My hopes for ME:A, Liam Kosta, and POC rep in games
Putting things behind a cut so to hopefully avoid spoilers.
We’re less than a month out from the next Bioware title I’m anticipating like a lot of other people. Disclosure: I know a lot of folks at Bioware and some who worked on the game, however I know only what the public knows about the plot, characters etc. I have no insider knowledge, and if I did, I wouldn’t be writing this post.
That said, I write this as someone hopeful for better POC representation in the new Mass Effect game. After the utter disappointment of Jacob Taylor, and his trope backstory of an absentee father who turns out to be living in a depraved paradise of his own machinations; as well as being unfaithful to a romanced FemShep if he survives to the Citadel DLC.*
I was angry, hell I’m still angry about that being his backstory in ME2 and the subsequent fuckery with his infidelity to a romanced FemShep and the blase way he acts towards her if you run across him in the Citadel. Unfortunately, the same person who delivered that tropey, poorly done “romance” and backstory, Lukas Kristjanson also wrote Liam Kosta. This does not give me any hope that his character will be good, or not a tropey mess yet again.
This also ties to a greater issue in the industry, not just at Bioware. However a lot of big studios don’t have POC or black folks writing these characters. It’s how we get Jacob Taylor and his father in Mass Effect 2. These lazy tropes that people can see and think they understand black folks/POC because those tropes can be easily overlaid onto whatever setting the game happens to take, cause we all *know* those stereotypes right? Nah…that’s not good writing, and it’s reinforcing negative depictions of non-white characters.
Aside from the concern over how his story will play out, there’s already too much Discourse(tm) over whether Liam will be locked into a straight romance arc, or unromanceable altogether. We’ve already had our would be love affairs with a black character dashed with Vivienne in DA:Inquisition, who is also a bundle of problematic tropes usually draped over black women when we get them in games. So do we once again get a de-sexed and thus “safe” black man in our party, or do we get to romance him, only to be forced to into a hetero romance (until Modders fix that problem) which will reinforce the same tired tropes we had to endure with Jacob?
Who knows, but right now my expectations are pretty low. I really hope I’m wrong, I hope I get Andromeda on launch day and am blown away by the story, the worlds and the universe we get to play in. I hope that Liam is a LI for all Ryders, and that his backstory isn’t one taken from tropes used black characters and POC are not written by us.
