#dragon age discourse

[gloomygloworm]

hi i'm here to cause more problems in the fandom!

ive seen some posts recently talking about "why the hell do people WANT to see slavery in veilguard, why are they so obsessed with oppression?" and i can answer this, as a brand new member of the fandom!

cause i had no fucking idea that elves were considered second class citizens until my friends told me!

i had no idea that the crows were so severely flawed, or that the antaam were proud warriors (other than canon fodder,) or that minrathous and tevinter as a whole had this huge problem with slavery.

i just yesterday after doing research into other games discovered alienages, about the dales, about who andraste was and who shartan was. because even reading the codex entries the game seems to fail to make any general connection to all previous games and the world they crafted at all! what the fuck is the chant of light? whats the major religion? what IS andrasteism? what do you mean the crows buy children and torture them - what do you mean they arent just exaggerated circus clowns that kill people? i get it, part of it is perspective. but you'd think dock town - a VERY POOR section of minrathous, would have an alienage? that we'd see more elves doing menial labor or trailing behind nobles as slaves?

also i keep hearing shit about the viper being the pope? or tarquin? where the hell is this info? quite frankly the game doesnt make the codex tempting enough for me to want to 100% it (ESPECIALLY finding out about this terrible "secret ending" that makes me fear picking up ANY MORE codex entries since i already have 2 out of the 3 you need to get it???)

the obsession with slavery isnt because i want to be oppressed, if i wanted that all i have to do is go be in public because im both queer and disabled living in a red state. its about what THEYYYYY the GAME CREATORS put in their own game. slavery! which now, despite how RAMPANT it supposedly is, i have no clue about! i only know about half the shit i do because my friends have been in the fandom a decade and im playing through origins now with them. which, btw, whoa what a game! not afraid to be icy and bitchy and HARSH in an environment where they cultivated that exact reaction.

i like the scenery in veilguard. i like the amount of mingling npcs in locations that make it feel more full, i like the soundtrack and the graphics and the companions as characters. i dont like the story! i dont like the lack of environmental storytelling or the discrepancies in information that i feel like i should know. it feels like its taken the same landslide that pokemon has - going from being called a loser by Gary to having no less than 3 best friends at any given time. There's such a lack of conflict like the game is scared to express the spectrum of emotions and personalities that people deal with day to day. i like my escapism the same as anyone else but if im walking through a city known for treating elves like second class citizens no i wont be surprised if im called a "knife ear" casually by some drunk moron who cant even stand straight.

no ones looking to be oppressed. we're looking for what you advertised to people ages ago - a complex story with serious consequences for the actions of others!

[watcherintheweyr]

I can't believe I'm writing this

To open up with: IT IS ABSOLUTELY OKAY AND VALID TO BE DISAPPOINTED BY THE LACK OF WORLDSTATE CUSTOMIZATION IN DRAGON AGE THE VEILGUARD. I have my own disappointments about it!

Ok? We have that covered? We good?

Cool, moving on.

To people who are genuinely, hatefully angry, saying we will now be 'forced into Bioware's worldstate' (when this year alone they've stated there is no 'canon' worldstate more than once), or saying that none of our prior dragon age choices matter, I need you to take a step back and walk with me for a second, okay?

For starters: John Epler stated that one of the reasons they narrowed the choices is because they DO NOT want to invalidate the worldstates of their longtime players. However they also don't want to alienate newer players who don't have the history and lore of the past choices. It's a narrow line to walk.

Secondly, I want you to really look at the choices made by your Hero, Champion, and Inquisitor. Which of those choices genuinely affected NORTHERN Thedas, not Southern Thedas, to the point it would linger for years afterwards? Which of those choices weren't things that specifically affected or altered the sociopolitical Southern Thedas climate and landscape in lasting ways?

The Well? Kieran?

That only leaves that if your Inquisitor drank, they now have knowledge from ages long past... that Rook doesn't need. Rook has a direct line into Solas' history and a possible Veiljumper background, unlocking those very secrets on their own.

It's entirely likely and probable that the Well's fears and threats were a red herring. Think about it. We as a gandom have spent TEN YEARS worrying about the Well, about Solas, about Mythal.

Come June 2024, we're slapped in the face by the big bads of Ghilan'nain and Elgar'nan.

Morrigan likely isn't going to be close and friendly with Rook- so there's likely not much reason for her to tell us about her child or husband if she has them.

The rulers of Southern Thedas aren't going to affect us. We aren't tackling the current world ending crisis from the position of a leader of armies like the Warden and Inquisitor, but as leader of a small task force. The Southern Divine doesn't much affect us either- nor do Southern mage politics or templar politics.

Because Rook is an entirely new perspective.

Because Rook is in an ENTIRELY different sociopolitical climate/landscape.

I DO think there should've been ways implemented to specify your Inquisitor's bonds and personality. I'm HOPING maybe there still are that we haven't seen. But otherwise?

My Warden is free. I can say she's cured her Calling and is wandering the world with Zevran.

My Champion can retire into total obscurity with his husband or be quietly helping said husband destroy the slave trade. Either way.

Your history and choices in Thedas still matter. Your heroes still matter.

They just aren't Rook's focus.

Take a breath please. And stop sending death threats to the devs bc what the **fuck.**

EDIT:

further context from the devs on Bluesky

[lelianasconscience]

I don't think I'll ever actually stop yearning for Dragon Age: Dread Wolf as it was supposed to be, before a corporation found another amazing thing to ruin.

I've just finished replaying Trespasser and it kills me seeing how much was already set up for the series' grand finale, how much we'd already seen of Northern Thedas in glimpses from the games, the books and the comics. Inquisition's music score alone made it feel real, and now I wish Veilguard was never released because it's virtually unrecognisable as part of the world of Thedas.

Everything in it is contradictory to what had already been established and made it so well-received in the first place, the visual artistry is gone, and every character, old and new, was reduced to poorly executed tropes.

It's split the fandom between loving or hating it, and hating it is unpopular because fans take it any criticism as a personal attack against themselves for disagreeing. Any criticism comes with accusations of bigotry which drown out anything else said against it; bigotry is never welcome, but it is not always the reason for Veilguard criticism.

It's a paid product and it should be critiqued, especially with so much care put into it by many artists over many years. It's a slap in the face for all their time and effort. It's not just a case of devs not caring when they actively included plot points in the story to renege on past story contributions and wipe the slate clean so that they can make more money later.

To end on a more positive note, we still have fanfiction and fanart and lore discourse to work with, which is fantastic and beautiful and I'm eternally grateful for all the people keeping Thedas alive♥️

[faewrenbird]

Rant Incoming:

TW// acephobia

The acephobia surrounding Lucanis now isn’t surprising, but damn I am so tired

God forbid a character isn’t made to cater to the audience at large, huh?

Ace people clearly aren’t “in reality,” or “living.” Oh, and we’re clearly not “ordinary,” right?

The entitlement some people have is truly staggering. Lucanis’s writer confirmed that he was written to be a demisexual/demiromantic virgin. If something about his character and/or romance dissuades you from liking him, then consider that he’s not the right romance option for you OR go to AO3 and dunk yourself in fanfics where he’s the epitome of the Spanish Lover™️ trope.

The issue here is a player wanting to project onto Rook and being upset that their Rook doesn’t get the attention or romance that they personally want. Which, fine, we can’t help what we feel. But this isn’t the writers’ fault (this poster was in damn near every one of Mary Kirby’s posts complaining about Lucanis not being passionate and etc.) And it’s not an excuse to express wanting to take representation away from a group for which representation was purposely given.

*To be clear, I’m not commenting on the substance of his romance or number of lines or on the Neve/Lucanis vs Rook/Lucanis debate

I’m speaking specifically to the acephobia that has emerged after learning that he is, indeed, demi, something that ace people suspected already and related to

Let us have this

[flashhwing]

you know what maybe I am annoyed about solas being the series’ golden child while anders gets demonized. maybe I am annoyed about all nuance with the mage/templar war getting glossed over and tossed aside. maybe I am frustrated with the focus on solavellan. maybe I am annoyed about previously established elven history getting reduced and belittled. what of it

[samcarter34]

It’s honestly kind of funny that people are using Kieran as an example of why BioWare’s decision is bad when he’s probably the number one example I’d use to argue in favour of it.

There’s a kid who’s the vessel of one of the Draconic Old Gods. A kid who is the human reincarnation of an entity that convinced the Magisters to break into the Fade. A kid powerful enough to override an Eluvian and redirect it to the Fade. And his involvement amounts to nothing because not everyone took that route in a game that came out half a decade prior. Like he should have monumental implications for Thedas, but instead he’s literally so inconsequential that they didn’t even hire a voice actor to portray him; they just let Claudia Black’s son do it.

[andrastesdirtysocks]

Not tagging this as spoilers bc while the discourse started bc of Veilguard, this is about Origins.

I'm gonna be honest here - I will just be blocking everyone who says there are no queer characters in DAO whose queerness is not "gamer dependent". I'm not even joking.

[keravnos-kori]

he can’t breed if he’s a loser that doesn’t fuck

[apostatively]

About BioWare's Beef with "Fetch Quests" vs. Embrace of "Faction Quests"

[[Some minor spoilers in this post re: a few side quests in DA2 and DAI, and various routine faction quest events and requirements to get the "best" possible ending you're allowed to have in DATV.]]

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I think one of the things BioWare is missing about the transition to "no fetch quests ;DDD don't worry!" in Veilguard is that the vast majority of "faction quests" have mechanics that are far more mind-numbing to me than the majority of totally optional side quests in DAI/prev. games.

I am so tired of almost every Veil Jumpers quest being "look for missing people" > "oh no they're all dead" > "figure out how they died" > "return and tell the quest giver they're all dead".

It's so unimaginative. I'm so goddamn exhausted.

"Bob and Jill haven't come back from scouting these ruins! They should have been back by now-" They're dead. They are ALWAYS DEAD. I can save us all a lot of time and repetition by just telling you now. Something has killed them because the Magic-Is-Science Woods are full of ancient evils that are constantly killing everyone who goes in there, and yet we keep doing it, in large and eager groups. And expecting me, personally, to care about the lives of this faction who clearly don't have a bare-minimum thought for their own continued existence.

(Also: is it just me, or did the quest where everyone dies except for their pet nug, who you later learn VERBALLY SCREAMS if parted from its dead owner's belongings, feel weirdly offensive, like we weren't supposed to care about the people because rescuing the nug was the secret/real quest objective? Were we supposed to feel gratified that everyone died, but "at least" an animal was saved? They immediately snatch away that potential feeling of vindication too, in the resulting missive! Not a drop of dopamine to be had in that quest outcome, and there's no skipping it unless you want your companions to pay a hugely disproportionate price later.)

Even the shorter quests feel completely unnecessary, like when you first recruit Emmrich, an otherwise interesting and well-acted character who is doomed, like so many of the companions, to have his personal quest mechanics revolve around walking back and forth to fixed points within an area. I like the general idea of cute little wisps, but every time I have to double back to the entrance of an area, that I have already traveled through, just to grab a wisp and run all the way back, KILLS ME. I HATE it. There is no POINT to running through the area twice. "I have to get through this part because it's required to recruit this character" is in no way a fulfilling emotional hook.

In DA2, you were perfectly free not to interact with the random local magistrate who wants you to quietly recover his son. But the very pitch of the quest that he gives you is shady from the beginning, and if you decide to pursue it, you get the emotional payoff (depending on your choices) of removing a dangerous serial killer who is preying on marginalized children. This outcome makes the player feel good - like their time has been well-spent, that they are playing as a heroic figure in a fantasy adventure game. (And if they choose routes that are harmful, they potentially also have fun playing an "evil" character, as some folks find really amusing! There is still gratification involved, and it feels as though your actions in the game had a purpose.)

In DAI, you don't have to spend forever in the Hinterlands. Despite the prevalence of memes about this area of the game, you truly are not forced to stay there, you just have to do barely enough quests to accumulate a certain number of points denoting your influence in the area, so that you now have enough "power"/influence/reputation to proceed to the next step of the game where you speak with high-ranking individuals (valid story-relevant reasons). But here's the thing: often even the most simple of "fetch quests" in the Hinterlands has some degree of emotional payoff for the player. Like a lot of folks, I have a select few NPCs I want to interact with every single playthrough, because they have enough emotional depth to make an impression on me: I always get the Fantasy Asthma Medication from the estranged son of the woman with breathing trouble, and always feel sympathy for this family because of the son's reaction that he genuinely didn't know his mother was struggling while he's been away. I always place flowers on the grave of a woman at the behest of her widower, and track down the templars who murdered a woman's husband to retrieve his stolen wedding band, because that's just the kind of stuff that resonates with me. It feels like your character is doing good: you're starting to construct a persona for them of a local hero, if you so choose. There are emotional hooks to lots of side quests - but as above, for those who find them boring, you don't have to spend more than a bare minimum of time in this area. It's not a requirement, the way DATV's "faction quests" effectively are.

Long story long, you don't have to complete every single Hinterlands quest for your companions not to die at the end of the game. (In DATV, even as a completionist who is normally excited to find every easter egg a game has to offer, I found myself deeply resenting being basically forced to complete all the quests so that my companions don't die horribly...and then feeling cheated that you still can't save absolutely everyone, that a true "happy ever after" is impossible in DATV, even if you comply with the devs and finish their scores of side quests, knowing they have a gun to your favorite companions' heads.

It felt as though BioWare expected new players to the series to be able to resonate with this game immediately while also expecting the inclusion of B-list DA characters from their "neutral" world state in books and comics not everyone has read to be emotionally resonant enough for players to want to complete boring side quests just to please these NPCs (who you are allowed to interact very little with in the game). Unfortunately, the "new" players or returning ones who don't read or didn't care for the books and comics have zero reason to do this, and are far more likely to be punished by the game for not having an appropriate amount of "commitment" that simply is not inspired by the game itself.

TL;DR - replacing an abundance of optional "fetch quests", many of which are well-written with strong emotional hooks, but ultimately don't force players to complete them, with "faction quests" that lack emotional resonance and interesting mechanics but ARE required to be 100% completed to get a "good ending" to the game, is a huge step backwards for playability. It's troubling that the game writers/devs don't seem to understand that, or BioWare wouldn't be crowing about the "improvement" in removing "fetch quests" when they've simply rebranded them and made them less interesting and unskippable.

[gameguy20100]

So, I spent some time digesting Solas' memories and found them very Intresting. And one thing In particular.

Spoilers below.

According to this, everything the Chantry told us about the Darkspawn is nonsense.

The golden city wasn't the seat of the maker. It was the Palace of the ancient Elves empire.

The black city isn't the chared reminder of a spurned god, it's the prison for the Elven gods.

The darkspawn corruption isn't a punishment for mans hubris and sin, it's the twisted remains of Solas severing the Titans of their dreams. This is also the reason Dwarves can't dream or use magic btw.

The Tervinter magisters didn't corrupt the golden city with their sin, they bit off more than they could chew and caught the blight when they arrived.

So, to all of us who never bought the Chantry's preaching and beliefs. Yeah, we were right. The Chantry is wrong.

[magerightsyeah]

I must not engage in Dragon Age discourse. Dragon Age discourse is the mind killer. Dragon Age discourse is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will ignore the Dragon Age discourse. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the Dragon Age discourse has gone there will be nothing.

Only I will remain.

[bookseffect]

Everyone wants the edgy RPG choices, no one wants to deal with the consequences of said edgy RPG choices.

Yes, I am looking at the Dragon Age community lamenting the lack of "dark choices" in one breath and lamenting the absence of characters like Bull, Zevran, Fenris or Cullen and other "beloved, much better written characters" in another.

[lelianasconscience]

📢Dragon Age enjoyers who have more media literacy than me I have questions 📢

Hello so I have recently been introduced to the concept of centrism, that it's problematic and also something that Dragon Age stories tend to do. (don't eat me pls, I come to you in the spirit of learning)

For example, the story builds up to the Chantry finally facing the consequences of the horrendous things they do and perpetuate, but in the end, as the Inquisitor, you still have to choose the next Divine.

Depending on who gets the seat and under what circumstances, the Chantry's workings may change but at the end of the day it still exists and still has potential to continue committing crimes against Thedas.

There's also a lot of "both sides are wrong actually" and "both sides are right actually"- personally, I love moral greyness and conflicting morals in a story, but it can be hard to acknowledge that without also both-sides-ing it.

In my opinion, Dragon Age: Veilguard suffers from this the most.

The "good" ending means the Veil stays up and Tevinter's social system (as well as every other nation's, pending Qunari invasion) remains largely intact, and the best we can do is put one (1) good person in the Archon's seat and hope that's enough to fundamentally change Tevinter within the lifetime of this one guy.

With the election of Divine Victoria, it could still make sense bc the Inquisition's influence is actually very limited, it comes with a lot of conditions set by powerful allies, and that the Inquisition itself being marketed with the belief that it's an Andrastian cause would have made it hard to say otherwise- people are believing what they want or need to believe in order to keep going under terrifying circumstances.

But in Veilguard, with a war being fought on the scale of changing the literal fabric of the world, there was a real chance at a non-centric ending in which the world is changed, where the status quo does not remain the same.

So, alllll of that context is to ask my question, which is if the Veil did come down, either quickly or gradually, and Mythal got to have her reckoning that shook the heavens, what would be the effective non-centric consequences for Tevinter? (and other nations of Thedas)

Presumably if the elves got their immortality back, the status quo could change over time with that alone, but in the short-term immediate aftermath, would things be different? Would Tevinter's whole social caste system crumble with the mass deaths and elven gods coming to the aid of elves alone, or would it cause elves to be even more vilified and targeted?

tl;dr if Veilguard had a non-centric ending that fulfilled Sandal's prophecy about the Veil coming down, and the status quo did change, what do you guys think it would/should have looked like?

[drunkenlionwrites]

Having now finished DAV, the biggest outlier for me is the endless potential for the companions characterisation! We never get passed the surface level aspects of their character - I feel this mostly for Lucanis - they never delve into his trauma of being imprisoned for an entire year and having a demon possess him against his will! They'd rather him talk about his love of coffee in every interaction! So frustrating :( Don't get me started on the lack luster romance scenes

I think I'm somewhere in like 2/3s of the game, but I accidentally spoiled myself the endings and the Varric thing (Which was kinda what I suspected from the beginning, but anyway), so I'll try to form my final opinions when I'm completely finished it. But so far to me it looks like a mash of Hogwarts Legacy (UI and combat) + DA2 in terms of maps and what they tried to do with narration made by Varric + mission based game progression + ME2 in terms of the ending battle + requirements to level up the fractions by completing their quests. All of this I don't mind on paper, but mashed together in a way that they did just...didn't leave any impact on me at all? I also was not a Solas/Lavellan player so the Inquisitor + Solas emotional and nostalgic impact is not working on me. My biggest pet peeve I guess is the retconned lore which has so many plot holes now? The "it was all Evanuris all along" is ughh...cheapening the whole lore for me. As for character writing and dialogue writing, it surely is the second one. I just see sooooo much wasted potential in characters like Lucanis and Davren, for example. But in this game they look and feel more like 2 walking Miro boards with notes about their quirks and history, rather than believable good-written characters. I really miss the prolonged conversations you could have with companions in camp back in DAO or DAI, or their banter with each other, where some topics were discussed during multiple conversations during the game. It made them feel alive, I could feel the conenction between the player character and the party. Now all the conversations are so surface-level, it's not even funny. We also don't have any real conflicts between characters in the party and companion characters with player character as well. At times, their personalities blend into something homogenous, lacking individuality. We just all agree on all the stuff and the conflicts writers added to the game were "who doesn't like dragons?" level of deep, which Rook resolved like a kindergarten teacher are were ridiculous. Characters from DAI which I previously found more shallow - like Vivenne and Blackwall - if put in this game would now seem like real people, which says a lot about this one. I feel like it all boils down to what David Gaider wrote on twitter some time ago:

"[It] slowly turned from a company that vocally valued its writers to one where we were... quietly resented, with a reliance on expensive narrative seen as the 'albatross' holding the company back,"

"Maybe that sounds like a heavy charge, but it's what I distinctly felt up until I left in 2016, suddenly all anyone in charge was asking was 'how do we have LESS writing?' A good story would simply happen, via magic wand, rather than be something that needed support and priority."

So basically, this is what we got in this installation. Laid off writers that were the pillar of this franchise, or writers who got burnt out and resigned years ago were no longer driving the importance of good written characters and plot and we got a game done by people, who were okay doing what management wanted from them.

[ragingtempests]

i really need people to dial back their frustration that mary kirby said lucanis is a panromantic demisexual virgin on bluesky. like… again, ignore it and headcanon whatever if something isn’t said in game. it’s getting to the point, especially on tiktok, that i really don’t understand why people are so upset? outside of it being very “dumbledore is gay” of bioware/kirby, i don’t get the anger? are we mad at it’s not explicitly said in game or are we mad at he could possibly be demisexual and a virgin? if it’s the latter… i honestly cannot see how that changes anything about him or his romance. like, it’s in the subtext. and he says rook/neve is his first relationship while constantly being put into juxtaposition to illario who is characterized as a lothario.

like… no one is saying why they’re mad? i’m assuming it’s more the virgin part than the demisexual part? i just… i don’t get it outside of maybe people finding it awkward? or cringe? i just don’t see anything in game that implies that lucanis is secretly some sex god, so why him being a virgin would change anything… i don’t know.

virginity is such a construct anyways. like, what are we saying being a virgin is? do we need penetration? there’s a lot of other things you can do, if that’s the case, and technically be a virgin. as a demisexual woman who leans harder towards asexuality… i’m just saying. some of you guys are being weird/have no imagination.

[letsgonecromancin]

Can I just say, I don’t like some of the Dragon Age fandom infantilizing certain characters. Not understanding the world around you, struggling to figure out your identity and not knowing who you are, not speaking the same way as everyone else, not speaking at all/speaking very little, or just being plain childish and immature doesn’t make someone a child.