Warning: More approaching a rant than a more serious essay.
Kingdoms of Amalur is a game that does many wonderful things. My personal favorite is Taibreah, and my least favorite is the Dokkalfar.
Taibreah is wonderful. She’s young, not a fighter, and yet super-special because of who she is. In effect, she’s a Princess of Sorrows. What I really love about Taibreah, though, is that she is was the Weeping King.
This is simply fantastic. This means that for the Fae, not even gender is completely static. This is hinted at in the House of Ballads questline, as you can be either Sir or Lady Sagrell and nothing changes concerning how characters respect you, but it is nowhere near as explicit as it is made by Taibreah. A bit more specifically, this means that the game is showing strong (if not entirely clear and rather off-to-the-side) support for transgenderism, specifically the less-acceptable MtF.
On the other hand, the Dokkalfar are horrible: The lore does not match the game.
In-game, it is specified that the Dokkalfar have a matriarchal society. I can think of only a handful of places in which this shows up at all: When you deal only with the matriarch in Bad Blood (who is contrasted with a male house leader for heteronormative romance purposes startlinly reminiscient of a recent shooting), and the Lyrian priesthood (Seila Twayn, Priestess Corelon, and Abelyra Seranon). If this is a matriarchal society, why is the Elund male? Or almost all of the ship captains spoken to? Or the Captain of the City Watch, or the commander at Mel Senshir? Or how about what few “last of the line”s there are in being all male (Clyeth Arne, Ratofer, both Faitir Scaith and First Scaith)? Or what about all these male squad or camp leaders in Klurikon, including Captain of the Ariad? (One female in the Caeled Coast, yes, but she’s arguably just there so that Drewn Ansilla, whose quests are more involved, can have a relationship that doesn’t threaten heteronormativity.) Even the one member of the Orbicant we know of from the Warsworn questline was male! Sure, equality is good, but it’s given that this is a matriarchal society so why doesn’t this group lean like all the others do? And yes, I mean ALL the others. Warsworn Castellans: Three male to one female. Fae House leaders: ALL MALE. The Fae have High Kings. (EDIT: Cessblade's description mentions Fae queens.) No mention of a female Archsage (despite being situated in Rathir!). Town leaders: Two male options in Canneroc, one male in Gorhart, one male in Didenhil, two male options in Whitestone, one female in Tirin’s Rest who doesn’t shine as an example of good leadership, one male in Kandrian, one male in Ayten, even one male in Cape Solace! And believe me, I’m not against leadership leaning one way or the other based on the culture’s biases. That makes sense, especially when you assume Medieval levels of gender equality. But when it’s so pervasive on one side and hardly even seen on the other … well, that just looks horrifically wrong to me.
Oh, and the most balanced leaders that we know of come from Adessa’s Templars, with two female Templars and two at least suggested male Templars.