Transitioning Through Gender. How Trails through Daybreak handles its Characters' Gender and Sexuality MUCH better than past titles

Transitioning Through Gender. How Trails through Daybreak handles its Characters' Gender and Sexuality MUCH better than past titles

        Throughout the Trails series, gender and sexuality has been more or less a joke. While we all know that Kurt and Joshua can both rock a dress like their life depends on it, there’s not many good examples in the series involving gender and sexuality. While Olivier is a good representative of being bisexual within the series, Angelica and Shirley, the two main lesbians of the series, are portrayed as shallow characters and bad representations of their sexuality. However, Trails through Daybreak gives us a whole slew of characters and our biggest LGBTQ+ ally, Van. Throughout this article, I’ll be talking about how Falcom stepped up their game with gender and sexuality in Trails through Daybreak

The first LGBTQ+ character I’ll be talking about is Bermotti. He is an informant, and the owner and bartender of Bernotti. In his first interaction with the player, he tells Anges he has a “special relationship” with Van, to which Van immediately denies. While his relationship with him is special, Van is a client and Bermotti is an info broker. Bermotti plays a joke on Van. However, unlike our previous gay characters, he isn't overbearing. He continues to be a vital character throughout the game giving Van pieces of info. He even becomes a crucial member of the game by helping Van with chemical testing. In addition, there's a whole side quest involving him in a bartender contest. While he can use his sexuality to help “scare off” troubling men once in a while, his sexuality is never the main focus of his character. Overall, the game treats him like a normal human being who loves to OCCASIONALLY crack a joke, which is better than previous characters in the series. We need characters in games that can subtly draw attention to their sexuality, but are a fully fleshed out with their own interests and hobbies. With all of this in mind, Bermotti is a nice glow up to previous non-straight characters.

Our next LGBTQ+ character is Jess. You might have skimmed over (or even completely forgot about) this character like I did. Jess gives Arkride Solutions a 4SPG that asks them to recover Giacomo’s blackmail book. When the player finds it, they realize that the blackmail Giacomo had on Jess was that he wrote a poem for and fell in love with another guy. When this is brought up later in the quest, Van, the GREAT ally that he is, tells Jess that he shouldn’t need to hide who he is. While Jess isn’t that big of a character, this one quest makes a big comment on the world we live in. Being queer shouldn’t be something people have to hide, yet unfortunately in today’s society it is something that happens often. Sometimes it’s fear of being perceived as different, while other times, it’s for that person’s safety. Van makes this comment believing that people should just be who they are, and it's a welcome statement in a game that really focuses on viewpoints of a world like ours. 

Our third character is a big one, Quatre Salision. He is a party member starting in chapter 4 and I assume he is bisexual (or pansexual), as well as transgender. While Quatre gets off to a rocky start with Van, it is apparent that he looks much more feminine than other men, and is commented on by many of the characters in the series. The real kicker for this is during the bath and rooming scenes in Longlai. When he is put in a room with Van and Aaron, he begrudgingly deals with it, and only when the others are taking a dip in the bath he goes in. The actual proof of him being trans is that when he stands up, you can see Quatre wearing a binder in the men’s bath. His fear about men seeing him in the bath and stare for various reasons (which Van sees, leaves the room to Quatre and doesn’t comment about) makes sense when he doesn’t have top surgery, but still wants to take a dip.

        

For Quatre being Bi or Pan, it isn’t stated but can be inferred by two of Quatre’s actions. When Judith transforms and accidentally flashes the gang, if you bring along Quatre, he gets embarrassed and screams, indicating he gets flustered when he sees boobs. While people can get flustered for multiple reasons, being attracted to someone of the opposite gender can be one of the reasons for that reaction. Later on in the day, when Van gets out of the bath while Quatre is there, he gets all flustered and starts complimenting his muscles calling them "incredible". While this doesn’t confirm he’s bi or pan, it’s as close as I will get with where I am in the game currently, as Trails Through Daybreak II has yet to be released in the United States.

However, even with these moments, gender and sexuality only plays a minor role in Quatre’s journey. He is focused on as the tech expert of Arkride Solutions, his relationship with his loved ones, and his curiosity for science. Quatre joins the party to make sure science, like the "nuclear" bomb, is never used for evil and in the aftermath of A, goes on to state that he wants to help with Edith's orbal network. Quatre’s goal is to be able to use technology to better the people around him, and while his gender and sexuality are a part of him, it barely tells you who this brave, courageous, smart young boy truly is.

Overall, with Trails Through Daybreak, Falcom has done a much better job with their LGBTQ+ characters. While I’ve talked about these three characters, there are still a handful of confirmed and assumed characters that are LGBTQ+, but you probably didn’t notice them during your playthrough. However, representation like this within games is a good thing to do. To make a LGBTQ+ character work, you don’t need to highlight their queerness in the game. If the topic happens to come up, explaining it to those who are unfamiliar with the concept can help others understand LGBTQ+ people in their daily life. By making that the main focus of the character, it takes away from their personality and makes them less interesting. Therefore, I believe Falcom has done a splendid job with LGBTQ+ representation within Trails Through Daybreak. I hope we can continue to see more of those types of characters within their games, including other representation that hasn't been confirmed yet, such as Asexuality.

Sources:

“Bermotti.” Kiseki Wiki, Fandom, Inc., kiseki.fandom.com/wiki/Bermotti. Accessed 19 Aug. 

2024. 

“The Legend of Heroes: Trails Through Daybreak English Dub.” YouTube, CGInferno, 27 

June 2024, www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9LJDo1akA8HqKrA0LfjOGNIZAlfeSg-K.