Oh, By The Way, That's Entirely Your Fault.
I'm becoming increasingly frustrated by a tendency amongst gamers to go 'there are implications that this character may not be straight, but I personally believe that this character is straight, THEREFORE ANYONE WITH A DIFFERENT INTERPRETATION IS WRONG'. It's something I've seen a few times, but it was the GTA Wiki article on Trevor Philips that finally made me snap:
Many of his sarcastic [sexually suggestive remarks towards men] have been misinterpreted as sincere statements by players.
IT'S NOT A MISINTERPRETATION
IT'S JUST AN INTERPRETATION
Someone in the article's talk page said, 'Hey, do you think we should mention the possibility that Trevor might be bisexual?' and got the response, 'I think you take what Trevor says far too seriously.' Look, I haven't played much of Grand Theft Auto V (I am the world's worst Grand Theft Auto player; I attempt to play it as law-abidingly as possible, which doesn't really work), but I've seen enough to be fairly certain that 'Trevor has a sexual interest in men' is not an unreasonable conclusion. Still, perhaps I'm wrong! It's not like you ever see him in bed with a man, after all.
All right, sometimes you do see him in bed with a man (who then starts sobbing and apologising to his girlfriend), but perhaps I'm just misinterpreting.
Do heterosexual male gamers try to dismiss this possibility because they feel it'll make it harder for them to identify with Trevor? Trevor Philips is an incredibly horrible person. If that's the point at which you start finding it hard to identify with him, I don't ever want to meet you.
This isn't the first time I've seen this. In The World Ends With You, is Joshua actually gay or does he just flirt with Neku to fuck with his head? Either is possible! If you don't think Joshua is gay, that's absolutely fine, but don't try to claim that people who do think he's gay are deluded. In Final Fantasy XIII, I don't personally interpret Fang and Vanille as lovers - their relationship feels more mother-daughter to me - but I can absolutely understand why people do see them as lovers, and their interpretation isn't any less valid than mine. Different character interpretations can coexist! So long as canon doesn't contradict it, anything is fine. Can't we all get along without dismissing perfectly valid possibilities in supposedly-factual wiki articles?
(If you think Trevor Philips is as straight as y = x, to be honest, I do think your interpretation is slightly less valid than mine. But it's not quite on the level of the 'why are you writing Doctor/Jack/Rose fanfiction? Captain Jack Harkness is straight' review I once got.)
This goes the other way, of course. It's valid to think that Enjolras of Les Misérables shows no interest in women because he is gay or asexual, but it is also valid to think that he shows no interest in women simply because he's busy planning a revolution. Some odd sections of the Les Mis fandom try to claim that 'shipping Enjolras with a woman is morally wrong. It really isn't! (I don't personally feel that thinking 'hey, these two fictional characters could hypothetically make an interesting couple' is ever a moral issue, even if canon leaves no room for interpretation - you can 'ship Kurt Hummel/Santana Lopez if you really want to - but I find the Enjolras/Éponine controversy a particularly perplexing case.)
Many of his sarcastic [sexually suggestive remarks towards men] have been misinterpreted as sincere statements by players.
IT'S NOT A MISINTERPRETATION
IT'S JUST AN INTERPRETATION
Someone in the article's talk page said, 'Hey, do you think we should mention the possibility that Trevor might be bisexual?' and got the response, 'I think you take what Trevor says far too seriously.' Look, I haven't played much of Grand Theft Auto V (I am the world's worst Grand Theft Auto player; I attempt to play it as law-abidingly as possible, which doesn't really work), but I've seen enough to be fairly certain that 'Trevor has a sexual interest in men' is not an unreasonable conclusion. Still, perhaps I'm wrong! It's not like you ever see him in bed with a man, after all.
All right, sometimes you do see him in bed with a man (who then starts sobbing and apologising to his girlfriend), but perhaps I'm just misinterpreting.
Do heterosexual male gamers try to dismiss this possibility because they feel it'll make it harder for them to identify with Trevor? Trevor Philips is an incredibly horrible person. If that's the point at which you start finding it hard to identify with him, I don't ever want to meet you.
This isn't the first time I've seen this. In The World Ends With You, is Joshua actually gay or does he just flirt with Neku to fuck with his head? Either is possible! If you don't think Joshua is gay, that's absolutely fine, but don't try to claim that people who do think he's gay are deluded. In Final Fantasy XIII, I don't personally interpret Fang and Vanille as lovers - their relationship feels more mother-daughter to me - but I can absolutely understand why people do see them as lovers, and their interpretation isn't any less valid than mine. Different character interpretations can coexist! So long as canon doesn't contradict it, anything is fine. Can't we all get along without dismissing perfectly valid possibilities in supposedly-factual wiki articles?
(If you think Trevor Philips is as straight as y = x, to be honest, I do think your interpretation is slightly less valid than mine. But it's not quite on the level of the 'why are you writing Doctor/Jack/Rose fanfiction? Captain Jack Harkness is straight' review I once got.)
This goes the other way, of course. It's valid to think that Enjolras of Les Misérables shows no interest in women because he is gay or asexual, but it is also valid to think that he shows no interest in women simply because he's busy planning a revolution. Some odd sections of the Les Mis fandom try to claim that 'shipping Enjolras with a woman is morally wrong. It really isn't! (I don't personally feel that thinking 'hey, these two fictional characters could hypothetically make an interesting couple' is ever a moral issue, even if canon leaves no room for interpretation - you can 'ship Kurt Hummel/Santana Lopez if you really want to - but I find the Enjolras/Éponine controversy a particularly perplexing case.)