The female main character of #Fable is transgender

The female main character of Fable is transgender.

East Africa is where this lion’s tale

Takes place—a land of rugged plains of grass,

Acacia trees with thorns as sharp as nail,

And wild beasts of every shape and class:

Giraffes and warthogs, elephants, baboons!

Egrets and flamingos pinkly clad;

Loud hyenas howling hungry tunes—

And Artemis the Lion who was sad.

Although a member of the Lion Pride

Artemis was anything but proud.

Her hunting skills were poor. Although she tried,

She barely squeaked a roar—and never loud.

She spurned her tawny mane and feline claws.

Her catlike tread so shamed her she would whine.

Claiming freedom from all lion flaws

She fiercely scorned to be called “leonine.”

But I’m not here to talk about Fable’s morality system – instead, I want to touch on the unique place it occupied in the queer zeitgeist back in 2004 and how, in many ways, it was ahead of its time. Fable is a game that isn’t afraid to show that men can be attracted to our male hero, and your character can flirt with fellow boys, shower them with gifts, or even offer their hand in marriage instead of opting for a traditional heteronormative relationship. It was a bold step forward at the time, yet in retrospect is still lined with a surrounding homophobia that is damaging to the progression it is trying so desperately to claim as its own. Having replayed the entire game earlier this month, it left a bad taste in my mouth.

It was a groundbreaking experience, although it was also yet another victim of Peter Molyneux’s perpetual habit of broken promises and needless overhype that painted games as something they’d never be capable of being. You couldn’t plant a tree and watch it grow throughout the course of the campaign, but you could choose to make a whole town to fall in love with you or instead murder them in cold blood. Much like the studio’s previous efforts, the definition of good and evil in Fable was laughably black and white. This didn’t change much with future games, which would continue to usher you down a duo of paths that would lead to the same conclusion with only a few notable consequences setting them apart.