Dorian in inquisition is a great example of what you can do if a companion has a set sexuality, his story was a distinctly queer narrative that many peopel can empathize with that actually was connected to worldbuilding and lore.
However, that doesnt mean player sexuality characters are wrong... its just different.
I'm kinda glad someone brought this up because Dorian is an interesting example to me. Someone else mentioned it and it's an ought/is situation again, and neither one nor the other is "right" and both are valid wants, but Dorian's questline was in large part about the fact that he was gay and his father didn't want a gay son. I see the benefits of showing queer narrative, but so much of queer narrative in media is queer pain. I know what it's like to have family reject you, and while I'm not against games depicting it, and I'm not against Dorian, Dorian was *the* gay option. And? Even so, when the game released people modded him to be romanceable with women anyway, adding a whole 'nother layer onto the thing.
So often gay people exist to be gay in narratives. What is a straight-person narrative? Straight people are allowed to be anything, do anything, want anything. None of their stories are defined by what body type they love. They are just allowed to exist and have a personality outside of that. Queer people aren't allowed to just exist independently of queerness. We have to always have a point, a reason for being there, and we have to be there in "realistic" numbers.
The player-sexual nature of characters in baulder's gate 3 does not prevent sexuality from being able to be a part of a character's narrative. If anyone has played or romanced Astarion you know this. His whole deal is a cope. He
had his sexuality weaponized against him by Cazador, being forced to be a sort of 'honeypot' without the ability to refuse because vampire powers,
if you romance him this is a big part of your relationship. For instance, if you are with Astarion and try to initiate something between the two of you and the druid, Astairion
asks you self-conciously if the reason you want something like that is because of the lack of sex in your relationship.
But most people just see Astarion as the bluster he is in the beginning of the game, and call him creepy and pushy when there are very clear and firm ways to tell him to 'stfu' in game.
Except you're never forced to be in a relationship with anyone except the person you choose to be. So it's not an issue.
It's not like you're forced to have a relationship with every companion. In fact you actively have to select specific things to be able to get into one. If you don't want to romance a person, then don't. Then their sexuality is irrelevant.
You are *never* forced into a relationship with anyone in this game, any time you are can be explained away with bugs or not having clear dialogue options, which has been discussed and discussed and discussed. You don't "fall in" to intimacy scenes with anyone in this game though, any flirty is textual and only Lae'zel is anything approaching obscene about it.
But what purpose does this conversation serve exactly? We've already addressed a few times that the chances of Larian listening and changing the characters to not be player-sexual is slim-to-none to occur. If it's that big of a deal for people, I would recommend petitioning a modding forum, or something of that nature, and getting yourself a mod to make the game how you think it should be.
