#Emmrich and his quest are my favorite bits of the game but I wish they were a separate game entirely

[dandylion-virtual-adventurer]

Cushing over Price truthers have won by the way.

Very interesting thread over on Bluesky by Emmrich’s writer

[leemarkies]

my dragon age the veilguard thoughts after finishing the game (obviously spoilers below so read at your own peril)

companions

harding: she was an amazing companion, and imo the best companion to be introduced to rook first. she's a great tie back to inq for old fans and her va is amazing. i'm really happy they explored more dwarven lore with her personal quests. my only complaint is that i wish she was given her own "inquisitor faction" like the rest of the companions have. it wouldn't be a stretch to think that the inquisition wouldn't have SOME pull or influence in the north, considering how big it once was. they could have made a small inquisition faction camp in the crossroads since the inquisitor is still using morrigan's eluvian. idk it seems like a missed opportunity

neve: unfortunately since this is my first playthru i made some Mistakes (didn't finish her personal quests before recruiting davrin and then chose to help antiva) so she was veryyyy cold to my rook. i don't feel like i got to explore her character as much as i wanted to but ig that will happen during my next playthru lol. i think her story and role is super super interesting, we don't get to meet a lot of middle class vints ESPECIALLY middle class MAGE vints. i wish we could have delved more into tevinter society but maybe i just missed out on it. i also thought some of her lines were a little .. off. idk if it was the writing or the va but it was noticeable at times

bellara: ok i went into the game thinking i was not going to like her very much and boy was i wrong! LOVE HER. she might be a tad bit cringey (really only at the beginning) but i love having an elven follower who is proudly an elf (cough cough sera) i see a lot of myself in her (worried you're not enough, looking out for younger brother, etc.) and i loved how she was besties with emmrich. she wrongfully gets the "bubbly pixar" trope from dudebros which couldn't be further from the truth.

lucanis: definitely a favorite of mine and others for a reason! his va is amazing. seeing a possession of a non-mage was really really interesting. i wish we could have seen spite playing on lucanis's own emotions. like for instance anders already was upset about mage discrimination and the circles, justice just pushed the emotions FURTHER and out of control. is lucanis, on his own, spiteful? is what we see of spite partially based on lucanis's own thoughts? also the demon didn't seem like a "spite" demon, but more of a vengeance? or rage? demon. like i never saw lucanis spiteful? or spite being spiteful? just angry. also why are we retconning the crows. according to my trusted beloved zevran they are The Worst.

davrin: sooooo relieved on how bioware handled it's first (which is insane) black male main cast character. i loved seeing his relationship with the wardens and with asaan. he's multi-dimensional and honestly a pleasure to talk to. he's a good guy. confident. slightly sefl-righteous but that's ok!

emmrich: full disclosure i am feral for this man. i love how genuine he is. he is genuinely kind, genuinely compassionate, genuinely forgiving, genuinely friendly. there is no ulterior motive to his niceties and manners, he's just Good. he always says pls and thank you. he's the first person to ask if someone's ok when they're hurt. i love how they made him a bit posh and uppity as far as personal comfort but he doesn't treat the others with disdain for being different. he loves learning about the other factions and other cultures. my rook was a lord of fortune, decidedly NOT an academic, but he expressed interest in her work, even though their lives were so very different from each other. i also think the whole take of "necromancer who is afraid of dying" was neat.

taash: quickly became one of my most favorites of the group. loved their arc, loved seeing a character that has two identities: quinari and rivaini. loved seeing how they embraced both sides in their own way. also loved seeing a companion with their parent and how that relationship is. i think a lot of people can relate to taash and their mom's relationship, it felt very authentic. i think people who find them annoying need to see them as they are: a teenager or young adult. they are 19-22 MAX so yeah they gonna be a bit moody and that's ok

overall: wished we could yap with our companions more like dai/dao, i think that would have assuaged my complaints of wanting to know MORE. also loved how they very clearly have relationships/friendships with each other outside of rook's influence. i think the biggest thing missing is pushback and flaws. i wished these characters had bigger flaws that rook could either help them get over, ignore, or push them further in the wrong direction. it felt like regardless of the choices you make with each companion, everything ends up good in the end. i also felt like we had too many pointless cutscenes and also simultaneously not enough if that makes any sense. also, wtf was the gift thing, completely pointless.

cameos

the keep: i understand that bioware wrote themselves into a corner and that not every little decision you made in the past three games is 1) relevant or 2) worth bringing back but i really was disappointed with the limited past decisions. it made me feel like my past choices that were HUGE (who rules orlais?? who's divine?? hello????) didn't matter in the end, which sucks bc this is a role playing game? if my choices end up not mattering what's the point? who's to say that my choices in this game will matter? and i really hated how bioware devs were like "we limited the choices bc we didn't want the game to be riddled with cameos and one-liners" but actually bc they did this they MADE their cameos so bare and not worthwhile. dav morrigan may or may not have a son. varric mentions hawke in passing ONCE. huge implications to fan favorite and long lasting cast characters have been completely erased, it was like i was talking to a 3d print clone of varric and morrigan. yes they looked like them but what made them THEM was kinda gone. also don't even get me started on how all the choices literally revolved around solas and solas only. the devs also promised that they weren't going to retcon anyone's choices, but they did! harding mentions cole and blackwall and dorian acts like him and the inquisitor are friends, when people could have worldstates where none of these people were recruited into the inquisition!

morrigan: actually a cool use of her cameo, but it was jarring seeing her so readily accept her mother's role

varric: i will never forgive bioware for what they did

dorian: love him. wish we got more of him. noticing a theme here in my review.

inquisitor: unless your inquisitor romanced solas, it's kinda pointless having them here. the convos between rook and the inquisitor were like 2 min max. she shows up at the end to try to convince solas to stop being stupid, but really wasn't the catalyst to making him stop, mythal was.

combat:

i played on the easiest difficulty and turned off dying. <3 so i don't have much to say lol

environment:

i really prefer the more streamlined environments in da games so this was! awesome! loved how it wasn't open world HOWEVER you are rewarded for exploring more than what is strictly required for a quest. da thrives on small, detailed environments so the places we visited were amazing! really loved tevinter and antiva specifically. i wish the camera on our character was a little different bc i felt like i (the player) was staring down at the ground instead of looking up at the scenery. also, finding exactly where a quest objectives was pointing us to was sometimes difficult.

music:

meh. not horrible but not memorable at all. inq's music was sooooooooooooooo good. like elder scrolls level good and that's hard to compete with bc tes soundtracks are second to none. i just felt a lack of orchestral sound. at times the bg music was almost modern electric. i can't tell u a single time i was moved or touched by the music in this game, which is a shame bc it's hans zimmer. meanwhile i can put on wicked eyes and wicked hearts or in hushed whispers and immediately get goosebumps and imagine my inquisitor going thru those quests

plot:

i think the writing was a little disjointed in the first half of act 1, but after it got much much better. i do find it weird that bioware was obviously trying to make it friendly for new players, but i would never ever recommend starting dragon age with this as your first game (coming from someone who played inquisition first, then da2, then dao lol). there are some HUGE lore implications (which i will get into later) that will not make sense at all to new players, and honestly, might confuse them more. in contrast, inquisition didn't have that many huge lore changing issues so i didn't feel like i was missing out on the surprise by playing it first.

i also think this series in general has a power creep issue. and it's one that also makes no sense. last game you were fighting one self-proclaimed god and had an entire army, spies, stronghold, politicians, scouts, etc. at your disposal. this game you're fighting TWO gods and it's just u and ur besties <3 what's next? THREE gods? and honestly i get it it's tough for bioware to not try to outdo themselves in the next installment otherwise people would get bored. idk just a thought

i was kinda shocked that some MAJOR lore implications happened in side quests lol. like we disproved the entire andrastian faith in one cutscene of a side mission. and boom. everyone moves on. CRAZY. i liked seeing bellara and davrin talk about how all of this new information could make elves lives worse bc people will blame them for everything that's happening, but i wish there was more. let me see someone freak out over the golden city not being real. in inq we saw a LOT of character's struggle with their faith bc of corypheus's claims. now we have two confirmed elven "gods" wreaking havoc and everyone is like "lol this sucks. anyways" also there is a distinct lack of andrastian faith shown in this game. obviously comparing it to inq is maybe not the best example but even in da2 and dao there were tons of quests and npcs centered around the andrastian faith and i felt like that was missing here

not that i condone fantasy racism (or racism in general lol) but there wasn't enough of it. not one npc said anything about rook being an elf. apparently other players who played as a qunari rook said the same thing. meanwhile lavellan was being discriminated against left and right in inq. inq had some elves in higher statuses but they alwayyyyys remarked how they were outliers. for example, coulette from jaws of hakkon was an ASSISTANT to the professor and still said it was very rare for an elf to have her job and that she has to prove herself. but in dav there are elves everywhere in lots of different leadership roles. and the north is supposed to be WORSE for elves bc of tevinter slavery so??? and the qunari have invaded antiva and no one gives a qunari rook shit for it? it was just very jarring, felt like i was playing bg3

it was also weird seeing how every faction was just super happy to help! and got along with everyone! no! show me how the wardens are critical of the crows being assassins! show me the lord of foturnes being creeped out by the mourn watchers!

i also think the replayability isn't as strong as dai or dao. there's only like 2 really big decisions, one is at the very end. everything else doesn't really change the outcome of the game, unless you purposefully chose to not do the side/companion quests to get the "bad ending"

also, no zevran. which pissed me off.

tdlr: dragon age excels in making compelling, in-depth characters. i feel like the highs were high in this game, and the lows were low. i blame the crazy development process that went on behind the scenes for some of the issues. overall: 6/10. i had fun, i enjoyed it, but tbh it's probably my least fav game. will obviously still do dozens of playthrus.

[redwyvernan]

Okay. So. Not sure if anyone else has pointed this out yet, but I’ll take a stab at it: I think the members of the Veilguard, including Rook, are all parallels of the Evanuris. More specifically, I think each member of the VG embodies the positive traits or idealized aspects of the Evanuris—perhaps what the Evanuris could have been if they weren’t. Y’know. Evil. And your choices during their personal quests, while certainly culminations of each respective arc, reflect whether they stay these “idealized” versions, or something different.

Now I’m not a DA lore expert by any means, so a lot of what I know about the Evanuris is from the DA wiki. BUT I am a writer, and I like to think I can sometimes see parallels and metaphors/symbolism when they’re there. Here’s a quick version:

June, God of the Craft—Bellara

Dirthamen, Keeper of Secrets—Neve

Ghilan’nain, Mother of Halla—Harding

Elgar’nan, God of Vengeance—Lucanis

Andruil, Goddess of the Hunt—Davrin

Falon’din, Friend of the Dead—Emmrich

Sylaise, the Hearthkeeper—Taash

Mythal, the Great Protector—Rook, possibly Varric

Fen’harel, the Dread Wolf—Rook

I’ll preface this by saying that I love Veilguard. It’s easily one of my favorite games. But I admit that it has problems, primarily due to the errors of capitalism, layoffs, and corporations (the list goes on). I think that a lot of these parallels could have been made a bit more obvious (and the choices could have been less problematic). Regardless, I do love this game—I just wish that some things were different. Anyway. I’ll put a TLDR at the end because I know this is super long, lol.

June is the Evanuris’s inventor, whose most famed creation is of course the Eluvians. This parallel is fairly straightforward. I can’t remember where specifically this is, but in Arlathan Forest there’s a note from Strife to Bellara saying that she’s very smart, but that she should not attempt to build an eluvian from scratch even if she understands how they work (mind you, this girl was in the Lighthouse for maybe 20 minutes before she got the eluvian up and running again). This is pretty standard for what we know of Bellara—lots of inventive ideas, not a whole lot of impulse control (I say that with love because Bellara is one of my favorite characters). We see several codex entries within VG where Bellara seems to come up with ideas that could be weapons, and then is reminded that those aren’t good ideas (to which she always replies that she would never actually make them, but was just getting carried away with thinking about them). June, of course, was the one responsible for the magical and technological heights of the elven empire (according to Solas himself when he and Elgar’nan argue in Rook’s head). We don’t know much about June otherwise, but it’s probably safe to assume that he invented lots of things that he definitely should not have (think the nuclear bomb). At the end of Bellara’s character arc, she’s set up to be the same—the one with the advancement of the elven people set on her shoulders. She could either be someone who forges a new path…or someone who risks dangerous knowledge falling into dangerous hands. Knowledge vs. Danger. Curiosity vs. Malice. Regardless, the future of the elves’ technology is in her hands, just like June’s.

Dirthamen is the keeper of secrets and knowledge, and the most notable story of him involves him tracking down his brother Falon’din when he disappeared and went “beyond the veil,” whatever that means. In this story (and again I am relying heavily on the DA wiki here), Dirthamen intimidates/persuades two ravens named Fear and Deceit into leading him to Falon’din. When they find each other again, they guide elves searching for secrets in dreams or uthenera. There’s not a whole lot of information about Dirthamen, honestly, but from what we know about Neve, there are some similarities. Neve quite literally makes a living out of tracking people down and looking for secrets as a detective in order to help people in need, much like how Dirthamen tracked down his brother. You could even make an argument that her opponents in Dock Town (and Minrathous/Tevinter as a whole) are Fear and Deceit—people are scared of the Venatori, and it is the deceit and corruption of the people in power that keep the system broken. Neve’s arc culminates in either choosing between fear (that is, protecting Dock Town “at all costs” and working with a gang) or hope (being an inspiration to Dock Town when doing things “the right way”). The thematic choice would seem to indicate that the inspiration option is the best choice, thereby overcoming Fear and Deceit in Dock Town and Minrathous. I love her so bad.

Ghilan’nain is something of an eldritch horror in VG, and so at first I was hesitant to draw a parallel between her and Certified Cutie Patootie Lace Harding, but what I specifically want to focus on is how Ghilan’nain is associated with navigation and the halla in the idealized Dalish mythology. We first meet Harding in Inquisition, where we learn that she was a Fereldan farmer/shepherd who knew the area so well that she impressed the other scouts; she was soon promoted to head scout despite the fact that she was probably only 18 or 19 at the time. This is somewhat similar to Ghilan’nain’s ascension to the Evanuris as its youngest member. Further, in Harding’s banter in VG (I forget who with), she mentions that she volunteered for the Inquisition because the lost scouts kept showing up and scaring away her sheep. Harding cares a great deal for animals, plants, and wildlife (as evidenced by her room in the wildlife and how she loves to camp). In legends, Ghilan’nain loved the halla and cared for them. This may not even be entirely false (if one ignores the horrifying origins of the halla themselves), as there’s a note discovered in VG (once again, I forget where, I think it could be in Profane Weisshaupt) where she has to deny going “soft-hearted” for her original creations when communicating with Elgar’nan for wanting to check on their status after the millenia or so that they’ve been imprisoned. In terms of navigation, the parallels are fairly straight-forward: Harding is a scout, and the first thing she does upon being introduced in VG is guide Varric and Rook to Dumat plaza. She’s basically the VG’s GPS. I would also argue that there’s another parallel here as well: Harding has a connection with a Titan, and is able to use the magic of the Titans to move stones, connect to other dwarves, and a bunch of other cool things. We know from VG that Ghilan’nain is obsessed with the Blight, which we also know to be the “severed dreams” (i.e., the Tranquil-ification) of the Titans. Ghilan’nain uses the powers of the corrupted Titans, to some extent. Harding uses the power of pure Titans. Ghilan’nain uses the power of the Blight to “birth” dawkspawn and other horrific creations. We see from Harding’s penultimate personal quest that the dwarves were probably “birthed” from the stone (since the dwarves are able to survive despite being completely submerged within a literal rock). Depending on how one resolves her personal quest, Harding either remains true to herself and her compassionate ways, or she embraces anger. Although I have some questions about why the game chose to say that the red lyrium within the Titan is “not blighted, just angry,” there could be a possible parallel here between embracing the rage/madness of the Titans and Ghilan’nain embracing the blight (the mad dreams of the Titans). It was still kinda a weird writing choice though, I will admit. Finally, Ghilan’nain is the first of the escaped Evanuris to die—and, depending on your choices when you get to Tearstone Island, Harding is the first of the Veilguard to fall. If this is the case, they die mere moments away from each other. There’s also a very specific emphasis on Harding’s body not being recovered, and Rook saying that if she’s “still out there” that they’ll find her. In Ghilan’nain’s idealized mythology, she is killed, and Andruil brings her back as the first halla. It makes me wonder, with no small amount of horror, if Harding could return as a villain or blighted monster, considering that we watch her (or Davrin, depending on your choice) fall into a blighted pit (especially considering that plenty of horrible monsters have been made by creatures accidentally falling into pits that Ghilan’nain had left over from the elvhen empire).

Elgar’nan is described multiple times as the “firstborn” of the so-called gods. Given what we know from VG, this means that Elgar’nan was likely the first elf—that is, the first spirit that made themselves a body with the lyrium from the Titans. In the codex entry about Elgar’nan in DAO, it describes Elgar’nan’s “birth” like this: “The sun, curious about the land, bowed his head close to her body, and Elgar’nan was born in the place where they touched.” That sounds an awful lot like a spirit using lyrium to become a person with a physical body. Here we see the first possible parallel to Lucanis: as far as we know (or are told in VG), Lucanis is the first non-mage to get possessed by a demon/joined with a spirit. In this sense, he is the “first-born” of those kinds of abominations. In legend, Elgar’nan appreciated the beauty of the world—so much so that the sun (described as the “father” of Elgar’nan) grew jealous and razed it all to the ground out of anger (the specific phrase used is, “out of spite.”). I don’t have the screenshot, but I believe one of the descriptions for Lucanis/Spite in the game’s code or something (idk science stuff) was that Spite was originally a spirit of Passion, drawn to Lucanis’s love for and will to live. Lucanis also deeply loves Treviso and Antiva and the people within it. While it’s not a 1:1 ratio, I believe that the “sun” to Lucanis is Illario: the jealous relative who destroys things out of jealousy. In Tevinter Nights, Illario and Lucanis have a discussion about how Lucanis is clearly Caterina’s favorite and her clear first pick for successor of First Talon. Illario, jealous of Lucanis, joins with the Venatori and tries to have him killed. When that fails and Lucanis is recovered, he kidnaps Caterina before they can meet again (presumably because he could not bring himself to kill her, because he desired the sort of appreciation/favoritism she showed to Lucanis). In Elgar’nan’s story, the destruction of the beautiful things of the land (nature, etc.) caused the land to “split from bitterness and pain” and cry so much that the “pool of tears cried for the land became the ocean.” When Lucanis is tortured in the Ossuary, he is literally and figuratively at his lowest point—drowning in an ocean of sorrow and misery. In mythology, when Elgar’nan discovers what the sun does, he sets out in vengeance and decides that the best course of action is of course to fist-fight the literal sun. He wrestles with the sun until it is exhausted, and he casts it into the “abyss created by the land’s sorrow,” which probably just means the ocean. Only when Mythal told him that it was probably a bad idea to get rid of the actual sun does Elgar’nan relent, with the caveat that the sun will go back into the abyss every night (thereby creating the cycle of day and night); after this, Elgar’nan “remakes the world.” This is why Elgar’nan is associated with the sun and moon in elven mythology. Lucanis swears vengeance against the Venatori for imprisoning him and “killing” Caterina, much like how Elgar’nan swears vengeance against the sun, not realizing what such a course of action will bring him face to face with. Lucanis’s whole arc is about the struggle between darkness and light: he’s faced unimaginable cruelty and darkness, and now that he is free, he has to figure out a way to live his life in the light. Vengeance is what is familiar—sending a message via assassination. But what does it mean when the object of your vengeance is somebody who was once a light in your life? How does one move forward? If Treviso is blighted, Lucanis’s story is a bit darker: while he doesn’t kill Illario, he imprisons him. Symbolically, he seems to sentence Illario to a fragment of what he himself has suffered (although the Antivan prisons would likely not be as evil as the Venatori’s, I hope). If Treviso is saved, and one chooses the “forgiveness” option, Lucanis is choosing to move past his own darkness (while certainly not losing it completely) to rebuild. I’m aware this one might be a bit of a stretch, but that’s my two cents.

i have an analysis i’m working on rn about veilguard members and the evanuris and every time i think too hard about it i vibrate out of my skin. it’ll probably be my third ever post on this account and it’ll be a fucking MASSIVE one. i am so normal about dragon age actually