Tell Me Why is a milestone in LGBT representation with gaming’s first transgender lead character
- Tell Me Why’s transgender lead character Tyler Ronan is a rarity in all of mainstream entertainment, but especially in video games
- The game balances Tyler’s ‘transness’ with not making it the central focus in a story about siblings uncovering the truth about their mother’s death
When it comes to interpersonal relations, there’s something far worse than a broken heart: the restless mind.
At least that’s one reading of Tell Me Why, a three-part narrative game from the studio behind 2015’s Life is Strange. But Tell Me Why has ambitions beyond the tricks our brain can play on us.
The latest from Dontnod Entertainment reflects the French studio’s obsession with American culture and telling stories that capture the weight of our prejudices.
Life is Strange 2, which wrapped last year, zeroed in on the ruptured promises of the American dream, telling its tale from the point of view of two young Mexican-Americans from Seattle who feel consistently out of place in the country they call home.
Tell Me Why immediately attracted attention when it was announced, in part because Dontnod Entertainment also released an extensive list of questions and answers that sought to explain how it handled the portrayal of its transgender lead – a rarity in all of mainstream entertainment but especially in video games.
While one could read Dontnod’s FAQ as a desire to stay in front of, and in control of, the social media narrative for a game that deals with delicate family drama and trauma, it also reflected a reality: representation in games, though better than it was a decade ago, is still a not a common enough occurrence that it can avoid an extremely close reading.
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“These stories aren’t told frequently,” says Clay Carmouche, narrative director with Xbox Publishing. “Every time you attempt to tell a story, it tends to get a lot of scrutiny. There’s a legacy of bad representation of all the marginalised characters in the game. People can be very mistrustful, maybe a little less optimistic that the portrayals are going to be empathic.
“So that FAQ was making clear, ‘Look, here’s where we’re going to go. If the story is going to go into a place you don’t want to go, here’s your off-ramp.’”
Consequently, Tell Me Why faced numerous challenges. Its goal was to present an honest story about harsh American realities, and the narrative, focusing on twin siblings Alyson and Tyler Ronan uncovering the truth about their mother’s death, doesn’t shy away from topics related to poverty, mental health and, especially in the first chapter, prejudice.
It was a story about twins and it was a story about a small town – those things were core – but as we went we had to further define who these characters were. That’s when you start adding these layers
The tale begins with Tyler returning to the fictional Alaskan village of Delos Crossing after 10 years away. Those who knew him pre-transition occasionally react offensively – one neighbour expresses astonishment that a woman could look so much like a man, necessitating a forceful rebuke from Tyler.
“The good thing about the game, I think, is that it strikes a nice balance of not shying away from the fact that Tyler is trans and showing the way in which it affects him, and mostly that relates to how other people react to him,” says Nick Adams, director of transgender media and representation at media monitoring organisation Glaad. Adams was asked to be a consultant on the game, and helped in casting decisions, such as ensuring that Tyler would be voiced by a trans actor (August Black).
“[The characters] have thoughts and opinions of him being a transgender man that they express to him, but that’s not what the real story is about,” Adams says. “I think that balance of not ignoring Tyler’s ‘transness’, as if it doesn’t affect his life, but not making it the central focus is one of the things Tell Me Why does well.”
Lead writer Morgan Lockhart says the story began as one about family and how conflict can arise from contradictory memories of a past event, as the core game mechanic of Tell Me Why has players uncovering memories and then watching them unfold to piece together the plot.
“It was a story about twins and it was a story about a small town – those things were core – but as we went we had to further define who these characters were. That’s when you start adding these layers,” Lockhart says.
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The game doesn’t linger on the latter, only making it known that Tyler is aware, and it’s one of the many pitfalls he and his sister have to, if not confront, at least reckon with.
There’s a version of this game that could exist without any acknowledgement of Tyler’s gender, but fiction that doesn’t take on such challenges only makes the Tessas of the world more comfortable.
“We’ve already seen those stories,” Carmouche says. “I think perspective shifts a story. Who is telling it and who it’s about impacts the kind of things you can say and the kind of stories you can tell. It’s more interesting to see something you haven’t seen before.”
