what dozens of these DEI games and all the social media noise could ever even hope to offer. Like, it's genuinely well-put together and helpful. Thanks!

[@stevestrangelove4970]

There is an issue in writting that most writers dont see. Being trans is a modern problem. In both fantasy and scifi settings you have advancements that make the idea of being trans ludicrous, from body shaping spells, mind alteration or incredible advanced surgeries, all of that make the concept of being trans mute. So if a writer wants to add trans people that the audience can tell they are trans they need to come up for reasons why their experience doesnt match the setting (example, as you said, they could be afraid of magic). But then its the issue of relatavility, how do you make them relatable to the modern trans experience when they start from a position alien to us. And these questions need to be asked, because if mot you end up with a cartoon of what being trans is.

[@btiermutineer]

During Inquisition, at least they didn't discuss the possibility of using magic to change someone's body, so Krem as a trans man made more sense because he didn't have access to any surgeries or hormones or magic. But then during Veilguard they literally mention that flesh-shaping blood magic exists, but only describe it being used for "evil" purposes because "blood magic is eeeeevil". But I absolutely agree, when you have such an alien position for your characters within a setting, you have to consider how this would affect the trans experience. Otherwise, you end up with stereotypes or extremely awkward and illogical representations.

[@stevestrangelove4970]

@btiermutineer its way more complex than writimg a modern trans person, because you start with a goal (character must be trans) and need to fit them in a setting with its own rules (ex. Scifi super technology). But then you have to question if the result is relatable to the modern trans experience and then everything clashes. It also hurt them when they build a world that is understanding and nice as its today (yes, even with modern racism and biogtry we live in a better time than back then). Because conflict build characters, and people vs the world is the most basic ones. Good video, its a complex topic that no one want to think about (pro trans dont wamt criticism and anti trans dont want trans people).

[@Keram-io8hv]

@@btiermutineer Sorry for commenting here like crazy but Veilguard making Blood Magic ultra evil even despised by Solas (who in previous game literally said "Blood magic is magic nothing bad about it") was so stupid But I guess they needed it because it wouldn´t fit their "You are the best of the best heroes morally white and never doing anything bad" Damn in previous games it was my favourite magic always going hand in hand with "I will do everything to save this world" narrative

[@Louves192]

@@Keram-io8hv I always loved blood magic and I am super miffed it's exclusively portrayed as this super evil thing now. Even if it's origins may or may not be evil, it's a tool you could use to do objectively good deeds. But I guess that would be too much nuance.

[@Jinocturnus]

There is something else entirely that I have considered when it comes to trans people in general. Sex altering magic have not really been explored ever in Dragon age, as far as I am aware, we have had changes from human to animal forms, or dragon, but only from someone like Morrigan and Mythal, but I digress. I could be absolutely wrong in what I am saying here, but, to me it seems the entire trans thing hinges on the idea that there are societal gender roles. It relies on the idea, that sexes have very specific roles they perform in society - take that away, which people have in most fantasy and sci-fi settings, what would the issue be? If there are no concept of what a man or a woman should be, how exactly do you feel that you are born in the wrong body? I can not speak from the perspective of a trans person, but I can not help but feel that this is the underlying issue. Some people feel a strong societal pressure to live up to a role associated with a specific sex, and this in turn creates discomfort because one does not feel that they can live up to these expectations and they are afraid of, or are being forced out of communities as a result. Again, I really can not speak to the intricacies or complex emotions that is going on in a person who feels they are not the sex they are born with, I will probably also never truly understand it.

[@crow__bar]

It is insane how much damage Bioware has done with the way trans and non-binary people were represented in this game. In my recommended videos on KZbin right now, I have multiple videos ranting about Veilguard, with their talking points very obviously coming from a place of bigotry, or at the very least "edginess" and distaste. These are people and channels that I would never interact with, talking points that I would never interact with, if it wasn't for this game. Whilst not everyone was outright hostile towards LGBT people outright, a lot of them are very obviously fed up with being preached at, and with getting politics that don't interest them shoved in their face. And the worst part is, they are technically right. The game does preach at them, the game does shove the modern real life politics in their face. The game is "woke". And Bioware have given them the perfect platform to spread their views. Now these people are so much less likely to change their mind. They will no longer be able to see trans and non-binary people as fellow people who just see themselves differently from them. They will see these people as loud, childish, irresponsible, and infuriating. Instead of discovering a whole new point of view that they might end up understanding and empathising with, they will close themselves off to these ideas even more. These people aren't the "enemy", someone to beat. They are someone who we should try to make understand. But now, due to the actions of Bioware and other companies pushing DEI irresponsibly, more and more people will see LGBT people as the enemy. Bioware had gay and bi characters on full display in their games, even at a time where these topics were mostly taboo in much of the developed world. Now let's not kid ourselves, they did cut back on some of these aspects due to public opinions, which can mainly be seen with the ME romances. But these characters were there. They were deep and relatable, not because of their sexuality, but because of all the other things that make a person. They just also happened to not be straight. They didn't shout at the player I AM BI!! I like both men AND women!! Look at how progressive I am! Now drop on the ground and give me 20 you bigot! Another great example is Celeste. Madeline, the main character, is trans. But the game never tells this to the player outright. Looking back at the story with the context, Madelines journey makes so much more sense. But the journey also happened to the player. They might not have realized that the character was trans, but they still struggled together with her, they went through the lows and the highs with her, they climbed the mountain with her. The player was connected to Madeline on a much deeper level than just gender, or sexual prefference, or race. The player was connected to her as another human being (well, as much as you can connect to a fictional character), facing their own struggles, but human struggles nonetheless. Games can be used to tell an almost infinite amount of stories, and some of those stories can work amazingly for representing different groups of people. But it needs to be done with respect and nuance. Both of which the writers at Bioware lack, instead choosing to scream at the players how they should feel. They have sacrificed the integrity of the writing to force in modern terminology. They chose to write propaganda instead of human stories. And that is such a shame. Not just for me as a player who is now left with a bad video game from a franchise they love, but especially for the LGBT people who will be directly impacted by this. Whether or not this is what the writers wanted, the results are the same.

[@luca8479]

I keep thinking about the fact Taash is easily the most unpleasant companion, often just an a hole, but the game refuses to let you call anything out. You absolutely must be supportive, even when Taash is straight up wrong. It’s infantilising and deeply unpleasant to play through as a trans guy.

[@Geronimo_89]

I think Neve's "ah" was in the lines of "ah, I see what this is all really about", at least that's how I interpreted it. Which also isn't great cos it sounds condescending, like Neve has already figured out Tash's identity issues from that one dialogue (we as observers already know what the writers are implying, but a character probably shouldn't)

[@anna8280]

I'm cis but had some trouble with the way Taash was written that I didn't feel qualified to critique, you said it all perfectly.

[@wandererswanderingdaughter1756]

I find it so sad that transness seems to be discussed as a seperate issue from gender dynamics in a greater sense. Like what is a woman's role in the different scocieties in dragonage? I feel like in a different society, transness would also present differently. Its such a missed opportunity to explore gender outside of the western patriarchy.

[@btiermutineer]

Agreed. I think there are some very interesting things that could have been explored in terms of both gender dynamics and transness within the setting of Dragon Age. Instead we got... whatever Veilguard is.

[@Vespyr_]

This franchise already had diegetic trans representation in its own universe since the previous games. This whole character is so out of place within its own world and this constant effort to force us into the narrative is starting to make us all look out of place in ours.

[@btiermutineer]

Exactly, Krem was handled quite well in Inquisition. Don't know why they didn't continue in that vein, and suddenly had to go with this extremely forced and awkward "inclusivity" which just makes people hate trans people like me more.

[@sanguinus]

This is fantastically well worded and insightful.

[@palamedes4740]

Thank you! I can't believee they saw the already build in lore, since origin mind you, and said " Nahhh let me use modern slang

[@voideddragon9104]

@@btiermutineer tbf as bad as this is, I don't think it'll actually cause more people to hate trans, since most of the conversation around these sorts of horrible inserts tends more towards hatred about the act of real world political messaging being inserted in an obtuse preachy manner rather than trans people specifically. At least from my experience and wandering through the web. So maybe I just run in the wrong circles to see actual transphobes opinions.

[@medusawitchful]

well krem never go around screaming i am trans in stronghold. he even mention once? then never again tho I sure actual anceint in real world had people who feel like the could be other gender everywhere like many famous crossdressers in history. tho they don't seem out of place yea? they just there.

[@SavRagesAt]

I would almost swear Bioware used Taash as satire, making fun of the LGBTQ community. Both my trans and one of my gay friends were actually a little hurt by the "representation" because it felt to them like a mockery. What's probably far more likely is Bioware here is akin to that awkward parent trying to understand their child, where they do or say things they think are accurate in an attempt to support or appeal towards them, or to gain their child's approval, but end up going about it in a way that is incredibly insensitive or otherwise blatantly offensive instead, and then throw their hands up in defeat like it was even a battle in the first place...

[@NovaG0]

You know there's nothing wrong with feminine men and masculine woman I mean I considered myself having more masculine tendencies growing up then feminine but I become more feminine as I aged. I accepted myself for what I am: A woman who loves hobbies more associated with men aka gaming (at least when I was a kid). Also fellow autistic here hi :) I think the writing in this game regarding trans identities missed mark by a couple of miles.

[@btiermutineer]

Exactly, there's nothing wrong with feminine men and masculine women because everyone has different ways in which they feel comfortable being themselves! The way they portray trans people in the game is just really weird, suggesting things like "if you aren't a woman then you have to hate feminine things"....

[@NovaG0]

@@btiermutineer It does feel off.

[@billygranzow1331]

I don't mean this in an offensive or "anti-woke" way but it feels really weird hearing the word non-binary in a medieval-esque fantasy world

[@Jane-ow7sr]

Not to mention would medieval peasants n shit even know about binary numbers to even understand the concept of something outside of a binary?

[@DrJazzyBonespHd]

As someone who is trans and plays dungeons and dragons and enjoys other media of this kind, you are correct. The game itself acknowledged that there is a term from Taashs culture that describes EXACTLY how they feel and is accepted by that society. It's like saying someone who uses the term two spirit in the indigenous community or lady boy in Taiwan are wrong for their terms. So many cultures have a unique term for the feeling of being outside the two standard gender identities. I'm currently playing as a golem in my current campaign who would be classified as nonbinary, but I told my DM that I don't want that term for the character because I didn't think golems in the society would have gender roles to begin with, so no reason for gender terminology. Golems use whatever pronouns, as the perception of gender and labels would not exist in their culture, so they respond to whatever others use for them. My party uses he/they for my character as they perceive the golem of having a more masculine voice. This is how you make fantasy gender and this is how fantasy gender worked in the dragon age franchise until Taash

[@GenkiGoLucky]

It feels so jarring purely because the other works in the Dragon Age universe never use those “modern” terms. Dorian isn’t gay, he likes men. Krem isn’t trans, he used to be a woman but now he’s a man. Imo it’s not that it doesn’t fit in a medieval-esque fantasy, it’s that there are terms and circumstances that exist within the universe already. For whatever reason they didn’t wanna use the subtlety they’ve always succeeded with.

[@Awaken_To_0]

​@@DrJazzyBonespHdexcept the term does not refer to that. The Qunari term refers to a man who lives the social role of a woman or a woman of a man. Ta'ash's mother is aware of this and seems to have been pushing Ta'ash's to understand themselves that way for a long time. Ta'ash explicitly states that this is not their experience. They feel like neither a man _nor_ a woman so simply switching one label for the other would not make sense. Further Ta'ash seems to resent their mother for being overbearing and harsh as well as trying to fit them into her Qunari way of thinking. And having been raised all her life in a totalitarian authoritarian society that's really all her mother knows even after having escaped it. It makes perfect sense that the two would be in conflict, that her Mother would try to understand things through the lens of The Qunari, and that Ta'ash would resent what they see as an attempt to force them into a role they don't want.

[@jenniferhanses]

What makes Taash and the whole "dressing like a woman" debacle so much more ridiculous is that's not how Qunari are established to think. Qunari associate your gender with the work you do. Taash really should have been regarded as a transman based on Taash's work as a warrior. Because according to Sten, warriors cannot be women. The clothes are kind of immaterial. Also very odd to decide that dresses and skirts are women's clothing. Men in the Middle East wear robes just like Western Women's dresses. And Scotsmen traditionally wear kilts. Romans wore togas. I find it a massive failing of Dragon Age that the writers don't appear to have considered historical and cultural differences in, well, anything, and just wrote as if Thedas were the modern age not only in the nonbinary inclusion, but in so many other things. Re: Not liking being a woman. It's funny, because that's part of what JK Rowling said that got her into so much trouble. Something along the lines of no one likes being a woman, and if there were an out, she would have taken it at an earlier period of her life. And that's why (insert negative things about trans people not being real). From a female perspective, when another woman says no one likes being a woman, you nod in understanding because it's either the patriarchy's got you down or the period cramps suck a lot right at this moment.

[@Duckylai]

thank you for speaking up about the shitty representation, especially when criticising it will sound like either speaking against the trans community, or complaining that Veilguard "is not woke enough" to both sides of the "debate" (which should not exist in the first place)

[@ViVi1159-d1]

Not to mention the reviews by cis players are attracting actual transphobes to the comments section. Here there are generally real conversations about how it was handled, not straight guys complaining that they aren’t getting enough eye candy.

[@Natsukashii-Records]

@@ViVi1159-d1 Excuse you, there is a reason people want appealing characters. Regardless of how you look in real life, as an average looking person(if that) the last thing I want to play as is an ugly character. I don't get the idea of uglifying characters, do people believe that if they normalize 'ugly' that suddenly people will find it more appealing? Because that's not how aesthetics work.

[@salamantics]

@@ViVi1159-d1 Bah, i can only assume you're talking about the disgusting character creation screen. As a pansexual that nonsense was so backwards. There, am i gay enough to criticize the horrible quality of this game? Women exist above an A cup. Men have glutes. Women have glutes. I would know. Wouldn't you feel irritated if you were a C cup with a pear-shaped body and you were forced to be overweight and A cup because the designers have apparently never seen a human woman?

[@klausvanderknut928]

With all the noise surrounding this game, this was a really interesting critique. Thank you.

[@btiermutineer]

Thank you for taking the time to listen to my perspective!

[@calebbraun9505]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed the fact that top surgery scars in a fantasy world, with magic, seemed weird. Especially when inquisition had Krem, who might've actually known about such surgeries existing in the world, due to working under Iron Bull, who is in one of the better intelligence agencies in Thedas. You'd think that when the inquisitor mentioned "the possibility of magic that could change your appearance", Krem might've mentioned hearing about a surgery that he'd feel more comfortable taking than letting that kind of hypothetical magic change his body.

[@hqueso]

Thank you for making this vid. I'm a CIS white straight evangelical libertarian (roughly a "live and let live" conservative for those outside of US politics) living in a part of the US that has been called "the buckle of the Bible belt." A lot of the subject here is something I don't interact with directly on a daily basis, and as such, I worry my views might be simplistic, incorrect or confused. I appreciate hearing about it from someone with more direct experience with these matters. I haven't played Veilguard but have watched some play and do not care for parts of it, and many of those parts are parts with what people call “progressive” or “woke” or “representational”. This surprised me, because I support representation in games. Agreeing with me should not be a prerequisite for connecting to and enjoying a game (or book or film), nor should disagreeing with me make a work worthless to me. Seeing your take has made me realize what bothered me isn’t the ideas, but the presentation. If you put the message first and don’t craft good story and characters, two things happen. First, the work isn’t good enough to be immersive and compelling on its own, so it seems bad. Second, the blatant and awkward presentation of those ideas seems like an attack to people who disagree or misunderstand, causing them to get defensive and dismissive and to blame the poor quality on the message itself rather than the poor quality of the writing. Veilguard seems to me to be a prime example of this but seeing it from the point of view of someone who is already connected to the issues at hand is helping me add a little more empathy and understanding to this model I’ve been considering. I hope that made sense. I’m still working through a lot of these ideas. Thank you so much for giving more to consider!

[@defiante1]

Honestly the biggest thing I found silly in all this is the lack of an option to say something like... "We are trying to save the world, I don't care about your personal stuff. Speaking of your mom... I'm not her, I'm the commander, not your therapist." If that gives negative rep with the character that's fine, but also if the character is all... I would rather leave the party than save the world. Then write that they are that selfish and petty. The arguments just come across as so... tedious and out of sync with the stakes of the game. A good comparison is Astarion from BG3. His personal quest chain is about a vampire becoming some super daywalker vampire. In Veilguard it just feels like your sort of... babysitting a group of nutbags who don't understand the world is about to explode.

[@KatherineMathiowetz]

I think people are forgetting that dragon.Age inquisition had a transgender character his name was Krem. He was one of the chargers under the iron bull.

[@SamuraiMotoko]

Remember some people getting angry when I suggested "why not just add the top surgery option in a scars section, and be more subtle about it".

[@noctoi]

Yeah I got dogpiled and called a "traitor to the queer community" when I suggested it on social media. It's a hot mess 😒

[@ANGRYWOLVERINE2060-ft2nc]

You are ok. I don't like the Taash character esp her bring rude to her mom. I lost my mom to cancer several years ago and its painful to watch her being so mean. Not just to her mom and to others.

[@btiermutineer]

I really don't understand why Taash is allowed to be so mean towards her mother as well as other companions. And I would understand to some extent if Shathann was actually a malicious person or something, but she's not! She's just saying things rationally and trying to understand. And I'm sorry for your loss.

[@muronooo]

They wished to make a morrigan x flemeth 2.0, but they just set Taash to be the worse companion from ALL DAs. I understand why morrigan was rightfully angry at her mother, but Taash? Growing in confort and with a mother that care for they? yeah...

[@annmoore321]

Honestly, if I was writing Taash, I would have just made them Aqua-Athok from the beginning given that their mother raised them to follow the Qun even though they aren’t officially part of it. Taash should have already figured out that because they don’t fill traditional gender roles based on the Qun, that that was what they were. I would have placed a heavier emphasis on being torn between the Qun, and Rivaini culture. It would have been an interesting opportunity to delve into what both cultures are, and help Taash navigate the hopes and expectations of their mother versus Rivaini societal expectations.

[@Tom88]

37:29 unforunately I've seen corporate ERG groups made of up trans / non binary people who run training in the vein of this writing. I think some people who make being an activist the core part of their personality kind of forget how people treat each other in real life.

[@IgnoranceIsBliss808]

I'm just a straight german dude and I think this message is very important! Very good points , perfect english (german accent is the worst, I can only dream of speaking like that one day lol) and a lot of people need to hear this! Much appreciaton for putting all this work into this

[@btiermutineer]

Thank you so much for the kind words!

[@erickchristensen746]

The *Therapy* talk from the main character to everyone else is so bad. I knew i would hate the game and didn't bother buying it despite my love for the last three..but watched a playthrough of it and both me and the person playing it the entire time was SO SICK of the therapy talk. It's like a teen romcom with every conversation and everything was handled poorly, from feeling cringe in many moments, to terrible writing dialogue, and AT BEST *Average* voice acting but most of it was bad voice acting. In the older games you can be a good and nice dude to your companions and random npc's but it never came off so unnatural and overbearing like it did in this game.

[@HeathenSWolf]

People like you need to be more known. I do not like trans people at all solely due to the image that the media has of them. I didn't like gay people at all and only by chance I found out that a person I watched for a couple of years was pansexual (but leaning gay) and knowing that single normal adequate member of this group made me change my mind about gay people as a whole. I finally saw that they are not needy, angry, demanding people that can't hold a conversation - they are just like any other people. I still do not have any gay/trans people in my life, since they basically don't exist or hide real well where I live. The only thing that this kind of representation that Veilguard gets right - making more people like me, who make their judgement from what they see only. You on the other hand do not preach, you are not angry, not delusional, you just exist and sound normal. That's how it's supposed to be, that made me wonder for the first time basically if I was wrong, while Veilguard reinforced that belief beyond reasons.

[@btiermutineer]

Thank you for taking the time to listen to my perspective! And yes, I know that the representation in media of people like me is so over-dramatic and awful and makes people think that that's how trans people are in real life. Most trans people are just regular people who go about their lives normally. There are of course exceptions, plenty of hysterical people of all kinds exist, but... No, the way Taash is represented has nothing to do with being trans. It has everything to do with being an angry, immature, nasty person.

[@kaydreamer]

Your honesty does you credit. I'm not trans, but I know people who are. Some teenagers, some in their 30's, some much older. And like all groups of people - they're just people. Some are kind, some are catty, some are wise, some are foolish. Some, you could never tell were trans unless they told you. Others, it's very obvious, and their conviction, the courage they have to walk through the world being honest to who they are, is admirable. People are just people. Try not to judge whole groups - there are shades of grey in all of them, and an open heart may find friends everywhere it peers.

[@ViVi1159-d1]

@@kaydreamerThis. The most dogmatic people are in the public eye because it generates engagement and, in the case of right-wing media, encourages people to project those traits onto all trans people. I have both trans and non-binary friends. They’re just people.

[@lauraorganasolo8875]

You are proof that people can grow and change for the better. ❤ I wish you the best on your journey in understanding people very different from you and your experiences.

[@hippieyoda1993]

Not sure if you even realised but you never rescinded your comment about not liking trans people, only about gays…

[@TheAdarkerglow]

I don't really know what their process is for writing, especially the dialogue. But I get the feeling they weren't receptive to criticism during that process.

[@nunyabidnis7111]

It's unreasonable to expect any piece of media to be fully representative of the full range of experiences of a marginalized or minority community with a single or handful of characters. The problem is that there's so few instances of queer representation that each one of them is scrutinized and picked apart for failing the impossible task of satisfying and representing everyone at once. Queer characters/stories don't need to be all encompassing, there just needs to be more of them.

[@aeliapanoowau1719]

damn they had trans people as writers and wrote trans representation this bad?

[@therandom_dude]

Maybe because they're not trans, and doing it to try to fit into a stupid group.

[@christopherwaller1642]

Dude, thank you! Gay guy here and progressive, but I think Veilguard writers really did just create a game for their 'own therapy'/ not let the story have its space. It's saddening--I am now replaying DAO to cheer myself up. For me, diversity and all that is fine, just DO IT WELL. I could forgive so much for this game, but the writing is just poor and I can't even play it, which sucks as I love this series. I think you did the T-community so much justice here for saying the TRUTH.

[@btiermutineer]

I know, if it was just the gameplay that sucked in Veilguard, I would suffer through it if the writing was good. But it's absolutely AWFUL. I've started a new Inquisition playthrough because I realized I was far too harsh on Inquisition - I always liked it but had a lot to criticize about it. But honestly in comparison to Veilguard, Inquisition is a masterpiece, and I realized there was so much about it that I had taken for granted. Thank you for taking the time to watch my video and comment, this is exactly why I made this video. I felt like someone had to speak up, and if someone who isn't trans tries to do so they're automatically going to be called a transphobe no matter if their criticism is valid.

[@heyfell4301]

The "nobody actually likes being a woman" scene is particularly annoying to me, because this would've been something meaningful if Neve just went "uh, WHAT? I DO!" It's a common thought for eggs that "this is just a normal thing, nobody actually likes being this gender, there's nothing wrong with me," it's that classic meme of the middle-aged transphobic dad going "well, trans people must be wrong, if people could change gender there would be no men 'cause we'd all choose to be women, right fellas?" I personally even remember feeling very confused and a bit annoyed at trans men before figuring out I'm trans, never openly saying anything but always thinking "I'm glad they're happy, but honestly who in their right mind would choose to be a man? Being a guy sucks!" All it would've taken would be for Taash to be shut down for that, like if Neve and a female rook would immediately just go "what? I actually like being a woman, it seems like you're the one who would rather not be one" it would've made sense, it would've been realistic even. It's frustrating to see wasted potential like this!

[@likeAflamingo-i2e]

I feel like they did Krem far better than Taash. I mean...Krem is actually adorable and likeable. Like they gave a specific term in the language of the world within the Quanari. So it was done well. Taash just seems so....unlikeable and insufferable.

[@tiffk5768]

Right and krem even makes a few funny jokes about being trans that aren’t offensive

[@likeAflamingo-i2e]

@tiffk5768 He's honestly a sweetie. Though when he first opened his mouth I was mainly "Shepard!? Is that really you!?" Then Google. But Krem is so likeable. Like he has a fun personality, plus his snark towards Bull was fun to listen to.

[@TeragaTV]

Just a straight born dude here. Your I wish that would be the kind of reaction when I slip up on a pronoun. I wish my experience with trans was My office does progressive hiring. We had a bunch of non binary people who got fired for various reason. - Cry of rage. We (whole group) had to leave the meeting room and the cops were called. Lucky of us that person was just flipping some ergonomic chairs across the room. The person who made the mistake and was the ''recipient'' was the same person who was pushing for this person to be hired... - We speak french. French is a Gendered language. We put feminine and masculine for every noun and have different set of adjective if the noun is feminine or masculine. We had a non binary individual who decided to recreate the French language in their image. A week after they got the job, they sent an excel spreadsheet of ''new adjective and specific noun'' that was for non binary. That person requested everyone in the office to learn the new words and to implement it in our official communication (outside the office). They also said they were working on adding a conjugation rule for it. I'll be honest, I have seen some huge excel list but this one was HUGE. French got 408,078 word in their dictionary but if we add the two gendered version of the word it's more like 5xxx,xxx - 6xx,xxx words. Imagine adding another set of 100,000 to learn which do not follow any of the grammatical logic... yet - We had one who thought they were above everyone the time and was trying to ''date'' the higher up and ask about people sexual habit. This one wasn't fun to be around... They didn't understand that sexuality was something private. Their pronoun they asked was ''vous'' which isn't a pronoun you can ask to be used in the french language without insulting the other person. Requesting the ''vous'' has a indirect meaning. It mean that the person that must use the ''vous'' is lesser than the other. The only time ''vous'' is used is for : a client, royalty, elderly people, a specific group of person, someone who has power over you. Requesting it is specifically, an insult or a good sign that the person is the classical narcissist sociopath or a king. We tried to suggest them another pronoun that we could use Iel, yel, ielle, ellui which are the new pronoun for non-binary (not official) in french but no that wasn't the one (her/him/them/other pronoun). - We had a person who was big into the ''gender fluid'' explanation. They claimed to be gender fluid and that their pronoun could change at any time. They used that as a ''weapon'' to try to get people fired. They made so much complaint to HR about it. They were specifically targeting other woman. I had to be the emissary of both party after one of the woman started crying after learning they had to deal with that person. We only had found 1 trans person who was ''fit'' socially/professionally to work within the group and they left for another job after a couple of years. I kept contact with that person cuz she was actually interesting to talk to. I had a conversation with her (right pronoun). She part of the boomer generation and she blamed it on the fact that older generation saw it more like ''being ok to not be part of the system'' which is why they never truly tried to do anything about it and that the younger folk see it in two way. First group see it as ''being part of the system'' which is fine a respectable but the 2nd group see it as ''decide what the system should be'' which is problematic. Not my word and not my arguments. I'll be honest, I don't mind using other pronouns. I just want to go through my life without any bullshit that doesn't concern me. If I can help than i'm happy to do so.

[@TeragaTV]

Sorry, I forgot to say what I wanted to say. Keep up the good work and have a nice day. You sound like you have a head on your shoulder. Here is a like/thumps up.

[@btiermutineer]

Wow, I'm sorry you had to deal with such difficult people. I understand completely about neutral pronouns in a gendered language: Romanian is the same and I haven't heard of people being able to find a way to add neutral nouns and adjectives. Even the "neutral" nouns that we have are just masculine in the singular and feminine in the plural. As someone who grew up trying to avoid using gendered language, I simply found ways to say things with verbs instead of adjectives in order to avoid using any gender for myself before I came out and transitioned. But even this can be difficult for people who haven't practiced it. It's quite a shitty situation for our kinds of languages where we really don't have any kind of neutral way to word things. Thank you for sharing your experience and for the support!

[@screamingopossum7809]

People like that are what make normal people not want to deal with the trans gender movement. I've seen multiple people hear anything regarding "I'm non-binary" roll their eyes and then cease to talk to that person.

[@TeragaTV]

@@btiermutineer It's fine. In the end, it's not like I'm harmed by it. But, going through those situation does shape my view on the situation differently. There's also a lot I did not talked about. There are sure ways to dodge the issue of gendered language for many situation. Some situation sadly cannot be dodge though (Like the adjective). The solution is often not a perfect one. Language is often construct with the idea of how it sound (Logically and aesthetically). In french, we use the masculine when unsure or if a group meet both criteria. I feel some people could do more to help people who are non-binary. I'm 100 % sure of that. But, One issue is when some other people who have done WAY MORE than others get asked to do EVEN WAY MORE and everything start looking ridiculous. Also, the change requested are asked ''starting immediately'' and are ''thankless''. Often, there's no time to get use to the change to make it an habit/culture/language. Also, my guess is that it's often the same people who get asked more because they are more receptive to change.Those people often get ''breathless from the amount of effort'' and do a complete 180 and walk away (my job is on their way of doing this sadly).

[@unyxpectedtrinkets4616]

On behalf on Nonbinary folk, I’m sorry you have to deal with such assholes. I’m the type that, the less I’m perceived, the better. It baffles me that people can be so self centered and self indulgent. I understand feeling upset about someone using the wrong pronoun, but more often than not-people don’t mean to. People slip up, people have different backgrounds, and understanding/respect is a two way street. I hope you have better rep coming your way next time. It seems some of us are trying to speed run “how to get everyone to think the worst of the community as a whole”…. It’s really disappointing

[@butterkirby1]

The character creator in baldur's gate 3, I think, does it great. You can basically pick whatever body type you want with any voice and body parts. And I don't remember anyone having a fuss over that. Basically, every companion was at least bi, and everyone loved it. They didn't draw attention to it and it was just natural.

[@thesunisup_]

Taash’s characterization is so harmful to NB people, basically portraying them as narcissistic and hypocritical, extremely offensive towards others yet demanding unearned respect towards themselves.