Lesbianism In NieR: Automata
AKA "An Essay On Sad Gay Robots"

by Amanda Graham
AKA Atma Weapon

Done for LGBT Pride 2k17


SPOILER WARNING: This article discusses a lot of major and minor spoilers for a lot of NieR: Automata. If you haven't played it nor beaten it yet, proceed with extreme caution. I am not liable for any of your frustration with dealing with being spoiled. You have been fairly warned.




All things considered, if they were real, I'd make a pretty competent member of the YoRHa forces. Or whatever data on my conscience remained in the future, uploaded to an android's body and turned into an efficient killing machine. I could see myself as one of the prototype A units, what with my real world training and weapons expertise, especially my hyper-specializing in swords and swordsmanship, and my tendency in sparring to run into my opponent's attacks and take a couple small blows happily in exchange for splaying their organs wide open. Being the only woman in my sword class and being senior to all the other students has its advantages, and when scouting for the memories and skills of competent women warriors, YoRHa will need all the variety they can get, and you couldn't do much better than a willing samurai. As a kid, I identified with the concepts of knights and swordsmen before I did anything else about me. I like what I do, gory details and depressing philosophy and all. 

It probably also helps that I'm a lesbian.

My lesbianism is one of the most prominent and dominant factors of my existence and personality, with my love of all women and their more prominent asserts being one of my most notable traits, at least according to others. I'm very lucky in that I've not experienced a lot of direct homophobia in my life; not to say I haven't faced any, but it's mostly been either bad legislation or online threats. My family also accepts it, most likely because both my parents are bi and one of them is a transwoman in the middle of HRT. You're kind of destined to have a gay kid of some sort with those genetics. The dojo I train at is protective of me, as they rarely get women into swordsmanship and the samurai arts, and I am openly gay there and they want to make sure their one lesbian samurai remains to give women and LGBT students someone safe to be around and look up to. There's no tragic part of my being gay, which I try not to take for granted.

Which is where we come back to Automata, as not all of its lesbians are as lucky as me, even if we share the rest of our traits and skills. 

I don't know if you've noticed, but NieR: Automata is one hell of a gay game, and I don't just mean this is a cute or shipping kind of way. There's a lot to unpack about the game and its myriad of themes and morals, but there's already a lot of discussion online about them. There isn't, however, enough talk being generated about the fact that this is one of the most lesbian friendly games I've played in quite some time, and you're listening to a woman whom would die on a hill gladly defending the Senran Kagura franchise. This game is gay in ways I wish others were, and it's gay in such weird and wonderful ways, so I hope my being a weird and wonderful lesbian makes me a perfect choice to analyze what's going on and why.

For those that think I'm just seeing things through rose-tinted glasses, you can look up interview with the main man, Yoko Taro, himself where, when asked about all the gay people in his games and why they're there, he responds with "I don't know if you've noticed, but gay people are people too." He thinks we deserve to exist in video games, and he's started with his own. Anyone gay is meant to be, and not up for speculation; they're gay, because they're people, too. They have as much right to exist in the cast as anyone else and do so on equal terms. I love this response; it's lovely and warms my heart to see someone not only saying, but doing when it comes to this subject.

Representation of any kind of minority is a tricky subject, both in how it should be executed in video games (and other media, but we're discussing a game here so I'll keep it to that scope) and how it currently already is being done. Everyone has their own ideas on it, especially those of said minority group. Some ideas are more popular and actively condemn others while others are more unconventional. How much or how little should we include of what and whom? Which characters fit the bill? Are we portraying harmful stereotypes? What role do they play? Is their minority status a major plot point or more just a basic fact about them? Did we consult anyone of this minority when it comes to writing this character? Are they the only one around/a token, put in solely to make us look "woke" and get progressive points to cash in later to deflect a scandal? 

I can't answer any of those for anyone else; it's their project and they can put in as many or as few women, especially lesbians, as they want to. Or whatever else they like. It is, however, up to me as to how I spend my money and what companies/creators I'll support with it. Very few things are as easy to get me to plunk over money as having your game include lesbians. I'll take the gayest you got, even if she's just an NPC or such, and adore every second she's on screen. You get bonus points if my lady hero can date her and/or she gets some kind of girlfriend. I'm starved, y'all. I'll take the meals, the snacks, the crumbs, whatever you're offering. Not everyone is like me; some refuse the crumbs and wait around for a big seven course meal of representation, some will hit the cheap buffet, and then you have the ones like me whom will take it all, eat off others' plates, and get extra to take home for later. No lesbian is too big or too small for my appetite.

NieR: Automata, using this metaphor, would be one of those meals in a restaurant that lingers on for quite some time, with the waiters coming by now and again to make sure you're topped off and able to access those unlimited breadsticks. They have no intention of kicking you out and they don't close, provided you are willing to pay for the stacks of food you've been amassing slowly over the course of many, many hours. And maybe leave a decent tip. The kind of meal you have maybe one or two good friends over with to talk to about nothing and everything as the hours go by. These are some satisfying and filling lesbians, giving me fuel to spare for quite some time. 

Some of you may be wondering what the hell I'm talking about, especially if you haven't played the game. Just about every female character, player or NPC, major or minor, has either been in a relationship with another woman before and/or is currently in a relationship with one. I can think of two lady NPCs in particular that mention boyfriends instead. One of them seeks to avenge her boyfriend when he falls in the desert and you confirm it, and the other is a runaway who's rather abusive in the fact she keeps erasing her boyfriend's memories to suit her wants and needs. Pretty much everyone else you encounter that's a woman will be tied to another woman romantically, even if it takes a bit of work and a lot of side-questing to figure out who's dating whom. 

Even fan-favorite Jackass is revealed to be a doting and loving girlfriend to another girl in the resistance, which you find out in a quest for another rather gay NPC, a YoRHa that mind-wiped herself after finding out she's a rare E(xecutioner) type whom had to murder her girlfriend. You track down her girlfriend's killer, which winds up being her, by looking for a specific red cape. At one point, Jackass bought the cape off the E type in a panic and gave it to her girlfriend back at the resistance camp (whom can be seen wearing red) as a present. Poor, poor Jackass mentions she thinks her girl looks adorable in it but if you tell her that, she'll have your head. And even then, Jackass is the only person to know the YoRHa Commander's real name, having had a past together, with the way she scoffs at her decisions now, she sounds personally wounded and insulted by how things wound up, and often worries about the Commander more than even the YoRHa do.

The two playable heroines have varying degrees of lesbianism running through their wired veins as well. 2B is complicated and this isn't the time nor the place to debate her specifically, but given her interactions with a few specific NPCs and the mysterious A2, most of us could safely say that the B in 2B could at least stand for Bisexual. A2, however, comes from more traditional tragic lesbian trope roots and had a girlfriend in her squadron in the past during a critical mission whom she loved dearly, a woman appropriately named 4 (which in Japanese can be pronounced "shi" which is the word for death, giving it a cursed connotation akin to the number 13 in the West), who dies horribly during the mission. This is one of the main driving forces for her to turn her back on YoRHa and the Commander, making her turn traitor and become a wanted fugitive. A2's willingness to put 2B out of her misery and absorb her memories and conscience uploaded in her last moments into her sword and become akin to an A2B and her past with the women of the Resistance definitely pin A2 as a definite lesbian figure, and my personal gay icon of choice for the entire canon. Before A2 puts 2B out of her misery from the logic virus, their few interactions together could be considered "old lady flirting" with both of them being stoic and hard-ass, but respecting of the others' skills and strength, giving the other a few longing glances.

Anemone, the Resistance leader, lead a group of women warriors during the same mission that A2 and the other prototype YoRHa fought in and they created a mutual alliance with. The women of her squadron, all named after various flowers, dated amongst themselves, and Anemone may have had a slight thing for Rose, her commander. Once the YoRHa came in and they reached and understanding, mingling between the groups seemed to happen, at least on a deep friendship level, but given the themes and how many other women in this game had a thing for at least one other woman, inter-squad dating would not have been out of place. It's not uncommon that through our own actual history, homosexuality on the battlefield has occurred either by command enforcing it as a rule of bonding (believing that you'll kick that much more ass if your lover's life is on the line) or through more naturally occurring means. A decent amount of it was likely situational; if you're horny enough, a lot of people will take what they can get, but the bonds between the myriads of women warriors in Automata feel a lot closer than that and more like genuine romantic bonds than anything enforced by the Commander or merely an easy opportunity to get off with more than just your right hand.

We have more major NPCs like 2B's personal Operator, YoRHa unit 6O, whom is somehow gayer than even A2. Using the old email servers and her ability to voice/video chat with you any time she needs to relay a message from the Commander, you can expect her to always include venting about her latest failed attempt at nabbing a girlfriend. Sometimes, that's ALL she wants to talk about, either via email or her robo-Skype capabilities, using her darling 2B's ear to pour forth her emotions into, knowing that 2B isn't the biggest fan of these aforementioned emotions. She persists anyways, wondering just what went wrong this time and what's the meaning of living on anyways if the girl you like's just gonna say no anyways? She uses astrology, quite possibly the only person of any kind of biology or structure left in creation that does, to try to find when her lady love will come into her arms. Her crush on 2B is more than obvious (not that I can blame her on that one), and she even makes you side-quest for a flower used in traditional Earth courting so she can see what it's like down on the surface, as she's stuck up at the base all day. Sadly, 6O gets killed off when the YoRHa base is infected en masse with a logic virus, and you have to mercy kill her as you escape. If you did the flower quest, she will mention it and thank 2B for the flowers as her final words, making her existence all the more sad. There's not a single person I know of who's experienced this game yet that doesn't feel bad for noted Beautiful Cinnamon Roll that was indeed Too Good For This World, 6O. All she wanted was to kiss girls. I can relate to that.

Not all of the lesbians in Automata are full of love, albeit a lot of it tragic. More side quests reveal just how much YoRHa as a military unit is full of lesbians. As previously stated, this isn't uncommon to see spring up in militaries, but all of the relationships revealed between units or discussed seem more genuine than just "you'll do." A curious case shows itself in an early game side-quest given to you by unit 16D. She wants information on a unit named 11B, whom seems to have gone AWOL. When you find 11B's corpse, you can read her logs and find out she was going AWOL on purpose to escape something. If you tell 16D about this, she snaps and calls 11B a stupid bitch, essentially, and that the two were lovers but that 11B was abusive at times, insulting poor 16D for being a mere Defense unit and not much more, so she's glad that her girlfriend was a coward who died alone and cold. It takes all kinds, and finding this out and seeing 16D snap like that is one of the more genuinely unsettling moments near the start of the game.

The concept of YoRHa itself only recently introduced a type of android that's male; the S units that were produced after the mission that A2 and Anemone took part in were male, though the originals of all kinds of YoRHa, including ones not produced anymore like Attackers and Gunners, were all women at the start. Even with this change, Scanner units aren't produced as much as others, and very few can be seen running around either on Earth or at the base. Almost all of them aren't trained in combat beyond hacking enemies; 9S being an exception whom taught himself out of boredom. Combat and fighting is left entirely to female units, and a lot of them partner up like the above 11B and 16D and because of that, romances form between the women quite frequently. It's a future where "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policies would be even more pointless and even more bigoted and even more drains on morale than they've already been proven to be. Being able to serve openly has lead to LGBT soldiers in reality to be more comfortable with themselves, form closer friendships with their units, and be a more effective soldier overall, which makes them a better asset to the military as a whole. Seeing it not only welcomed but encouraged is healthy and something I wish more of us here in the real world would listen to and adopt more of.

I could go on and on about this and the myriad connections of lesbianism between most of the women in the cast. Most of what I've brought up here is done and presented in a very casual manner. Some of it is subtle, some of it isn't, but it's all done in a way that indicates that this is just how life is nowadays. Not a single character believes this is odd behavior, nobody calls it disgusting or unwanted, and nothing untoward or bigoted appears to happen to any of these women. They are what they are, and it is as Yoko Taro said, they're people, too. None of it is in your face and there's no moralizing one way or another about it, but you are saturated in it on pretty even, consistent, and constant levels. It's enough to make me smile and enough to make people not comfortable with this squirm and want to deny that this is, indeed, pretty gay (which is sadly something I have seen plenty of already, which is disappointing but not surprising, even with creator confirmation). There's even a couple of male NPCs whom are gay themselves, but this isn't an article about them, but it should be noted briefly here that they also exist equally freely to the lesbians.

It could simply be that this is how life is now at the time Automata takes place in; society is so limited now but has evolved and had more than enough time to move past human morals and let the androids create their own rules for society and let those permeate and dominate the culture instead. Maybe human gender roles and sexuality just aren't needed anymore; when you can upload your conscience to a server and download it into a new body as needed, procreation and sex for procreation seem like moot points, even if they are physically capable of such things (thanks for the interview info on android pregnancy, Yoko Taro). 9S and 2B do bring up when you reach Pascal's machine village that the machines' imitation of old human nuclear family norms is rather odd and they wonder if that is what life was like for us and find the notion of the male and female roles presented there to be rather preposterous. Perhaps androids are more naturally inclined to homosexuality as a more common or "default" sexuality than humans being largely heterosexual and cisgender on average (that same interview mentions androids can switch out physical gender/sex as needed). It could be a mix of these factors, which is most likely the case, or something else entirely. Maybe being a lesbian just makes you really good at stabbing things to death, particularly with a sword. You can trust me on that one; I know that from personal experience.

Maybe this game is just really gay because gay people are people, too.

So what does this all mean? What does this imply? If you were to ask me, I'd say it means we have a good piece of media that does representation of my sexuality in a way I'm comfortable with. I mean, I did say I would die defending Senran Kagura for all the good it's given me to explore myself in, but Automata's flavor of lesbianism is more immediately accessible. It's a very successful game, despite the odds, and all of it feels well-written and like maybe the creators actually talked to some lesbians to write it. It can fall victim to one of the most tired and annoying of all LGBT writing tropes, which is that all LGBT romances will end in tragedy, but the entirety of the world that Automata takes place in is not one of kindness, and the few heterosexual characters I saw were treated with an equal amount of sadness and bad ends. Historically, LGBT media could only end in horribleness for everyone involved, as that was the only way to get it published for many decades, lest you be seen as promoting that kind of "lifestyle", which was punishable by law for far, far too long. Hell, we only got rid of the last of our Sodomy Laws here in the United States in 2003. It took until being in the actual 21st century to get that stick fully out of our asses (which would have been an arrestable offense under said laws). The majority of the states repealed them in the 60s and 70s, meaning it took them that long to catch up. It's nothing short of a goddamn embarrassment. Automata doesn't feel like it comes from that era; an underlying current of "hope" reverberates through most of the game that helps even things out. The tragedy happens not because they're lesbians but because of things like war and illness and circumstance, which is what happens to the few heterosexual bonds in the game as well. Their fates don't include common tragic lesbian endings from that dark era like being "correctively" raped or forced to marry a man to get by anyways or murdered by bigots in various disgusting ways or suicide. They're there and some are successful and some aren't, just like any other relationship.

A lot of my friends know I struggle with finding myself in media. Sure, there's a lot of lesbians in all sorts of media now, and a lot of media about lesbians and by lesbians now. Most of it, especially stuff made in the West, feels foreign to me. There's something about the typical Western lesbian experience and narrative that never occurred to me and I have a hard time relating to it and a lot of other lesbians as a result. A lot of Western stuff relies on stories on overcoming homophobia and other adversities and enjoying clothing and media and other stereotypical things that are wasted on me. I feel lost in it. Things like "The L Word" bore me and go over my head at the same time. This wasn't made for me, no matter what anyone says. The kind of stuff I find myself in tends to be stuff made overseas, especially stuff that includes characters that just happen to be gay and don't focus so hard on tragedy or melodrama. It's the only media I can find myself in as a lesbian who studies things like martial arts and swordsmanship; only video games and comics are willing to take a risk with badass lesbians right now while most other media plays catch-up on that one.

Because of this, when media comes along that I can genuinely see myself in, I treasure it closely and become willing to defend it so strongly. Automata's become dear to me in many ways in the short time that I've known it and experienced it, but I really and truly appreciate how it handles its strong themes of lesbianism. Because of it and how it's been presented, I can safely say I can see myself in it, swordsmanship and all, and know that much like the moral of the game, I'm not disposable and someone out there needs me. I can only hope others find this article, and even with spoilers, want to move on to experience this firsthand if they haven't played it. If you have played it, I hope I've opened your eyes to this, or if you were aware of it, you got to find out through my lesbian eyes just why this matters so strongly to me. I want Automata to become a highlight of lesbian representation in video games, especially those made in Japan.

I don't ask for much; I did say I'm willing to consume even the tiniest crumbs if it means I get to see a lesbian in something. But Automata's given me something special, something more than representation in things like a Bioware game where I get maybe one or two F/F themed dating options as compared to the eight billion that M/F or F/M players and interactions get. Oftentimes, I don't really enjoy the characters behind the one or two token choices I get, and also often enough a lot of them are more playersexual and not genuinely lesbian, or at least not even genuinely bisexual, meaning that it ultimately doesn't matter that I am a woman dating another woman. I'm just inserting coins and picking correct talk options to get into someone's pants. It gets boring and frustrating after a while. If you're into that, more power to you, but after a while, even those crumbs and meals start to get stale. Automata's long and lingering feast of lesbianism is going to be one that sits well in me for quite some time after this. It shows, too, you don't have to be LGBT to write good LGBT content; you just have to care about treating us like human beings.

You know, all things considered, if they were real, I'd make a pretty competent member of the YoRHa forces.

And I know it definitely helps that I'm a lesbian.