The Moral Service of Trans NPCs: Examining the Roles of Transgender Non-Player Characters in Role-Playing Video Games

Transness and Queerness in Games

Few transgender characters appear in mainstream video games, and fewer still are represented as explicitly trans. Lauteria (2018) analyzed 17 characters whom he labels as “transgender” and who appeared in mainstream games between 1987 and 2015, but of these, only five were actually represented as trans (Lauteria, 2018, p. 48) and in only two cases was this trans representation explicit. As of November 2020, the LGBTQ Game Archive contained a total of 11 entries for named, explicitly trans characters (Shaw, 2020). Trans representation in games is certainly increasing over time; 2020 alone saw two major game releases featuring prominent transgender characters. One of these, Tyler Ronan in Tell Me Why, was the first playable transgender protagonist in a triple-A game (Liao, 2020); the other, Lev from TLOU2, will be discussed in this essay.

Representation in video games has been fraught political territory for the past decade, as evidenced by the research surrounding GamerGate’s activation of heteronormative, White cis-male identity to push against queer and feminist representation within games (Chess & Shaw, 2015; Mortensen, 2018; Dowling, Goetz, & Lathrop, 2019). The inclusion of queer content in general and trans content in particular in video games has provoked backlash and controversy on two fronts. At one pole are those who are critical of the quality of LGBTQ representation in games; at the other, those who push back against any form of queerness in games. One example of dual-pronged backlash was the reaction to the transgender NPC Mizhena in Baldur’s Gate: Siege of Dragonspear (2016, Beamdog Studios). The game was attacked in online reviews as “SJW” (social justice warrior) propaganda, but supporters of trans inclusion also criticized Mizhena’s representation within the game (Grayson, 2016). This dual backlash creates an environment in which producers brace for criticism from both trans-friendly and transphobic voices.

Key to any engagement with representation is a discussion of when and how representation matters. As Shaw (2014) notes, the dominant discourses around representation in games are those of realism and neoliberal market logics: diverse identities are or should be represented, these logics argue, either because such representation reflects the real world, or because inclusion will bolster the game’s sales. Producers and academics alike tend to assume that game players who are members of marginalized groups want to see themselves reflected in the games they play, and that they will buy games that feature characters like them, particularly playable characters (Shaw, 2014). However, Shaw (2014) concludes that representation is more important for the imaginative possibilities it generates, both for gamers on the periphery and those in the (cis, White, male, heteronormative) center. Games that offer greater diversity, not just in the characters they portray but in the stories they tell and the ludic mechanisms they employ, create “increased scope for the empathic possibilities of games” (Clark, 2017, p. 4). In short, representation matters because the worlds imagined in media texts shape the imagined possibilities dreamed up by audiences. Shaw (2014) explains:

Media representations are possible realities made material. Characters who are members of marginalized groups cannot be treated simply as lessons to out-group members or examples to in-group members. Their existence in media texts allow for more ways of being in the world, for all audiences. (p. 215)

Representations of transgender characters matter, not just as affirmations for transgender people or instructions for cisgender people, but as an opportunity to expand and complicate the imagination of gender in the world.

Non-Player Characters in Role-Playing Games

The term “non-player character,” or NPC, describes a range of actors who serve in a variety of game roles. The role originated in tabletop (non-digital) role-playing games, in which each human player acts as a single player character (PC), and all other characters in the game world are controlled and performed by the human Dungeon Master or Game Master (Warpefelt, 2016). In digital games, human players control PCs via input devices like controllers or keyboards, and the game system and AIs control the NPCs. Rato and Prada (2021) define NPCs as any game agents who are not controlled by players, and emphasize that NPCs often have both narrative and gameplay functions; in other words, their social interactions have “some interpretation in the narrative world” (p. 79).

Much existing work on NPCs in digital games concerns their contribution to the goals of player immersion, identification, or engagement (Bartle, 2004; Geraci & Kapadia, 2015; Mallon & Lynch, 2014; Warpefelt, 2016). In the narrative-heavy genre of role-playing games (RPGs), NPCs can be crucial to players’ investment in the game’s story and desire to continue playing (Mallon & Lynch, 2014). Some researchers have productively applied theories and typologies derived from literary studies to the understanding of NPCs’ roles in game narratives (Aarseth, 2012; Brusentsev et al., 2012). Others have developed gaming-specific typologies that account for both ludic and narrative functions of NPCs. Warpefelt (2016) outlined four metatypes of NPCs, each broken down into types: Functions (Vendor, Services, Questgiver); Adversaries (Enemy, Opponent); Friends (Sidekick, Ally, Companion, Pet, Minion); and Providers (Storyteller, Loot provider). Warpefelt’s typology is well-suited to analyzing NPC roles in the narrative-heavy RPG genre.

The game function of an NPC is always-already a service role. Players and their characters are central; games are designed around the player experience, and the purpose of NPCs is to add to that experience—hence the preponderance of literature discussing how NPCs can be made more intelligent (Bartle, 2004), more believable (Warpefelt, 2016), more reactive (Geraci & Kapadia, 2015), or more engaging (Mallon & Lynch, 2014). In Warpefelt’s (2016) typology, the unwritten grammatical object of each type or metatype is the player character (PC), the player’s proxy within the game: NPCs are Adversaries of the PC, Friends to the PC, Providers for the PC, or serve Functions for the PC. Although some have called for the development of games in which NPCs can do all of the things PCs can do (Bartle, 2004) or in which the PC serves as a sidekick to an NPC protagonist (Iurgel, 2005), the ultimate purpose of these innovations is the same: player engagement with a believable world and a satisfying narrative.

In short, there is a clear asymmetry between the roles of PCs and NPCs in digital games. While the player-controlled protagonist “gets most of the glory,” NPCs often “[pay] the price narratively—often sacrificing their lives … as well as making a game interesting and the game play challenging and immersive” (Daviault, 2012, p. 442, emphasis in original). By definition, NPCs occupy a marginal rather than a central role. In this essay, I investigate the intersection of the NPC role and explicitly transgender characters. Again, it is significant that until 2020, no mainstream, big-budget, so-called “triple-A” video game featured a transgender character outside of the NPC role (Liao, 2020). This essay explores the implications of trans characters occupying NPC support roles and interrogates the types of service that trans NPCs perform.

The Games: Watch Dogs 2, Dragon Age: Inquisition, and The Last of Us Part II

A brief overview of Watch Dogs 2 (WD2; Ubisoft, 2016), Dragon Age: Inquisition (DA:I; BioWare, 2014), and The Last of Us Part II (TLOU2; Naughty Dog, 2020) will prove useful to contextualize this analysis. All three games were big-budget, “triple-A” releases that met with critical acclaim. In WD2, the player controls Marcus Holloway, a member of hacker collective Deadsec, as the group works to take down ctOS, an AI surveillance system. The game takes place in near-future dystopian San Francisco where citizens’ every move is tracked and profiled. A core cast of NPC Deadsec hackers recruit PC Marcus and send him on missions. Miranda Comay, the transgender NPC in WD2, is one of a secondary cast of NPC characters who are featured in individual missions.

In DA:I, the player designs a custom avatar to represent the central character as they form a political and military coalition to fight an ancient demon. The Western-style fantasy world, called Ferelden, can be customized by importing gameplay choices made in the previous two games in the series, Dragon Age: Origins (DA:O, 2009) and Dragon Age 2 (DA2, 2011). In addition to the player-created avatar, which I will call the primary player character (PPC), DA:I features nine other controllable PCs, of whom six are optional; they can either be recruited to the team or declined by the player. Transgender NPC Cremisius “Krem” Aclassi is a featured NPC, appearing in a number of cutscenes and dialogue trees during the recruitment of optional PC Iron Bull and during Iron Bull’s personal questline.

In TLOU2, the player first controls Ellie, the deuteragonist from the original The Last of Us (TLOU, 2013), as she hunts down Abby to take revenge for Abby’s killing of Joel, Ellie’s mentor and father figure from TLOU. At the game’s midpoint, control shifts to Abby as the player revisits three in-game days, now from Abby’s perspective. The setting is a post-apocalyptic version of the United States in which a fungal infection turns humans into vicious, zombie-like creatures. The game features several companion NPCs who both fight and sneak alongside the PCs at different points. Lev, the transgender NPC in TLOU2, is a companion to Abby during the third and fourth acts of the game.

I turn now to explicitly transgender NPCs Miranda (WD2), Krem (DA:I), and Lev (TLOU2) to investigate their representation and their positioning within the games’ respective narratives. Recalling Shaw’s (2014) argument that representation matters because it opens imaginative possibilities, what new spaces of possibility are opened by these trans NPCs and their representation in the game world? What types of service do these characters perform, and is this distinct from the roles occupied by non-transgender NPCs?

Questgiver, Councilwoman, Informant: Miranda Comay in WD2

Transgender NPC Miranda Comay is first mentioned early in WD2 when a news broadcast names her as a city councilor and reports that cultlike group New Dawn denies responsibility for the release of “medical records of the councilor’s transgender treatments.” This sets up her appearance in the main story mission False Profits, which involves PC Marcus rescuing hapless cult members from a re-education center. In Warpefelt’s (2016) typology, Miranda functions both as a Questgiver, instructing Marcus to rescue a New Dawn captive, and as a Storyteller, as she both relates plot points that drive the narrative forward and provides backstory that enriches WD2’s imagined San Francisco. As a city councilwoman, Miranda is marked as a prominent figure who has enjoyed both economic and political success.

Miranda is represented as a Black woman with chin-length black hair in her 40s or 50s. She wears a purple pencil skirt, a matching double-breasted blazer with cutoff sleeves and a plunging neckline, heels, stockings, and jewelry. She stands slightly taller than Marcus and has relatively large hands and feet. Her voice sounds transfeminine; though voice actor David Collins is listed as transgender on the Watch Dogs 2 wiki (Collins, 2020a), IMDb uses he/him pronouns and lists masculine-presenting roles up through 2020 (Collins, 2020b). It is unclear how the actor self-identifies. Taken together, these visual, auditory, and narrative cues comprise a character who is marked as transgender. However, Miranda’s transgender identity is not a major narrative point; her position as councilwoman is more important. Overall, Miranda is an NPC who is visibly, audibly, and explicitly transgender, but her transness has little relevance to her ludic or narrative role.

Sacrifice of the Loyal Sidekick: Krem in DA:I

By contrast, transgender identity is the defining feature of NPC Cremisius “Krem” Aclassi, who appears in DA:I, and at the peak of his service role his life can be sacrificed for the player’s ludic gain. Visually, Krem is a White, male-presenting human with short brown hair and of average height, wearing bulky armor that conceals his frame. He is voiced by Jennifer Hale, a cisgender female actor whose numerous credits include the female version of the protagonist of Mass Effect (2007), another BioWare game. Hale’s performance is pitched to read masculine; combined with Krem’s physical appearance, this leaves open the possibility that players will not guess that Krem is transgender until his identity is revealed in the game narrative.

Krem is first introduced as a messenger, bringing the primary PC (PPC) an invitation to meet Iron Bull, the leader of a mercenary group called the Bull’s Chargers; Krem is Bull’s lieutenant and second-in-command. The Chargers as a group and Krem in particular are positioned as Other and Othered—a specific goal of writers Weekes and Gaider, as discussed in the discourse analysis section. This theme is further elaborated during a later scene in which the PPC is invited to drink with Iron Bull and the company. It is in this scene that the player can, but need not, make dialogue choices that prompt Krem to explicitly confirm that, as Iron Bull explains it, he was “born one gender but living as another.” The player can also choose to hear short histories of the other five named members of the Chargers, who are all outcasts from their respective societies. Krem is positioned as chief among these outcasts, playfully bantering with Iron Bull without quite crossing the line between superior and subordinate.

Unlike Miranda, whose transgender identity is less relevant than her political identity, Krem’s personal history centers on his transgender status. Everything that the PPC can learn about Krem—including his childhood, his relationship with Iron Bull, and his presence in the Chargers—ties back to his gender identity and its persecution in his home region. Krem describes meeting Iron Bull for the first time when Bull saved him from a group of soldiers. Indeed, Bull is permanently marked by the encounter; he lost his left eye protecting Krem. After learning about Krem’s transgender identity, the PPC can ask Krem about his background, but all possible questions and answers are linked to Krem’s trans status. The central, defining feature of Krem’s story as presented in DA:I is his identity as a transgender man.

Of the three transgender NPCs discussed in this essay, only Krem can be killed within the game. As part of an optional encounter, the Chargers face an unwinnable fight. The player must choose whether to have the Chargers defend their position to the death, thus cementing a valuable political alliance, or retreat from battle. If the player sacrifices the Chargers, the PPC is rewarded with 400 points of influence, an in-game progression currency, and Krem disappears from the game. If the player chooses retreat, no influence is gained, and the political alliance is lost; however, Krem appears in the follow-up cutscene and is accessible in the PPC’s home base afterward. In either case, the encounter demonstrates Iron Bull’s feelings for the Chargers in general and Krem in particular. If they survive, Bull speaks to Krem with rough affection and celebrates the victory with drinks; if they perish, the camera lingers on Bull as he punches a wall, and then hangs his head in sadness. Krem’s peril and possible death serve a dual function: an opportunity for strategic, material gain for the PPC, and a showcase for Iron Bull’s empathy.

Physical Victim, Moral Savior: Lev in TLOU2

In TLOU2, transgender NPC Lev also serves to showcase a PC’s empathy, a challenging task given that the PC, Abby, is constructed as a villain through the first and second acts of the game. When PC Abby first encounters Lev, she has been captured and is about to be executed by the Seraphites, the cultlike religious group from which Lev and his sister Yara are fleeing. While hanging in a noose, Abby assists Lev and Yara in their fight against the Seraphites, and in turn, Lev cuts the rope to free Abby. Abby frequently refers to Lev and Yara as “just kids,” evoking discourses of innocence as she chooses to protect them. Lev’s youth is apparent in his visual design; he is much shorter than Abby, and his build is slight. He is represented as a slim, Asian, masculine-presenting youth with a shaved head. Unlike Miranda and Krem, Lev is voiced by openly transgender actor Ian Alexander, who has discussed drawing from his own life experience for his performance (Yang, 2020).

Lev is key to Abby’s moral transformation and her rehabilitation from unsympathetic antagonist to sympathetic protagonist over the course of TLOU2’s narrative. Left adrift after completing her quest for vengeance, Abby finds purpose in protecting Lev and Yara from first the Seraphites and then her own organization, the Wolves. She risks her life to save Lev; after Wolves kill Yara, Lev cries out an accusation: “Those were your people!” and Abby responds, “You’re my people!” Lev serves as the catalyst for Abby breaking with the Wolves, and ultimately for removing herself from her cycle of vengeance with Ellie. At the climax of act three and after discovering that Ellie has killed her closest friends in the Wolves, Abby defeats Ellie in combat and is poised to kill Dina, Ellie’s pregnant girlfriend, until Lev calls out to her to stop. Lev’s intervention, both in that moment and over the course of the time they have spent together, is key to the personal transformation that allows Abby to walk away.

Producer Discourse: Normative Conventions and Phantom Pandering

Within media coverage of the release of DA:I, WD2, and TLOU2, producers rationalized the inclusion of transgender characters as serving the moral development of cisgender characters. Although most of the interviewees supported diversity as an abstract construct, voices from each game stressed that they did not and would not include diversity for diversity’s sake. By defending themselves from the perception of pandering, the interviewees contributed to a discourse in which transgender characters can only exist in service of normative conventions and cisgender narratives.

Of the three games, WD2 yielded the fewest diversity-related media articles. Creative director Jonathan Morin and actors Ruffin Prentiss (Marcus Holloway), Jonathan Dubsky (Josh Sauchk), Tasya Teles (Sitara Dhawan), and Shawn Baichoo (Wrench) all discussed diversity and representation, but the transgender character Miranda Comay was mentioned only in passing, if at all. Instead, the interviewees focused on racial diversity, particularly Black protagonist Marcus Holloway, and neurodiversity, referencing autistic character Josh Sauchk. A common theme was that representation of diverse identities added to the game’s authenticity and would allow similarly diverse audiences to connect with the characters. This is consistent with the neoliberal capitalist logics that Shaw (2014) describes in which diversity is promoted for the sake of profit and market share.

In an interview with Morin, Newsweek was careful to point out that Morin “wasn’t ticking boxes when his team conceptualized Marcus; his background became crucial to the story” (Serrano, 2017). Baichoo concurred, calling the diversity of the cast “organic.” He said it makes the characters “relatable, without it falling to pandering or tokenism” and “without being preachy or in-your-face about it” (Rebbeck, 2016). The interviewees repeatedly stressed that the characters’ diverse backgrounds were written in service of narrative and realism: neutral, normative constructs at the heart of triple-A game releases. This realism discourse implicitly justifies Miranda Comay’s inclusion as just one of “the people you’d find in San Francisco,” as Morin put it (Serrano, 2017). This rhetoric suggests that the production team is aware of the accusations of pandering to “social justice warrior” interests that have plagued other game releases, and that they are invested in pre-empting these accusations with appeals to normativity.

Discourses around DA:I included fewer references to pandering, but revealed the dual pressures of capital and cisnormative design structures that construct trans characters in service of cis ends. Writers Patrick Weekes and David Gaider openly discussed community responses to previous BioWare projects and fans’ requests for “representation of transgender and/or genderqueer characters in a way that did not make them either a monster or a joke” (Weekes, 2014), demonstrating their awareness of potential pushback from trans-friendly circles, and also acknowledging a media history of representing queerness as monstrous, villainous, or the butt of jokes. However, both Weekes and Gaider stressed the challenges of responding to fans’ requests. While acknowledging that “queer folks seeking representation are an underserved market”—and thus, again, invoking the logics of neoliberal capitalism—Gaider cited difficulties in finding agented transgender voice actors and in explaining “lesser known identities” through game narratives (Cole, 2017).

Though Weekes wrote with pride about the DA:I team’s navigation of the “uncharted territory” (2014) of trans character inclusion, both he and Gaider acknowledged that transgender NPC Krem’s presence in the game was only possible because his character served to emphasize positive characteristics in Iron Bull, a controllable party character. “[W]e do not have the budget for someone who is just there to tick off a box,” Weekes wrote, invoking discourses of pandering. Gaider elaborated, explaining that Iron Bull’s mercenary company “consisted of the Other […] Who they were said something about Iron Bull” (Video Game Sophistry, 2015). Despite both writers’ market logic-based insistence that diverse content could actually be increasing sales of the Dragon Age series (Weekes, 2014; Video Game Sophistry, 2015), Krem’s inclusion would not pass budgetary muster if he did not serve Iron Bull’s narrative. Not only did Weekes and Gaider consciously and pre-emptively resist accusations of pandering, they also explicitly linked the value of transgender representation in game narratives to the trans character’s moral service to cisgender characters.

TLOU2’s trans character, Lev, has a larger narrative role than either Krem in DA:I or Miranda in WD2, and diversity-related interviews surrounding TLOU2 were correspondingly numerous. Interviewees included Neil Druckmann, TLOU2’s director and co-writer and Naughty Dog’s vice president, and Halley Gross, co-writer and narrative lead. The tone of these interviews was unapologetic; the creators stood behind their game and the choices they’d made. Yet fears of pandering and preachiness were evoked by Druckmann, and both he and Gross continued the pattern of justifying trans narratives by pointing towards their service to cis characters and to normative concepts of honesty and story.

Druckmann defended the team from accusations of pandering that were never raised within the interviews themselves. He emphasized the primacy of narrative, and insisted that rather than “diversity for the sake of it” (Wilson, 2020b), “just to stand out” (Powell, 2020), to “win diversity points” (Wilson, 2020a), or to “check that off the box” (Wilson, 2020b), it was simply “how we do honest storytelling” (Wilson, 2020a). This argument subsumes the marked queerness of TLOU2’s characters beneath the unmarked concept of narrative. Just as with Krem in DA:I, the interviewees acknowledged that Lev’s trans story works to humanize a cis character. Gross directly articulated the use of Lev to further Abby’s redemption narrative:

You see what a positive impact […] how she is able to negotiate her ego because of this positive influence, because of this redemption arc. It’s for Lev that she’s able to be a better person, because she can’t do it for herself. (Takahashi, 2020)

Lev’s transness was written to catalyze Abby’s empathy and, in turn, to build the player’s empathy for Abby. This purpose was articulated across multiple interviews by both Gross and Druckmann.

In sum, production-side interviews surrounding the release of Dragon Age: Inquisition, Watch Dogs 2, and The Last of Us Part II—triple-A video games that feature explicitly transgender non-player characters—championed diversity in the abstract, but repeatedly and defensively responded to unarticulated accusations of pandering. Within the production-level discourse, trans characters were marginalized in narrative service of their cisgender counterparts.

The Moral Service of Transgender NPCs

While existing literature makes clear the general service role of NPCs (Bartle, 2004; Daviault, 2012; Warpefelt, 2016), the foregoing analysis reveals a specific role for transgender NPCs that is characterized by moral service. This role, which is enacted in-game by both Krem and Lev and which is suggested by producers of all three games via news media, does not neatly fit any of the categories outlined by Warpefelt (2016). While all three characters also enact roles from Warpefelt’s typology—they are variously Storytellers, Sidekicks, Allies, and Questgivers—their roles as victims of violence whom cisgender characters may choose to protect, and who in turn catalyze the cisgender character’s humanization or moral redemption, are specifically trans. While the role of an NPC is inherently a service role, the moral service performed by Krem and Lev is distinct, and speaks to the hegemonic entrenchment of transphobia.

To describe the specific role of transgender supporting characters who provide moral service in order to redeem, uplift, or humanize cisgender characters, I propose the term magical transness. My conceptualization of magical transness draws from the magical Negro (MN) trope that appears in American media, characteristics of which include a narrative role that primarily serves a White character; deployment of folk wisdom rather than intellectual abilities; and possession of magical, spiritual, or supernatural gifts, which are used to help the White character rather than the MN themself (Glenn & Cunningham, 2009). This service role evokes the perpetual service of video game NPCs, but the type of service performed by the MN is very specific: they deploy primitive, primordial, salt-of-the-earth qualities that are ideologically coded as inferior and uncivilized in order to uplift, redeem, or showcase the White character. Magical transness is similar to the MN trope in that magical trans characters also exhibit primordial folk wisdom rather than intellect and exist in the liminal space between rejection and acceptance (Glenn & Cunningham, 2009). However, unlike the MN, magical trans characters do not possess literal magical powers. Instead, their magic is their ability to evoke empathy and provoke moral transformation in cisgender protagonists.

The magical trans character’s transformative power is tied to another distinctive divergence from the MN trope: the centrality of victimization, violence, and threats of violence to the narratives of magical trans characters. For both the MN and the magical trans character, the teaching of moral lessons is key. The MN frequently deploys “a kind of healing morality” (Hughey, 2009, p. 563) that catalyzes the White character’s growth, then vanishes from the narrative, centering the White character’s achievements and sidelining the MN’s assistance. However, where the MN trope paints a rosy vision of interracial friendship that obscures the history of systemic oppression of Black people by White people, the magical trans trope foregrounds violence perpetuated against transgender people by cisgender people. The trans character’s need to be saved provides the cis character with the opportunity to demonstrate magnanimity when they decide to become the savior. In the magical trans trope, there is no assertion of (to restate Hughey’s (2009) argument in terms of gender identity rather than race) a gender experience-neutral ¹ social context; instead, the role of trans person as victim of cis aggression is naturalized and maintained, even as the cis hero is lauded for stepping outside of that expected relation.

Although production-side media discourse surrounding WD2 frames diversity in service of normative constructs, Miranda Comay does not function as a magical trans character. Her inclusion, implicitly justified by the production team on the grounds of realism, does not serve to rehabilitate or aggrandize PC Marcus. She is a unique character with an individual past, and an example of the way that powerful organizations can harm individuals by misusing their personal data. However, Miranda is not seeking any personal help from Marcus. Indeed, she is helping him, and in so doing, also helping New Dawn’s other victims. While Marcus’ association with Miranda does suggest something about his character—he never misgenders her, clearly has a history with her, and presumably will continue to be friendly with her in the future—it is only one of many examples that paint the anti-authoritarian hacker as a morally upstanding hero. Marcus accepts Josh’s neurodiversity just as readily, and Josh is a much more prominent NPC. Marcus also frequently demonstrates his values through other missions, such as when he tricks a wealthy target into donating $20 million to leukemia research when the target intended to secure exclusive personal rights to a new hip-hop track. Thus, Marcus’ treatment of Miranda is far from the only marker of his moral convictions; Miranda does not catalyze any moral redemption or rehabilitation of Marcus’ character.

Miranda’s status as a councilwoman—a member of both the political and the economic elite, with high social standing and powerful connections—works against the positioning of marked oppression that is characteristic of magical transness. Her incisive analysis of political situations, her philosophical debates with Marcus over whether it is possible to change a system from within, and her provision of critical information to the intellectually sophisticated hacker collective are markers of cognitive ability, not folk wisdom. Miranda is also represented as more than her gender experience. Her character is not defined by her gender identity, and in her conversations with Marcus she alludes to a rich life of social relationships, including tensions between reform and practicality with the Oakland police department and a friendly visit with her mother. Although Miranda does suffer violence in the form of New Dawn’s release of her transition-related medical information, she has the situation well in hand and does not require any assistance from Marcus. Overall, as an intellectually sophisticated political elite who does not need to be rescued and whose backstory goes beyond trans victimization, Miranda Comay is not represented through the trope of magical transness.

Krem, in contrast, performs the moral service of a magical trans character. As discussed earlier, the DA:I writers justified the inclusion of a transgender character by pointing to the narrative service he could provide for Iron Bull, a cisgender character. Unlike Miranda, whose backstory is complex and includes many elements unrelated to her trans identity, Krem’s personal history as revealed in DA:I is always tied to his gender experience. The eyepatch that Iron Bull wears is an enduring reminder of the threat of physical violence leveled against Krem in his homeland. Krem’s cheerful deference to Iron Bull, his enduring loyalty, and his admiration for Bull’s leadership and character all serve to uplift Iron Bull and render his character more sympathetic to the audience. This is significant in the context of Iron Bull’s adherence to a religious sect called the Qunari. Bull’s full support of Krem’s transgender identity positions Bull, and by extension the Qunari, as accepting and open-minded, at least in terms of gender identity. This is rhetorically important because Qunari society, strictly religious and highly controlled, can read as unsympathetic. Krem’s narrative role as a victim of anti-transgender violence who must be saved by Iron Bull negates Krem’s agency while showcasing Bull as a champion of the oppressed.

In keeping with the trope of magical transness, Krem’s intellect and ability are downplayed in comparison to Iron Bull. When Krem and Bull train together, Bull chastises Krem for being unable to pick up on a move Bull is making in time to defend against it. Krem’s dialogue with the PPC emphasizes Krem’s preference for the physical, instinctive labor of fighting rather than the artisanal labor of tailoring that his father performed. This preference for the work of a ground soldier is explicitly tied to Krem’s transgender identity; his desires to live as a man and to support himself through military service are conflated when he describes running away to join the army. Again, this is a contrast to Iron Bull, who enjoys fighting on the front lines but also performs sophisticated spywork.

Krem’s service role is emphasized by the player’s ability to sacrifice the Bull’s Chargers (of whom Krem is the most prominent and well-developed character) for the dual benefit of PPC progression and Iron Bull’s character development. Just as the MN’s magic powers “transform black-white friendship into a use-value commodity for white characters’ salvation” (Hughey, 2009, p. 561), Krem’s loyalty, simplicity, and “the superior moral nature associated with the oppressed” (Glenn & Cunningham, 2009, p. 138) are rendered transactional when the player is presented with the decision to save him, or to effectively order his death. No matter which choice the player makes, Krem’s life or death is placed in service of Iron Bull and, by extension, the PPC. If Krem is not sacrificed, reuniting with him showcases Iron Bull’s emotions of relief and happiness, as well as his empathy, moral goodness, and willingness to break with the Qunari. If Krem is sacrificed, his loss showcases Iron Bull’s emotions of regret and sadness, but also furthers Bull’s ambitions. Either way, Krem serves as a prop to further Iron Bull’s character development. Krem’s survival is dependent first on Iron Bull’s compassion, and later on the PPC’s decision. As a character who is defined by his transgender identity, marked by violence, and subordinated to serve a cisgender PC’s development (potentially at the cost of his own life), Krem is an example of the magical transness trope.

Like Krem, Lev serves a PC’s moral and narrative development. Lev’s primitive, spiritual wisdom; his vulnerability to anti-trans violence; and his role as catalyst for Abby’s moral redemption position him as a magical trans character. As discussed earlier, Lev was raised in a cultlike, ultra-religious group called the Seraphites. The Seraphites call Lev an “apostate” and an “abomination,” and the violence they intend to visit on him is made tangible when they shatter his sister Yara’s arm as punishment for helping him escape. The Seraphites reject technology and adhere to a heavily religious life. Their village is built out of natural wood, has no electricity, and uses no scavenged tools from the “old world” before the outbreak of the zombie disease. Numerous instances of in-play dialogue demonstrate Lev’s naivete and lack of knowledge about both his world’s history and its present. He doesn’t know anything about compartment syndrome, which afflicts Yara’s shattered arm; his understanding of Abby’s group, the Wolves, and their technology is simplistic; he calls the infected, zombie-like creatures “demons”; and he uses a simple wooden bow as a weapon. In comparison to PCs Ellie and Abby, both of whom make extensive use of guns, bombs, scavenged technology, and knowledge of the pre-outbreak world to survive their apocalyptic reality, Lev appears to be at a disadvantage. Yet the magical qualities of his spiritual wisdom prove invaluable to Abby, supporting both her physical progress through the game world and her moral progress toward breaking the cycle of violence.

Lev cleaves to his religion despite being persecuted by the Seraphites’ strict gender roles. His spiritual wisdom helps Abby to work through her fear of heights, allowing her to manage her terror and cross a bridge between abandoned skyscrapers. Abby gradually demonstrates greater curiosity about Seraphite beliefs and artifacts, and later repeats a piece of Seraphite scripture that Lev quoted to help her manage her fears. Though Abby certainly does not convert—and the Seraphites remain unsympathetic throughout the narrative—Lev’s spirituality helps Abby to reevaluate herself and her beliefs. However, further exemplifying the magical transness trope, Lev’s folk wisdom only helps Abby; he cannot help himself. He has no means to stabilize Yara after her injury, and must rely on one of the Wolves to perform surgery (at Abby’s insistence) and on Abby to scavenge advanced medical supplies from a hospital. He naively returns to the Seraphite village to see his mother, who attacks him; without Abby’s rescue he would have been stranded on the Seraphites’ island during a violent confrontation with the Wolves. In true magical trans fashion, Lev functions as moral savior but physical victim, and Abby’s choice to rescue him from violence sets her on the path to moral transformation.

As demonstrated by the diversity-related discourse surrounding these games, the moral service of transgender characters extends outside of the game world, and thus calls for the application of novel analytical tools. The various schemas that have been used to describe or categorize video game NPCs (e.g. Aarseth, 2012; Bartle, 2004; Brusentsev et al., 2012; Rato & Prada, 2021; Warpefelt, 2016) focus on either the gameplay dimension, the narrative dimension, or both. While this is useful in analyzing NPCs’ in-game functions and, to some extent, their relationship to players, it does not capture the political role of NPCs representing minoritarian identities. In news articles surrounding the release of WD2, DA:I, and TLOU2, developers and producers both positioned trans NPCs as evidence of diversity and inclusivity in their work and also downplayed the marked transness of these characters, anticipating and pre-emptively dodging accusations of pandering with appeals to normative concepts like honest storytelling. Trans NPCs were highlighted, then erased; publicized as evidence of diversity, then smoothed over as just another advancement in realism, as apolitical as a higher polygon count. This speaks to the hegemonic entrenchment of transphobia. If designing an NPC as transgender is a political decision that requires pre-emptive defense in news media—and that, despite this defense, provokes virulent anti-trans reactions—then transphobia is not an aberration, but a fact of life.

When the trope of magical transness functions—that is, when a cisgender character can effectively achieve humanization, redemption, or emotional depth based on their willingness to help a transgender character—it shows that transphobia remains hegemonic. When Abby and Iron Bull garner players’ sympathy or approval for their protection of Lev and Krem, they do so based partly on stereotypes of transgender victimization. The cisgender characters’ power to protect and the transgender characters’ inability to protect themselves form a dynamic in which trans characters are naturally subordinate, dependent on the benevolence of cis characters. When not victimizing is heroic, victimization must be the norm.