Final Fantasy 16
Final Fantasy 16 features multiple gay characters over its main storyline. These characters belong to a community of people living in Eorzea in peace, going about their lives just like everyone else. It's a portrayal of queerness that feels relatively progressive for a Japanese game.
Final Fantasy 16's queer representation is explicit and deliberate, with lore descriptions describing characters as lovers who fell in love and left behind partners for new lives together. The fantasy game normalizes queerness, showcasing a wealth of diverse relationships and people in love, living their lives like everyone else. This series has never shied away from addressing prejudice, but Final Fantasy 16's narrative centers queerness on its own terms.
While this normalizes queerness, Final Fantasy 16's queer representation falls short of acting as a stepping stone to greater representation by not pushing the boundaries.
Queer characters are sidelined or hinted at, their stories secondary to other parts of the game. The protagonist, the squire Terence, the Forgemaster L'ubor of the Briar's Kiss, and the Dominant of Bahamut, Dion Lesage, do not directly speak to their sexuality in the game, asides from what little is revealed through in-game lore.
Clive Rosfield, the protagonist, himself is curious, acting as a stark contrast to the sarcastic but unquestionably straight, male lead of FFXV. His function as a member of the Kingsglaive acts to showcase the devastation King Regis wrought instead of acting as a queer agent for change. Queer representation plays a significant role in so much of Final Fantasy 16, but it instead acts as a side storyline, shedding slightly more light on one aspect of the game.
Dion Lesage: A Leader Fighting for Justice
Dion Lesage, the Dominant of Bahamut, is a gay character. He serves the crown and is at the heart of Bahamut's leadership, but he refuses to serve a leadership that would slaughter the lives of his people without a cause. He fights to honor the dead and bring an end to the tyranny of the Garlean Empire. Dion's relationship with Terence is portrayed through romantic embraces and intimate moments, showing their deep love for each other.
Terence, Dion's royal squire, reluctantly accepts his duty to protect a young girl known as The Summoner even though his duty will likely result in his own death. Knowing Terence will probably never see Dion again, the story subtly hints throughout at a potential reunion between the two men in future DLC, as shown in this trailer.
L'ubor: The Talented Forgemaster
On the other hand, we also meet L'ubor, the Forgemaster of the Briar's Kiss. The most significant trans-coded character, L'ubor is a talented blacksmith and member of the player's party. He is often flirtatious towards other men, homoromantic in his actions and dialogues, but this relationship remains theoretical, apart from one scene.
Clive initially assumes L'ubor is a woman, but once the party meets L'ubor in person, Clive corrects himself. That said, L'ubor is coded as 'woman' in three ways – his soft voice and speech pattern tick the feminine coded box, he uses female pronouns, and he is romantically pursued by men (but not women). Unfortunately once again, this story is sidelined and continually questioned in the final quest of the post-game, Missing in Action.
The Missing in Action quest sees its main villain, Lunakopih, after one of the strongest weapons for his plan to summon Bahamut. As L'ubor reveals the recipe for their target weapon, Lunakopih threatens both the player and L'ubor with the risks of destroying a weapon that could summon Bahamut. Although the story itself questions L'ubor's trans-coded story in one way or another, this quest is the only chance to connect it to the wider themes of reclaiming identity.
The queer representation throughout Final Fantasy 16 is unprecedented for the series, each story featuring at least one gay character. However, normalization often comes with a cost, especially when the characters fall victim to normalization through side quests. When Final Fantasy 16 becomes final, it remains forgettable instead of giving the queer community the representation they deserve, despite the game's best efforts.
