Davids Sexuality
So this may be a bit long but after reading that people feel that its forced/wasnt the right character/he has a ex thats a woman I feel like it should be talked about. I should not that these are all my personal opinions and it is kinda long so feel free to skip if you dont want to read.
1) "Making David King Gay Feels Forced"/"He had an ex that was a woman"
On the surface level, perhaps it may seemed forced but if you dig deeper beyond just scratching the surface, you will see that it truly does not feel like that. From the moment that we are born we are constantly learning about ourselves. We dont just come out of the womb and announce that we are gay, straight, bi, etc. These things take time to learn and sometimes you may never learn these things about yourselves(especially depending on how your parents raised you)
The fact that people feel that David having a girlfriend in the past and now coming out as gay is considered a retcon in lore really dont take into account(at least to me anyway) that maybe this is before he learned more enough about himself/finding out that he was gay. We live our lives through learning, experimenting, and experiencs; people change emotionally, physically, and mentally over time so the fact that people see this as a retcon doesnt make much sense to me.
2) "This was not the right character to choose to make gay"
Why does this character not feel like that? I see that people say that "they didnt get gay vibes from David Kink," my answer to that is, why do you mean that someone gives off gay vibes? Just like anyone else, gay men come in many shapes, sizes, personalities and more. Its not just someone with a fruity drink and saying "yaas queen" These could be considered harmful stereotypes but to be honest theres a lot of of us out there that are like that. I have gay friends that you wouldnt know are gay just by looking at them but thats because they arent into the typical things that some people would deem "gay behavior" Like personally I dont find drag shows fun to watch(im more of a criminal minds kind of gay myself) and some of my friends are appear as masuline as could be love watching those types of things. It all depends on peoples personal taste.
Comments
I think for me the biggest part is the community reaction to it
I'm not gonna say it's not a big deal, like it's a big deal for the people who feel represenated and stuff like that but when I say it's not a big deal I mean to say it's not something people need to complain about. Like the Bubba mask situation, the devs made a decision and that was it.
If people read the lore and don't like it, then fair dos but a lot of negativity appeared just from the announcement alone which is a little disheartening.
Although it would've been cool if BHVR had just let people read the lore themselves and realise it organically instead of announcing it like they did but it's not a problem to me. The game has a lot of bigger issues that are actually worth talking and arguing over but many people get themselves up in arms because... David King likes men.
Never thought I'd write that sentence but yeah
I broke down in the end
I don't know a single person that was banned for that who didn't go out of their way to racially antagonise and explicitly target someone, and then make it known.
Also: the survivor chooses to play David or with the pride flag. They didn't choose the blackface Bubba.
It was more moving than I was expecting going into it 🕳️🤸🏻
Step one: get a ######### community
given that you're here we can move on to stage two...
Seems like the only people who have a problem with this are straight people
Maybe check yourself as to why it bothers you so much that David is gay
"Why do you assume that he wasnt gay to begin with?"
Because the official DBD twitter account makes it clear they're only doing this to have LGBTQIA2+ representation to please that part of the community.
There's no need to try to make arguments that "maybe David was gay all along!", because they confirm that none of the already existing characters had any LGBTQIA2+ representation previously.
The developers simply took the easy way out, taking an already liked character and turning him gay, instead of creating a new original character for their next DLC.
I fully support people's sexual preferences. I am straight myself but the main friend group I hang out with is part of the LGBTQ+ spectrum. I am happy they accept me for being straight as much as I accept them. But that's the thing... When a company takes an old character and slap a gay tag on them just to have "representation", it's disrespectful to everyone. Only people who are true LGBTQIA2+ activists cheer over something like this. Nobody among my LGBTQ+ friends are happy about this. They're calling it lazy and stupid and I fully agree.
With this, I am uninstalling DBD - Not because of the new representation, but because the developers don't have their priorities straight.
Dead By Daylight has become a broken mess and the game has lost a huge amount of it's player base because of it. The game has some serious glitches, I don't have a single play session that doesn't have a moment where someone goes "What the heck was that??". The MMR system is a mess and devs don't know how to fix it... And while the game has turned into such a broken mess that fewer and fewer people can stand to even play it anymore... The devs priorities should be to fix these things and make the game more enjoyable, and NOT spend all that time worrying about making political statements.
TL;DR: I am leaving this game because I have no faith in BHVR anymore. I don't think they're capable of fixing the current issues DBD has.
Wrong, my partner brought this to my attention and they're pansexual.
turning a character gay simply for gay representation isn't the way to go, and it shows that BHVR prioritizes making political statements over fixing their damn game.
Representation isn't a political statement.
I'm part of the lgbt community and I'm not fan of it... he is still straight in my book... I'd rather we just left these things to our imagination
Agree with the very first response that says turning a 6 year old character gay all of a sudden to please the masses is stupid, and would have prefered a brand new character to be the token first gay character, but at the same time.. it's an horror game based around nothing that has to do with sexual preferences at all... as a friend told me earlier..
"because it's a horror game and you're too busy trying not to get murdered and there's not a lot of, like, quietly sitting around the campfire going "wow, i sure do love cock""
Not sure why people are acting like BHVR picked this over improving the game. Y'all understand that the writers and the developers are different people, right? Like, it's totally possible to have the lore team work on lore while the actual maintenance/balance team works on the game itself.
Yas, queen. Or bro. Or whatever :p
That requires effort....
Why is this such an issue?
If they would have made a new original character people would have said "oh its just a token gay character hidden behind a paywall".
I guess people are never satisfied.......
correct, representation isn't a political statement on it's own. The way BHVR handled it, however, comes close.
I would love to see future DLCs have more diverse characters, so keep it up. Just stop taking advice from modern activist groups, and instead look back at old franchises that had representation done right. Absolutely loved how it was handled in Buffy, even tho that show is now super old.
The problem IMO is that sexuality is made into such a big deal, which makes people respond to it as if it's a big deal. But really, sexuality doesn't matter. That's why the best representation done is the ones where it's just naturally part of a character without the creators going "hey look! this character is XXX!". Just... make an original character, have their sexuality just be a natural part of them and their lore. Then you'll have your representation and people won't start an outrage.
Amen to that
@KeiOrtem
I personally love that they picked David to be Gay. I think everyone who has somethiung negative to say is just butthurt because anything out of the norm is a big no from most people. Just have him have another masc type of backstory with a relationship.
Also, why does it matter if he had a girlfriend in his lore? how does that stop him from being gay?? "feels forced" sounds like a lot of bs.
Please ignore the haters on this one like me and rejoice
This feels force to cater to the LBGTQIA+ crowd rather than good story telling. You can have both, but this isn’t.
And why is he still straight in your book? When it's now canon he isn't? It seems very immature to want to leave these sort of things to people's imagination when it's important to have clear representation.
I am gay and completely fine with it. And I am not sure how exactly it isn't good storytelling, what problems do you have with it?
You guys did Incredible <3
From what I've read, it just seems like a lazy and easy route. Him being gay doesn't matter, just like other characters possibly being straight doesn't matter since none of it effects the game. But why suddenly announce that a character released nearly 5 years ago is gay instead of just creating a new character who is gay and later down the road, or immediately after, announce that David is also gay. It feels like all of the survivors' names were put into a hat and the name that got pulled out is the character that would be announced as gay.
This is just my two-cents, even though no one asked for it, and may possibly dismiss it since I'm not a member of the LGBT community myself.
I've known people who have come out as bi/gay/pan in their later years. It's not impossible and I'm glad BHVR is at least trying to give some representation especially with a fan favorite character.
It's all well and good to have representation. There are plenty of characters that would not have the same level of criticism as David, seeing as he has an ex girlfriend.
If they wanted a character to be outspokenly homosexual, there's a vast selection of options that do not have prior lore of heterosexuality.
I see what Peantis said about not locking the first LGBT+ character behind DLC, as it would seem more greedy than not - which is completely understandable. We should all commend the developers for that choice.
However, I cannot help but feel that more recent DLC characters that lack community familiarity or lore (Jonah and Elodie come to mind) which would make them much more interesting characters if such an element was added to their lore. Expanding on David's lore is a welcome addition - his romantic inclinations are a good addition, however, it seems very disingenuous towards bisexual peoples within the LGBT+ community.
You have a character that likes men and has a history of liking women, but make the choice to ignore pansexuals / bisexuals?
Are certain parts of the LGBT+ community more valuable than others? No, they are all equally important within the community. But then why bother making David Homosexual specifically when most other characters could just as easily been homosexual without lore discrepancies?
And, in the end, if they choose to make David renounce his past heterosexual relationships to embrace a homosexual one - I do not understand how this is intended to seem more genuine than designing a character as homosexual from the ground up. It does not feel that his sexuality is a retcon because it is 'lazy' or 'so much time has passed' - it feels like a retcon because another part of his lore has been completely overshadowed and cast aside. At least - from where we are now. For all we know, it will all be explained and we'll all feel silly for not giving the writers the benefit of the doubt - but it does smack of cheekiness when people are explaining away that new characters getting LGBT+ lore would be seen as lacking genuine affect or 'retconning' in place of legitimately overshadowing established lore to make room for a new direction.
I understand what the devs were going for. But I cannot for a moment believe wholeheartedly that this decision was made with careful consideration. If it was, they would have either gracefully have chosen another character - or optimized their representation by having David's sexuality reflect both his established heterosexual relationships as well as his homosexual ones.
This entire thing has blown up. Which, in all honesty, is the exact opposite of what the LGBT+ community strives for in the long run.
All in all. It's a fun game, and people really shouldn't be giving the choice as much mind as they do. David's romantic interests as a fictional character make no difference to us players, in truth. What matters is that we all love this game and the experience we all share; regardless of the race, ideology, or sexual orientation of people that we play it with - or characters that we choose to play as.
Say that to any minority that wants to make societal change.
Well. I'm glad for the members of the community who wanted this and for their wish granted.
Hopefully the time will come when the representation of social minorities and marginalized groups in consumer media is no longer a cause for celebration.
Why do you believe it's an either/or thing?
Whichever 🙂 I'm not really picky.
I really don't think it goes any deeper than "David is gay".
Unfortunately in todays age, everything is a political statement.
even identity
Closed at OP's request