Well Written LGBT+ Characters - Who is/what makes a well written homosexual?

[Gingervitis]

After seeing the girl version of this thread, I got curious as to what makes an LGBT character any good. Between tumblr licking up anything gay like an exceptional dog and /pol/ decrying anything and everything as deviancy, I’m curious as to what the general consensus is.

To kick the thread off, Undyne from Undertale is a pretty fun character. It helps that her whole personality doesn’t revolve around “muh lesbians”.

 

[eldri]

When they're burned at the stake.

I'm sorry I couldn't resist myself

Edit: I'm sorry I forgot. They were burned on the pile of sticks next to the stake.

Edit #2: I actually feel bad about the joke. Maybe it went too far.

 

[A Useless Fish]

Oberyn Martel from Martin's books was pretty cool, ditto his portrayl in the early seasons of Thrones. I think what made him good was the fact that he was a really cool, charismatic character with solid motivations. The fact he occasionally took a guy to bed with, or instead of a girl, was utterly incidental.

The important thing is that a gay character needs to be an interesting character. You can't just slap GAY on them and call it a fucking day. That's lazy bulshit and should be called out whenever it occurs, otherwise the author's writing is never gonna get any better.

 

[Desire Lines]

well let's get the obvious one out of the way

this guy is a well written character with his own ambitions and goals, has interesting flaws, is funny as fuck sometimes, and he only reveals he is gay if you A: have the gay perk, B: ask him personally
what a champ

 

[Muttnik]

Franz from the Count of Monte Cristo anime Gankutsuou might piss tumblr off because of the stupid Bury Your Gays Trope, but he dies fighting in the place of Albert, his best friend and crush. He doesn't force the fact that he likes men on anyone--he encourages his crush to pursue a relationship with his girlfriend and offers the girlfriend good advice and hangs out with her privately because he wants to know what's going on in her life. He's protective and loving and wants to make sure his friends aren't tricked or fall into bad hands. So when he dies, there's this big hole left because you see the impact of how much he cared about the other characters. It makes his presence really feel valued in the time it was spent and by the time the series is over, you see our main character visiting his grave and you just lose it.

It's fine to write gay characters that don't get the other guy. Everyone's had a crush they could never fulfill on. I think sjws forget that a lot and insist that all LGBT characters MUST have a happy ending because discrimination or some shit. Sometimes, their deaths are important because it shows the audience that they too were significant enough to leave a major impact on both the viewer and the characters.

 

[Tampon Head]

The one gay couple in Night in the Woods. Feels like an actual relationship since they're faithful to each other and they don't act like sexual deviants. Moreover, it's not the only interesting part of their characters and they aren't defined by their sexuality. If you can describe a character in 3 sentences without mentioning their sexuality, then it's an actual good example of LGBT representation.

One irritating thing about LGBT characters in media that they're usually portrayed as being sexually loose and free. Think Connor from that shitty Murder show and Kevin from Riverdale. They also usually have similar plot lines. Think of coming out, hiding a relationship, and having a fake boyfriend / girlfriend to please parents. It's tiresome and takes away from the show / game's quality.

 

[Gordon Cole]

Hannibal Lector from Hannibal. Suave, quotable and Mads Mikkelsen fucking kills it every time.

 

[Mister Qwerty]

Jodie Dallas from the TV show Soap.

 

[Lez]

Stephanie is an incredibly likable character. She's funny, witty and kind, and the episode that brings up her sexuality is very well-done (though that can be said for every season 3 episode). I love her relationship with Orel and her relationship with her father.

Meanwhile Clay is a very unlikeable person, but he's fleshed out. He's abusive, selfish, misogynistic and bitter, and we get to see how he became that way. The narrative doesn't excuse him, but explains. There's nothing wrong with having 'bad' gay characters, just so long as you don't make a correlation between a character being gay and a character being evil.

 

[Kratos' Beard]

Ticker on Warframe has more depth than any character on online games has any right to have. It's ambiguous if she's trans per se, or if she's a woman who got a male cybernetic body (and obviously male voice) when she sold her real one to preserve her lover. Her voice actor does a tremendous job on conveying everything you need to know about the character, and it gets even better once you unlock her background.

Tamaru on 1Q84. He's a secundary character, but he has presence - a killer for hire and support.

Dorian Gray. We all know the fucker.

 

[Clop]

A character being gay is none of my business when I'm looking for people to take down a calamity that's causing the universe to split in two. To me a good gay character is one that I can't ever really be sure of (until the writers ruin it by outing them like dipshits.)

Nailsmith from Hollow Knight.

 

[YourMommasBackstory]

 

[sasazuka]

Tomoko Kuroki, if you're keeping up with the WataMote/No Matter How I Look At It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular manga rather than just remembering what she was like in the anime, which only represented the first half of her first year in high school. (In the manga, it's currently June of Tomoko's third year of high school.)

Spoiler

Whether Tomoko is lesbian or bisexual isn't entirely certain, but her current infatuation is with another girl, Asuka Katou, who is very much interested in Tomoko, though whether or not Asuka's interest in Tomoko is sexual is ambiguous, while there aren't any male characters who seem likely to become potential love interests for Tomoko any time soon.

 

[Nekromantik]

Phantasmagoria 2 had the protagonist's best friend Trevor Barnes. Yes he was a little bit sassy, maybe that was just the writing, it was a bit cheesy. Still, I didn't know he was gay till he started talking about a bad date he had with a guy just as casually as anyone would talk about a bad date. Other then that he just talked to you like your best friend. Hell it even has the player character talk to a therapist about maybe having feelings for Trevor even though he's not sure if he's gay/bi. You didn't really have something like that in the 90s.

Spoiler: Spoiler for a super old game

I felt really bad when he got killed.

 

[oldTireWater]

The ONLY good one.

 

[Kari Kamiya]

Might as well get it out of the way: Albus Dumbledore.

His sexuality is not the central part of his character, it wasn't even mentioned in the books (if at all). What makes him well-loved is his wisdom and loyalty to his students and instructors (most of whom practically owe him their lives), as well as his eccentricity. He was the only wizard Voldemort feared and while we don't get the full details because Harry either couldn't keep up or he had passed out/was blinded, the fact he swooped in to stop Voldemort in Order of the Phoenix was pretty bad-ass. He was not afraid of death, in fact if I remember right, he planned his death with the man he trusted the most. For fuck's sake, his death alone is the biggest tearjerker in the entire series, he's that loved in-story and by fans alike. Then it turns out he was the mastermind behind just about everything in the overarching plot of defeating Voldemort. It took years to accomplish, but he carefully plotted it out. That makes him the most important character in the series, and I'd daresay he's the true hero of the story, and he's the anti-hero. Even so, he's not perfect, he made his own mistakes and one of them proved fatal to him, but he's human.

Question remains on if you pitted him against Gandalf, who would win (probably Gandalf), but still, Albus is fucking amazing in his own right. You could pick him apart and find more flaws, but he's one of the best characters in the series--top three, I'd wager.

Bonus round: His My Immortal incarnation has the coolest, most quoted line in fan fiction history. You know the one.

 

[Scarboroughgirl]

Chiron from Moonlight. amazing coming-of-age / love story and beautiful movie

 

[Guts Gets Some]

Uh, they said LGBT.

FTFY

"Well written" only because of how utterly brilliant and insightful it is.... purely by accident.

 

[Red Hood]

Phantasmagoria 2 had the protagonist's best friend Trevor Barnes. Yes he was a little bit sassy, maybe that was just the writing, it was a bit cheesy. Still, I didn't know he was gay till he started talking about a bad date he had with a guy just as casually as anyone would talk about a bad date. Other then that he just talked to you like your best friend. Hell it even has the player character talk to a therapist about maybe having feelings for Trevor even though he's not sure if he's gay/bi. You didn't really have something like that in the 90s.

Spoiler: Spoiler for a super old game

I felt really bad when he got killed.

Trevor might well have been the most likeable character in the game. Not that it's a super high bar, but I agree, I actually do feel bad when he dies.

 

[GreenJacket]

Gandalf

Might as well get it out of the way: Albus Dumbledore.

READ A DIFFERENT BOOK.