#minor DA2 rant

[carrinth]

Whelp I've done it. Just finished Witch Hunt which now marks the end of my Dragon: Age Origins run. 10/10 would recommend. Especially Awakening and Witch Hunt DLC.

And y'know what? Witch Hunt was worth it for this moment. A fitting end for my Warden. Reunited with his love (and baby mama) and peaces out of work and responsibilities via magic mirror. Just look at that face. I think this is honestly the first time I've seen my Warden-Commander smile in a LONG time. Poor guy.

Minor DA2 rant below cut;

Actually I finished it awhile ago but had been procrastinating by replaying Awakening.

Because uggghhhhhh... I don't want to play DA2.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure I'll grow to love Hawke again but right now my mood is just... meh. Replaying Origins and all its DLCs just made the differences in quality and content between the two all the more jarring. Aaaand on a more personal level -- I don't want to stop being a Grey Warden. ಥ_ಥ

For the last near 150 hours, I was sold on being a Grey Warden. In fact, I think my best fun was Awakening where I actually got to BE a Grey Warden doing Grey Warden things WITH OTHER GREY WARDENS. We ALL drank the nasty juice! It was a bonding experience! This game spent so much time building up the lore and excitement of being a Grey Warden -- leaving so many unanswered questions about the Taint, the Blight, what it all means, dO wE GET griFFONs -- only to just... drop it all in DA2.

I'm just so confused by the direction DA2 went. Replaying Origins with the knowledge of the upcoming mage/templar plot in DA2, the conflict in Origins felt... minor. Sure we get hints here and there that things are Kinda Bad. But nothing major. Heck, I played a Circle Mage as my Origin and I never felt that 'Oh wow, mage rebellion should totally be Main Focus of the next game!' Like don't get me wrong, mage/templar conflict is 😌👌but the Darkspawn and Grey Wardens was what set Dragon Age apart from other fantasy.

"Well the Blight's over Carrinth, there's no more story to tell about Grey Wardens" you say. And yet, Awakening did a fantastic job of making an entire campaign post-Blight.

Part of me feels like if they didn't want to keep the Main Character the same (ala Mass Effect with Cmdr Shepard) then couldn't they have still made the DA2 MC a grey warden? Like a junior(?) Warden that's investigating Corypheus or whatever in Kirkwall but gets caught in the mage/templar mess. Sure we would have gotten a very different story but would that have been so bad?

In the end, I will likely end up playing DA2, if only for the excellent companions and to reunite with my Sad Mage and Angry Spirit Husbands. But at the moment... *sigh*

So goodbye Marzel Amell. You were the best Warden-Commander and I had fun throwing Storm of the Century on fools, flexing my maxed out Coercion, and painstakingly working out TACTICS. I will probably still keep stubbornly drawing Awakening fanart (because I am Not Normal about those idiots) but DA2 stuff will likely eventually bleed in. ༼ つ ◕_◕ ༽つ

Farewell Marzel and go live gloriously in mirror land with ur spider lady and kid.

[vir-adahlen]

Your post about the companions in Dragon Age games is completely inaccurate and unfair. First of all, there are many occasions in the first and second game especially when the party members will turn on and literally try to murder the PC, whereas that only happens once in Inquisition and is the result of a rather sadistic player choice. The Inquisitor is free to leave at any time, as Cassandra says in the prologue, but that would be a tremendous derilection of duty if they did. I would also strongly argue that the companions get on better amongst *themselves* in Inquisition, with even opposed characters like Blackwall and Vivienne reaching an understanding that say Morrigan and Wynne or Fenris and Anders never did. The characters in Inquisition are every bit as supportive of each other as those in the first two games when you look at the character relationships in the aggregate, the fact that the characters are all members of an official organisation does not diminish that, they could leave at any time but choose not to out of personal connection. Also the Andrastian party members in Inquisition are not fundamentalists, they have differing religious views and believe in helping all people regardless of religion. It's fine if you prefer the characters in the first two games, but don't distort reality to justify that point.

hey! yeah i mean listen i mostly agree with the specific points you made, and my post was simplified/exaggerated for comedic effect here on tumblr.com. but i am a media studies graduate so i get it and i'll explain myself lol

i do think the character writing is much stronger in the first two games, and i think your point actually adds to my point -- the potential conflict (and therefore resolution) between party members and the PC feels much more charged and vivid in da:o and da2 than in inquistion. i actually dont think it's a question of how "supportive" the characters are to each other, but rather the depth of their conversations with each other, the relevance of their personal quests to the plot, and straight up just like the frequency of party banter. inquisition does not hold up compared to da:o and da2. character development was clearly sacrificed to create a bigger open world

also the da:i party system is bloated and EXTREMELY MALE, with 2 out of the 3 women (sera+vivienne) being some of the worst written, under-developed, racist, and homophobic characters the series has created thus far. writing a lesbian who is part of an oppressed racial minority as self-hating (and giving her such minuscule growth as a character) is ugly. writing the only dark-skinned Black female companion in the series as a cold, unfeeling ice queen with sooo little care/depth is UGLY. beyond that, i just don't find blackwall, cole, sera, iron bull, and honestlllllyyyyy varric to be especially interesting companion characters in the context of inquisition's plot, though i understand that's veering into personal opinion and more power to you if you vibe with them. like listen i fucking love varric, i just think that party slot could have been used more effectively

as far as the christian zealot comment goes -- yeah i mean certainly half of the characters are not full on zealots, that was exaggeration. but like the premise of the game is that you have become a literal religious savior symbol for an oppressive, colonial power religion, and i feel like there is so little nuance in the way that is talked about with companions, especially andrastian companions. im actually really enjoying doing a runthrough right now with a lavellan inquisitor who is like deeply traumatized and figuring out how to navigate all of this. i just wish the game gave me more to work with in that regard -- i like don't want to have small talk with these 10 other characters if they’re just gonna feel hollow and under-worked. anyways. thanks for chattin! /end rant

[greyalert]

Ugh

I don’t usually post anything but I’m feeling annoyed right now and want to rant incoherently for a bit, so uh… why not.

The argument that the chantry is a holy place, therefore “Anders blew up a church” is extremely disingenuous. I refuse to believe that people can be oblivious enough to not see that it isn’t remotely true. If it is under all circumstances wrong to attack a place of worship, a holy site, then pray tell… how do you deal with a theocracy? In a theocracy, all leaders, military or otherwise are pious as well, all government sites, including military installations, are holy by definition. Is it more wrong to fight against a theocratic regime than it is to fight against any other? That’s more or less what happened in Kirkwall. For the last 3 years of DA2 there’s no civil leadership in the city, the Chantry has grabbed all the power and they refuse to give it back to the nobility. (The Guard’s power is diminishing and you get to witness an effort to take that away as well.) The chantry building isn’t a church for little old ladies to congregate and practice their faith, it’s the seat of the highest ranking official in Kirkwall. An attack on the most powerful person in the state who’s responsible for the abuse of oppressed minorities, who just happens to also have the authority to command a military organisation, isn’t the same as attacking your local place of worship. Piety isn’t a shield that can protect you from the people whose lives you are taking away.

“But Anders is a...” Ugh. No. Terrorism is an entirely political word, its meaning depends on whoever has the power to label violence as such. People violently rebelling against an occupying force technically fit the definition. Their goal is political and their tools are violent. They seek to instil fear in the occupying forces, to make it too costly, too risky to stay. These rebels, especially those that ultimately fail to bring about a revolution, ARE often labelled terrorists by their oppressors. Sometimes even implicitly by their own, already freed government that erects monuments honoring the occupying soldiers who lost their lives while trying to save the people from these ‘terrorists’. Calling someone a terrorist doesn’t mean you’re describing their deeds, it means you have taken a side, a political stance and a moral judgment. It tells more about you than it does about them. To think there’s a peaceful solution to occupation/genocide is to fundamentally misunderstand what peace means. Waiting for change isn’t peaceful, it is time given to the powerful to enact violence, and the tacit acceptance of that violence.

That said, the word terrorism has absolutely no meaning or relevance when it comes to Dragon Age. You are supposed to be terrified of the word itself, not anything that has happened in the games. It’s a cheap way to elicit a feeling without ever having to make it make sense to the audience. It’s nothing but shitty writing that continued into Inquisition.

Anyone who tries to justify calling Anders a terrorist, the use of tranquility, oppression of minorities, genocide, or slavery in this game: Your whole ass is showing and it is uncovered.

[rosexknight]

@arceusfan493 Here’s that Dragon Age 2 rant you wanted.

Because I am still not over it.

Under the Read More, I have for you: - Lore Context - How Dragon Age 2 is Amazing - How it Hurt Me Enjoy~!

Oh yeah and major spoiler warning for Dragon Age 2 and minor spoiler warning for Dragon Age Origins and Awakening.

Lore Context ((Note: It is way more in-depth than this, I am simplifying ALOT))

Okay so. In the Dragon Age universe, magic is seen as super dangerous, because mages and those who have magical abilities are connected what is called the Fade, which is like a world that mirrors ours. It is also known as the Dream World, and every race but dwarves dream, but Mages specifically are connected to it in a way that lets them manipulate it for magic. In the Fade there are spirits and demons that can be brought into the real world by a mage or take over a mage’s body to enter our world. When this happens the mage becomes what is called an “Abomination” and loses all semblance of themselves. Demons are dangerous, spirits not so much, and demons are actually just spirits that have been twisted from their original purpose, usually by desire/pride/rage/etc. Spirits are the embodiment of virtues, where as demons are usually the embodiment of sins. There’s also Blood Magic which is hella powerful but corrupting and usually links back to demons.

There is also some religious reasons why magic is so feared, as it’s basically said that mages that got too close to God caused all the bad shit happening in the world (specifically a literal and metaphorical plague called the Blight) and also there are political reasons since there is a country/kingdom that’s all mage-run and it’s not great.

So for the protection of all the non-mages, they lock all mages in these towers called Circles so that they can study, hone their skills, etc. But they're essentially prisons, and the mages are watched over by Templars, which are like anti-magic paladins. And all this is ran by the church called the Chantry (there's a shit ton of lore and all these fears are linked back to that religion I mentioned earlier.) In order to become full mages, you have to pass a test where they put you against a demon in the Fade to prove you can handle your magic. If you fail you become an abomination. If the Circle thinks you will fail this test, they will (literally) brand you Tranquil, which cuts off a mage from the Fade but ALSO makes them 100% emotionless. Also if you get too good, they might also brand you a Blood Mage and kill you anyway.

Also, there is no escape. You can try to escape, but when you come to the Circle, the Chantry takes your blood and puts it in a vial. They then use this blood to track you down if you slip away.

Now, in the games we have seen that SOMETIMES the Circles are not that bad. Mages can get special permission to live outside the Circles as long as they can get jobs. Some mages are perfectly content there, while others aren’t. The mages might be governed by the Chantry and Templars but usually each Circle is kind of given its own freedoms to have its own politics, etc. HOWEVER, whether or not you're put in a good Circle is a toss-up, completely dependent on where you are, who is in charge, etc. And also the Templars can call upon the Right of Annulment if they feel the things in the tower are getting out of control, which essentially nukes the tower and destroys it and all the mages. OH and you are sent to the Circles when your magic starts manifesting (between the ages of 4-14) with no say from you or your family. Just “Oh you got magic? Time to lock you in this tower.” SO needless to say, things between Mages and Templars are fucking tense, and the game is not shy about giving this whole thing a prison feel. The mages are very obviously the oppressed class here (elves are also oppressed but in a different way and I’m not going into that.)

Also you can play as a mage in-game, which makes this all hit especially home if you do since you as the player both see and experience it.

OKAY that should be all the lore context you need.

How Dragon Age 2 is Amazing

DA2 takes place in a town with one of the bad Circles. The Commander of the Templars, Meredith, has basically gone insane. She’s become paranoid, and is turning mages Tranquil (illegally btw because we know that she turns some Tranquil even after they passed that test I mentioned earlier,) or killing them left and right. However, in conjunction to that, there's ALOT of shit that happens that are all mages fault. Blood magic, demons, your mom (basically the only family you have left at that point btw) gets killed by a crazy necromancer, etc.

So it puts you, the player and your PC Hawke, in this situation where you clearly see magic is HELLA DANGEROUS, but you also see that the mages are being pushed too hard by the Templars and are taking drastic measures to escape or fight back. And again, it hits doubly hard if you play as a mage. The game also takes place over the span of 7 years, so you see it all build up and get worse and worse as you play.

So it presents the conundrum: Do all mages suck or is it because of what is happening? It's fucking brilliant. Especially coming from the first game, Origins, where you see a good Tower that's super chill until one crazy mage fucks it up. You see what horrors magic can bring but also see and hear how crazy Templars can be when they face such horrors (this is clear with both Meredith herself AND a recurring character named Cullen but if I talk about him we’ll be here all day.)

Anyway, point is there's clearly no right answer to which side is right or wrong, and the game builds up on it alot. It gives you all the perspectives with Meredith, the paranoid Templar Commander, Orsino, the leader of the Circle who is just trying to keep the peace and defend the mages, and the Grand Cleric in the Chantry Elthina, who refuses to take a side even though she has the power to basically end it all. Your companions also have opinions on all of it as it unfolds. And it puts you right in the middle of it all. And you experience all of it.

Like I said, fucking brilliant.

How it Hurt Me

One of your companions is Anders, who is a mage that has run away from the Circle you know of from Origins. He's a healer that is helping people from an underground (free) clinic, and has also been helping mages escape the city. He's all about freedom for mages, and has fused with a Justice spirit that he became friends with. The spirit saw the injustice that was happening to the mages and wanted to further help. Both Anders and Justice are from Dragon Age Awakening, which comes after Origins. They are companions in that game and you see how their friendship grows and how they come to be able to help each other.

Now I LOVED Anders and Justice in Awakening. I was ALL FOR seeing them again seeing how the years had changed them, and helping them. I also played as a mage in both games so I was also all for mage freedom. It’s also worth noting that in Awakening you learn the Circle was NOT kind to Anders. He’s a free spirit, a lover not a fighter, and he was suffocated. He tried to escape like 7 times and after the last one they put him IN SOLITARY CONFINEMENT FOR A FUCKING YEAR. He was 100% expecting to be killed every time he was caught. “Oh but couldn’t he have used those methods you mentioned earlier to live outside the Circle?” you may ask. And like, yeah maybe. But also...No one should have to do that?

I romanced Anders because I adore him. He’s a bit of a broody boy in DA2 that tries to push you away, but he’s hella sweet and supportive. Funny. Small hint of danger with Justice. He's great. And it was great to romance him in DA2 since I was playing Awakening going “No please why can I not romance YOU?”

Well throughout the game you see that due to the anger Anders has, Justice is getting morphed into something more akin to a spirit of Vengeance as things are pushed more, and that Anders is having trouble controlling him. Depending on what route you take with the romance, he and Justice can either fuse into something like only one being, or Justice can be turned fully into a demon of Vengeance. Both of these are heavily implied more than confirmed, so it’s kind of ambiguous, but the ending is the same. Anders becomes consumed by this, and everything else is drowned out.

Eventually, towards the end of the game, when Meredith has sent off for permission to the Right of Annulment, and Orsino can’t control the many other mages wanting to fight back, and things between mages and Templars are coming to a head, Anders asks you to come with him to get some ingredients that will make a potion to separate he and Justice. Then that turns out to be a lie and he asks you to distract Elthina in the Chantry so he can do...a thing. And he won’t tell you what. And you know he's up to something. BUT in DA2 and Awakening he's ALWAYS said that violence isn't the answer and that we have to show people mages can be good by example, and been against blood magic, etc. So you have the option to help him or not.

I helped him because SURELY he wouldn't do anything crazy. And SURELY he wouldn't ask/trick me, the woman he loves, to do something crazy. He simply asks you to trust him, and I did.

Aaaaaaand then I was wrong. Very, very wrong.

He blew up the Chantry in that town. Confirmed death toll from game lore is 100, but people estimate it could be more. This was the second time I had to walk away from this game due to emotions, the first being when your mom dies.

The Chantry runs the Templars, and the Templars watch the mages. Things were coming to a head. It had been a silent war raging. The Knight-Commander of the Templars was seeing shadows, threatening to basically rip the tower apart to find Blood Mages where there weren't. The leader of the Mages supported the Circle but was doing little to lead the mages against the Templars, and if the mages snapped all hell would break loose. The Cleric in the chantry refused to take sides, even though her word would essentially sway the masses into siding with someone. But she had to stay neutral because she couldn't choose as it wasn't her place, and she agreed there was no right answer both sides had a point. He blew up the Chantry, and forced people to take sides. Change had to come, and he decided he had to take the matter into his own hands to do it. And whether or not it was him or Justice or both is ambiguous and dependant on the route taken.

And I fucking helped him.

The game at this point forces you to choose a side, and I chose to side with the Mages because I WAS one and also Meredith wanted to kill every mage there for what Anders did.

I was betrayed by this character I had loved for two games, who my Hawke fell in love with, who I trusted, etc. And THAT hurt worse than anything else ever. You then had the option to kill him, which was the third point I had to walk away and agonize over a decision. Whether or not Anders was right is a topic still viscerally debated in the Dragon Age community too and it gets ROUGH.

So yeah. That is why I’m not over it and why I love this game so much but also how fucking dare it do this to me.

[ohsweetflips]

friend your tags for da are sending me. eapecially about c&llen, like- i shit you not, i played thru dai the first time and never talked to him. ever. (i didnt know where he was!! that fuck off tower lol) and honestly? didnt change the game much for me when i did do his personal quest the next time around. like i enjoy the struggle with addiction being addressed but like you said samson coulda easily been that. ANYWHO i love dragon age im glad you do too, will rant anytime with u

“that fuck off tower” asjkdjfdjkdfjkdjk

like!!!! i appreciate dai c*llen, but it’s the whiplash of going from dao/da2 to dai. like..... if there were some narrative repercussions? if he actually had the face the consequences for things that he did and said?

like tbh im not Scared to say my opinion, per se, but it’s that thing of “i have a complicated opinion bc literally imo the dao/da2 c*llen and the dai c*llen are Not the same character” not only bc there’s an attempted redemption arc! but bc imo c*llen is not actually held responsible for the things that he did! like, he talks abt feeling bad kinda which like ok cool BUT THEN HE SAYS THAT MEREDITH WASN’T ENTIRELY WRONG? like it’s so complicated! bc im not necessarily pro or anti bc, in inq, i, for the most part, enjoy his character! but in dao he’s creepy as fucking hell to the f!mage!warden and, like, *wildly gestures to da2*

but then inq comes along and that’s entirely turned on it’s ear? and like, as you said, his lyrium addiction, i felt bad!! like, it’s sad!!

but i just....... i get that bioware wanted a redemption arc, and i think parts of it succeeded, but i think they could’ve shown early in-game scenes of him actually having to deal with what he did. like, idk, a kirkwall mage who knows how he sided with meredith up until the final like 5 mins of da2? or just something?

bc it’s not like bioware can’t write a redemption arc. just look at blackwall! he regretted what he did and tried to fix it and attones for it! i just really wish there were narrative repercussions 

BUT THEN THERE’S SAMSON!!! who was kicked out of the templar order and left to die on the streets with his lyrium addiction!!! he hates the templars!!!!! like, it would’ve been so cool to see c*llen as the one leading the red templars (and also would have made sense) while samson is the older, hardened ex-templar turned advisor who knows the terrible things that the templars have done and wants to Actually fix it while still showing the addiction side of being a templar. also? the drama of seeing the minor side character from origins, who then became the templar extremist, who is now one of the main antagonists??? i fucking love negative character development and that would’ve been so fucking cool to see

like, i was just talking to my friend abt this, i would love to see a renegade templar NPC who wants to dismantle/change the templars after seeing what they have done. give the narrative layers!!! in da2, we see templars who work against the order!!!! give us that again!!!!!

needless to say, da4 in tevinter is going to be interesting bc there is canonically very loose templar rule, and obvi we all know the shit with tevinter, so it’s going to be an interesting change of pace from ferelden/orlais/kirkwall, which is so templar driven

[icharchivist]

Ive been told da2 gets a lot of bad reviews. What's your opinion on the game?? :0

Heyo!!

Oh dear. Okay so let’s start it by saying i absolutly adore da2. I love all the da game, and da2 is no exception. They all have different strong points that makes them stand out on their own and as a result da2 is a great game on its own.

I tried, under the cut, to enter more into details without spoiling, hopefully it worked ahah.

IMO the reason da2 had bad reviews…. is that it came after dao and people had high expectations, and some people having problems with new things da2 introduced - ie the general “Sequel Problem” of people refusing it to be any different from its original game. 

I’ll get more in depth under the cut (avoiding spoiling as much as i can) but ay

I believe it’s likely people got upset to be kinda “locked into a city” while dao allowed you to go to more places. The focus of the story is also much more the Mage/Templar conflict while dao focused on a diverse brunch of conflict. (which…. Okay the thing that annoys me with that argument is that yes there were more conflicts in dao, like, the dwarves and such, (and like, dao’s focused on so much because they didn’t focus as much in depth on them. dao was an intruduction to the lore, so it couldn’t overwhelm us with it) but the magic conflict was a pillar to dao not only with the Circle incident, it was worth focusing upon, and even there they took the time to explore others lore stuff. Hell there’s a hell tone of forshadowing in da2 which personally for the lore hungry person i am, i love to death.)

And there isn’t “one great goal” in the end of the game - like in dao you have to defeat the blight! in da2, you have no idea what’s the endgame will be and how it’ll end, you kinda move forward to understand why Varric is telling your story to the Seeker of Truth.

(I think a complain that could happen but that I don’t see brought up a lot is that da2 being the only game narrated by a character, da2′s story could… actually be a little simplified? I personally blame most of the clumsy writting or like, lack of environment (which are two problems a lot of people complain about) to the fact that it’s Varric telling the story and the Seeker imagining it, therefore the point of view is biased. It gives them a good narrative stun imo and it allow more fluidity, and it doesn’t mean that all of da2 is bullshit either I hope people would understand that. I don’t see much people complain about the narrative format but imo a lot of the major “uncoherence” people complain about can… completely be justified over the narrative format so idk)

I think what people are overlooking when they make those complains is that… da2 is meant to be a smaller story. It’s not the story of a Warden, or of an Inquisitor - it’s Hawke, a person who’s trying to survive in this world, who’s trying to have their family survive, and who ends up wrapped into a conflict against their will. 

da2 isn’t meant to be as big and vast as dao because it’s a smaller story with huge consequences, it’s not supposed to be like dao.

(also on the technical levels i’ve read apparently the story was more planned to be dao->dai, but EA pushed the compagny to do another game quite quickly so instead of rushing to dai they decided to expend elements with da2 so the story will flow more naturally. Because they were pressed and with new engins the game had limitations, so they focused on a more intimist story about Hawke and their friends.) 

In some ways da2 can be considered a transition game, but i don’t completely think so, it gained an identity on its own and personally i think the emotions and elements of da2 stand out even more as its own strong story because of the approach taken. 

Then I think also it’s because this game is much more heavy on small consequences, especially with how the approval system work - say, how easily it is to lose the surviving sibling’s life to the deep roads, or how completely different a character storyline can go depending on how you befriend them or rival them. If you don’t play your cards right i think it’s possible to be disappointed with where it’s taken, but 1- it’s not. as bad as it sounds, 2-, I personally think it’s even more of a strength. 

DA2 is a personal game. if the Warden’s companions stuck around because they had to save the world, da2′s companions only stick around because…. they like Hawke. That’s it. That’s why the approval system is Friendship/Rivalry and not Approval/Disapproval. This isn’t a question of them approving your actions it’s a question of how your friendship developped toward the years. It’s extremely bold but require players to be even more involved with the characters because their own friendship is what holds the game together. 

Also the fact that da2 happens over the course of multiple years (if i’m not wrong about 7 years) while we have dao happen over the course of one year/one year and a half with awakening, only. The bound between the companions isn’t supposed to be the same. Da2 asks you to care more than dao did. And while dao definitly have character development with the approval, da2 pushes it further with how the consequences of said development pay off. (although i’m not saying it in a bad way for dao - even if they were “around to save the day” their friendship was genuine with high approval and it was still emotionally charged).

And I think a few people may have had a problem with that while… it’s a great thing? It makes the game stand out. It makes it more emotional. 

Then - be careful with reviews because who generally leave review? Ye certain bases of gamers that. huh. Especially in 2011 where it was still the time of even shittier gamers that we have now. 

For exemple I’ve read there had been a lot of uprising over the fact the whole romance team were bi. Which i find stupid af, but apparently this was a problem in 2011. I’ve read people being absolutly upset and tear the game to pieces because they found it irrealistic. Worse even - Anders shows he has a crush on Hawke no matter what gender Hawke is, so players can’t exactly ignore it. (Also if the info filtered on forum - in the mlm romance with Anders, it’s confirmed that Karl, the mage who was made tranquil in the begining of the game? Was Anders’s… lover for lack of a better word when they were in the Circle so they remained intimate. (he was the reason Anders ran away from the Circle in Awakening for the last time- a whole other can of worm i won’t expend on) It’s therefore implied that after his death Anders’s emotions were all over the place, thus his crush happened over the person who helped him. But ye, if people learned that, they therefore learn that Anders kinda have his bisexuality in the frontrow and it cannot be ignored.) I’ve read hundreds of fanboys rant about how it made them uncomfortable, and a lot of different sort of discourses over the sexualities of that game. (most that I think are completely ot of place and again, remembering the target demographic, 2011 wasn’t as much a good time for those things as recent years.) 

(also the worst thing about da is its fandom, i don’t trust any “common opinions” whatsoever. 9 out of 10 it’s deforming plot informations to fit an argument that doesnt have its place here). (…. although I suppose the same thing could be said from my own opinions so like, make your own opinion, truly. Don’t let people influence you. DA is a personal experience, which can be completely different depending on your choices and on how you get along with the companions-  don’t let anyone ruin it.)

Then i’m not gonna act like the game is flawless either but I think the reasons people pick on it are… not good reasons. There’s flaws yes but like all the games (there’s tons of flaws in dao and dai, and it doesn’t remove from their qualities and the strong stuff that are in those games - why would you treat da2 differently), and they’re minors in the whole game.

I know the ending caused problems for a lot of people too, and that I can’t enter in details there - I see a few cons, but imo the endingS are incredible on what they mean on a thematic level. it’s really complicated to enter into details and i wouldn’t want my “it’s incredible” to be taken out of context or like, about a detail that I don’t mean by that - so maybe later, but i do think the game is asking you to weight the impact of your decisions and the conclusion is really strong. 

I think one of the possible other reason it may have badly reasonated with some fans is the lack of power fantasy? For exemple, especially for human nobles, you can actually become king/queen in dao. And it’s treated as a good thing. And in the end, even without playing this origin, you become Warden Commander, and an advisor in the throne room, and the Hero of Fereldan people will respect for ever. Your accomplishment are important and it makes you feel empowered.Da2 doesn’t treat power the same way. The Mantle of Champion is more stress indulging, especially when you play as a mage, because you are seen by everyone. The Champion Mantle isn’t the end of your story, like the Warden Commander was the end of the Warden’s story in dao. the Champion title is more stress infliging considering the current political state of Kirkwall.and there’s more to that later but to me it’s something I find fascinating. 

What I find fascinating with this series of game is how much the context change how you can approach a similar situation. I’ve compared it a lot to dao to make my point but I want to be clear: i love the approach of dao, it fits in its context, in how the plot elements are going on, about why all of this is happening. because in dao’s context, the fact it happens this way is extremely interesting and much more telling - and the emotional involvement is still here. The idea is that by contrast, because of the different context in da2, the way things are different is fascinating and coherent. But say, a treatment like that wouldn’t have worked in dao’s context - it works because da2 created a context in which this was what rose the stakes.

People who just wanted to relive the experience of dao couldn’t get that in da2 because the context was too different, so even if you can hit some vague marks (romance and have sex with your LI, characters development, position of power ect..) the context will require you to think about it differently, so if you go in thinking about having it the same way as dao i think you can be disappointed.

I personally think da2′s context make for a lot of brilliance in its scenario without undermining what dao accomplished.

(and i didn’t mention dai at all because i don’t want to spoil but my reasoning applies there too - the differences or similarities in dai with the others games works because it works in its context and those elements cannot be taken out of their context if you want to appreciate them. Putting them in contrast isn’t belittling one or the other, it’s seeing why the context allowed to have such different or similar plots and why it works.)

Also i think it may play that da2 is more political. or at least the politics cannot be ignored. dao was extremely political but you could go "shut up i just want to kill that dragon" and make quick decisions about politics. Da2 is entrely centered about the politics of the chantry/circle/mage/templar and people can be allergic to plot asking you to take into consideration a lot of issues linked to oppression. but idk politics were in dao too ppl who complain about it in da2 are just mad that this time they are forced to care about it

I think da2 fall flat if you’re not ready to involve yourself emotionally, because the emotions is the most important factor of da2, before even the accomplishments and the likes. it’s the driving force of the game. I do think the emotions are super important for the enjoyement of all the games, but for da2 i’d go as far as to say it’s a requirement. 

if you like lore, too, da2 is full of it, it has a lot of intruiguing lore pieces to remember for later; I know i didn’t think much of them the first time but ever since dai i’ve been digging in every codex possibles and da2 has a lot of interesting stuff when it comes to the lore. Maybe harder to find the interest for without the big picture, but really incredible and interesting to read nevertheless.

For the story, again, I think it needs the emotional bound to your character and to the other characters, but i still think it’s a really important story that had to be told, and if it had to be told, this way to do it was really good, it was important, it showed how those things in the little picture would affect the big picture. I love this kind of things. Thematically the story is incredible.

TL;DR: I absolutly love da2, it’s an incredible game on its own rights, and i entered a lot of details why because a lot of the things i saw people complain about are… the things I actually love with the game. It’s supposed to be different from dao because of its context, and it does it well, if you’re ready to be taken by this new adventure and understand it doesn’t have the same stakes as dao. 

People complained about a lot of things, the da fandom always complain about something all the time, but especially in 2011, when most of the reviews of da2 came out, the fanbase and people who were loud about it were… Not ready i think? For lack of a better word? 

SO YE that’s more of less my thoughts, and i’m mostly just saying why i like things people disliked, but trust me i loved this game in a lot of others details, and i tried to remain vague to avoid possible spoilers ahah.

Take care!!

[tearlessrain]

So here’s the thing about DA2. It could have been good. The “trash friends running around their trash city having adventures while society collapses and no one can stop it” concept isn’t inherently bad, it could be a very fun and very powerful way to go if they did it well (especially in the current global climate, plenty of people would find that motif relatable). The problem is they didn’t do it well, either aspect, and it falls completely flat.

This turned into a freaking thesis so I’m putting it under a readmore.

Part of the issue with the “group of friends” aspect is that the writers tell you one thing and then actually present you with something else, and it throws off all the dynamics between the characters. The vast majority of this group of alleged friends either don’t get along or outright hate each other, with varying degrees of valid reasons. Almost every interaction between them that doesn’t involve Hawke is snippy and adversarial or openly hostile. The only reason any of these people are voluntarily anywhere near each other is because they’re all friends with Hawke, and even that feels awkward and forced because of the friendship/rivalry system. The writers need all these people to be together for their story to function so no one will do more than snap at you a bit no matter how terrible you are to them. You can literally become a blood mage, free every crazed murderous apostate you come across, and keep Orana as a slave and Fenris will still, for some reason, hang out with you (and then you can sell Fenris back into slavery himself and all your other friends, even if horrified, won’t intervene and will still, for some reason, hang out with you). You can bring Aveline with you to do blatantly illegal and sometimes immoral things and she’ll follow you with only minor complaining. Carver leaves midway through the game, sure, but it’s not because of any choices you make, you can’t prevent him from leaving in any way even if you somehow manage to have a positive relationship with the little shit. There are literally no consequences or real changes in outcome to anything you do or say.

And there are ways to avoid or at least mitigate some of this. Even if there’s a story that needs to end a certain way, it would be possible to vastly change the feel of it without making it impossible to create the game. Take Anders, for example. I could write a book on all the reasons I hate his self-victimizing hypocritical ass, but ignoring the bad writing for a moment, he was a golden opportunity to make it feel like your actions made a difference on a personal level even though you couldn’t stop the ultimate outcome. The way the game is now, Anders’s path is set as hell. It doesn’t matter whether you’re friends or rivals, either way he descends over the course of three acts into a batshit crazy extremist who’s lost all sense of scale and reality in his obsession with freeing the mages, to the point that he blows up the chantry and kills hundreds of people and thinks he’s justified in doing so. The only difference is whether he does it with or without your semi-unwitting help, and the only choice you have in the matter is whether to kill him or not after it’s already done.

What if, instead, the writers created an alternate way for the chantry to get blown up and whether or not it’s Anders’s fault depends on your relationship with him. So if you go the rivalry path, the original outcome happens because your abrasiveness/dismissiveness toward his cause deepens his persecution complex and strengthens the hold Justice/Vengeance has on him. BUT if you go the friendship path (which doesn’t necessarily imply agreeing with everything he does, but being understanding/sympathetic to the cause itself and stopping him from letting Justice run amok), he develops a degree of self awareness/drops his personal victim complex and ultimately isn’t the one to blow up the chantry. Maybe they change Orsino’s writing a bit and he does it (it would certainly make the ““morally ambiguous”” mages vs templars choice less forced and one-sided), or maybe it’s the collective effort of the radical mage underground, who knows. Anders would still side with the mages, obviously, ideally regardless of who Hawke sides with, but he’s less radical and cares more about the civilians caught up in this, which would be entirely in character for him given his introduction. Hell maybe you could have a third choice where you support him but in a bad way and voluntarily help him blow shit up (at the cost of several of your other friends leaving you along the way). This still wouldn’t be a perfect system, but I think it would better achieve the concept I think the game was going for of “you can’t stop the world from going to shit but you can affect the lives and fortunes of some individuals along the way and maybe that has to be enough.”

And just choice-dependent character outcomes in general. Break the law and piss off Aveline enough and maybe she stops associating with you and you have to start evading the guard as well as dealing with the gangs. Have at least one or two companions put their foot down and fight/leave you over selling Fenris. There’s no reason most of them have to be with you at the end, make it so that you can alienate people and potentially wind up at the end of the game alone with your choices. Give the player’s actions some gotdamn consequences instead of having the whole game feel like an ideal world as dreamed up by a redditor who unironically uses the term ‘amoral.’ You could do all this easily without having to do more than record a few extra lines of dialogue in DAI, because it’s all on a personal level and aside from one or two of them, whether or not your friends like you isn’t going to affect the fate of Thedas. If DA2 is supposed to be a more personally focused game, then make it one. One thing I really liked about DAI is that some of your companions will up and leave if you piss them off enough, and if they don’t they have valid reasons for staying in spite of you.

Also Isabela isn’t a progressive character at all and her interactions with Fenris are completely messed up and tasteless and swapping the genders on shitty tropes doesn’t make them not shitty, but that’s an entire other rant that goes beyond just dragon age and this has already gotten too long.