A Genderless / Genderfluid / Agender Iconic

[Joe Hex]

During one late night with friends, having tons of fun with the 'Advanced Race Guide', we created a Fey race that decided it's gender, or not having one, every day. We struggled mechanically how we could represent it, but figured, it would work to just role play it. We replaced using the official "Alter Self" mechanic, with a "Be yourself" concept. It worked, because we were all on the same page with the idea.

On a side note, or rather question, how do you find these old blog posts (like Shardra)? I'm fairly new to new to the site, if not playing PF, but even when I try to go through the Paizo Blogs, I can't even find a "next page", to read older posts.

[Samy]

Googling "shardra iconic" gave her as the first hit.

[Joe Hex]

Samy wrote:

Googling "shardra iconic" gave her as the first hit.

How about when you're not looking for something specific, and just want to check out cool stuff, you might have missed?

[Samy]

That's a good question. I suppose you could click on some of the tags under the posts under "Paizo Blog" to get more articles like that, but for articles whose tags aren't used on that page...I dunno.

[Joe Hex]

Samy wrote:

That's a good question. I suppose you could click on some of the tags under the posts under "Paizo Blog" to get more articles like that, but for articles whose tags aren't used on that page...I dunno.

Thanks for the feedback, I'll try that. I was embarrassed that I was missing something obvious, but there really isn't anything for browsing old posts. :)

[thejeff]

Kaelidin wrote:

To me the point of the characters are to have a personality to hang a story on. Gender and sexuality for me aren't really a main focus of what interests me in the character. If the fact that the character is ___ race ___ gender ____ sexuality from ____ moves the story along or enriches it then that is great, if it is just a foot note you likely trying to wedge something where it may not need to be. If you manage to tell a whole story and the protagonist is still kind of a "blank slate" that you can insert your own thoughts and interpretations onto that is even better as it can be an identity for anyone. Some examples would be stories where the main character isn't really given a good description, in those cases it is entirely the scenario that is pushing the story rather than the character fitting some niche.

I'm not sure if I would really be interested in a set of stories where the only interesting thing is how "progressive" the character is, that would feel cheap and tacked on to me. But if that story could only be exist due to those special circumstances of that character then that is awesome; bring on those diverse characters! I do want to see players own character creations, telling their own stories and giving life to their personas, I don't think we need to wait for official works to fill in our desire for new interesting protagonists.

I've had a lot of characters I've written stories of and in my mind they are a certain "type" (M/F/Other, H/B/LG/other; more complexity than being just a series of labels) , and any particular difference in how that "type" would change the story has not come up in their adventures so it wouldn't be in the story except as a foot note, so it isn't there at all.

Yes, but...

Obviously just tacking a "diverse type" onto a character to fill a quota isn't good story telling. Nor is a character who's only feature is being "progressive".

OTOH, only using "diverse" type characters when "that story could only be exist due to those special circumstances of that character" has problems of it's own. Why do all the stories of gay people have to be about being gay? Most characters have traits and personalities and quirks that aren't direct drivers of the story they're in. Why can't being gay be one of those? A lot of fantasy stories have side romance plots. Why can't the gay character have one of those, even if the main plot is about fighting a dragon? Why can't women have adventures? Why can't a black guy be the hero? Even if the story doesn't require it. Why is straight cis white male the norm and anything different have to be justified?

More deeply, there's a lot of erasure that comes with this, especially when you add as you did "race/gender/sexuality". First of all, in a visual medium (and the iconics show up in comics and are mainly used for visuals in the adventures and other books) race and gender are going to be apparent most of the time. You can't leave those blank and let people fill themselves in. Gender is pretty hard to hide even in text and it quickly becomes obvious you're doing it.

[Kazaan]

thejeff wrote:

A lot of fantasy stories have side romance plots. Why can't the gay character have one of those, even if the main plot is about fighting a dragon? Why can't women have adventures? Why can't a black guy be the hero? Even if the story doesn't require it. Why is straight cis white male the norm and anything different have to be justified?

Because it shouldn't be "the gay character has a side romance plot", nor should it be "the cis character has a side romance plot". It should simply be "the character has a side romance plot" where the character interactions are made up and the sexual orientation doesn't matter. It shouldn't be "the black guy is the hero" any more or less than "the white guy is the hero". The gender, race, creed, sexual orientation, etc. should be incidentals. The color of a person's skin should only be pertinent if you're trying to describe what that person looks like. "I'm looking for a black guy wearing a red robe and carrying a staff" is a pertinent description. "A black girl came up and talked to me today," is not a pertinent description because her being black has nothing to do with her talking to you. A person should just be a person without qualification. That doesn't "presume" cis white male. If I wrote, "Legend has it that a great hero came and saved the village long ago," it doesn't prelude this hero's gender, race, sexual orientation, or anything else, other than the fact that that person saved the village. So if one's mind automatically jumps to "cis white male hero" even though one may have some other preference, and one needs a qualifier to think of said hero as one's desired preference rather than the default one's mind jumped to... maybe the problem isn't with the story.

[Kaelidin]

@thejeff : I agree with you in the idea that telling a character story that traits of the character to give a reference point do have to be used. I do prefer my fantasy to use more blank slate characters so I can mentally fill in parts I would prefer. To me characters are just people, straight, bi, gay, other all just people, I don't really care about the labels. Maybe that is a privilege thing that I am getting to enjoy "just because" I happen to identify somewhat closely with a well represented set of characteristics. Using Dumbledore again as an example, in his author's mind he was gay, but realistically no real "come out and say it" was done, as his intimate life wasn't intended as part of the story. His gender and how he gender identified admittedly was known (or was it...).

I do cringe when I read stories written where it feels a character was made just to fill in a set of check boxes rather than the character and story fitting together like a .. well.. 'like a well told story'. I think Paizo works hard to not make bad stories both for business and because they have a vested love of stories as well.

I suppose the reason I'm even chiming in at all is I've had discussions about sexuality fairly often in my personal life, and have basically come up with the conclusion of "what get's your motor humming is no business of anyone else's unless you make it so". Don't identify yourself as a single bullet point as that shouldn't be all you are.
People should just be people, someday we'll get to that point as a society again; before it was assumed normal was everyone being straight and narrow, now we are going through changes and expanding what people can do and be, and someday the definition of what is "normal" will include everything talked about in this thread and likely other unique traits.

I still want to see the characters that other players have in their own "mind's theater" because there really won't be enough official characters to even do minimal service to all the races/countries/classes/genders/self-identifiers we have, from a game standpoint the classes races and countries have a very important mechanical component in giving ideas how to play said adventurer types with your own twist on a character.

[Set]

Joe Hex wrote:

Samy wrote:

That's a good question. I suppose you could click on some of the tags under the posts under "Paizo Blog" to get more articles like that, but for articles whose tags aren't used on that page...I dunno.

Thanks for the feedback, I'll try that. I was embarrassed that I was missing something obvious, but there really isn't anything for browsing old posts. :)

A specific page / tab that gathered all the iconics and their backstories would be kinda convenient. Is there such a thing?

.

As for non-binary, I kind of wish PF could have poached the Changeling race from Eberron, which lent itself nicely to stories of gender-swapping, or a 'today we choose faces' sort of casual mindset about gender identity / roles / expression.

Samsarans seem pretty well-suited to this sort of character. Remembering being both male and female in past lives may leave a current generation Samsaran giving off confusing signals to more gender-defined folk, as the Samsaran has been a 'manly man' and a 'mom' multiple times, and still carries over traits from these past lives, some of which might seem to conflict with their current physical gender. Meanwhile, this mixture of memories has left them feeling that gender is just an illusion, and their current physical gender is just a temporary blip, no more definitive than what clothes they are wearing today, and not really important, since they'll quite likely be the other gender in their next life. The Samsaran might be the 'Dax,' a pretty young woman who drinks, fights, talks and walks like a swaggering old manly-man and sometimes seems to flat out forget that 'he' is now a young woman.

[Samy]

You can click the "Meet the Iconics" tag on any iconic's page, which will bring you here.

[Set]

Samy wrote:

You can click the "Meet the Iconics" tag on any iconic's page, which will bring you here.

Ooh, thanks!

[Joe Hex]

Samy wrote:

You can click the "Meet the Iconics" tag on any iconic's page, which will bring you here.

Thanks Samy- I'M loving the hell out of this link!

[Arachnofiend]

Kaelidin wrote:

I do cringe when I read stories written where it feels a character was made just to fill in a set of check boxes rather than the character and story fitting together like a .. well.. 'like a well told story'.

The thing is, I get this feeling with the "white straight man with stubble" that is in pretty much every mainstream game/movie/etc. And yet I see this line whenever something comes out where the main character isn't the "white straight man with stubble".

[Kobold Catgirl]

The simple fact is that people like to read characters that are similar to them, and white cisgendered straight people make up the majority of viewers (and males are certainly the majority of action movie and video game fans). You can't ignore demographics when you're making movies.

TV shows are much more likely to be the agents of change.

[Joe Hex]

Arachnofiend wrote:

Kaelidin wrote:

I do cringe when I read stories written where it feels a character was made just to fill in a set of check boxes rather than the character and story fitting together like a .. well.. 'like a well told story'.

The thing is, I get this feeling with the "white straight man with stubble" that is in pretty much every mainstream game/movie/etc. And yet I see this line whenever something comes out where the main character isn't the "white straight man with stubble".

As a "white straight man with stubble", I probably hate the same crap media as you do. I give zero f*%%s about the race, or gender of the lead character, as long as the story is not so tired, it's comatose...

Careful with that finger wagging.

[Kalindlara]

Milo v3 wrote:

Paladin of Baha-who? wrote:

I don't think the gay or male bi iconic, if there is one, has been revealed.

I thought the dev's said that everyone is bi unless otherwise stated. Which would make there be many male bi iconics.

The closest I've ever seen to this is one of the Jade Regent campaign traits, Childhood Crush, where it is assumed that Ameiko, Shalelu, and Sandru are all bisexual unless your GM says otherwise.

I've never seen this applied to the iconics, although maybe it was and I missed it. :)

[Joe Hex]

Kalindlara wrote:

Milo v3 wrote:

Paladin of Baha-who? wrote:

I don't think the gay or male bi iconic, if there is one, has been revealed.

I thought the dev's said that everyone is bi unless otherwise stated. Which would make there be many male bi iconics.

I've never seen this applied to the iconics, although maybe it was and I missed it. :)

Don't ask, don't tell?

Seriously, those saunas in Varisia are like Vegas. What happens in Varisia, stays in Varisia...

[Kalindlara]

Joe Hex wrote:

Kalindlara wrote:

Milo v3 wrote:

Paladin of Baha-who? wrote:

I don't think the gay or male bi iconic, if there is one, has been revealed.

I thought the dev's said that everyone is bi unless otherwise stated. Which would make there be many male bi iconics.

I've never seen this applied to the iconics, although maybe it was and I missed it. :)

Don't ask, don't tell?

Seriously, those saunas in Varisia are like Vegas. What happens in Varisia, stays in Varisia...

I've run that campaign. :)

[Joe Hex]

Kalindlara wrote:

Joe Hex wrote:

Kalindlara wrote:

Milo v3 wrote:

Paladin of Baha-who? wrote:

I don't think the gay or male bi iconic, if there is one, has been revealed.

I thought the dev's said that everyone is bi unless otherwise stated. Which would make there be many male bi iconics.

I've never seen this applied to the iconics, although maybe it was and I missed it. :)

Don't ask, don't tell?

Seriously, those saunas in Varisia are like Vegas. What happens in Varisia, stays in Varisia...

I've run that campaign. :)

HA! Character "downtime" is way too much fun for the imaginative GM, and players.

One of the great things about the "Inner Sea" setting, is that no matter how much insane crap happened in it's history, it never had to deal with the real-world BS of sexism and homophobia. It's just-not-there... Thank you so much to the Paizo folks for that! Also... after reading about Shardra, thank you Crystal Frasier, for creating such a great character- She is welcome in my campaign anytime.

[thejeff]

Kazaan wrote:

thejeff wrote:

A lot of fantasy stories have side romance plots. Why can't the gay character have one of those, even if the main plot is about fighting a dragon? Why can't women have adventures? Why can't a black guy be the hero? Even if the story doesn't require it. Why is straight cis white male the norm and anything different have to be justified?

Because it shouldn't be "the gay character has a side romance plot", nor should it be "the cis character has a side romance plot". It should simply be "the character has a side romance plot" where the character interactions are made up and the sexual orientation doesn't matter. It shouldn't be "the black guy is the hero" any more or less than "the white guy is the hero". The gender, race, creed, sexual orientation, etc. should be incidentals. The color of a person's skin should only be pertinent if you're trying to describe what that person looks like. "I'm looking for a black guy wearing a red robe and carrying a staff" is a pertinent description. "A black girl came up and talked to me today," is not a pertinent description because her being black has nothing to do with her talking to you. A person should just be a person without qualification. That doesn't "presume" cis white male. If I wrote, "Legend has it that a great hero came and saved the village long ago," it doesn't prelude this hero's gender, race, sexual orientation, or anything else, other than the fact that that person saved the village. So if one's mind automatically jumps to "cis white male hero" even though one may have some other preference, and one needs a qualifier to think of said hero as one's desired preference rather than the default one's mind jumped to... maybe the problem isn't with the story.

I'm kind of curious how you tell a romance story, other than in the most generic "They had a great romance, moving on" kind of way, without letting readers know the gender and orientation of the participants. Telling any kind of story without letting readers in on the main characters gender is hard and likely going to be very obvious.

Fundamentally though, I disagree that "gender, race, creed, sexual orientation, etc. should be incidentals." They're not incidental to real people. I don't see why they should be to fictional ones.

[Ms. Pleiades]

Joe Hex wrote:

Kalindlara wrote:

Joe Hex wrote:

Kalindlara wrote:

Milo v3 wrote:

Paladin of Baha-who? wrote:

I don't think the gay or male bi iconic, if there is one, has been revealed.

I thought the dev's said that everyone is bi unless otherwise stated. Which would make there be many male bi iconics.

I've never seen this applied to the iconics, although maybe it was and I missed it. :)

Don't ask, don't tell?

Seriously, those saunas in Varisia are like Vegas. What happens in Varisia, stays in Varisia...

I've run that campaign. :)

HA! Character "downtime" is way too much fun for the imaginative GM, and players.

One of the great things about the "Inner Sea" setting, is that no matter how much insane crap happened in it's history, it never had to deal with the real-world BS of sexism and homophobia. It's just-not-there... Thank you so much to the Paizo folks for that! Also... after reading about Shardra, thank you Crystal Frasier, for creating such a great character- She is welcome in my campaign anytime.

You'd hate and despise Cheliax as a setting then.

[Dustin Ashe]

I wonder if it feels forced to some people to have a non-cis character not because it does not mirror reality but because it's different than "traditional" fantasy.

[Kalindlara]

Ms. Pleiades wrote:

Joe Hex wrote:

Kalindlara wrote:

Joe Hex wrote:

Kalindlara wrote:

Milo v3 wrote:

Paladin of Baha-who? wrote:

I don't think the gay or male bi iconic, if there is one, has been revealed.

I thought the dev's said that everyone is bi unless otherwise stated. Which would make there be many male bi iconics.

I've never seen this applied to the iconics, although maybe it was and I missed it. :)

Don't ask, don't tell?

Seriously, those saunas in Varisia are like Vegas. What happens in Varisia, stays in Varisia...

I've run that campaign. :)

HA! Character "downtime" is way too much fun for the imaginative GM, and players.

One of the great things about the "Inner Sea" setting, is that no matter how much insane crap happened in it's history, it never had to deal with the real-world BS of sexism and homophobia. It's just-not-there... Thank you so much to the Paizo folks for that! Also... after reading about Shardra, thank you Crystal Frasier, for creating such a great character- She is welcome in my campaign anytime.

You'd hate and despise Cheliax as a setting then.

I haven't seen that much sexism/homophobia in Cheliax. In Hell, yes, and doubtless the influence is there. But nowhere have I ever seen Cheliax itself come off this way, and I've researched it as much as I could. :)

I don't think that Cheliax is being held up as a showcase of ideal morality, either. If it is there, it's because there's Bad People involved. That's my read, anyway. :)

[Kalindlara]

Dustin Ashe wrote:

I wonder if it feels forced to some people to have a non-cis character not because it does not mirror reality but because it's different than "traditional" fantasy.

I wouldn't be surprised. Change is scary, and people like what they know.

Although, how many "traditional" fantasy worlds were explicitly LGBT-free? If those who say "add it yourself" then say "World X can't have LGBT because we never saw any"... I think I see a conflict there. :)

[BigNorseWolf]

thejeff wrote:

I'm kind of curious how you tell a romance story, other than in the most generic "They had a great romance, moving on" kind of way, without letting readers know the gender and orientation of the participants. Telling any kind of story without...

Taking sexual dimorphism out of the equation for humans ALONE should spawn vast societal changes worthy of a few science fiction series.

[Samy]

thejeff wrote:

I'm kind of curious how you tell a romance story, other than in the most generic "They had a great romance, moving on" kind of way, without letting readers know the gender and orientation of the participants.

Interestingly enough, the difficulty depends on your language. In English you have to go to all sorts of contortions not to reveal gender (I should know, I just wrote that story a couple of weeks back), but in many languages, pronouns aren't gender-specific (i.e. no "he/she", but only "hän" for both genders), so unless you want to throw in explicit genitalia scenes, it's actually pretty easy not to reveal gender.

[Buri Reborn]

English has they as the primary genderless pronoun for both groups and individuals.

[thejeff]

Which isn't universally accepted, even by genderqueer types, much less as a standard replacement for both he and she.

It's certainly not impossible, even in English, but it's far from the default and is going to stand out as something you're doing deliberately, for whatever reason.

Generic protagonists are weird and hardly a normal thing to aim for.

[Buri Reborn]

Accepted or not, it's explicitly the definition of the word and works for genderless identification in several ways.

Quote:

1

a : those ones —used as third person pronoun serving as the plural of he, she, or it or referring to a group of two or more individuals not all of the same sex <they dance well>
b : 1he 2 —often used with an indefinite third person singular antecedent <everyone knew where they stood — E. L. Doctorow> <nobody has to go to school if they don't want to — N. Y. Times>

2
: people 2 —used in a generic sense <as lazy as they come>

Does there need to be a conference of agendered persons to create a new word?

[Shadow Knight 12]

thejeff wrote:

Generic protagonists are weird and hardly a normal thing to aim for.

I find it questionable that the use of a genderless article suddenly makes for "generic protagonists". Or is it the lack of focus on their genitals? Because that's a standard most protagonists are not held to.

[thejeff]

Shadow Knight 12 wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Generic protagonists are weird and hardly a normal thing to aim for.

I find it questionable that the use of a genderless article suddenly makes for "generic protagonists". Or is it the lack of focus on their genitals? Because that's a standard most protagonists are not held to.

Context. I was originally replying to a post that seemed to be arguing for exactly that.

Quote:

If the fact that the character is ___ race ___ gender ____ sexuality from ____ moves the story along or enriches it then that is great, if it is just a foot note you likely trying to wedge something where it may not need to be.If you manage to tell a whole story and the protagonist is still kind of a "blank slate" that you can insert your own thoughts and interpretations onto that is even better as it can be an identity for anyone.

There are certainly cases where you want to leave the gender ambiguous for any number of reasons - including possibly that it's ambiguous to the character themselves. But I don't think it's a good thing, as a general rule, to avoid bringing up race, gender or orientation for fictional characters.

And you certainly don't have to talk about genitals explicitly to bring gender into it.

[Shadow Knight 12]

thejeff wrote:

There are certainly cases where you want to leave the gender ambiguous for any number of reasons - including possibly that it's ambiguous to the character themselves. But I don't think it's a good thing, as a general rule, to avoid bringing up race, gender or orientation for fictional characters.

And you certainly don't have to talk about genitals explicitly to bring gender into it.

Orientation is irrelevant if the character is never in a position to express their attraction towards a person, or the subject of their current or past liaisons is never brought up.

Gender can be left ambiguous, as you say yourself.

Race is the trickiest thing to leave ambiguous, though it's certainly easier with hybrids, half-breeds and other races that don't fit into a specific mould. What is the child of an orc and an elf, for example?

As for the last bit, gender expression would logically vary from race to race and culture to culture, not to mention that gender expression is not an on-off switch, but a spectrum with degrees, which often varies from situation to situation. Typically, very overt gender expressions are frivolous and ill-suited for situations of danger.

EDIT: To punctuate: none of this makes for "generic" characters.

[Kobold Catgirl]

This conversation reminds me of Varsuvius and her mate in Order of the Stick.

[thejeff]

Shadow Knight 12 wrote:

thejeff wrote:

There are certainly cases where you want to leave the gender ambiguous for any number of reasons - including possibly that it's ambiguous to the character themselves. But I don't think it's a good thing, as a general rule, to avoid bringing up race, gender or orientation for fictional characters.

And you certainly don't have to talk about genitals explicitly to bring gender into it.

Orientation is irrelevant if the character is never in a position to express their attraction towards a person, or the subject of their current or past liaisons is never brought up.

Gender can be left ambiguous, as you say yourself.

Race is the trickiest thing to leave ambiguous, though it's certainly easier with hybrids, half-breeds and other races that don't fit into a specific mould. What is the child of an orc and an elf, for example?

As for the last bit, gender expression would logically vary from race to race and culture to culture, not to mention that gender expression is not an on-off switch, but a spectrum with degrees, which often varies from situation to situation. Typically, very overt gender expressions are frivolous and ill-suited for situations of danger.

EDIT: To punctuate: none of this makes for "generic" characters.

In this context of diversity, we were talking about real world race.

Yes. You can leave a lot of things ambiguous, if you really want to. I disagree that it's a goal to aim for in general. That leaving characters as "blank slates" is a good idea in general.

There may obviously be cases where you can do interesting things by doing so.

Orientation is the most likely, but as I said, some kind of romance subplot or at least reference is very common in even adventure fiction. That makes it much harder to avoid. Again, it's possible and you can even do interesting things playing with the ambiguity, but now you're not avoiding it, but calling attention to it.

Same with race and gender. It's one thing to have a character of ambiguous race or gender. That can be very cool if done well. It's another just to leave it undefined as a blank slate.

[Kazaan]

My wife saw a documentary recently which was originally in Spanish but was dubbed into English. She took Spanish in highschool so she caught right away when a pair of siblings, a boy and a girl, were translated as "brothers" and figured that the translation was done just by the script. In Spanish, "chico" means boy and "chica" means girl. If you have a bunch of girls, it'd be "chicas" but if you had a mixed gender group, it always pluralized to "chicos", even if it's just one boy and however many girls there are. The translators saw "chicos" without context beyond the fact that they were siblings, so translated it as "brothers", not knowing that they were brother and sister.

By contrast, Japanese has a whole culture of tropes revolving around a person of ambiguous gender being confused for one or the other and the hilarity that ensues (see Ouran Highschool Host Club) and also gender-nonspecific constructions. They can pull it off because of the "that person" pronoun constructions. They're often translated (lazily) to "he" or "she" to illustrate the assumption that the characters are making; you might talk about "that person" who is a great hero and come save us and the characters presume it's a big strong man but then a petite girl who had been discounted previously turns out to be the big damn hero. A lazy translator will just translate "that person" to "he" in this example, but that is technically incorrect because the person never specified gender in the first place. The characters who were mislead would usually continue to use "that person", but the gender in mind for each person will differ.

If you want to really get an idea of what I'm trying to say here, consider Raven Symone's comment in the infamous Oprah interview, "I'm tired of being labeled. I'm an American. I'm not an African American; I'm an American." She extricated herself from that paradigm of exclusion and separatism, both on a racial level as well as regarding her sexual orientation. She isn't "gay" and she isn't "African-American". She's a person; a person who has a particular heritage and is of a particular sexual orientation, but refuses to be defined by the associated labels. To make a "token gay character" is not progressive any more than a "token black guy" would be. Regardless of your language, we should try to view people as "people" and not sub-divide arbitrarily just for the sake of being different. If someone is really driven by the idea that they don't want to be marginalized by society, they do themselves no favors by trying to re-enforce the divisions that marginalize them.

[Shadow Knight 12]

thejeff wrote:

Yes. You can leave a lot of things ambiguous, if you really want to. I disagree that it's a goal to aim for in general. That leaving characters as "blank slates" is a good idea in general.

You keep assuming that not revealing certain parts of a person by absolute necessity creates generic, blank characters. There is no logical thought that follows such assumptions.

Can it happen, if the author is lazy? Sure. But I can also give a perfect character to a lazy author and they will still bungle it up because they are lazy and their writing will always be generic and lifeless, regardless of how many labels you tack on their characters.

Must it happen? Absolutely not. There is no logical argument that states that it MUST happen. You can breathe life and flavour into a character without having to define their superficial characteristics.

Now granted, typically in order to write a character, things like their race, gender and sexual orientation are decided by the author upon their imagining of the character, but there is no obligation for the author to communicate that information to the reader.

What makes a character interesting and compelling characters is their personality, their actions, perhaps their background or future goals. All things that may be influenced by their race/gender/orientation/etc. or they may not.

A character's genericness is dependent on the author's talent, not on the amount of boxes they tick off.

[thejeff]

Kazaan wrote:

My wife saw a documentary recently which was originally in Spanish but was dubbed into English. She took Spanish in highschool so she caught right away when a pair of siblings, a boy and a girl, were translated as "brothers" and figured that the translation was done just by the script. In Spanish, "chico" means boy and "chica" means girl. If you have a bunch of girls, it'd be "chicas" but if you had a mixed gender group, it always pluralized to "chicos", even if it's just one boy and however many girls there are. The translators saw "chicos" without context beyond the fact that they were siblings, so translated it as "brothers", not knowing that they were brother and sister.

By contrast, Japanese has a whole culture of tropes revolving around a person of ambiguous gender being confused for one or the other and the hilarity that ensues (see Ouran Highschool Host Club) and also gender-nonspecific constructions. They can pull it off because of the "that person" pronoun constructions. They're often translated (lazily) to "he" or "she" to illustrate the assumption that the characters are making; you might talk about "that person" who is a great hero and come save us and the characters presume it's a big strong man but then a petite girl who had been discounted previously turns out to be the big damn hero. A lazy translator will just translate "that person" to "he" in this example, but that is technically incorrect because the person never specified gender in the first place. The characters who were mislead would usually continue to use "that person", but the gender in mind for each person will differ.

If you want to really get an idea of what I'm trying to say here, consider Raven Symone's comment in the infamous Oprah interview, "I'm tired of being labeled. I'm an American. I'm not an African American; I'm an American." She extricated herself from that paradigm of exclusion and separatism, both on a racial level as well as regarding her sexual orientation. She isn't "gay" and she isn't...

As I said, there are interesting and fun things that can be done by obscuring gender, race and other things. But in that case, it's being done deliberately for that purpose.

As for Raven Symone, that's her choice. Others choose to take pride in their differences. Neither choice stops other people from labeling them. Like it or not, the experience of an African-American in this day and age is different than the experience of a European-American and that's more based on how others identify you than on how you identify yourself. With time and effort, that may change, but it won't on its own and pretending it already doesn't matter doesn't help the process. It just lets prejudice be hidden.

[thejeff]

Shadow Knight 12 wrote:

thejeff wrote:

Yes. You can leave a lot of things ambiguous, if you really want to. I disagree that it's a goal to aim for in general. That leaving characters as "blank slates" is a good idea in general.

You keep assuming that not revealing certain parts of a person by absolute necessity creates generic, blank characters. There is no logical thought that follows such assumptions.

Can it happen, if the author is lazy? Sure. But I can also give a perfect character to a lazy author and they will still bungle it up because they are lazy and their writing will always be generic and lifeless, regardless of how many labels you tack on their characters.

Must it happen? Absolutely not. There is no logical argument that states that it MUST happen. You can breathe life and flavour into a character without having to define their superficial characteristics.

Now granted, typically in order to write a character, things like their race, gender and sexual orientation are decided by the author upon their imagining of the character, but there is no obligation for the author to communicate that information to the reader.

What makes a character interesting and compelling characters is their personality, their actions, perhaps their background or future goals. All things that may be influenced by their race/gender/orientation/etc. or they may not.

A character's genericness is dependent on the author's talent, not on the amount of boxes they tick off.

We're really just talking past each other at this point, if you think I'm talking about ticking boxes off.

[Kazaan]

thejeff wrote:

With time and effort, that may change, but it won't on its own and pretending it already doesn't matter doesn't help the process. It just lets prejudice be hidden.

It isn't a matter of "pretending". It's a matter of affirmation. What holds us all back is the attitude of it being in some far off, nebulous future. Progressive attitudes begin with the affirmation of a correct situation in the present. Then, you make progress. Never think for a moment that this is about "pretending everything is fine" because it isn't. It's about affirming that everything is fine because if you set the desired result in your mind as being in the present, you'll empower yourself. If you leave it as a "sometime, maybe" then you blunt your own efforts. People may be proud of their differences, but that doesn't mean that it's always appropriate. Especially when their pride goes hand-in-hand with criticizing the divisive culture.

[Kaelidin]

Outside the gaming discussion, and into how humans make categories.

Labels are how we separate and quantify. We naturally seek to cram things into small boxes so we can understand and be comfortable with them. We could be 99.99% the same and that last .01% being different will be the labeled group you belong too. Labels are used to create our in and out groups, when the flavor of the day is to fear/dislike one of those labels we start to have problems. At some point we do have to get to where the labels of yesterday are pointless and we are just "people" then we can be inclusive rather than exclusive to people that are slightly apart from us.

A silly example group of labels:
Man, American, white, 30~40yo, college, religious, watches tv, plays group organized table top game PF, dislikes wizards

Man, American, white, 30~40yo, college, religious, watches tv, plays group organized table top game PF, likes wizards

These groups would fight over liking wizards or not, even though the bigger picture they are pretty much the same group from an outsider perspective.

[thejeff]

Kaelidin wrote:

Outside the gaming discussion, and into how humans make categories.

Labels are how we separate and quantify. We naturally seek to cram things into small boxes so we can understand and be comfortable with them. We could be 99.99% the same and that last .01% being different will be the labeled group you belong too. Labels are used to create our in and out groups, when the flavor of the day is to fear/dislike one of those labels we start to have problems. At some point we do have to get to where the labels of yesterday are pointless and we are just "people" then we can be inclusive rather than exclusive to people that are slightly apart from us.

A silly example group of labels:
Man, American, white, 30~40yo, college, religious, watches tv, plays group organized table top game PF, dislikes wizards

Man, American, white, 30~40yo, college, religious, watches tv, plays group organized table top game PF, likes wizards

These groups would fight over liking wizards or not, even though the bigger picture they are pretty much the same group from an outsider perspective.

Again, great in theory. And when you're dealing with trivial distinctions that no one is making a huge deal of anyway.

In the real world, that's not where we are. There are still large groups working to oppress based on skin color or religion or gender or orientation. You don't win those kinds of fights without banding together. How do you work for LGBTQ rights without talking about gay people? Whether that's marriage equality, employment protections or even the rights of trans people to use bathrooms?

[Ms. Pleiades]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

thejeff wrote:

I'm kind of curious how you tell a romance story, other than in the most generic "They had a great romance, moving on" kind of way, without letting readers know the gender and orientation of the participants. Telling any kind of story without...

Taking sexual dimorphism out of the equation for humans ALONE should spawn vast societal changes worthy of a few science fiction series.

Primary or secondary sexual dimorphic traits?

[BigNorseWolf]

Ms. Pleiades wrote:

Primary or secondary sexual dimorphic traits?

Secondary. We'd get the sociologists world where everything actually was a matter of culture.

[Ms. Pleiades]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Ms. Pleiades wrote:

Primary or secondary sexual dimorphic traits?

Secondary. We'd get the sociologists world where everything actually was a matter of culture.

Call it a hunch, but I think the vastly different inputs to the reproductive cycle would still result in some noticeable differences of behaviour between the sexes, but indeed your original statement of axing sexual dimorphism would change human society would be true.

[Shifty]

Kaelidin wrote:

Man, American, white, 30~40yo, college, religious, watches tv, plays group organized table top game PF, likes wizards

This man believes Wizards, and to some degree the rest of the Arcane casting diaspora, are being unrepresented in games , and that not enough NPC's show arcane casting diversity - and that this should change to make the game more inclusive.

Kaelidin wrote:

Man, American, white, 30~40yo, college, religious, watches tv, plays group organized table top game PF, dislikes Wizards

Sees a rapid explosion of wizards and their sorceror friends appearing, complains to forums about the new Wizard explosion and how he feels this seems forced - surely by percentage of population it seems odd to have so many wizards outside the statistical norm. Is angered when the assumption is that EVERY NPC is now a Bard unless told otherwise.

Gets told he is a horrible human being.

[Joe Hex]

Joe Hex wrote:

Arachnofiend wrote:

Kaelidin wrote:

I do cringe when I read stories written where it feels a character was made just to fill in a set of check boxes rather than the character and story fitting together like a .. well.. 'like a well told story'.

The thing is, I get this feeling with the "white straight man with stubble" that is in pretty much every mainstream game/movie/etc. And yet I see this line whenever something comes out where the main character isn't the "white straight man with stubble".

As a "white straight man with stubble", I probably hate the same crap media as you do. I give zero f~+@s about the race, or gender of the lead character, as long as the story is not so tired, it's comatose...

Careful with that finger wagging.

Damn... after re-reading this this post of mine... Sorry to Aracgnofiend for how harsh it sounds.

I was on my fourth Guinness of the night, and articulated my point horribly.
I was trying to say, being a white straight male, I'm on the same page as you. And that many "WSM's are as well.

Again- apologies, I came off as an ass.