lliira

I had a whole post written about the things I hate and things I love about SW:TOR. And it disappeared into internet ether. I was silly to write it directly in Dreamwidth instead of in Open Office first. But I sent this connected post to my husband, so I'll post it instead, though it was supposed to spin off a point in the other post. Namely: male characters have more romance options than female characters, but I think the male characters get the worst of it. (All romances are heterosexual so far, which was a point in that disappeared post, gah.) SPOILERS AHEAD.

A not-quite-complete list of SW:TOR romances. The form is Class: Description of romanceable character.

(Most ages are my headcanon estimates, except when stated exactly.)

ROMANCE OPTIONS FOR FEMALE PCS
Republic Cowards
1) Smuggler: Farm boy turned naive criminal. (Sounds weird, but that's what he is.) Chivalrous and protective, but not at all controlling. Ranged tank. Early to mid 20s. Chaotic Good. *
2) Knight: Devil-may arrogant roguish doctor with a heart of gold. Healer. Late 20s-late 30s. Neutral Good.
3) Consular: Experienced, professional, yet laid-back soldier who's been tortured. Ranged tank. Mid-late 20s. Neutral Good.
4) Trooper: Perfectionist with incredibly high standards for everyone around him, but the highest for himself. Can turn on the charm when he chooses. Ranged damage. Late 20s. Neutral or Lawful Good.

Imp Scum
5) Agent: I have not yet played her enough to even know for sure who her romance interest is. Don't tell me!
6) Warrior: We have two choices here!
a) Law-and-order career officer whose loyalty has been used against him in the past. Needs stick removed from ass. (I like you Quinn, but sheesh, lighten up.) Healer. Late 20s-early 30s. Lawful Neutral with Good leanings.
b) Big, strong, brave to a ridiculous degree, blow-things-up soldier who, while absolutely loyal to you and the Empire, has no patience for the law-and-order attitude or authority in general. Ranged Tank. Late 20s. Chaotic ~~Neutral~~ Evil.
7) Inquisitor: Pirate! Likes violence except against innocents (and seems to dislike violence against women as well), hates betrayal, despises authority. Intimacy issues, but you know the sex is incredibly hot. Ranged damage. Mid-late 30s. Chaotic Neutral, sort of, but with Good leanings a lot of the time. *
8) Bounty Hunter: Young (you can call him "kid") Mandalorian with a face like an angel, but scarred. Straightforward, smart, self-deprecating but not self-hating, and really, really nice. Yes, an extremely nice Mandalorian. Melee damage. Early 20s. Neutral Good. *
* -- I like these three best. I like the Knight's least of those I've played, but that's probably not his fault. You get dark side points for romancing him, so I am constantly annoyed while romancing him. This happens with no one else. I despise the idea of love and sex being "dark side" when dark side is equated with evil, which it mostly is in the game. I also think forbidding love and sex is utterly vile. That means I think the Jedi are utterly vile in the prequel non-movies and in this game. At least in this game, I think the writers mean us to think they're not-good, to say the least.

ROMANCE OPTIONS FOR MALE PCS
Republic Cowards
1) Smuggler. They have two choices.
a) Sarcastic criminal with a Big Secret. A good person deep down (according to Word of God -- I'm not so sure), but she hides it under tons of arrogance and sarcasm. Ranged damage. Early 20s. Chaotic Good...ish.
b) Mandalorian Mandalorian of Mandalorianness. Possibly if you romance her, her character has more layers. Melee
damage. Mid 20s-mid-30s. True Neutral.
2) Knight: Quite young woman with a lot of pain. You are her "master" -- her teacher. Sarcastic but sweet. Force-using double-bladed lightsaber-wielding light-armor wearing melee damage. Early 20s. Neutral Good.
3) Consular: Quite young woman with a lot of pain. You are her "master" -- her teacher. Earnest and sweet. Force-using double-bladed lightsaber-wielding light-armor wearing melee damage. Early 20s. Neutral Good.
4) Trooper: Former Imperial soldier. Earnest, uptight, honest. Healer. Late 20s - mid-30s. Lawful Good.

Imp Scum
5) Agent: My husband hasn't played his agent enough to know -- don't tell us :)
6) Warrior: Two choices but ONLY if you're dark side. Light side, you only get the first:
a) Former slave whose unrelenting sense of humor gets her into a lot of trouble. Sarcastic yet sweet. Ranged damage. Early 20s. Chaotic Good. **
b) Former Jedi. Quite young woman with a lot of pain. You are her "master" -- her teacher. Force-using double- bladed lightsaber-wielding light-armor wearing melee damage. Early 20s. Neutral Evil.
7) Inquisitor: Former Jedi. Quite young woman who starts out quite confused. You are her "master" -- her teacher. She actually has a good amount of character development; she annoyed me at first, but she changed and now I like her. Force-using dual-lightsaber wielding medium-armor wearing melee damage. Exactly 20 when she joins you. Neutral Good.
8) Bounty Hunter: Quite young woman with a mysterious past. Likely Intelligence score of about 17, but Wisdom score of about 3. She thinks bounty hunters are way cool, but hates the thought of killing for money. She wants you to get tons of recognition for doing dangerous things, and wants to help you do those dangerous things, but often whines while you're actually doing the dangerous things about how she doesn't know why we have to keep doing the dangerous things. Healer. Early to mid 20s. Alignment is probably Something Good, but heck if I can figure her out.

** - My husband likes her a lot. She's the only one he seems to really be into so far, actually.

So here is the distribution of classes in romanceable characters (minus Agent):
For women:
Ranged tanks - 3
Healers - 2
Ranged damage - 2
Melee damage - 1

For men:
Tanks - 0 (The agent does get one)
Healers - 2
Ranged damage - 2
Melee damage - 5
- Force-using double-bladed lightsaber-wielding light-armor wearing: 3

Number of romanceable characters over whom you have an extremely large amount of power (not counting the fact that the PC could easily kick the butt of any crew member):

Women: 3, 2 for Warrior and 1 for Trooper. However, all these men have extremely strong personalities and are likely at least in their late 20s, and would most likely hop a shuttlecraft and get the heck out of there if you tried to manipulate or coerce them sexually. (One of them suspects that's what you're doing at first when you flirt, and stonewalls you quite easily.) One of them might leave a bomb behind on the ship. Another would report
you and get you stripped of your commission.

Men: 6. Of these, the number who could escape somewhat readily is ONE: the male trooper's romance interest is in a similar position to the female trooper's, and could get your commission stripped if you treated her inappropriately. Though she's in a much worse position than the man, actually, since the Republic army does not trust her, as she used to be Imperial. The first of the warrior's companions would recognize if she were being manipulated, but being a former slave, and still technically a slave under Imperial law, she doesn't have many options. She could probably figure out how to escape while leaving a bomb on the ship, however.

This leaves four very young women over whom the male PC has a ton of power and can romance. In all of these cases, you are her teacher, and she calls you "master". In every case, the very young woman has no real ties outside your ship. The Consular romance for male PCs is particularly squicky. I would have no problems with one romance like this. Two is a mighty big coincidence. Three is a conspiracy. Four is... a serious lack of imagination, to put it mildly. The same setup this many times (all melee damage force-users, at that) is hilarious in its awfulness.

Though I, being a woman with such a strong gender identity that I cannot play male characters, technically have fewer romance options than my husband, who can play both male and female characters but only romance female characters, I think I come out ahead here. Someone at Bioware obviously has a fetish for very young women in romances with their mentor characters who have huge amounts of psychological power over them. What I don't get is why said fetish seems to be related to the women being force users who wield double-bladed lightsabers and wear light armor.