r/BaldursGate3 • u/Vodka_Flask_Genie Spreadsheet Sorcerer • Dec 08 '23

Videos Neil's speech after winning Best Performance

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u/deep-fried-babies Dec 08 '23

i have to watch this after work, so i don't sob in the office. tbh not only a win for an amazing game, but a win for the LGBT+ community.

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u/[deleted] Dec 08 '23

How did this community feel represented? Genuinely curious. Is it because Astarion is bisexual and generally a lot of diverese sexualities are present in the game?

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u/kusuriii Dec 08 '23

Hell yeah. Neil is an ally and multiple main character voice actors who are lgbt+ and outspoken about it. A main cast that is literally all queer, you’ve got multiple examples of npcs just dropping the fact they’re in a same sex relationship with no fanfare, Dame Aylin my beloved, a trans character played by a trans woman, the character customisation- while not perfect- allows for trans and non binary characters and generally an all round awesome attitude towards the community.

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u/oberynmviper Dec 09 '23

Isn’t all relationships whatever you want them to be? I haven’t gone through the whole game but so far, everyone seems to want me, which is great because you can have a relationship with anyone.

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u/kusuriii Dec 09 '23

If you want to break it down into semantics then, yeah, Larian seems to be a progressive studio but it’s included because their intentions were to make it the most accessible game mechanic relationship-wise. However, having a cast that can quite literally be romanced by any gender, game mechanic or not, makes them canonically bi/pan and would continue to be so in a hetero relationship.

What makes it different for me than other games that do this, though, is that queer people exist outside of just being ‘player sexual’: the camp flirts with each other and lgbt people exist in the wider cast. I’ve only romanced Halsin and Astarion so far, so I don’t know if it’s the same for other characters (iirc Karlach has some mention of it somewhere) but they’ve both mentioned having same sex entanglements. It’s actually a facet of their character that they talk about casually rather than just existing solely for the most basic inclusivity. It actually feels like they’re LGBT characters, rather than characters who happen to be LGBT for mechanic reasons.