TStael: Very minor SPOILER maybe: core NPCs of The Witcher 2 (TW2) story are often not so very nice people, and many of them shall perish in gruesome ways.
If you do not want to know anything of the specifics, do not read on.
Ok, so one of the bad guys in TW2 is called out obvisously gay: that effiminate robed guy Dethmold (sorry if name is wrong), whom we meet for final confrontation in sordid setting of sex slavery of lesser servant, with sex toys here and there.
We shall confont the cowardly whimp, tell him he has it coming, mutilate his genitalia, and then cut off his throat. I do seem to recall this caracter was too busy begging to actually put up a significant fight.
I must admit this whole characterisation went pretty much unnoticed by me at the time - I recon TW series is somehow original for certain seediness and brutality of the gameworld - but reading piece of quite strongly anti-gay news of the home country of developers made me my mind "click" and reframe that scene into a nasty anti-gay context.
I do not object that one of the evil men were gay, but I must ask the following questions:
- why was this cracter given such particularly demeaning and painful end, as opposed to e.g. that lyncher, rapist king, or de-stabilishing political assassin who gets at least a proper show down?
- why was this guy modelled after all possible effeminate, negative cliches, and not after the positievely powerful "Tom of Finland" types - that certainly would not have been shitting in their pants when the final reckoning came to be?
- notwithstanding the very casual sex content of particularly the first installment, why was gay sex portrayed in such totally seedy way?
I have become now put off from The Witcher because I just really hate when anyone is bullied, or treated in demeaning way. I would have made a different buying decision in hindsight, certainly.
I would much appreciate opinion of other gamers who have played though. Do you think at all the same way? Or would you think I am draving totally wrong, overreacting conculusions? Or if my anti-gay take of this particular characterisation is in fact at all hitting the mark even by margin, even if you have not played it, do you think this should in principle not be ok?
If you hate it when anyone is bullied or treated in a demeaning way in GAMES then I suggest you stop playing video games. Because one of reasons, videos games are entertaining is because we human beings find drama to be entertaining. And how can there be drama, without people being bullied or treated in a demeaning way? And just because the world that serves as the setting for the Witcher games is anti gay(if that is the case), doesn't mean the game is anti gay. It just seems you can't handle dark video games. And nowadays most video games are dark. So I suggest you stop playing video games. And if you can't do that, then stick to sports game or simulators or children's games. And In order for a game to be anti gay, a game would have to convince the people who play it to become anti gay. I do not see how the Witcher games do this. And even if the Witcher games tried to do this, video games don't have the power to make people become anti gay. It takes more than video games to make people become anti gay.
And do you really think CD Projekt would do something as foolish as releasing games that are anti gay when the majority of the Western world considers it evil to be anti gay? That would make no sense whatsoever. Sure, there are people in the Western world who are anti gay but why would CD Projekt cater to this small group of people? CD Projekt is out to make as much money as possible. Not to piss off the majority of the Western world so they lose a massive amount of customers.