Supporting science, technology, and diversity in games.
Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear tries to be progressive, and the vocal minority has a tizzy.
Gamers Flood Baldur's Gate Expansion with Negative Reviews After It Introduces a Transsexual Character - CraveOnline
The game's inclusion of a trans character has led to it being targeted. The GOG and Steam store pages for Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear are littered with negative reviews, with gamers trashing the game largely as a result of an encounter that takes place between the player and a transsexual character.
What I still fail to understand is how, in a game where people assume the role of any species/being, gender, class and role they desire, it would be so "threatening" to see or interact with a trans character. Especially since so many people I play tabletop and rp games with have absolutely no problem role-playing as just about anything on the spectrum. Although the expansion's review score is currently suffering on GoG, it's pretty important to note that these vocal voices are still likely a small minority of the community that just happens to know how to slam a game they disagree with. It's important for people who respect the decision and the game to take a few minutes to put an honest rating in for the game.
As Crave put it: "It's odd that in a fantasy game featuring giant ogres and dragons, the appearance of a transgender character is where so many draw the line in terms of realism. While complaining about the game's writing is one thing, this clear attempt to damage its success as a result of it including a transgender NPC is very disappointing and, considering it is being staged by a group that supposedly champions developers' artistic freedom, quite ironic.
"Given that Mizhena is a minor NPC in the game and can be completely overlooked, that the exchange between her and the player is what has inspired so many to leave such negative user reviews, strongly suggests that those who are angered only believe in developers' artistic freedom when those developers are creating things that they personally agree with."




People make my hair hurt, sometimes. Anyone who's ego or self-image is threatened by the appearance of a trans, gay, lesbian, black, oriental...of ANYTHING for fuck's sake...is a seriously damaged person who needs vastly more therapy than they're getting.
Was there similar strüm and drang over Krem in Dragon Age: Inquisition and I just missed it? 'cos it's not like this is the first trans character ever...
This is a bit of a counteropinion, but everyone I've directly heard complaining about the character (including a number of trans-people: https://forums.beamdog.com/discussion/50420/my-thoughts-on-mizhena-as-a-transgender-person-myself ) has primarily complained about how the writers handled portraying Mizhena more than that she was trans.
It's a very sensitive and complex issue, especially for those living it, so it's not really surprising that, no matter how well or poorly it is discussed in a given example, it's going to provoke a degree of backlash from someone out there, and it may not always be from whom one expects.
I can't really judge it too closely myself, since I havn't yet played the expansion and experienced the dialog and characters in their proper context, but I will say this: inclusivity and representation are powerful, wonderful things, but it's very easy to mess them up in a way that feels patronizing, tokenizing, or even just misunderstanding of what is being represented, especially if one is speaking from outside their own experiences. It can be done, but it can be tricky, and pleasing everyone, even the people you're trying to represent /well/, is essentially impossible because we are not monocultural or solely defined by things like 'being trans' or 'gay' or even 'straight'.
This isn't to say that there /aren't/ simple bigots joining in for the opportunity to hate, but I do think we have some responsibility to sift the wheat from the chaff and take valid criticism where it occurs without losing it in attendant the haze of idiocy that billows up whenever such subjects are broached.
Especially if we want to represent, and be represented, as fairly as possible within the stories we tell.