I have been reading through this thing and I think I got half way through it, though I have noticed that the last post was like 5 months ago. I feel compelled to respond however.
I have seen a lot of people say that they do not want Geralt to be made gay or bi. I am with them there. Like many people in this thread, I feel that Geralt is an established character who should not be changed.
When I played The Witcher 1 there was no gay male character in sight, and while I would have gladly welcomed a gay male side character, I accepted the fact that The Witcher was a franchise that just didn't have gay male representation. Fine. I accepted that fact, and just allowed myself to enjoy the game as it was. And it was indeed a very entertaining, very fun game.
If The WItcher 2 had continued in this vein (as I was actually expecting), I would have been fine with it, because that is just how I saw the series as being. It was established that Geralt was a straight womanizer and no gay males seemed to exist in this entire universe. Fine and good.
*Spoilers Below*
But then something happened in The Witcher 2 that surprised me. CD Projekt RED decided to step OUT of this established norm on their OWN.
They chose to add a gay male character to the franchise. The character of Dethmold. They themselves did this. So, *they* themselves have opened this can of worms. So what is Dethmold? A psychotic, depraved douche of a man who keeps male sex slaves that he molests against their wills and who can in the end, get his jewels cut off by an angry and disgusted Roche.
OOOK. Like another poster expressed about themselves, when I saw this, it made me very uncomfortable. Its true that Roche MIGHT not have been disgusted by the man's homosexuality, he was pretty disgusting in other ways, too. Its true that Roche MIGHT not have castrated him because of his sexuality also. But its hard for me to know this for sure. Nothing is clearly outlined in the game that helps me to see this. And cutting someone's jewels off seems to be a punishment for sexual crimes. Granted, the crime may not have been so much because he kept a male sex slave, but just that he kept a sex slave, period, regardless of gender. Castration is an act of physical emasculation. We have a furious, disgusted Roche physically and brutally emasculating an evil homosexual male. It was just a very uncomfortable scene for me regardless of what the actual intent might have been. On the outside, to my eyes, it doesn't look very pro-gay.
So, because of this, because CD Project RED *already themselves* introduced the concept of gay males in this universe, I would love to see a gay male character introduced (someone who is NOT Geralt himself or a love interest for Geralt) who is not some utterly disgusting monster of a person (granted everyone in the game has a dark side, but some are clearly kinder, more heroic and more noble than others), someone that Geralt clearly knows or discovers is gay and yet does not want to kill and is even kind and friendly with in a platonic sense. I don't think this is asking so much. I do not want naked sex scenes between two men, I do not want Geralt to turn gay or bi, I just want some character to be introduced who is a gay male and one of the more noble people that Geralt meets and befriends or at least respects and doesn't despise. That's all.
Some of you may scream:
"NOOO! I am a straight white male in his 50s who makes jokes about gay people and high reps other straight white males in their 50s who make jokes about gay people and I do not want to see gay guys in my game! I do not want it rammed down my throat (he he he he pun intended) and forced on me! If this happens I am not playing another Witcher game and the Polish community will be outraged! P.S. this does not make me a homophobe, it just makes me old, white and despised, he he he!" But the thing is, its already been introduced into the game and you didn't stop playing the game as a result. It seems to me that you guys are not protesting the introduction of a gay male into the game. It seems to me that instead, you are protesting a
positive portrayal of a gay male being introduced into the game. THAT is what you guys do not want. Because I didn't see any of you complaining about Dethmold being gay and declaring "fine, I am not playing this game now!" After all, he was a nasty sicko who got what he deserved. So THAT is ok. You just don't want a new,
noble gay character introduced into the series. At least, that is how it appears to be. If I am wrong, then you will not care if CD Projekt RED actually adds some balance to what they have already introduced into the game and its lore. I think you are in luck though. I honestly think that CDProjektRED does want to avoid outraging people like yourselves. I also do not think that they care at all that this character and how he was dispatched by Roche might confuse or concern some players who are gay or gay friendly, so I do not expect a positive portrayal of any male homosexual any time soon in any witcher related game, sadly. Perhaps not in ANY game released by CDProjektRED.
Anyway, again, i STRESS that I agree that Geralt should not be made gay or bi. I also very much agree that CD Projekt RED does not OWE gay people their own content in any game they develop, I want that to be very clear (though I would certainly welcome it and respect them greatly if they had the guts to do it). I was FINE with the lack of homosexual representation in the game. But then they went and decided to go ahead and add a gay male character. Sadly, the character they added was of the "Depraved Homosexual" stripe (
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/DepravedHomosexual Dethmold is actually mentioned in the video game section of examples in this article). Once they did this, the situation changed for me. I think it would have been so much better if they had just not introduced any gay male character at all, if the only one they thought that they could bring in was a "Depraved Homosexual". I would have been perfectly happy with no gay male character at all, and I think the
White 50 year old Heterosexual Male Oppressed Majority Club would have been happy with it too. Even the ones in Poland.