Board Thread:The Last Sovereign Discussion/@comment-39332473-20190808194309/@comment-35006067-20191014203951

From a (2019-09-22) Patreon-locked post from Sierra Lee, which has pretty much been quoted in its entirety at this point, even if indirectly, so I guess it's fine to simply repost it talis qualis:

''Though I've done the best I can with TLS, there are a few assumptions built into the design that I think are limitations. I expected more insecurity, so there aren't many good male characters. I expected the female characters to be viewed as waifu/fetish collection instead of taken seriously as characters, so there are honestly more than I think is ideal. In theory, I could build a new game with better assumptions.''

So yeah, "no male other than Simon" is more of a prudent (and perfectly understandable in that context) business decision than a real story choice. If TLS had been written in a vacuum, Wendis would probably speak of her other male partners as eagerly as of the female ones and Trin fuck (with) the Impaler (random absurd pairing, since, well, there are indeed no really shippable male characters). And it's unlikely at this point that this rule will be broken, for that particular game at least.

Note that Sierra did try to make a game with many complex male characters: Kingdom of Deception. In 1.0, maybe (?) the version closer to her initial design, there were four main male "love interests" (partners? friends with benefits?) (Lutvrog, the three captains) and two secondary male ones (the warchief, the bartender) for only one secondary female one (Neve).

Public reactions were mixed to say the least.