Reminder that Varus was changed to being gay, from being unambiguously straight.

1 800 GGTOOEZ·Feb 18, 2018·2 votes·1,817 views

Most forced insertion of a gay character into any form of media I've ever seen.

18 Comments

SharjoFeb 18, 201810 votes

Varus was also changed to being a darkin from a human.

There's also the whole insinutation that just cuz old Varus had a wife means he was 100% straight which isn't true; he could've been bi, pan, ace. Same goes for Varus's body buddies.

1 800 GGTOOEZFeb 18, 20182 votes

Considering the vast majority of people are straight, that is highly unlikely. If Riot wants to make a new original character that's gay, then that's awesome. Retconning an existing straight character to be gay just reeks of tokenism.

SharjoFeb 18, 20184 votes

Considering the vast majority of people are straight, that is highly unlikely.

Says who? What statistics exist that indicate that?

If Riot wants to make a new original character that's gay, then that's awesome. Retconning an existing straight character to be gay just reeks of tokenism.

Tokenism? They gave Varus two comics and a god damn music video. They've given precisely 4 champions music videos. Out of 139. That sounds like some preferential treatment right there, rather than a token gesture.

Neeko Is A TrapFeb 18, 20182 votes

I think the point doesn't really matter anyways since the Varus we have now probably isn't going to be dating anyone with his demon pants. He's a character that's relevant to the story that we got background info on. We should be done

Warlord DienekesFeb 19, 20182 votes

Eh, the best one I’ve seen is the 2011-2013 orientation census. Which gives the number as roughly 93% of adult males define themselves as exclusively straight and 79% of adult woman define themselves as exclusively straight.

Now there is always the possibility of people lying on a self evaluation. But the Harvard sexuality brain study which tried to see what parts of a brain function upon being aroused found similar results. Above 90% of men did not gain arousal from watching male homosexual porn. While interestingly more woman seem to react to just watching any porn.

So make of that data what you will.

And as to the second point, making a large music video to celebrate your first openly gay champion is a rather blatantly token gesture.

Especially since this should have been a thing, what, 5 years ago. Almost 140 champions and only now getting to represent a significant portion of their player base.

SEKAIFeb 19, 20181 votes

[{quoted}](name=Warlord Dienekes,realm=NA,application-id=6kFXY1kR,discussion-id=O9AG4Mks,comment-id=0000000000000002,timestamp=2018-02-19T00:15:02.707+0000)

Eh, the best one I’ve seen is the 2011-2013 orientation census. Which gives the number as roughly 93% of adult males define themselves as exclusively straight and 79% of adult woman define themselves as exclusively straight.

Now there is always the possibility of people lying on a self evaluation. But the Harvard sexuality brain study which tried to see what parts of a brain function upon being aroused found similar results. Above 90% of men did not gain arousal from watching male homosexual porn. While interestingly more woman seem to react to just watching any porn.

So make of that data what you will.

And as to the second point, making a large music video to celebrate your first openly gay champion is a rather blatantly token gesture.

Especially since this should have been a thing, what, 5 years ago. Almost 140 champions and only now getting to represent a significant portion of their player base.

I mean, given the seemingly overwhelming popularity of ""trap"" characters in things like anime and the fact BoxBox went to crossdress Battle Bunny Riven on stream due to overwhelming fan request, it's safe to say that the statistics is probably a bit off. If I were to guess why, it's because the kind of model is employed in gay porn, who are typically ripped, is just not to the liking of guys who are not exclusively and hardcore gay; when bi or otherwise men with certain levels of homosexual tendencies probably like them boys a bit more skinny or even more feminine, probably.

We can open a bigger discussion on whether or not fancying crossdressing people and characters classifies as straight or gay, but it's safe it very much has a bit of both.

I'd wager that stats on the number of gay men, or at least those with some tendencies, is most likely higher than that finding.

Not to mention, there's a definitely higher pressure among men to be straight than in the case of social pressures among women (it's also quite safe to say that most of the voices against the existence of gay people are in fact mostly just talking about gay men), so there's that too.

Warlord DienekesFeb 19, 20183 votes

Here's the thing, if you go by the Harvard study, 100% of the men who identified as gay were turned on by watching the gay porn. There's also a fun thing when looking at statistics to denote things like collective bias and loud minorities which makes examples showcases just things on the internet as problematic. There's also the bit of false equivalency going on there. For example, I personally don't find traps interesting. However, without knowing who BoxBox is, I'd probably vote for some guy to crossdress on camera. Mostly because our society has been warped in such a way as to find that humorous. From Some Like it Hot to that episode of Blackadder Goes Forth, crossdressing can be played for laughs.

As to social pressures being a factor, that is undoubtedly true. But the question wasn't framed as "what percent are gay if we remove all social stigma" it was "is there a statistic that shows the majority of people are straight." To which the response is, well, yes.

Do not take that as a reason to not have gay or bisexual characters though. Even just taking the male demographic, 7-10% not considering themselves straight is a huge number. With roughly 67 million players monthly, that's 4690000 - 6700000 players. To have all of them just represented by 2/3 of 1 character after 9 years is actually pretty sad. If we were seriously going by populations of 139 champions. There should be 68 males, of which 4 should be gay and 2 bi. There should be 70 females, of which 3 should be gay and 11 bi. And the last one would be Kindred, I suppose.

FasmodeyFeb 19, 20183 votes

I completely agree. LGBT has always been a minority. Vast majority is straight. And that's okay. We need reproduction (well not for the moment but you got me).

But as you said, that doesn't mean we should exclude LGBT characters. In the end, (as I read somewhere, not sure how true it is) there are countries with 15% gay population (and some of them are even 17%. Heck, a brazillian city has 20% gay population).

It is still significant. Even with 5%, it means 5 millions gay LoL players.

2/3 representation in 9 years is still a process and I appreciate it a lot, thanks Riot, but that was kinda failure. Like I don't know, It would be better for each side to have a sexually non clarified character to be gay and not a champion had wife. And he is not even the gay one! Whose gays are Val and Kai, they are not champions but characters equal to Tamara, which I can't relate as much as a champion.

As I know it will never be reverted, what only I wish is it is not our "shut up" answer. I wouldn't want Varus to delay our next gay man for another 9 years cuz we already "have" one.

Warlord DienekesFeb 19, 20182 votes

We are in complete agreement here. I find this topic somewhat difficult as it is at times hard to express that you are entirely for the inclusion of non-heterosexual characters, while also thinking that was done to Varus kind of a dick move.

It’s also somewhat problematic to try and get my voice out there, since I am neither a Varus player nor homosexual myself. So in the ranking of voices people should be listening to on this matter I should probably be somewhere near the bottom.

FasmodeyFeb 19, 20182 votes

It’s also somewhat problematic to try and get my voice out there, since I am neither a Varus player nor homosexual myself. So in the ranking of voices people should be listening to on this matter I should probably be somewhere near the bottom.

You don't need to be gay to have your advise and opinion for LGBT. I like your attitude, and you don't feel fake at least. I don't like how some people are full of their sexuality and how everything should be about it.

1 800 GGTOOEZFeb 21, 20181 votes

This is exactly how I feel. Instead of taking the effort of making a new champion, Riot just retcons an existing character, who was established to have a wife and children, to fit their own narrative. I think it would've been much better if a new champion was gay, instead of a retcon of a straight champion.

Grimm HowlFeb 19, 20183 votes

Reminder that Varus is now a Darkin, and not the two Ionia hunters/lovers that were melded together into his new flesh vessel. Just because they were both homosexual, does not mean that Varus is. Why is that so hard to understand?

WOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOFeb 18, 20182 votes

It’s a retcon get over it

ToppienFeb 18, 20182 votes

so...are u telling me DBZ fusion characters are gay?

SEKAIFeb 19, 20181 votes

Varus, now the name belonging to a Darkin, is not gay, or at least the Darkin doesn't seem to have any indication of sexuality; it's just he's stuck with 2 gay people in his body as a 3-merged-in-1 entity.

There are far more things questionable about the Varus retcon than forced gay characters through this retcon, given all Riot needed is saying Varus's bow is a Darkin and the story literally writes itself (not even kidding), but no, Riot had to jump through all these loops and make him literally unrecognisable in terms of character and their personal motive (unlike claims that say Galio, Swain and whatnot are unrecognisable of their former iteration, that's false, but it's very true when it comes to Varus).