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

Abstract

Before 2020, no big-budget, mainstream video games featured playable transgender characters, relegating them instead to the role of non-player characters (NPCs). Through a textual analysis of Bioware’s 2014 title Dragon Age: Inquisition, Ubisoft’s 2016 Watch Dogs 2, and Naughty Dog’s 2020 The Last of Us Part II—three role-playing games that feature explicitly transgender NPCs—and a discourse analysis of media surrounding the games’ release, this paper examines the narrative roles afforded to transgender characters. Drawing from the “magical Negro” trope in film studies, I propose the term “magical transness” to describe the unique role of transgender supporting characters whose victimization provides the opportunity for cisgender protagonists to act heroically. This paper interrogates transgender representation and its relationship to media discourses about diversity and inclusion and discusses the political implications of transgender NPCs’ placement in roles of moral service.