The co-creator of the Dragon Age franchise has commented on the reaction to one of Baldur’s Gate 3’s main female characters, saying fans “always treated male characters with more forgiveness”.
The co-creator of the Dragon Age franchise has commented on the reaction to one of Baldur’s Gate 3’s main female characters, saying fans “always treated male characters with more forgiveness”.
Well…I don’t think so?
People love Morrigan from DA:O and she’s pretty much a jackass. Made me want to pull my hair out at times, but there’s a charm in that making a bad girl go soft in the end.
We shouldn’t just slap or imply a “sexist” label when people don’t like a character or not, although there’s always going to be a variance.
Is there a good example or reason they say this or are they just guessing?
Morrigan was hot, that’s why people loved her. We even see it in BG3, Shadowheart is as confrontational, especially towards Lae’zel but people are fawning over Shadowheart because she is hot.
But I think a lot of backlash towards Lae comes from people who don’t know D&D. They aren’t aware of how dangerous Mindflayers really are. And they also aren’t aware of Githyanki and their relationship with Mindflayers. If you take these things into consideration the actions of Lae become much more reasonable.
Shadowheart’s struggle are much easier to relate to. Which is part of the reason for people siding with her over Lae’zel.
With male characters people are more forgiving because they don’t consider a romance option.
I find Shadowheart way worse than Lizzy.
Though, I think the general statement holds true. This is absolutely not the first time this happens. A big example would be TLoU 1 & 2 with Joel vs Ellie. The sheer amount of Joel apologists that I had to talk with over the internet is immense, but Ellie doing equally shitty things is somehow seen as so much worse. It also shows that people don’t even want to bother looking deeper into those characters either. They’re just set in their ways & opinions, literally stuck.
…do you think only straight men play this game?
No of course not. But the majority of the player base will be. Especially the one vocal about their opinion against a female character on Twitter.
Even more so back in 2009 when DA:O came out.
If you think a lot of women don’t have internalized misogyny, oh boy, have I got news for you.
I guess with that said, what does the female demographic think about Morrigan/Lae’zel?
Even if they are a smaller portion, do they feel the same way or are they significantly differently?
Well I can’t speak to all women, but my wife instantly hated Shadowheart and was pretty cool with Lae’zel. Her reasoning seemed to be that she knew Shadow’s type and hated it, but Lae’zel was more straightforward and was less manipulative.