I don’t think anyone is hating on the story. We all enjoyed the story, or we wouldn’t care enough to pick over its flaws. The way the Spell of Life was hand-waved and left vague did hurt the story however. The authors had the unique opportunity to give their vision on something novel, something that hadn’t been explored previously, and they punted. Not only did they punt that opportunity away, they allowed the spell to create inconsistencies in their story, damaging the believability of the story in the process.
It was interesting that the monarch was so taken with their gay lover that they arranged to magically create an illegitimate child with them. Yet if production of a true heir was so vitally important to both monarch and country, why wasn’t a legitimate heir similarly created magically with the original Royal Consort?!?!?!? Why wasn’t some attempt made to explain this glaring inconsistency?
If two men can create a child despite the lack of everything biologically required except sperm, and two women can create a male child despite a lack of y chromosomes, why can’t a straight couple magic one up too? especially when that couple is the King and Queen with all the resources of the realm at their command, and when the consort is kin to one of the most potent and influential families of life mages in the land? This issue was never adequately explained, and it made the use of life magic come across as a deus ex machina, which is a sign of sloppy storytelling.
@FairyGodfeather was clearly very busy while I was in the middle of my one little reply, and has explained my issues with the way things were handled even more eloquently than I have.
@P_Tigras I was thinking that you explained things better than me.
Anyway, I don’t think anyone’s intentions are to bash Choice of Romance. It’s just the easiest of examples to give. I just wish they’d gone further with their world-building, that way I could have had a more immersive experience. I’d have also been interested in how the authors would have dealt with things. I wanted more of this fascinating world that they’d built, more exploration of some of the premises in a manner that impacted the story.
@FairyGodfeather I only brought up one of the inconsistencies created in the time that you explained lots more. Personally I think the story reads best with a straight female protagonist, followed by a gay male protagonist second, a gay female protagonist third, and a straight male protagonist least of all. Some of the assumptions made by the game just don’t work as well if the protagonist is male, or if the monarch is female.
@P_Tigras I have already thought about the order of “best read to worst” and that’s actually the exact same order that I placed them in. I have always felt that the supporting characters were meant to be male, and the main character was meant to be female. Straight male ends up playing the worst because all the characters are flipped to the opposite gender of how I think they are “supposed” to be.
It wasn’t the story that anyone was hating on, but the magic system and the lack of scientific explanation for the magic. At least, that was how I was reading the conversation in the other thread.
Although, yes, that is absolutely a plot whole that I would think should have been covered about the monarchs needing an heir. If they can magic a baby for a gay relationship, surely one of the many stillborns from the legitimate relationship of the monarchs could, at the very least, have been saved with magic even if for some odd, unexplained reason the same magic to make babies for gay couples doesn’t exist for straight couples. That much, you are both right, does not make sense. That was something that I thought about extensively the first few times I played Part I, and I never was able to get an answer. It would appear that there really is no answer for this particular plot hole.
See, I’d completely disagree with your belief that it reads well with a gay male protagonist.
Female protagonist, male romance options.
Female protagonist, female romance options. - This is my favourite way to play the game. You can also pursue de Vega, meaning you’re not neccessarly gay. And you can agree to marry Tomas, for whatever that means to your relationship.
Male protagonist, female romance options. You can play this as straight or as bi, since you can still romance de Vega and I’m fairly sure Tomas will also propose to you.
Male protagonist, male romance options. I find the whole male pregnancy thing extremely problematic in this playthrough. Male pregnancy is an extremely common trope in slash, yaoi, and the m/m genre. It is written predominantly by women, for women. That’s what the gay male playthrough read as to me. It read as m/m not as gay, especially with your obsession to produce an heir for the monarch.
@FairyGodfeather It’s not clear to me why you think a gay female would want to pursue Vega who is male, or why a straight male would see the equally male Tomas as something other than a nightmare. The fact that straight females and gay males have one more romance option than gay females and straight males, two if you choose to count being Tomas’s BDSM toy, would appear to serve as an example of how this game favors straight gals and gay guys. Bi’s of course, as is often the case, have an abundance of choices in how they play the game.
Oh, the heir situation is still a glaring problem with the whole arrangement, but that aside, meaning completely ignoring the plot and the story, I feel as though the King was written to be a King, not a Queen; the way Gabriel acts makes him seem like a man to me, a very artistically inclined man, but still a man; Torres doesn’t seem to “work” as a female character. It’s just their personalities seem to be made for male characters, while the main character seems to be written with the intention of the player playing a female. This is not just because of the obsession with producing an heir, but because of the adjectives used to describe the character such as “beautiful” and “lovely.”
There are the plot problems with being a gay male character, and those DO stick out more with a gay male than any other orientation. You are certainly right about that, especially if the player decides to become a concubine. What is the King thinking? He already had one illegitimate child with a man, now he wants to have another?!
Speaking strictly from personality analysis (of which I only put very general conclusions here, but I have put a lot of thought into the whole thing for a very long time) the game was written for a straight female. Even the de Vega romance works with straight female, as does Tomas’s proposal.
If you’re bisexual, and wish to pursue relationships with both men and women, you don’t have an abundance of choice.
It was only in the last game where you had the added bisexual option, that was presented by both Tomas and de Vega.
You will note that I stated female protagonist with female romance options. You can play that as gay, or you can play the character as bisexual. Same with the male protagonist, female romance options. You can play as straight, or you can play that as bisexual.
I will agree that the additional romantic option, presented by de Vega is a bonus for those who want to pursue men. But I don’t think that actually effects how the story reads. Have you played the gay male playthrough?
@FairyGodfeather: I want to further add that my ranking of the paths is based primarily on parts 1 and 2. I haven’t played through the production release of part 3, and when I read through the part 3 beta, it was only as a straight male, and I stopped there. Prior to part 3, the mechanics of male pregnancy were left extremely vague. The fetus could have been grown in a surrogate mother, or even a vat.
I did think it ridiculous nevertheless that a female Augustina was questioning her own maternity of Antonio in the beta. How a woman can forget nine months of pregnancy and the pain of giving birth is beyond me. I’ve always thought that the monarch is most consistent when male, and this is why I think gay male plays better than gay female.
I love Augustina, Mendosa and Torres as women. I love them as strong, powerful, capable women. I think they do actually work as female characters, in a world that doesn’t have any discrimination based on gender.
I much preferred them all as female. Yes, it does play a little with gender stereotypes, especially if you’re male and they’re pursuing you. But the way the game plays with gender is something I love. I love how a simple pronoun switch can change my perception of the characters. I find them all far more tolerable as female.
I will agree that the protagonist reads as female to me. That too I don’t mind, I think it’s interesting.
I suppose it’s I rather loathe the male monarch. I found him odious with few redeeming characteristics. You’d expect it to be the same for a female monarch, since it’s just a switch of pronouns, but I rather preferred her. Mendosa I’ll take either way. He was a romantic. Torres I prefer as female. Since that’s two out of three, female romances I play. However I haven’t played as a man being pursued by women yet. Maybe I shall, only to give them all up for de Vega.
@P_Tigras I’d have loved if they did the surrogate mother, or a magical egg delivered by a stork. I’d have preferred that.
@FairyGodfeather Ok, maybe no abundance for bi’s in part 1 and 2, but in part 3 they were certainly better off than purely straight males and purely gay females when it came to available romance choices, and on the same level as gay males and straight females. My issue was with your including bi options as apparent pluses for straight male and gay female characters.
@FairyGodfeather I find it interesting that you “loathe” the male monarch, but “love” the female monarch, when the only difference is a bunch of pronouns. Perhaps it is because we as a culture are more forgiving of women behaving badly than men these days. We assume women have good reason for their bad behavior, and often find it amusing. Men don’t get that same benefit of the doubt.
I think Augustina as a female monarch works well, but I found her a bit too androgynous as a love interest. I would have liked some small signs of femininity in her more unguarded moments. And I have to admit that the scenes early on in CoR where she was described as handsome and she -effortlessly- picked my character up off of a balcony and set him on the ground, made me picture her as Chyna the professional wrestler, and myself as some sort of midget, and that was not a mental image I found the least bit appealing. If you’re both male or both female that isn’t as much of an issue.
@FairyGodfeather That your own prejudices could direct your perception of a character so much, does rather help demonstrate the importance of authors thinking carefully about such key aspects of their world, as the gender of the characters, - contra the author of CoR’s assumed political intention.
Guys who find agustina weird and no credible read Cleopatra biography Catherine The great Bloody Mary.
. Now think again the fact that what women rule adopt aptitude totally similar Agustina is common. Don’t let your prejudice make you take inaccurate and machism assumptions .
No, it’s not because we’re more forgiving of the actions of women than men. It’s that it’s refreshing to see a female character who can act in that way, without being assailed with gendered insults. It’s a refreshing change.
Women can be handsome too. I rather liked that she was described as handsome not beautiful, since they’re not the same thing.
What small touches of femininity would you have liked?
@FairyGodfeather I’ve seen too many women behave badly in real life to find it refreshing in fiction. Bad behavior is bad behavior, and shouldn’t be encouraged, regardless of the gender involved. Period.
As far as feminine touches are concerned, that’s hard to say. There are numerous possibilities. Perhaps a shoe collection…
@MaraJadea Clearly femininity means different things to different people, including women. And while Cleopatra exhibited some traits that were stereotypically male, she still operated in a very traditional manner, seducing powerful men into championing her, instead of fighting them herself on the field of battle. Heck, she had her naked body rolled up in a carpet and offered as a gift to Julius Caesar when he entered Alexandria.
the carpet scene is totally fake and for the seduction all the historic data images and coins point her as ugly my friend. Also seduction is not only feminine that’s another machism point of view . Women could be as cruel bloodthirsty ninfomaniac as men . Same happen with homicide madness … History has many examples the fact of number is stupid of corse are less than men examples the were less women ruling lol. But the women with power adopts same conducts than male not because there are MEN conducts is because power corrupts. The ultra feminist stupid theory than if women were in charge world will be in perpetual peace is totally stupid.
same than machism point than a women has to be pretty and collect shoes to be a REAL women its same than the defend all black people is silly and steal cars. Its offensive and totally wrong
@MaraJade Our knowledge of Cleopatra comes almost entirely from a handful of Roman historians who despised and demonized her, and a fictional play written over 1500 years later by Shakespeare. Just about everything we know about Cleopatra is open to question. And the artwork on the coins from that period you mentioned was known to be highly inaccurate. So Cleopatra’s looks are a topic of debate even to this day.
A woman does not need to be fascinated by shoes to be a “REAL woman”, but the majority of women do seem to be fascinated by footwear, and the overwhelming majority of men are totally mystified by this fascination. This does not make the minority of women who are totally uninterested in keeping more than two or three pairs of shoes any less women. While it’s often the case that a woman will not have the entire list of commonly perceived feminine traits, it’s a very rare woman who doesn’t have even one of them.
