cashew | Sunday, January 2nd, 2022

Tales of Vesperia is a video game from the long running Tales of series (very similar to Final Fantasy, in that all the games are stand alone entries that share a similar set of base game mechanics, but each entry does its own spin on the base concepts) and is notable for being the only one that doesn't have a romantic couple at the time of publication. (Berseria, released about 8 years after Vesperia, also does not have a canonical romantic couple.)

Correction: It doesn't establish a romantic relationship between the male and female lead.

It has plenty of shipping between the same gender characters.

I bring this up because I'm sick and tired of people throwing around the words "queer baiting" against legitimate canonical gay couples when there's plenty of this obvious queer baiting in other media.

Langa and Reki from Sk8? Queer. Canonically a queer couple. They are very, very much canonically not straight. Anyone who tries to point to Reki lusting after women as some kind of "proof" that Reki isn't queer has clearly never heard of bisexuality. It's not one or the other, OK? Some people like both. (Also, no, they are not gender fluid. Those characters are very clearly on the man end of the spectrum. This show was not interested in addressing gender fluidity.)

Estelle/Rita or Flynn/Yuri from Vesperia? Queer baiting. Canonically straight but given a paint of queerness to draw in a certain group of audience that fetishizes queerness. (I still love Vesperia the game, but it's a mainstream JRPG that caters to an overwhelmingly conservative taste. Let's not pretend otherwise.)

How do we tell the difference?

Because in Sk8, the main conflict is the testing of the relationship between Langa and Reki. There are both internal and external conflicts that causes problems with the relationship. Internally, Reki has an inferiority complex that drives him away from Langa. Externally, the antagonist ADAM is trying to ruin their relationship and steal Langa away from Reki. Any attempt to put a straight reading on this story makes it fall apart in terms of character motivation. If skateboarding really is just skateboarding and not a metaphor for the underground gay scene, is it really necessary to get murderously upset that someone starts to lose interest in it? Would leaving it be an existential crisis if skateboarding wasn't meant to be something more than literal?

Meanwhile, the main conflict in Vesperia is not set up to test the relationship between the party members, but rather stems from the overwhelming problem that is the environmental disaster of technology. (I won't go into the game terminology for the sake of brevity.) The conflicts in the party's relationships are quickly resolved with little fanfare. The only thing that comes to remotely close to testing the resolve of the relationship is Flynn and Yuri's disagreement over how to approach evil doers (Flynn wants to arrest them, Yuri wants to murder them). And even then, the test is painlessly resolved because, ultimately, neither Flynn nor Yuri is ever forced to question the status of their relationship to one another.

So, despite all the Ho-Yay moments, the sly wink-wink nudge-nudge moments, the audience is never forced to grapple with the nature of Flynn and Yuri's (or Rita and Estelle's for that matter) relationship. Them being straight or queer is immaterial. And so there's just as much evidence pointing to a queer reading as there is pointing to a straight reading of the text. In other words, reading the relationship as straight does nothing to change the context of the story. Giving it a queer reading is possible, but is also immaterial. The text simply is not interested in standing out in one way or another.

In a story like this, where the characters' sexuality is immaterial to the story being told, to establish a canonically gay character, one would need a more explicit (although not necessarily sexually explicit) indication. (I'll give that the baby raising scene comes close, but it's barely there against an overwhelming amount of heteronormative text.) However, the party continues to use "friend" with great emphasis, refusing to state it as anything other than brotherly/sisterly love. Sure, you can read it as romantic if you squint, but the story certainly isn't going to shove it down your throat if you'd prefer the relationship to stay platonic.

And that, children, is what queer baiting looks like.

Which also makes the ship arguments so pointless. Like, ship whoever you want, stop trying to convince other people your reading of the ship (or lack of a ship) is more canonical. The text really does not give a damn one way or another.

(Also, this accusation of queer baiting is getting really annoying to read. Because there is a thing called "the market" and explicitly LGBT+ media don't get the same kind of promotion and revenue and thus are less likely to secure funding to get produced, so for fuck's sake, maybe the creators just wanted to sneak some shit under the radar, give them a fucking break. They're not trying to cheat you out of your money, they're just trying to make a living, OK? Because that's what being in the minority means: you are not representative of the majority and therefore you are not the driving force of the market. Yes, it sucks, but society doesn't owe it to you to cater to your preferences. And the indie scene exists, so maybe try supporting them a bit instead of constantly buying mainstream shit then complaining that it's mainstream.)

(Also, also, AO3 is a thing. If you're unhappy with what has been produced, you can always write and publish your own stuff. Stop complaining and more creating. Hup hup!)