Blog:A Trans Character Done Right?

After a brief detour to an alternative war, Valkyria Chronicles 4 brought us back to EWII, this time putting us in charge of a Federation Squad in the quest to bring the Empire to its knees. As in standard of JRPGs, VC4 presented us with a decent variety of characters. Here I’ll like to bring up one particular character that most probably overlooked.



At first, Rosetta Valeriano doesn’t look too different from the other rifle wielding girls of your squad. But it’s her description that made things interesting.

“Edinburgh army Squad E scout, age 28. Presents as feminine (awkward translation, in the Japanese version he is referred to as bishounen (pretty boy) rather than a trap). Birth name is Rossano. Fights to end the war, and combat anti-Darcsen discrimination. Prefers women's clothing—partly out of a genuine wish to look beautiful, but also in an effort to encourage others not to judge by appearances.”

Aside from the fact that she has a male body (Almost every character in a particular class shares the same body model with every other character in that class, split between male and female. And let’s face it, these people didn’t even invent the basic fixed-wing aircraft, much less transgender operation.), and that short paragraph of description, Rosetta’s transgender status is never acknowledged during gameplay—She doesn't announce that she's trans, she doesn't run around the battlefield flirting with people (several characters actually do this, if their sexuality is part of their character, as everyone in VC is basically a walking stereotype of some sort and if you don’t know what I mean, check out Jann Walker from VC1), she doesn't bitch and moan about the patriarchy or racism or sexism or transphobia or insert-random-bigotry, she doesn't use strange non-existent pronouns, her friends and allies never question her gender and it never once becomes an issue.

All of this, of course, is by no mean indicating that Rosetta has no character, here’s an introduction to her side story: A Prayer for the Broken.



Godwin is a 35 year old battlefield scavenger, he’s cynical, sarcastic, prickly to anyone who talks to him, and trusts absolutely no one. This is mainly due to the fact that he’s a Darcsen (Europa’s version of Jews and Gypsies, often despised due to the common believe that their ancestors nearly brought civilization to an end). Nico Emery, a young church girl, came across Godwin looting off corpses one day and tries to talk him out of it. Godwin, of course, simply told Nico to fuck off, that he doesn’t need her sympathy. And if people are gonna be racist towards him anyway, then he'll have no qualms giving them a reason to hate him. Nico, being the optimist she is, refuses to give up on helping him. Although Rosetta warned her that the wounds of discrimination may be more than something one man can fix.

Nico even volunteered to perform a scouting mission with Godwin, all in attempt to help him feel better. That’s when Godwin lost his temper, he sees Nico as only doing it so for moral superiority. Eventually, Rosetta tells Godwin to stop being so self-centered because he isn't the most oppressed person on the surface of this planet, and giving people a reason to despise Darcsens isn't going to help stop racism. Eventually, Nico and Rosetta helped Godwin to complete his recon mission and got him to realize the error of his ways and hope for a better future.

During this whole affair, Rosetta handles everything in a very mature manner and never once devolved herself into a screeching harpy, no matter how aggressive, stubborn or infuriating Godwin is at certain points.

In my opinion, this is one instance where a trans character is done right, compared to so many cases where SJWs have done wrong. The problem with SJWs is that is seems that they’re simply unable to see someone beyond his/her sexuality, group or race, and thus ended up setting race, faction or gender as the core trait of a character they create. This type of characterization is the LACK of characterization, it’s called “tokenism”, and token characters are hard to relate to because they act more like walking stereotypes than actual human beings. This also pose a challenge to the audience as well, as they’ll find it difficult to see past the character as a token minority or as a token trans/gay and therefore hard to fine the character likeable.

This is turn creates the “vicious cycle”. The stupidity.exe of the creator will likely kick in and causes him/her to use randombigotry.exe to accuse the audiences of not liking the character because they’re inertially discriminatory. This trigger the anger within audiences who retaliate by voting with their wallets and not viewing said media. This causes the media to fail and likely to be killed off, forcing the creators to move on to another franchise and likely make the same mistakes.

Rosetta is no doubt suffered from bigotry due to her sexuality, but she’s NOT defined by the fact that she’s part of a discriminated group, neither does she whines about it all the damn time to win sympathy from others, instead she does her best to improve herself to go beyond the expectations of those who discriminate against her.

To put it her own words: “'You get out of life what you put into it. We’ve all faced hardships, but what matters is how we grow from them.'”

