Homosexuality and Werewolves in Gabriel Knight

In game two of the Gabriel Knight Series, The Beast Within, there are many parallels drawn between homosexuality and werewolves. The main antagonist in the game, for instance, is Baron Friedrich von Glower, who runs an exclusive men’s social club. As reviewers have pointed out, he is very heavily coded as a gay character (see here, here). This video shows the clear coding of him as a queer character.

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Van Glower Image credit http://www.giantbomb.com/forums/general-discussion-30/point-and-autobot-a-nother-gabriel-knight-mystery-1466895

Similarly, King Ludwig’s diary entries about fearing that he is turning into a werewolf are dismissed by scholars as an implicit reference to his homosexuality. A historian working with Gabriel and Grace, Josef Dallmeier, asserts that Ludwig was perfectly comfortable with his sexuality and was in fact turning into a werewolf. He also supposedly says he identified with Ludwig and that he is lucky that, unlike Ludwig, he lives in the 1990s. This leads some to suggest he is an openly gay character, but we can find no records of him explicitly stating his sexuality. He appears in this video around 5:04:00.

LGBTQ  references in this series: 

Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers (1993): Bruno

Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within (1995): Homosexuality and Werewolves

Gabriel Knight: The Blood of the Sacred/Blood of the Damned (1999): Lady Howard and Estelle Stiles

Citations:

  1. Arthur B. (2014, March 7). GOGathon: Gabriel Knight Triology. FerretBrain. http://ferretbrain.com/articles/article-997
  2. Friedrich von Glower. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://gabrielknight.wikia.com/wiki/Friedrich_von_Glower
  3. List of Gabriel Knight Characters. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Gabriel_Knight_characters
  4. NintendoComplete. (2013, December 21). Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within (1995) PC Playthrough. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybKV6rBfzV4
  5. Regan, C. (2011, January 3). Gabriel Knight and the videogame narrative. Writer by Night. http://whatwritesatmidnight.blogspot.com/2011/01/gabriel-knight-and-videogame-narrative.html
  6. Sierra Chest (2009). Gabriel Knight 2 (22/57): Chapter 3: Von Glower. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NVolxLNjx6I
  7. The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Beast_Within:_A_Gabriel_Knight_Mystery