#Regret in reference to Veilguard being a game about regret

[lavellaned]

Actually I think one of the reasons why this game is so awful to get through is how it treats abuse, abusers, and abuse victims.

Under cut due to length of rambling:

First of all, Morrigan. Abused as a child by her mother, Flemeth aka Mythal, learned about the world and how to interact with it in a skewed way. Was treated in a way that no child should be by anyone let alone their parent.

Fast forward to Inquisition, particularly a worldstate in which Kieran is alive. The scene in the fade where Morrigan confronts Flemythal is one of the most important and special scenes in all of dragon age to me.

Growing up through abuse as a child you never think "I don't deserve this", you mainly think things like "Why is this happening to me?" and "Bad things happen to me." You know that these things are bad and make you feel bad, but when your baseline for how you should experience the world is abusive, you don't have the point of reference to think otherwise. And then you grow up. You look back on the abuse through the eyes of the child who experienced it but also through the detached, adult view that you currently have and have to reconcile the two. It's not easier nor pleasant. Getting to the age your abuser was/getting into the position of power your abuser had over you is difficult. Being at that stage and picturing yourself doing what was done to you to someone else is fucking sickening, and then you start to realize "I wasn't the problem, it WASN'T my fault, YOU are the one that's fucked up." But a lot of people can't and therefore the cycle of abuse continues.

But Morrigan does. She straight up tells her abuser "I will not be the mother you were to me." To have a character who survived childhood abuse be able to reach a point in their life where they can take back their personhood from their abuser is pretty damn important, actually. To this day I get weepy just thinking about it.

And then fucking veilguard happened.

Not only does it not matter if Kieran is alive or if Morrigan drank from the well (something that would BIND HER SPIRIT TO HER ABUSER), but Morrigan straight up let Mythal hitch a ride in her. The very thing that Morrigan tried to prevent ever since the first goddamn game? And we're all just supposed to accept and be ok with this?

The only way I can see this not being a complete character assassination of Morrigan is if Mythal just straight up possessed her unwillingly/killed her. Have Mythal use Morrigan as a information receptacle for new players, but also use old players' already-implemented relationship with her as a way to manipulate them. Either way, shit sucks.

Then there's the Crows. You know, the guild who takes children from brothels, orphanages, the streets and puts them through Hunger Games levels of training in which they either die or survive to become a slave assassin for the rest of their life. Not in veilguard. We're all just one big happy family. We rule Antiva, yippee!

Finally, there's Solas. One could argue his entire existence is the product of abuse, and everything that has happened in Thedas is because of it. I think framing his regrets as physical manifestations that want to kill him is a really interesting narrative choice. Unlocking the regret murals was one of the very few parts of this game that invoked a strong emotional response from me, not just because I'm an unapologetic Solas Enjoyer but because the implications are heartbreaking.

And then the game has you sit through the most fucking unbearable CBT group therapy session to talk about them with some of the most annoying damn people in Thedas who treat the literal apocalyptic levels of abuse Solas went through for millennia as something like a joke? And we the player are not given the option to challenge this? This game makes the point to force the player to agree with the flippant attitudes brought up from this.

Then brings up the final scene with Solas. Do I think the meeting with Mythal and Solas was handled well? Yes and no, but that's for another time. Solas is so far in the trenches of the trauma of abuse that he will not stop until his abuser pretty much tells him "I'm done abusing you." I think this was good and bad, again another time.

The way Solas interacts with his abuser is the direct flipside of how Morrigan does. You see more than one way someone can heal/not heal from it.

Morrigan, someone with arguable little power in the world, stands up against her abuser unflinchingly.

Solas, described through history as a GOD, someone with unfathomable amounts of knowledge and power, cowers and offers his abuser a literal weapon to kill him with, unprompted.

If this was a good game, it would be about regret but also about survivor's guilt, something that those who survived abuse have to deal with for the rest of their lives. But it's not, because it's a a bad game.

[mumms-the-word]

Yet another Veilguard update with the usual good, the bad, the ugly, and the me freaking out about minor references and callbacks haha

This one is very long sorry

So since the last update I have done as much side content as possible before heading to the Hossberg Wetlands and later Weisshaupt (which I just completed last night) which included, briefly, unlocking all of the solas regrets murals

And uh WOW was that whole deep dive a doozy. I definitely should have spaced out the murals over time rather than movie-marathoned them back to back. But the things I learned about Solas…it’s insanity

In a good way

In a really horrifying way

I loved that our theories about Solas being a spirit of Wisdom first were confirmed, and I lost my mind over the fact that the first elves were spirits who gained physical bodies by taking Titan blood (aka lyrium). And the fact that Solas CREATED THE BLIGHT by essentially making the Titans Tranquil?? And that’s why Dwarves don’t dream????

Losing my mind. Solas what have you DONE.

I still ahev to process it all haha but I do have a few thoughts

So far, I wish there was more engagement with these elements and the Chant of Light. The companions react and say that these reveals basically dismantle Andrastianism but the Chant has several allegorical parallels to what, apparently, really happened. The Maker’s first children were spirits, and all that…so I kind of wish the Chantry had a bigger presence in the game with more reactivity

But that’s a post for another day. For now, I reloaded back to only 3 murals unlocked so the team only knows the story up to Solas creating the Veil. I’ll rewatch the others later.

I got worried about being locked out of stuff so I went ahead and did as much side content as I could with a couple of exceptions. Turns out, I probably didn’t need to do that and it would have made more sense narratively if I hadn’t. More on that in a minute

The Siege of Weisshaupt mission was SO GOOD!! Like…the main missions are really where this game shines, I think. I have gripes with some of the companion conversations, but in the actual story missions, the action, the intensity, all of it is so good. And I thought Ghilan’nain turning her archdemon into a many-headed hydra creature was *chefs kiss* so cool. I love fighting big/unique stuff like that!

All that said the follow up scene with the team at the table leaves…a lot to be desired

Listen, DA games pride themselves on bringing together a team of companions that players adore and fall in love with. Naturally we enjoy helping out our companions because we like them. We don’t have to be told to help them because we just generally do that…and if we don’t then, rip, suffer the consequences

So I got a bit annoyed when the scene suddenly turned to a very overt “fix our problems” narrative

I don’t know, that feels so…forced to me. Varric literally tells me I have to solve everyone’s problems. Which is like…I was going to! Because they’re my friends! But being straight up told like “hey you have to solve everyone’s problems and stop their distractions or this team isn’t going to function” is like…I’m sorry are we adults or aren’t we? Why am I being told to babysit the team? Can you guys not pursue these distractions on your own rather than wait for me to give you permission? Did we all forget that two gods are out there rampaging? That they’re strong enough to destroy a fortress that stood against the blight and various conflicts for over 900 years? That they haven’t stopped and show no signs of stopping anytime soon?

But no, by all means, tell me in very obvious terms that my job is now to reconcile all your differences before I face the gods again. That doesn’t feel very handed at all.

Let me be clear. I love to help my companion. I love the idea that you build a team that works well because you have shaped them via your leadership skills. I love the idea that your team works well because you have invested in them. That’s really the heart of any DA game—gather your team, earn their loyalty, and see how well the friends you’ve made along the way assist you in the big battles to come.

But…that scene around the kitchen table could have been so much better, so much more nuanced, and far less “Solve their problems.”

To me, that scene should have been everyone fighting, calling out everyone’s distractions and mistakes, and essentially devolving into outright arguments over the table until Rook yells at everyone to shut up. Everyone is mad, everyone is upset. And then maybe the companions are like “sorry Rook, listen, I have a lot on my mind. I’m still going to help with the Big Problem but I’m also going to pursue this Other Thing whether you like it or not.” No suggestion that it’s now your problem to solve, but a heavy hint that it might get done more quickly if you help (which also gives you room to be an ass and not help). In this scenario, everyone ends up being very disgruntled with you, but you still have your hint that you need to pursue companion questlines if you want to see their cool abilities or special items or get them to be a Hero of the Veilguard or whatever…but that’s just my opinion

Basically I wanted subtly and tension. So much more tension.

What we got instead was a couple of annoyed comments and then Emmrich being like “oh dear we’re all distracted by the things that bother us” and everyone offering up distractions that, yes, need to be resolved…but it’s very easy to be like “hey bud the Hand of Glory and the Nadas Dirthalen can wait until the gods aren’t threatening to destroy the world I think.”

It’s not the worst scene in the world, but it could have been reframed better. Either frame it as “Sorry Rook but none of these factions trust you enough to aid you in the fight, you have to prove yourself to them” (and loop in the companion questlines that way) or show your team literally unraveling because they can’t get along or agree with you—now you see the evidence of what you need to fix, and nobody has to outright tell you to “solve everyone’s distractions.” It’s just implied. Because you saw them fighting. A lot.

Like duh I knew I’d have to resolve everyone’s problems if I want them to like me or stick around! That’s just what I’ve come to expect from RPG games like this. It’s an expectation of the genre. But I don’t want to be told that’s my job now. If anything it triggers my contrarian nature and now I want to see what bad ending I get when I don’t listen to the game’s extremely heavy push for me to deal with everyone’s issues

I won’t, but I’m tempted

I just…wanted it to be better. I want see everyone bitching at each other until everyone leaves in a huff and Rook just sits at the table, head in their hands like “oh my god everyone hates me and they hate each other and we’re going to die if everyone can’t get their shit together”

Then maybe Varric sits down next to them and goes, “Hey kid, did I ever tell you about the time Hawke tried to convince a Rivaini pirate, a weird abomination, a Dalish blood mage, a stiff-necked captain of the guard, a broody elf who glowed in the dark, and a few other friends besides to all agree to fight as a team to stop a qunari invasion in Kirkwall? It worked, more or less. By the end of the night, everyone had worked together enough to end up with one dead Arishok and an entire city’s gratitude.”

Maybe Rook looks up and says, “And how’d they manage that little miracle? Without everyone trying to kill each other in the process.”

And maybe Varric smiles and shrugs. “They had their differences, trust me. Half the time you couldn’t put two of them in a room together without a fight breaking out. But they all believed in one thing. They believed in Hawke.”

Then maybe there’s a pause, as he lets Rook consider that for a moment, before he stands up and says, “It’s a good bedtime story, in any case. I’ll let you sleep on it.”

Sigh. It just would have been cool…

Now in all fairness the scene felt even clunkier because I had actively been doing side quests and helping out my friends so it was like…it felt weird to have this implication that I’m not already helping them. It makes me think I shouldn’t do any of their side quests until after the Siege of Weisshaupt but who knows

I keep pendulum swinging back and forth between moments of brilliance and moments that leave me baffled and wondering who made some of these narrative/writing calls. I don’t hate the game by any stretch of the imagination. Like I said the Siege of Weisshaupt was amazing! And I loved the callbacks to precious games! You should have seen me live reacting and screaming about codexes in the Weisshaupt library haha But it’s like whiplash when something that good is followed up by a scene that feels excessively more hamfisted in comparison.

Anyway I am very busy this weekend and dunno when I’ll get to write another update soooo if you’re following for more, hope to give you more updates in the near-ish future!

[marianchurchland]

This is Alvo, my new canon warden in preparation for Veilguard. My RP aim for this run-through is to lean as hard as I can into the Regret theme, which (no surprise to anyone, I'm sure) makes for a rich and delicious read of all three games.

[felassan]

Thoughts on DA: Vows & Vengeance -

[info compilation post link] [more info on the podcast]

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this post is rather unstructured : )

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I know what BW said about how there won't be official transcripts, but I hope that they decide to post official transcripts of each episode if it's possible, as it's rly important for accessibility & inclusivity.

I like the title - the alliteration is fun, and the concepts of vengeance and revenge are a DA thematic staple atp. it's neat that it's free and the spacing of one episode per week until mid/late October will help pass the time until launch (the last podcast episode releases 2 weeks before DA:TV Release Day). it's also cool to see DA expand into new forms of media, and I'm excited that we will hear lots more lines from each of the 7 Veilguard companions. 👁️

here is one of the podcast writers, Jeremy Novick, on Twitter.

I’m really looking forwards to Taash and Davrin’s episodes of the podcast in particular ◕‿◕ it feels like we don't know much about them or their backstories relative to the other DA:TV companions at this point in time.

Nadia Carcosa, Drayden and Elio are described as being "podcast-exclusive" characters, I guess this means they will not appear in the game itself (which helps the podcast storyline stay self-contained and the podcast to remain as optional listening). but it would be cool if in the game there is some references to them here and there, like in dialogue and/or codex entries/notes etc. 😊

in the background image of the teaser trailer and what looks like the thumbnail for the podcast[?] on podcasting sites, the two faction symbols shown are the Mourn Watch and the Shadow Dragons. is this a coincidence/just since their symbols look cool, or are these two factions the factions with the biggest roles in the podcast storyline relative to the others? the penultimate episodes are the ones that focus on Emmrich and Neve 🤔

"revenge, redemption, and love": these themes mixed together often produce regret. and there was a quote somewhere in DA:TV marketing materials that said “For DA:TV [the game itself], from the start one of the biggest themes has been regret; how regret shaped peoples’ lives, how people deal with their regrets, how people maybe move past their regrets.”

Mae Whitman previous credits include: Avatar: The Last Airbender, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World Brigette Lundy-Paine previous credits include: Bill & Ted Face the Music, Atypical, I Saw the TV Glow Armen Taylor previous credits include: Diablo IV, Octopath Traveler II, Vinland Saga

I wonder when the podcast is set? maybe in the weeks to months before Varric, Harding, Neve and Rook go to Solas' ritual site in the game's prologue? I also wonder what lineages Nadia, Drayden and Elio are? If Drayden has a mysterious connection to the Fade, they're most likely to be human or elven, right?

cat burglar, thief, scoring jobs like the one described in the podcast's plotblurbs - these kind of plot beats remind me of what we learned about an earlier concept of DA:TV when the game was more about stuff like heists and spies.

Nadia being a thief unknowingly employed by the Dread Wolf to track down a powerful ancient artifact before finding herself tangled up in everything: this reminds me sm of one of the 'here's what the DA4 PC's backstory could be and how they could end up caught up in the narrative of the game'-speculation ideas I used to wonder about hhh.

a retired cat burglar.. maybe Nadia has ties to the Lords of Fortune? some of them seem to be more thiefy. although, being wanted by Tevinter authorities for crimes of theft, high treason and murder maybe points towards Shadow Dragons instead.

two lovers going on a job to get an artifact reminds me of Irian Cestes and Vadis from TN. "burglar" also gives me Hobbit/LOTR vibes :D I imagine that over the many years since DA:I, the Dread Wolf has employed many such people [unknowingly to them] on jobs like this.

Elio being "seemingly" banished to the Fade is interesting wording.. so is "banished" actually. (Elio's Fade banishment also makes me think of foreshadowing Solas' subsequent entry to Fade Jail in DA:TV.) ((shoutout to left-in-the-Fade-Hawkes' LIs who I can also imagine desperately searching for answers on a rescue mission across all of Thedas after learning that Hawke was left in the Fade in DA:I...))

Carcosa

I'm reaaally curious about what Drayden's mysterious connection to the Fade is all about and entails.

"a few [answers] they wish they hadn’t" 👁️...

the question is, what the powerful ancient artifact is, and why does Solas want it? if he wants it it's probably ancient elven, right?

On the trailer itself

"This chamber, it feels different from the cave. I can sense something. The Veil is thin here." - I'd guess this speaker is Drayden. it isn't Nadia, as we hear her later on. the speaker can sense the thin/thickness of the Veil and Drayden is said to have a mysterious connection to the Fade. at this point they're in some kind of, well, chamber, as the speaker's voice echoes and you can hear water dripping down the damp walls.

The announcer's voice is so deep hh!

To be wanted by Tevinter authorities for crimes including high treason, maybe Nadia is from Tevinter? treason is "the crime of betraying one's country, especially by attempting to kill or overthrow the sovereign or government." so to commit treason in Tevinter context, you're probably from Tevinter.

"Who the hell is Nadia Carcosa?" - this sounds like Varric. :>

"So, what's the mark?" - I'd guess this speaker is Nadia. they sound scrappy/seasoned (Nadia is nearly retired), and the speaker is probably asking for more details on the job they've just acquired to do. does she sound like she could be a dwarf to anyone else or is this just me? :D maybe that's just my daydreams hhh

"The Eye of Kethisca" quote: presumably the middle man who Solas hired to hire someone, thereby keeping his own identity secret

The Eye of Kethisca itself: this must be the "powerful ancient artifact" from the text blurbs. there are no hits for "Kethisca" on the DA Wiki, so this is a new name/thing. it must be creepy-deepy, because when it's mentioned in the trailer you can hear creepy voices whispering ominously. :D "Kethisca" doesn't sound elven, but you could easily have an artifact that's e.g. ancient elven but acquired another name or been called something else by others in the centuries since.

"The Eye was made from a rare gem mined here in the caves beneath us. It was crafted centuries ago by a powerful Dreamer." - Solas speaking. I wonder how oblique/lies of omission/technically true (you know what I mean? that thing he does) Solas is being here.. like maybe the Dreamer was an ancient elvhen Dreamer not a human Tevinter one, like maybe the centuries ago were centuries and centuries and centuries ago dating back to Elvhenan rather than later on temporally at say, a more recent time in history like the height of the Imperium. "Eye" makes me think of spherical things, "gem" makes me think of how lyrium (Titans' blood) is a mineral. caves makes me think of dwarfy things and the Deep Roads. as for "mined":

"The runes say the Evanuris fought the Titans. They mined their bodies for lyrium and... something else. It's not clear."

what if the Eye is the heart of a Titan, a foci? Solas' Orb was spherical and the hearts of Titans look spherical here in the Death of a Titan mural. the way he frames it makes it sound like the mark is a rare jewel mined from caves by a Tevinter human dreamer long ago before being crafted into something, but I wonder if it was, more technically, the heart of a Titan mined from the body of a Titan even longer ago by, say, a member of the Evanuris, before being crafted into a foci. Solas needed his own foci in DA:I to carry out his plans, and then it was broken. there was more than one foci in ancient Elvhenan; after DA:I and Trespasser, I could see a world/storyline in which, during the long years between then and DA:TV, Solas at some point learns that another one of the foci artifacts survived into the modern day, and decided to try and get his hands on it so that he can carry out his plan using another foci instead. and since the foci can do Fadey/Veily stuff, that could be how Elio got yeeted in there. reminds me a bit of the scene when the Inquisitor yeets Cory at the end of DA:I. (here I'm just speculating wildly for fun hhh. Solas' Orb doesn't really look like a gem etc. and the Lyrium Knife tears the Veil, so maybe this storyline was set before he got that or sth)

also I wonder where these caves are? beneath Minrathous? Solas has a hideout beneath Minrathous, as we know, and the deeper you go the more elfy things get.

Magister Andante: I think this is our first time hearing about this character. their name reminds me of Andraste.

"Magister Andante? It's about Nadia. She's about to do something quite reckless." - this sounds to me like Neve speaking. it kind of sounds like she's meeting the magister clandestinely, at night. she seems to know Nadia.

"Listen to me, you've been tricked. This isn't a simple grab-and-go for the money. There are bigger forces at play. We have to put this back and leave." - I'd guess this speaker is Elio. it sounds like at this point he and Nadia have found the Eye and taken it, but he's trying to get her to see reason/warn her. it's a tense moment with the sound of battle all around them.

"I'm sorry, but I won't let you pay for my mistakes." - Nadia refusing to listen to Elio. the sounds of battle get louder and it sounds like there's an explosion or something? plus the dragon roar. maybe Mr dragon is breathing fire everywhere. :D I wonder as well if it's Elio grunting in pain at this point. I'd guess this is the moment where Elio is seemingly yeeted into the Fade perhaps?

"Nadia, I presume. I am Solas, and I am, I believe, the one that you seek." - Solas again obviously, only this time sounding way more godly and Fen'Harelly in persona (booming) than he did when he was talking more demurely/plainly about what the Eye is.

"The name I seek is the Dread Wolf" - Nadia again obviously :) so something in the job went wrong, she figures out who hired them, and goes to find the Dread Wolf presumably because she either blames him for Elio being stuck in the Fade and/or she thinks he might be able to get him out or tell her how.

"The Eye will destroy you" - and this sounds like Neve again maybe?

[nadas-dirthalen]

I Chose the Wrong Romance in a Game About Regret, and It Made the Game Better

A love letter to BioWare about Dragon Age: the Veilguard.

I don't have the thoughts in me for a formal review of all the aspects of gameplay at this time, nor do I have the brainpower for dissecting my every theory just yet.

But tonight, I want to write to you about the thing that stuck with me the most about Dragon Age: the Veilguard. And that is... I chose the wrong romance for my Rook, and it made the game unforgettable.

Veilguard endgame spoilers below the cut.

(I just liked this tiny screencap, okay. This specific dialogue isn't what I want to talk about.)

For a few days now, I've been trying to think of how to phrase what I want to say. The emotions I felt in the endgame of Veilguard were massive—to the tune I became dehydrated. To convey why that was, I think I have to start at the beginning.

This is the story of Winged Death: the party, the romance, and the headcanons that formed a nightmare combination to break me emotionally.

Meet my Rook: Thenera Sa'renan Aldwir, or Nera for short. A Veil Jumper who lost her mom to blight sickness when she was a teen; who tried to find the Wardens at Skyhold only to learn they'd been exiled; who joined the Veil Jumpers to protect people, but also honor her mother's memory. (Yes, all of this becomes relevant.)

Her name is taken from elven: Thenera from theneras (dream), and Sa'renan from sa (one; one more) and renan (voice). I used the patronymic system outlined in Project Elvhen: Sa'renan was her mother's name. I chose all this in late August, long before I'd really theorized anything substantive about Veilguard.

I did not know how much it would hurt.

All through the game, I got more and more into Nera's head. This was helped out a lot by how much footage I'd seen in September, how I knew Nera would be the "throw a chair while beating up an entire bar" Rook rather than try any attempt at diplomacy. How I knew she'd punch the First Warden without second thought, despite not knowing what the First Warden had done before Weisshaupt. She was always the "hit things with rocks to fix them" Veil Jumper to me, just like Bellara's dialogue references.

It also meant that I felt a lot of her insecurity in the early game: her doubt in her own intellect; her insecurity in her Dalish identity from being kicked out of her clan as a child and living in Wycome as a young adult; her acute awareness of her own trauma and fear around all things blight. To mirror my Inquisitor, who had Dirthamen vallaslin, I gave Nera Falon'Din vallaslin, to signify that she had seen too much death at far too young an age.

I even picked a party for her "default" group: Lucanis and Davrin. Because of Nera's Falon'Din vallaslin, Lucanis' demon wings, and Assan's battlefield presence, I gave my group a name: Winged Death.

And I loved them.

But just like I'd headcanoned a lot of Nera's backstory, I also hypothesized a lot about the Lucanis romance. And, to put it briefly... the game did not match what I expected, and the Lucanis romance was not to my enjoyment, personally. (If you like it, good! I'm glad you do! This post is about Nera, though.)

Right away, Lucanis asked about Nera's favourite drink. When she said tea and he made a disgusted noise and nothing else, I reloaded, choosing the "better" answer of liking the same coffee as him—something that prompted more dialogue. For me, in hindsight, this was the first moment I should have seen that for all Lucanis' charm, he would not fit my gruff, chair-throwing Veil Jumper. But I'd committed, and I was determined to see it through just once.

I didn't want Veilguard to be the story of an elf romancing an elf—for me, that was my Inquisitor's story. I wanted a new flavour.

Only... Lucanis' romance, for Nera, did not pick up much from there. Almost the entirety of act 2 was silent—and that was after saving Treviso. Lucanis seemed to care more for Neve and Minrathous than he did for Rook, in my perception. By then, I'd sunk into Nera's headspace, and I could feel her feeling neglected. I could feel her insecurities rearing their ugly heads: was she too blunt? Not intelligent enough? Somehow too elven, even for a Crow, whose organization is made up of so many elves?

You know who she constantly found acceptance in, though? Whose approval triggered almost every time Nera answered a question honestly, in the stern way that she was predisposed to do?

Davrin. The other half of Winged Death. The one who, now, was bickering with Lucanis almost nonstop in party banter, each constantly jabbing the other about how death would come for them, death would claim all they'd known, their choices would bury them.

Lucanis had precious few opportunities to discuss Nera being an elf; an elf Rook facing down their own gods. But Davrin? Davrin talked about it so much, he would know the horror of being called Da'len by Elgar'nan.

Together, they survived the Cauldron. And where did they shelter? In the ribcage of a slain archdemon. But not just any archdemon.

Zazikel. Who has been confirmed now, in a Veilguard codex, as Falon'Din's archdemon.

And where were the griffons allowed to go, at the end? Arlathan.

I could never have foreseen those parallels, and yet? There they were, piling up too late. I'd already made Nera's choices for her, and I'm not someone who would normally attempt a love triangle.

(She's so pleased with their shenanigans. Just look at that totally carefree and happy face.)

Lucanis' content dried up for Nera, but stayed pretty consistent for Neve—to the point that she had begun to feel sincerely cast aside. I began playing her with that mindset: as if she'd been set adrift, even as she locked in Lucanis' romance.

Around 45 hours into my ~60 hour playthrough, I found myself thinking... maybe I try the Davrinmance next game. Maybe I reroll Nera, even as a Veil Jumper again, to see those griffons in Arlathan. To see two Dalish elves haunted by the same ghosts, and see how they grow. I talked to friends about it. I even headcanoned some more, trying to see how Nera's narrative and personality might slot in with Davrin's questline.

In my head, that looked a little like Nera realizing she felt stronger kinship and connection with Davrin, but denying that to herself. She was, after all, locked in with someone else.

I let myself laugh at this, taking more screenshots of Nera and Davrin than of Nera and Lucanis, right up until the beginning of act 3.

And that's how BioWare got me.

If you're here, you know what comes next. I didn't.

I thought I needed Harding to potentially face down Solas, thanks to her line about wanting to look him in the eye after one of Solas' memories. I thought, maybe, some dialogue would unlock by having Harding in the party during any potential final confrontation.

This was the second time I went against Nera's own character: I chose to keep Harding at Nera's side, rather than Davrin. I did it for my Inquisitor.

And at first, I thought Davrin was surviving my choice.

I even felt happy—proud—that I freed him during the Ghilan'nain fight. I thought if I delayed too long, he might die to the fight's mechanics. But he survived that, too.

Then, the worst played out before my eyes: Lucanis going to take the shot at Ghilan'nain. Being caught. Davrin, racing in to defend. Being impaled. Lucanis hitting Ghilan'nain, only to appear suddenly dead—dead, somehow, how could he be dead, I'd just seen him?—seconds later.

Because of Arlathan, I'd thought this was just another Elgar'nan trick. Solas would come to save us soon. He had to. This was just fake-Solas, conjured by Elgar'nan to make Rook lash out or feel lost. Right?

It didn't hit me until I was in the Fade, and Solas was gone. Until Neve's statues were everywhere, because Nera had chosen Neve to risk that dangerous magic. Neve, who was her very antithesis; who was human enough and sophisticated enough and eloquent enough in ways my spellblade had struggled with reconciling since her teen years.

Saying it was my fault, that my Rook chose this for her—and she had. Her decision was motivated by her favour for Bellara.

I think this is when my Rook stopped denying things to herself. Right here.

This was the person she was closest with in her own party. This was the person who shared her feelings on both her culture and the blight. This was the person who brought joy to her days, with more meaningful dialogues (in Nera's opinion!) than Lucanis had had since act 1.

It is hard to put into words how hard this moment hit me. She had chosen wrong—and I had chosen for her. I was reminded of Taash's line from after Memory #2: "There was stuff he wanted to tell her. But he waited too long. And then she was dead."

And then she was dead.

My Rook knew why Fade Jail held her so well, in that moment. Even before the Varric reveal that had my tear ducts begging for mercy.

The game's mechanics had done that to her. Locked her into a romance with Lucanis (my choice, hellbent on seeing it through), didn't let her leave, didn't allow for her to say anything akin to, 'Hey, Davrin, not in this worldstate... but how about the next one?' (and all of those, for the record, are 100% understandable, and just the nature of video games!)

Lucanis continued to have little in the way of content that fit Nera, and was First Talon, to boot. Nothing in the game could change that; games aren't designed that way. He was destined for a life she was never going to enjoy, locked in to that choice—and she, and I, should've figured it out sooner.

We didn't. Varric was dead. Everything had been a lie. We'd been duped; played. We were never smart enough; together, we were doomed all along.

Every insecurity I'd imagined for Nera came crashing down. And all of them, I'd gleaned from hints in Companions Week. From the footage that released on September 19, showing Rook's backstory choices. From the overall tone of the promotional material we saw, and the strong emphasis on companions, and the declaration of the theme of regret.

And it culminated in me crying harder than I have at any piece of media.

Ever.

Ever.

BioWare gave me every hint I needed to make a fitting Rook, and every single choice they showed me I could make was a weapon. That's why I not only accept, but appreciate the 'spoilers' that we got from Bioware beforehand. That's why I am so far from jaded about the Lucanismance. I could not denounce this experience if I tried, and you know why?

Because through Lucanis' continued flirtatious banter with Neve, the way he stays continually animated so close to her, and the way he gives the same mid-combat praise to Neve as to Rook, my Rook felt like a woman scorned. And it made the game BETTER.

I wouldn't have cried so hard, for so long, if Nera was allowed to be happy. I wouldn't have been shaken to my core as a Solavellan, wondering if there really could be a light at the end of this long, dark tunnel.

The game wouldn't have hit me like it did if Lucanis hadn't come to Rook to declare his feelings only after she had spent time mourning Davrin and Assan. It wouldn't have hurt so good if Lucanis' dialogue afterward never mentioned his worry for exclusively Neve, and not the loss of Davrin—who he'd travelled with all game long.

But Solas had done it: he had molded Nera into a creature of pure regret.

And I, through my determination to try a romance that turned out not to fit my Rook, had let him.

The way it was structured, Lucanis' every sweet word rang hollow after Nera was freed from the Fade, and it made Davrin's, Varric's, and (what I thought was) Neve's deaths hurt that much worse.

There was nothing that could fix the pain in Nera's heart, the pain of her wrong choices not just in failing to romance Davrin, but failing to question Solas, failing to notice peculiarities about "Varric" in the Lighthouse. She felt like she failed, and she had. Undeniably. Because no matter where the conclusion of the game would take us, she'd never end up happy. She'd never want the life of a First Talon's spouse.

Every piece of her character lined up with regret, all at once. It all clicked into place, all in two soul-crushing hours.

Her name is Thenera Sa'renan Aldwir—and she was the victim of a dream of just one voice. She wears Falon'Din vallaslin, and was given a moment to spend time alone with the many, many dead.

Falon'Din: friend of the dead. That was what Nera had become, wasn't it? Because her closest party member—and what might have been her truer love—would not be coming back. Because I could feel that a part of her did not want to leave Fade Jail, and that Emmrich really did have to pull her out.

Winged Death destroyed her.

She rained down fire and lightning all through parts 13 and 14. She became Wrath and Thunder. I let her hit enemies harder than she had to, wasting her mana at every opportunity. Let her vent her every frustration. All I could think of, through the hurt, was this codex.

Elgar'nan, Wrath and Thunder, Give us glory. Give us victory, over the Earth that shakes our cities. Strike the usurpers with your lightning. Burn the ground under your gaze. Bring Winged Death against those who throw down our work.

Nera became all that was left of Winged Death, having let Lucanis fight with the Crows, taking Taash and Harding instead.

Elgar'nan was resistant to all her magic in that final fight. She was weakest at the end, and I didn't want to change her specialization to avoid that fact. She was broken, deep down. Solas' happy ending did not fix what the game had done to Nera's heart.

She, the other half to my Inquisitor, ended up with the opposite fate. Where my Inquisitor's journey on the din'anshiral was ending (or at least, was no longer alone), Nera had thought she had the companionship she wanted, only to wind up on the din'anshiral alone, with no way of recovering Davrin.

Which brings me to her last parallel: Solas' devotion to Mythal. Saying that if he did not tear down the Veil, then "I—she would have died for nothing."

To love someone and say nothing; it twisted them both up inside. Rook and Solas, always intended to be mirrors. One death, enough for each of them to bring the Eldest of the Sun to his knees. To change the elven pantheon forever.

I don't know how I managed to stumble upon this level of pain, but I could not be gladder that I did.

So, at the end of this extremely long post, here is my praise for BioWare. You mad geniuses, if any of you ever, ever see this... you wove regret into this game so well, so deeply, that my own passing thoughts about romance beats and game mechanics wound up stabbing me an additional time in Fade Jail, just as deep as the wound of Varric's death.

So well was this narrative constructed that I found my Rook in every corner of this story, even its tiniest references twining with every headcanon I had made.

Veilguard is so good, so profound, that a romance that did not work for me made the game better. That, to me, is the mark of a kickass narrative: one that fits almost any headcanon while still delivering on a deep, resonant theme.

BioWare couldn't have known that my party would be "Winged Death." Couldn't have known Nera, or her position as a Veil Jumper, or her doubt in her own intellect and her own ability to love. Yet, that is the beauty of Veilguard and of Dragon Age in general: they don't have to know. The writing is brilliant enough that it fits as much as one single story can in terms of possibility, while still hitting home with the same theme for everyone.

So thank you, BioWare. Thank you to every writer, to every animator, to every amazing, talented human whose hands and minds touched this game.

I needed the cry after a hard year, and you all delivered in the best way. I'm doing the Davrinmance now—because I think it's right to try it, and I think Nera deserves it—but this run will always hold the dearest place in my heart. The one where the regret bloomed, in part, because of jokes and headcanons I had made in the middle of a romance I did not enjoy, wishing for a different second playthrough.

The one where it all stabbed me, all at once. You bastards. (affectionate)

[keepittoyourshelf]

Sometimes it really is all about sex.

Let’s talk about morally gray characters again. I just finished playing Dragon Age: Inquisition in prep for the Veilguard release and Solas is literally the textbook example of what morally gray character is. No spoiler warnings because the game is fucking ten years old, already.

TLDR is Solas is one of your companions (romanceable if you’re playing a female elf) who actually turns out to be an ancient elven spirit of some sort that is actively working to undermine your efforts. He was responsible for creating the Veil, as an act of revenge against his fellow elven spirit-gods for killing his bestie Mythal. This unfortunately had unforeseen consequences of cutting the elven people off from the Fade and ensuring that they were no longer immortal. He’s now working to reverse this mistake, despite the fact that doing so will essentially destroy the player’s world and wipe out all non-elves. Or something to that effect.

If you play the Trespasser DLC (highly recommended since I don’t think Veilguard will make much sense otherwise, and you will not get the full impact of the Solas romance if you pursue that path), you’ll get to talk to Solas at the end and he is genuinely regretful and remorseful, and not just for how this will affect his friend/lover, but how it will affect all people. This is despite knowing the cost. He knows the cost, is fully aware of it, is remorseful about the pain and suffering it will cause, and yet is willing to move forward anyway.

Another example I’ve referred to before? Kaz Brekker. Think of how fucked up what he did to Pekka Rollins re: his kid was. Disregard how fucked up Pekka was in turn, because two wrongs don’t make a right, right? Kaz didn’t care. Kaz has never really cared who gets hurt so long as it’s not people he actually cares about and he achieves his ends. It’s literally anything goes. We as readers can still “cheer” for him conscience free because ostensibly the people he’s acting out against are all pretty much trash human beings, but you have to think that statistically innocents are caught in the crossfire, and yet Kaz dgaf. No explanations, even though they would make total sense in context without actually justifying the actions he takes (because they are wrong), just revenge. We as readers aren’t necessarily expected to like what he does. But we should understand it.

Lestat de Lioncourt is the same way. It’s obvious in the books, but quicker and easier to digest via the TV show that’s currently airing on AMC. Lestat is straight-up a petty, jealous, vengeful bitch (though he never beat Louis the way it’s shown on the show, so take that aspect with a grain of salt). Lestat also suffered a seriously abusive childhood and his experience of being turned was tantamount to rape. He doesn’t always go after evil-doers, though later on in the series he goes after them almost exclusively, with the occasional slip-up. Yet we still love him and cheer for him. Is it because he’s handsome and charming and witty? Yeah, mostly. Does he make excuses for what he does? Not really. He might explain his motivations, but he doesn’t excuse the evilness of his actions. He knows they’re wrong and does them anyway.

Astarion from Baldur’s Gate 3 is another great example, though his morally grey status can be considered arguable depending on whether or not you Ascend him (and consequently doom 7000 presumably innocent souls, including children). For those that have played, you know Astarion’s past is as traumatic as it gets. That in itself explains away a lot of his attitude, though I personally believe he was a sassy dick even before all that happened. The way he manipulates Tav and the other characters though, all of that is motivated by self-preservation as a result of his past abuse. If you explore his romance path, you talk to him enough to know that he knows what he’s doing is wrong, and he’s regretful for it, to a point. He’s definitely not regretful about every mean thing he’s done though, that needs to be made clear. Does he offer excuses? No, not a one. He explains his motivations though, and he’s sorry for whatever pain it causes insofar as it relates to Tav (either as a friend or a lover), but everyone else can pretty much fuck off. So yeah, he’s not free of his asshole status just by virtue of being abused, but it does explain his actions enough to let the player still like him and romance him in spite of it all (if the hair alone wasn’t enough to make you turn a blind eye, that is).

This is all leading up to me once again explaining that RHYSAND FROM ACOTAR IS NOT MORALLY GREY. He never has been and he never will be. What is the difference between him and anyone I’ve mentioned above? Chapter 54 in ACOMAF really says it all. Up until that point, Rhysand was the villain. Feyre could not in good conscience explore her attraction to him because he was the bad guy, and head of the bad guys. Literally everyone else in that world thinks of him as evil and is fearful of him. This is by Rhysand’s own design for, well, reasons. Until Chapter 54, where he deconstructs, in practically bulleted-list format, every single bad thing he has been shown to do in the books up until that point. This is needed because since Feyre is narrating, she’s not privy to his inner thoughts and can’t possibly know he’s not really evil, and thus cannot justify fucking him. Killing kids and innocent people? He was under the influence of Amarantha. In order to save the majority, a small minority had to be sacrificed. Let me give a tip here: If someone is saying they do something bad for the greater good, they are 1). Most definitely not morally grey and 2). Quite possibly a nazi. Abusing Feyre mentally and physically? Necessary to keep his cover, so he could continue to protect the majority for the greater good, or undermine Amarantha, which he never really managed to do in the 50 years he was held captive, or whatever. Sometimes he did it because he could find no other way to be near her because even then he was So In LoOoOvE. The whole point of that fucking chapter is to show the reader that there were good/romantic motivations behind bad actions, which in SJM-speak equals good. Unless you’re Tamlin, in which case you are still evil. Why does this need to happen? So SJM can write mid-level smut guilt free.

Chalk it up to religious guilt or societal pressure, but Kaz, Solas, Astarion, Lestat, and others have shown time and time again that you can do bad things and still be considered good enough to justify romantic interest, or friendly, if that’s your bag. The line in the sand really comes in having awareness that what you did was bad, not really caring about it, and most importantly, not needing to completely erase a bad past based on one or two actions/statements/beliefs (or because they’re just good looking). Even if you do not romance them, you can at least understand some of what they do, even when it is bad, because of their history, their obvious remorse, or just their fucking charisma etc.

One could argue that Chapter 54 would not have been required if SJM didn’t think we needed to read Chapter 55 guilt-free, or at least without being able to so easily equate Rhys with Ted Bundy (a handsome, charming psychopath). Rhysand does not express remorse over the acts themselves, so much as he expresses remorse over the fact that the fact that he did them, for whatever reason, could prevent him from getting what he wants. The reader, by virtue of Feyre’s limited and biased POV, is not given permission to let Rhys into their hearts and hoohas until we know that he was forced to do bad things. Bad things that never, ever would have happened otherwise. So it’s okay that she wants to have sex with him.

Solas, Lestat, Kaz, Astarion - they all do bad things. They all know they are doing bad things. Not everything they do is bad (that’s an important point to make), but when they do bad things, they do them with full knowledge that they are bad things, and that good people will suffer. Sometimes they care, sometimes they don’t. The reader cannot say unequivocally that they are either good or bad, because their actions can be understood when looked at in context of their history or their motivations. They cannot be entirely excused. I.e. A wrong thing done for the right reasons is still a wrong thing. It’s still murder even when it’s done in self-defense, and you always have a choice. You never have to do something. The distinction is whether you are willing to do a wrong thing to avoid something you don’t like happening (I.e. you or someone you love dying, or feeling intense pain). However, that doesn’t make murder suddenly not murder. A reason is not a justification. You just choose to do it for a reason. If you don’t (and are doing it for fun) then you are just evil, and most definitely not morally grey.

The key difference is that the reader (via Feyre) is told repeatedly that Rhysand is no longer bad for having done wrong things because he did them for the right reasons. He is no longer the villain he was in book 1 by virtue of Chapter 54 in book 2. Solas is still the villain (and in fact is the main antagonist of Veilguard); so are Kaz, Lestat, and Astarion, depending on who you ask. When other characters in their respective worlds offer their personal opinions on said characters, some will be favorable, some not. We are at least allowed the opportunity to see a different POV and make that choice for ourselves. There’s continuous ambiguity. The ambiguity is the literal grey area.

This is not the case with Rhysand and this is why he can never be morally grey. We are told he was the noble hero all along, he is literally retconned as such (much like Spike was in BtVS, because Buffy-as-heroine could never justify living someone like him otherwise). He was reformatted so much, in fact, that he’s actually thought by some to be deserving of being king of all Prythian. Not just other characters, but by the reading audience at large. His bad things are no longer bad because he did them for the right reasons (or that dogwhistle of a statement, for the greater good).

How do I know this? Because Rhysand is consistently juxtaposed, by SJM’s own hand, by virtue of Feyre’s narration, with Tamlin. Over and over and over again. Now, technically Tamlin has also done bad things for the right reasons (protecting Feyre, helping his subjects) but he remains the villain. If another character tries to say Rhysand is bad (I think Tarquin does, but I could be wrong) they are either wrong or just don’t understand or are under emotional duress and are incapable of seeing the truth. Tamlin does not deserve to have his actions looked at in context (the way we do with Solas, Kaz, etc) because….well, I don’t have a good explanation for that, because SJM herself hasn’t offered one, other than repeatedly showing every other character in the book saying he’s a bad guy and doesn’t deserve to be forgiven. Purely by comparison’s sake, there is literally no reason in a fact based world where one can say without question that what Tamlin did to Feyre is worse than anything Rhysand has done. They both physically hurt her. They have both confine her without their consent. You know what Tamlin has never done though? Touch Feyre sexually against her will. He didn’t engineer situations where he mentally abused her just so he could be near her. That’s not romantic, it’s sociopathic. Fantasy is fantasy, sure, but you can’t defend that even in context of an alleged “fantasy morality” because we are humans and can only look at these things on the context of lived human experiences. There is no situation in real life, anywhere, where mentally or sexually abusing someone is justifiable for any reason, ever. Bottom line, all arguments to the contrary invalid. Any time someone comes out against Rhys, they either retract their statements, are reviled themselves (hello Nesta) in the narrative, or just in the fan community itself.

I haven’t read the third Crescent City book because I finally reached my limit for bullshit, but from the discourse I’ve seen Bryce has been getting a lot of hate for thinking Rhysand is a dick, or something to that effect. Right or wrong, it’s at least more evidence of SJM and the audience’s own bias in favor of Rhysand….and that’s really who these screeds are directed at. The audience. Rhys defenders are wrong when they say he is morally grey. He is not when other characters aren’t allowed to voice opinions against him without having the narrative over-emphasize their own faults at the same time. The text must remain objective and somewhat open-ended. SJM is as biased a writer as they come.

So I guess you could excuse all the word vomit here and just say that actually being considered morally grey is predicated on multiple opinions (it doesn’t necessarily need to be multiple narrators/POVs, but the audience needs to be presented with an alternative opinion in a way where it’s not immediately dismissible). SJM has never shown any indication that that will happen, because even when opinions other than Feyre’s are introduced they either echo her sentiments or we have someone else shooting them down in response, or the character in question is repeatedly shown to be flawed themselves.

Moral of the story? Stop wasting time on SJM and play Dragon Age: Inquisition or Baldur’s Gate 3 instead. Story is better, there’s so much room for interpretation (which makes replay/re-read value increase) and the dudes are just hotter. Sorry not sorry.

Even if Solas does look like an egg. He’s a hot egg.

[madameevil]

HUGE VEILGUARD "Regrets of The Dread Wolf" QUEST COMPLETE SPOILERS

Things learned & my thoughts/interpretations

1. The first elves were spirits given physical form by stealing/using lyrium (Titan blood).

- Explains why Elven magic is different.

- Explains references to spirit or demons in prominent elf names.

- Explains how Mythal body hopped her way through the ages.

2. The Titan's took their blood being stolen (rightfully so) as a threat and war broke out between the Elves and Titans. Solas crafted the first lyrium dagger at Mythal's request to sever the Titan's from their emotions and dreams (like making them tranquil??). However in doing so the Titans became crazed or maddened. This act created the first blight as the maddened Titan's blood infected others.

- Explains dwarves disconnect from the fade/dreams

- Explains disappearance of The Titans

- Explains red lyrium

3. After their victory, some Evanuris began to use the blight for their own benefit. While not directly stated, I almost wonder if in doing so this led to their corruption. Possibly some metaphor about the influence of outsiders corrupting a culture. Unsure. Needs more thoughts. It seems like their hunger for power grew after this. Solas warns Mythal. Mythal talks to the Evanuris and is killed. Solas rebels fully and after much fighting, Solas performs a ritual using the lives of the Evanuris themselves (blood magic??) to trap them within their own palace alongside the blight their previous war unleashed. We also know something went wrong. The Veil wasn't supposed to cut off everything just serve as a prison.

- Explains what the golden city was ( Ancient Elven palace turned prison)

- Explains why it was blackened (Trapped in with the blight. When the Magister's broke through they created a small pinhole for the blight to escape as well as some pieces of other influences.)

This is really interesting because it directly contradicts how the Andrastian faith sees it. It's an example of how the faith interpreted something utilizing their own biases and erased or masked another culture's history at the same time. (Honestly fucked up but this happens A WHOLE LOT IRL as well)

4. Mythal's essence that was body hopping in Flemeth was absorbed by Solas (power wise) the fragment remaining did seek shelter in Morrigan. There is another piece out in the Crossroads from when she was struck down originally that's been trapped.

I don't know how it will fully play out but this answers a lot of questions that have been plaguing the game series. While not perfect, I do enjoy all of this lore finally connecting what we've been slowly uncovering for years.

Let me know if I clearly missed something or you interpreted something differently!

[iniziare]

DAV Spoilers. Or at least, my "general game opinions". I'll be vague in terms of the game's conclusion, so you don't have to worry about spoilers. Though unless you've finished most of the game (roughly halfway act 2, or just around part 10 in terms of Steam achievements), not all of this will make sense to you. But in short: I like it, I like it a lot.

First off, I need to be honest and say that I went into Veilguard as an absolute critic with the expectation that as a fan of the older games and their lore, I was going to rip into it. After all the news of the team crumbling, I simply lost all faith. But worst of all, I was going to do so while potentially not even playing the game. But in all of my rationality, I always say that one only ever has a right to judge something, after having given it enough of a fair chance. So that's what I did (and admittedly, I had some hype simmering in my heart to see the ending of a story that had become very dear to me), and I don't regret it. Dragon Age: Veilguard, in my opinion, is deserving of praise, and is unworthy of the bad reviews it's gotten. Alright, this is only part of my opinion— but it got a little ramble-y, so forgive me.

Rook. I thought that it was going to be impossible to get me hooked on another protagonist, especially in today's society where people seem to prefer a 'make your own' approach, as opposed to my personal preference of a pre-written character. For instance, I always had a clear preference for Hawke vs. the Warden and/or Inquisitor, but that's just me— I don't like 'creating' my character when I play, I simply want to be told an established story (AC Valhalla is an example of a massive dislike for me). But again, I'm aware that this comes down to preference. Now, I was afraid that Rook would be an even blanker canvas, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn differently. Rook is incredibly reminiscent to me of Hawke, without being a copy in whatsoever way. I'm delighted to have the sarcastic option back (and as many, I loved that it was reacted to by Solas), as it really adds some wonderful personality into the mix. To add to that, I love that it's Rook who is the 'comical relief' without being actually outright comical to a point where it's too much, which would then risk taking away from the weight of the story. Bioware chose a perfect balance here. Outside of that, I very much appreciate the backstory options. My first playthrough had me picking the Crows out of curiosity and as an ode to an old favorite's origins (hi, Zevran), and it was very fun. I enjoyed the consistent mentions and references of the tales of her past after I'd chosen them, and I find enjoyment knowing that even the small details change a bit, such as the verbal reactions to the ziplines. I also was very happy to see her interact well with Solas, because that was another big concern of mine, as I was very worried that there might have been a decision made to add in any sort of flirtations (despite knowing Weekes likely wouldn't go there, based on Solas' foundation). Rook and Solas' dynamic is one I very thoroughly enjoy in exactly the form it was presented in. Up until the very end of the story, she stayed consistent with my choices, and had me seated here with blurry emotional vision on occasion. And while those who know me know that I can get very emotional over details in games, it isn't actually that easy to get me there initially. But good job, Bioware, Rook is a worthy, and wonderful addition to your lineup of protagonists. Good job.

Solas. God, the consistency of his character in this and DAI has driven me wild to the extent of a rabid dog. It is so good, I'm wildly impressed. If there was ever a character that I could give up all of my other characters for, I genuinely think it would be Solas. He is incredible. I was thrilled to see the connection to Mythal more properly addressed, and while I know that there's many firm opinions out there on this dynamic (my own write-up will be incoming), it was made clear that their dynamic was always one of utmost fundamental importance, at least to Solas and his motivations. That's my big thing, Mythal's perspective aside, I think that it was imperative that we learned just why Mythal was such a 'final transgression' and catalyst for all of his actions (though don't worry, this isn't me taking away his accountability). And from a personal point of view, while Solas' origins were hinted at already in DAI, it was nice to see it confirmed that he, and the others, indeed originated as spirits. And in that, it is good to have learned how he became 'twisted' from his nature as a spirit of wisdom, to one of pride. I think that's fundamental to his character, and I also greatly enjoy the elaboration on some of Cole's lines in DAI about Solas, and who we now know for sure was Mythal: 'He did not want a body. But she asked him to come. He left a scar when he burned her off his face.' A lot of things hit vastly differently now, when you look back and you realize you have confirmed answers finally in the palm of your hand. I thoroughly questioned Mythal when I went for her essence, reloading multiple times as to ensure that I got as much lore as I could. And I hurt, especially since the end of the game. As I said, I won't spoil, but the ending has left me emotionally scarred in more ways than I could ever explain. That interaction, that emotional release was everything to me, and it was good to see it, even if I could barely see my screen anymore at one point. Weekes did Solas justice in so many ways, and while I initially had a little bit of a peeve at a decision in the game towards the end, my rationality had kicked in, and it was a logical decision. I'm happy, I think, if that's the right word that I can use for this. Also, seeing the scene from the trailer was so good, I screamed at my screen. I just, I'm in total and utter love with this man.

Dragon Keep/choices. Let me actually get to my point of criticism, but know I'm approaching this rationally, and not emotionally. I need Bioware to confirm their canon within these games, and if they officially want to let go of the 'decisions that we once made', then just say it and state it somewhere. Tell us what the decisions are. But that aside, I do want to play light devil's advocate, because I think that it's important. Since the revelation about Morrigan in specific, I've been caught in the push and pull of 'does this make sense for her character', and I think that it's so easy to say 'no, it doesn't' when thinking of DAO, but we're not coming from DAO. We're coming from DAI (after numerous years of development for multiple characters), where Morrigan had already shown a pressing interest in something that held a high risk of her getting possessed by Mythal just like her mother. Despite this, and despite her arc in DAO, she wants to drink from the Well of Sorrows. 'But there was no choice, for Corypheus was going to destroy Thedas', the Inquisitor was an option the entire time. No, what I actually am personally of the opinion of (although I'm waiting on my Morrigan expert to finish playing, for I am not an excessively thorough one yet), is that Morrigan was, and remained hell-bent on obtaining knowledge/power, it has been part of her arc for a long time, and even the threat of possession didn't dissuade her from the possibility of obtaining an unusual amount of it in an unparalleled rare form. That isn't, in my opinion, bad or lazy writing, that is consistent and shows a character flaw that I don't think is often addressed with 'protagonists' enough most of the time: greed. I want flaws that make it much more difficult for me to feel inclined to agree with those that call her the Indiana Jones of Thedas, for she is a brilliant character— but a character with flaws. Now do I think, since having watched the ending, that her presence was also a plot device for Mythal in one way or another? Possibly, but that's merely a side addition in my opinion. I just find it too easy to simply go 'it's bad writing', because while I could agree, it also means you then have to condemn Morrigan for the exact same reason back in DAI, which I don't think is something that's fair to do. An argument could be made that Veilguard has lost most of its original team of writers (including David Gaider himself) and so they took liberties, but that same argument can't be made for DAI. Gaider created this franchise, he had intentions for characters, and arcs, and he ultimately is the one who decided when something was good to go. And on top of that, he wrote and created an amazing franchise, and he earned my trust because he did that. And so I trust that the presence of Morrigan in DAI was logical, which I did think it was— it showed flaws that I craved to see outside of her arc in DAO. And I think having seen DAI, that Veilguard isn't unrealistic for her. And as to why this isn't a 'full possession' as it was with Flemeth, I think the key for that is realizing that she obtained it alongside that headpiece where Mythal was killed by Solas. Because what we also know, in that little scene— and it took me a rewatch of it, but Flemeth/Mythal left part of herself in that Eluvian at the beginning of the scene. I would bet that's what Morrigan possesses now, since Solas himself is the one who 'absorbed' the part of Mythal that had fully possessed Flemeth. Does this match with what Morrigan says? Not exactly, but I don't think that she's a reliable narrator.

[carabas]

Dragon Age Veilguard liveblogging -

Why did they make the ghostly Fen'harel ritual wolves so cute, and yet make them disappear as soon as we get close enough to see them. Deeply unfair.

Just a little guy!

Elgar'nan talking about potential traps in the Crossroads: "Fen'harel's spite is endless and his trickery not easily overcome." I'm paying close attention any time our spirit companion's name comes up in lowercase form, since compassion and justice were pretty much the defining themes of their respective games - I'm kind of surprised that our companion this time is Spite and not Regret, actually. They've been hammering home the regret theme pretty hard! But I guess spite's not exactly unrelated.

And then at the Halls of Valor, both Isabela and Seer Rowan referring to Spite not as a demon but as a Spirit of Determination - I love this, I want to chew on this.

INQUISITOR!!

Harding going through a crisis about the Chant being a lie! Everybody gets to have a religious crisis! It's equality!

I already had collected all five wolf statues before Lavellan's visit so we're going through the restored images of Solas's regrets one right after the other, all these big theories being confirmed all at once, and it feels like the moment at the end of a mystery story where the detective gathers everyone together - the kind of story where the ending isn't an attempt to catch the audience off guard with a surprise twist, it's the satisfying payoff of spotting the clues and putting them together. The way these games are written feels so rewarding.

And then I go confront the Formless One, the last of the four Forbidden Ones, we've met them all now across the four games, and it's hitting me that this has to be the final Dragon Age game, right? I mean, you could tell endless stories in this setting if you wanted, but the story they have been building for four games is coming to a conclusion here. Everything from the big foundational lore mysteries right down to this one reoccurring side quest is wrapping up. I wonder if this game will have a cliffhanger the way every previous Dragon Age has, or if there will finally be a proper ending. (Don't tell me.)

Also, while visiting the Necropolis:

Harding: This doesn't look like wine. Emmrich: Oh, grave-mist isn't a wine. It's magically infused vapors captured near tombs where spirits dwell. I don't partake myself, but it's supposedly quite invigorating.

...Making a note of that one for fanfic purposes.

[dgcatanisiri]

Have fully assembled the Veilguard, so I'm taking some time to organize some thoughts.

Seriously, OF COURSE Isabela would be leading the Lords of Fortune. It really does not surprise me, despite being surprised by her cameo.

I do like Emmrich more than I was expecting as a first impression, but I don't think I really vibe with him on a romantic level enough to ever really give that a try.

I do kinda regret not romancing Lucanis on this first run, because I do like the Crows. I'll probably roll him a Crow boyfriend next run.

Assan hits me in the heart, considering... Well, losing my dog. So yeah, of course I'm romancing Davrin. Or at least in the process of flirting with him.

I am pleased that there's plenty of opportunity to just not accept Solas's "good intentions." I particularly liked getting to throw the line "spoken like a god" at him.

Oof, choosing between Minrathous and Treviso was emotionally hard. Like I had a solid reasoning with opting to go to Treviso - no standing army, the waterways, as the Prologue showed, Minrathous has defense capabilities that Treviso just doesn't... But oof, it was hard on the heart having Neve take Rook to task for not backing up his city and fellow Shadow Dragons. To say nothing of the aftermath.

I DO need to address something that's really sticking out as a problem for me, and that really is the understandable but still sore point of the fact that the three choices of carryover from Inquisition really are just NOT. ENOUGH.

In universe, I feel like AT LEAST acknowledging WHO Divine Victoria is would be important, and Morrigan drinking from the Well or not really SHOULD be a thing, considering her featuring somewhat AS all this ancient elven knowledge is coming to light. On top of that, going further back to Origins carryover issues, despite how Kieran would surely be old enough at this point to be on his own, you would think that Morrigan would maybe MENTION her son.

And then there's my personal bugbear, in that not just with the cameo of the Inquisitor, but even Harding talking about the members of the Inquisition... By having the game written to assume all the characters possible being part of the Inquisition, this does not feel like a continuation of the game world I've played. I don't recruit Dorian, but he uses a mention of being at Adamant during the battle against Clarel to make the First Warden back down. The Inquisitor then outright refers to him as an ally, even though, again, he's NOT one in my games. Harding shares a story of Sera making Reiner laugh, when neither of them were part of my Inquisition, so she's talking about two people she never met, one of them who never actually HAD his hidden identity revealed, so she shouldn't know him by that name.

Is this being finicky over a relatively small part of the game overall, considering that these are minor lines in minor cameos, or a reference line that impacts nothing in terms of the game proper? Sure, I'll grant that. BUT it still leaves me feeling like... Why do my choices in the prior games matter if this game comes alone and says that they didn't? If they didn't matter, why did that game matter? Which was there a choice in the past?

It's the choice to undermine player choices when they could have worked around them. Like, sure, statistically, they could say that (probably) most players would probably bring in all possible characters, especially when the ones I'm specifically upset about are romance options. But... I mean, that's the same kind of logic that led to Jacob being written to cheat on a Shepard who romanced him - just because "most" players do a thing, it doesn't mean that the players who do something else don't deserve acknowledgement.

And yeah, I do recognize that having any variation options involve the cost of recording and animating any line being spoken, so if something had to have variation cut down in the name of allowing anything else, yes, I do understand this being where it falls, because it's not actually impacting anything of this game specifically. It's just a choice that leaves a bad taste in my mouth, even if I recognize that it has a reason that I DO fully understand.

I can understand WHY a choice was made without agreeing with why it was.

[vaultedvagabond]

Dragon Age Veilguard Review

I just finished Veilguard so I am gonna put my thoughts below a readmore, but my general review is the game felt amazing and was a ton of fun while missing a lot of marks I wish it hit. Full spoiler review below.

OK so first off this game /felt/ amazing. I was a rogue and lining up headshots in slow motion for critical hit kills felt so good constantly. Finding a bit of calm in combat to drop enemies in a single hit felt exactly like a rogue should feel. The entire combat system is amazing and I would kill to see Origins and 2 remade in this style.

I think a lot of the conflict and politics that make dragon age dragon age are completely gone. It makes the world feel a lot shallower and I missed it. It isn't just the struggle mages face, this game is the one that feels most removed from ideas of class. I think however poorly handled the questions and struggles that city elves, the dalish, mages, the poor everyone faces are a huge part of Thedas. Companions refer offhand to elven oppression but we never really see it.

On a similar note everyone gets along so well. I hardened Lucanis who has a Demon of Spite inside him and he was super understanding towards me. Him and Davrin have beef for a little bit but it is resolved very quickly. Companions arguing is such a huge part of DA and I really felt its absence. I think it relates to the stuff above. No one has opinions or is affected by the big societal problems Thedas has so they just instantly get along well. Like shouldn't the Lords of Fortune and Veil Jumpers have disagreements? Both raid ancient ruins and one stores and guards the dangerous artifacts while the other sells them. They even start out going "yeah we don't sell any cultural artifacts at all". I think the game would be better if we got to see these differences and if some companions had flaws.

I also think that despite the game being about the 6 factions they felt so bland to me. The Crows have the way they abuse kids to turn them into assassins erased, and they also don't really assassinate anyone. They act as a group of neighborhood watch. Similarly, the Shadow Dragons care mostly about the venatori and don't really focus on normal non cultish Tevinter brutality. I think both factions end up being defined as resisting the enemy factions and lose the interesting stuff about them. I wish that Lucanis's personal quest line involved assassination missions, maybe even make us decide between letting Lucanis assassinate someone important to the story or lose the crows as an ally. Not being able to have big text trees with faction NPCs also robbed them of a lot of depth.

My last major criticism is that a huge chunk of the game has no choices whatsoever. Choosing which city to defend felt great and was so cool and I was so ready to see what other things would happen like that. But then until the final mission there were no choices, and in the final mission my maxed faction support and all companion quests done meant there was really no risk. I much prefer the mass efect 2 style of choice where you choose between multiple people who could do it but some are destined to die vs "well if I choose a mage for the mage task they live but if I chose a warrior they die". I wish we got to shape the world more, and make more hard choices. I think that the parallel to Solas and the Regret Prison would hit a lot harder if we constantly were making hard choices and pissing people off at us.

OK now back to the positive. I can complain all I want about how few punches the game decided to take but the things they fully commit to feel great. When the game is on a roll and the writing is good its so good. I loved the companions, every one of them is so interesting and fleshed out. I loved Taash's quest specifically (I do wish the game had binary trans rep though). I really appreciated the different options for each crew member and while I think the big tangible choices are lacking the emotional ones we were offered were so interesting.

Lastly I really appreciated the fact that every side quest felt real. They all tied into the main story and that was really neat. The time spent doing side quests really felt important and I think the games strongest writing is in them.

In conclusion the game has a lot of holes in it, which is only made more frustrating by how good the game is when it is good. I can tell that the flaws were caused by studio intervention, and that the devs wanted to fix these issues too. But ultimately Dragon Age is a series /about/ games that have glaring flaws while also being so captivatingly good you cant forget them. I wont be forgetting this game, I am excited to replay it.

[asterroses]

1, 10 and 23 for the DA ask game

heheheheh :3

so for reference my canon worldstate is : denaris tabris ; zevran romancer ; duelist rogue nikolas hawke ; fenris romancer ; reaver warrior arcen lavellan ; dorian romancer ; rift mage 1- your Warden/Hawke/Inquisitor's opinion on Orlais?

well honestly . im gonna be truthful i think all three of them are orlais haters LOL . arcen hates how stuffy and fake it feels , too many masks and ruffles and he feels like he cannot find honesty in it . and also the stones on the walkways hurt his feet . denaris hates it for its treatment of elves , and also he fuckin HATES celene . and nikky is . . . . indifferent , to it . its not a stop he stays at often , and when he does visit orlais its never for long . he doesnt enjoy the game it plays .

10- are they good horse riders?

arcen is ! ! its one of his preferred forms of travel ; he's been riding the halla ever since he was little . his preferred mount during inquisition is the bog unicorn ; he pampers the creature so much . he really likes horse riding . denaris doesnt do much horse riding , he's okay at it but can fall off easily , as he has shit balance and gets startled easily if the horse gets startled . nikky is scared of horses and refuses to get on one UNLESS ! he shares with fenris or bethany . he doesnt have good depth perception truthfully . 23- do they have, or want to have, children?

denaris has children ; kieran with morrigan , and sidony adaia tabris with zevran . kids weren't really something he thought of having , but he was never truly against the idea . kieran was technically the only one planned , sid enters the picture about 6 years after kieran is born . she was a surprise lolol but he doesnt regret either of his kids . if kieran is 21 during veilguard sidony is 15 whatttt . anyways . nikolas and fenris i think they take in a little apostate elf girl , who lost her parents . shes not named bcus i havent gotten too much planned with her , but it took her a bit to warm up to both of them [especially fenris] . w arcen im not Sure if he would have kids ? ? ? ive not had too much planned w that for him truthfully , but it is a cute idea for him and dorian to be dads [and both of them being the father they never had bu deserved . oh man] . BUT ! i do headcanon that arcen has some mage apprentices he's teaching in minrathous . his witch hat atelier era . he Does want kids , either through adoption or him carrying , but with the way his life has gone in recent years he's not sure bringing a kid into the world w the way the veil is threatening to come down is a good idea . but honestly knowing me he and dorian will have a kid alongside arcen's apprentices lolol

[archpaladin]

The feelings I have over this news are so...all over the place. Absolutely, no one should be harassed over these decisions! And yes, it is indeed disappointing. But I'll admit part of me feels...relief?

rambling thoughts with potential Dragon Age spoilers under the cut...

Worrying about how the worldstates will be implemented in the sequel has always been a constant with games like these for me, prompting perpetual plotting out of what decisions my characters will make to ensure the best endings for each quest and NPC because it feels really shitty when a game's epilogue tells you "this person's life was throughly ruined and they died cursing your name because you chose Solution X for Quest Y." I blame the Orzammar questline for this, I feel like it deliberately keeps a lost of stuff vague so no matter what choice you make you feel like the rug was pulled our from under you in the epilogue.

I feel like with this arguably tight focus on only a few aspects from the previous games makes it easier to make decisions in the games without worrying BioWare's going to go "SIKE! The choice you thought was best actually ruined everything! NEENER NEENER NEENER, GRAY AND GRAY MORALITY!"

And I also kind of feel like, especially with Inquisition and Mass Effect 3, BioWare was kind of overusing Easter Egg references and memes just because the fandom demanded they be acknowledged: "Swooping is bad," Blasto, Enchantment, Cullen's presence in the narrative growing like a tumor, it felt like BioWare was more interested in trying to produce the next funny in-joke, a fear of taking things too seriously. And part of me wonders if, given how long it's been since Inquisition and how the trajectory of Veilguard has changed so much, it's going to be something of a fresh start, less burdened by needing to address every single thing and reference every single joke again.

I do agree that Solas kind of became a gravity well for the narrative and how everything in it started bending towards him (honestly, part of me feels like this was a problem with him from the start, even as compelling as he is), culminating in Veilguard itself being basically HIS story and that has me worried Rook is basically there to witness Solas, but I'm also hopeful that Veilguard just gives a definitive ending to his part in it so it can move on to other characters and other stories. Same thing with Varric too, I felt like BioWare was bending over backwards to keep him involved in events long after it'd make more sense for him to say "I'm done," and let new characters have some attention. At least Anders' return in Dragon Age II did something interesting with his character and showed how he changed, while Varric's changes are very, very small and debatable.

And despite what I said earlier about how anxiety-inducing trying to anticipate whether the sequel's going to go out of its way to make you regret specific choices you made, it is irritating to know that making that managing so many narrative threads CAN be done. BioWare's done it before. The whole reason they came up with the Dragon Age Keep was to facilitate that, and now that's going to waste. Inquisition was too ambitious in a lot of ways, but a game could be made to pick up on its threads the way it did for II and Origins. While they have learned that a tighter focus can benefit the game's plot, I am worried that Veilguard may end up TOO tightly focused, just dealing with Solas' drama and only that, leaving no real room for Rook to influence other aspects of the setting that can be elaborated on or explored in future games, a paradigm shift from bigger settings with more choices to make to a more on-rails story where you're not really expected to have "side-quests" or minor storyline that aren't directly related to the main plot. And yeah, a lot of times that can be pointless busy-work, but I *like* pointless busy-work if it shows me more of the world and lets my characters life intersect with more NPCs to make the world feel more lived in!

So...yeah, there's my disorganized, messy thoughts on Veilguard's storyline decisions. I remain cautiously optimistic, but I'd be lying if I didn't look at the worldstate selector leaked and go "That's IT?!" too. But people being *angry* about this? It's just a video game! That we play for fun! CHILL!

Folks, I gotta be real with you: Yes I too am disappointed that there aren't more choices carrying over in The Veilguard from the last three games, but I think the current fandom rage is a little over the top. It's not the end of the world. Can we just take a breath for a second and remember that this new game is set in Northern Thedas, where 99% of decisions made in Southern Thedas ten or more more years ago of course aren't going to matter, if you think about it? And on a meta level, I imagine the goal is to make this game as friendly as possible to brand new players, not out of spite towards existing fans.

[iniziare]

... and the Vallaslin. I'm going to put this under a read more as it touches on a spoiler from Veilguard, but most of it's DAI. Either way though, don't click unless you've completed Act 1. Christ, I'm gonna have to go and undo many read mores in my future, I already know.

Okay, so there's two quotes from Cole from DAI that are very, very intensely interesting to me, and they tie into the conversation that Solas has with Lavellan if she drinks from the Well of Sorrows (which I will quote a little lower). It's actually been rather of a treat going back through scenes of that game to really put Solas in Veilguard into proper perspective. But Cole has always been ahead of his time, and it's this consistency that has me absolutely reveling, because finally they confirmed things for us. Now first, the two quotes in question:

"He did not want a body, but she asked him to come. He left a scar when he burned her off his face."

"Bare-faced but free, frolicking, fighting, fierce. He wants to give Wisdom, not orders."

It was always hypothesized by theorycrafters that the first line was about Mythal, and though we already knew following DAI, that there was a fundamental importance to their dynamic, it was through a process of elimination that they grew more certain of it. When combined with the second line, we know that 'bare-faced' is what Cole refers to Lavellan as once Solas has removed the vallaslin during the Crestwood scene, so we can take that at face value to literally mean bare-face, ergo: free of any vallaslin. But knowing that, we can deduce from the first line that Solas himself once bore what he claims to having been slave markings, and he specifically notes 'he burned her off his face' (of which said said scar is above his nose, towards his right brow), which we can now safely assume with what we know of them being closely intertwined, to mean that the vallaslin were specifically Mythal's. When? When did he bear her markings? Are they left out in the depictions of his Regrets? Possibly, they are his 'memories' after all. Or did he 'burn them off' shortly after? No, I feel like, logically, he must have burned the vallaslin off his face after he left her, and started his rebellion. And then the other question that has me very intrigued is: how? Now because of the ending of Veilguard, we have it confirmed that Solas was indeed bound to 'service' (in some degree) to Mythal, and he subsequently was released from it. This could lead people to possibly think it to be her binding him to her will when she 'asked him to come', but that doesn't feel right. Solas values freedom an incredible amount, and we also have known him to be referred to by her as an 'old friend', and he viewed her in a similar light (although he seemed a whole lot more... I want to use the word 'intimate' here, actually, in regards to his emotions towards her; but that's a topic for later). But this is to say that all of this, plus his reaction within DAI (and Veilguard's ending), make little sense to me if she had robbed him of his free will, so I absolutely think that he went into Mythal's 'service' willingly, and the vallaslin came with that (or perhaps, the vallaslin served as a form of protection vs. the other Evanuris depending on the 'meaning' of the markings at the time). I actually need to go back through everything in Veilguard with a fine-tooth comb, but there genuinely seems to be zero evidence to me of Solas ever filling any sort of role that could be seen as akin to 'enslaved', and on top of that, Mythal seems to also be officially tied to benevolence, and its counterpart of justice. So even from her point of view, it would seem very ill-fitting, or at least in my opinion. Now keeping this in mind, but thinking back to the post-Well of Sorrows conversation with the Inquisitor in DAI, it becomes rather interesting and complicated, does it not?

Solas: I begged you not to drink from the Well! Why could you not have listened? Inquisitor: Solas… Solas: You gave yourself into the service of an ancient elven god! Inquisitor: What does that mean, exactly? Solas: You are Mythal’s creature now. Everything you do, whether you know it or not, will be for her. You have given up a part of yourself.

Ah, the elves. Ah, the elves. I need to write up a proper post about Mythal, Solas and this dynamic as a whole, but I think it'll be a lengthy one. I just think it's paramount to address, but I also think that I'm in the minority in terms of opinion. But for now, yes, have my incoherent thoughts.

[carabas]

Dragon Age Veilguard liveblogging -

Varric: "Normally, my advice on befriending abominations would be 'Don't.' In this case... just keep an eye on him." I'm happy there's an Anders reference at all in this game where we can import almost nothing of our worldstate, even if it is Varric's usual griping. I hope we actually get to see Varric interact with the newer companions at some point because I really want to see if he'll somehow wind up trying to adopt Lucanis too, make it three for three on breaking his own heart trying to help every spirit companion he meets.

Bellara's tour of horrifying ancient artifacts, one sealed room after another containing dangerous relics that break people down to their component parts or set them on fire or something similarly lethal, and then finally you reach the last sealed room, holding only...

...a wheel of cheese.

I'm enjoying running around performing rituals that honor the evanuris who we are actively fighting against without anyone on the team objecting to this. Mythal, okay. But Falon'din - a Rook who saw the Mourn Watch as his own form of devotion to Falon'din learns his gods were tyrants and then, having reached whatever level of acceptance he's at with that, nonetheless winds up performing a ritual before Falon'din's statue specifically, his specific blighted tyrant god whose symbols he's still tattooed with, and being tangibly rewarded for it. I love this. I hope we have to perform a ritual for Ghilan'nain or Elgar'nan next.

Talking with Lucanis, my Rook had the option to mention that he's nonbinary! In the part of the character creator where you pick Rook's pronouns and gender identity separately, there was a note that the gender identity setting doesn't affect gameplay, so pleasant surprise to see it come up in dialogue after all. (At least, I'm assuming that the gender identity setting in the character creator is what got me that dialogue option. There was also a clearly marked chance to establish Rook as being trans/nb while looking into Varric's mirror earlier, but I'd picked the option to muse about Rook's Significant Tattoos there instead.)

There have been so, so many appearances by beloved characters or references to previous events despite the limited worldstate customization, but one of my favorites so far was in Minrathous, encountering someone who'd been kidnapped from the Denerim alienage back in Origins by the Tevinter slavers, now working with the Shadow Dragons. Nice little followup I wasn't expecting. And now she's dead because of a choice I made. Thank you, game, for that particular stab in the heart, it's super effective. And Neve's whole city is devastated because of a choice Rook made, and this after she's been wearing very visible bruises for most of the game so far because of a choice Rook made, and the gods are free because of a choice Rook made while trying to save the world, and the game keeps sending Rook on these rescue missions for people he tries and fails to save... and in between all this Rook is living out the memories of Solas's regrets. And the game keeps asking you who you think Solas is. Do you think you can trust him. Do you think he's lonely. Why did they change the title of this game, this is the Dread Wolf game.

"In the name of Elgar'nan, First of the Firstborn, He who was called Lusacan..." !!!!!!!! Finally ;_; one of the correspondences confirmed ;_; tears of joy ;_; I was hoping Elgar'nan = Dumat but I'll take it ;_; I need to go back and rethink all the others now, who was Urthemiel, which god is the Warden's son (if this is actually answered in this game don't tell me)

"Because you're a Mourn Watcher, Emmrich talks in-depth about spirits and necromancy with you" - victory fist pump, this game just keeps giving me everything I want

Rook had SO MUCH Mourn Watch-specific dialogue on Emmrich's recruitment mission! I think it was literally every line, this is Rook's home and he knows all its rituals and do you think the wisps here remember me - it's like Bioware saw the jokes about Lavellan's "Who's Mythal?" and made absolutely 120% sure Rook knows where he came from. But there had been almost nothing prior to this mission - one line where Rook got to play up the ~spooky necromancer~ angle to tease one of Neve's contacts, that's about it - so getting this absolute flood of Mourn Watch dialogue now really makes it feel like it must be such a relief for Rook to be able to talk to Emmrich, especially when they've been discussing people's comfort level or lack thereof with necromancy outside Nevarra. Also, no wonder Rook settled into the meditation room with that greenish underwater lighting, feels just like home.

[dalishious]

Indigenous Coding in the Elves of Dragon Age

An in-depth examination of the extensive parallels between the fictional race of elves in BioWare’s Dragon Age franchise, and real life Indigenous peoples.

Want to read this piece as a PDF document, with complete citations/references? CLICK HERE TO VIEW / DOWNLOAD.

(Please note this piece is about an hour-long read.)

EDIT 10-Jun-2024: This essay needs an update, but I don’t plan on making a new edition until after I’ve played Dragon Age: The Veilguard. So I ask that you please forgive some of the wording that could be better, and other things that could be improved. Thanks!

CONTENTS

1. Forward 1.1. Disclaimers 2. Introduction 2.1. What is “Coding”? 2.2. The BioWare Approach 3. History 3.1. The Colonization of Thedas 3.2. The Bone Pit 3.3. The Long Walk 3.4. Assimilation 4. City Elves 4.1. Alienages 4.2. Family and Community 4.3. Wealth Disparity 4.4. Environmental Racism: The City Elves 4.5. Injustice System 4.6. Cultural Resilience 5. Dalish Elves 5.1. Clans 5.2. Keepers 5.3. Elders 5.4. Desecration of the Sacred 5.5. Human Threat 5.6. Hanal'ghilan 5.7. Vallaslin 5.8. Inuksuit and Tikis 5.9. Environmental Racism: The Dalish 5.10. Miscellaneous Culture Points 6. Stereotypes 6.1. Alienage Suffering 6.2. Human/White Saviour Complex 6.3. Laziness 6.4. Stoic and Emotionless 6.5. Elven Curses 7. Conclusion 8. References

FORWARD

Patrick Weekes, lead writer for Dragon Age on Twitter: “Again, I disagree strongly with identifying the Dalish with First Nations and with Jews. There may be similar points of inspiration, and Dave himself may feel different — he started this world — but the situations for the groups are too different.”

David Gaider, former lead writer for Dragon Age on Twitter: “I don’t feel differently. If there’s anything I regret about early DA, it’s trying to explain the cultures with quick analogies.”

In a Twitter exchange between Patrick Weekes and David Gaider in June of 2018, the current and former lead writers of the Dragon Age franchise said that the elves in their fantasy world are not very similar to Indigenous, Jewish and Roma peoples. As alluded by Gaider, this is despite having on multiple occasions prior to this outright saying this is where the inspiration for their elves came from.

David Gaider on the BioWare Social Network forums: “A friend of mine pointed me to a discussion online where someone was utterly convinced that the elves in Thedas were copied from the Witcher, which I found amusing since right there in history we have the Jewish and the Rom. There were "Jewish Quarters" in many major cities, places where the Jewish were confined to -- similar to the Alienages in Thedas. The Dalish started off as the wandering Rom (or g*psies, if you prefer) but evolved into something more akin to North American Natives (and, really, the Native situation is also a good analogy for elves as a whole).”

However, even if it was never acknowledged by the folks at BioWare that their elves were intentionally created with these parallels, even if we never read Gaider himself say “the Native situation is a good analogy for the elves as a whole,” (what “Native situation” he is referring to, one must guess, with a fair assumption being the general treatment as second-class citizens by those in power,) the blatant evidence present in the world of Dragon Age is enough to speak for itself.

The developers at BioWare take real Indigenous cultures and history—much of it infamous at that—and put it in their games, calling it elven. This is not debatable. They do this, and we all see it. A person cannot livestream themselves breaking into a home and then tell the home owners they did not, or that it was unintended, when we all saw them kick down the door and walk in.

Here, I review the extensive similarities between the elves of Dragon Age and various Indigenous peoples, (mostly of North America, due to my own scope of familiarity). Some may be coincidental—I am including it all, nonetheless—but there is no room for uncertainty that in the absolute least, some is intentional. More intentional than not, as far as the evidence leaves me to conclude.

A huge thanks goes out to those who volunteered to review and contributed to this piece prior to completion: Frencki (@catrchckern​), Leodore (@leodoreart​), and Whess (whessharman.com). Mi'watm ta'n teliapoqonmuioq, nitaptut!

Disclaimers

As mentioned above, it has been stated by the developers (namely Gaider) that the elves are inspired by Indigenous peoples of the Americas, Jewish peoples and Roma peoples. However, parallels can be drawn to pretty much any racial/ethnic minority. This piece focusses on the Indigenous coding of elves in Dragon Age, mostly (though not limited to) North America. By focussing on this, I am in no way claiming that only Natives have comparisons to the elves.

Not everything discussed in this piece is exclusive to Indigenous peoples. Cultures all over the world have similarities here and there. By including things here I am in no way claiming sole ‘ownership’ of anything.

I am a single Mi’kmaw person, and Indigenous peoples are not a monolith. I do not possess omniscience of all Indigenous peoples, nor can I or am attempting to speak for all Indigenous peoples.

There are surely even more things that I am lacking in this piece, so please feel free to point anything out as well so I can include it, or correct any mistakes. I will be very grateful.

INTRODUCTION

What is “Coding”?

The term “coding” is used to describe the ways in which the audience is tipped off things about a fictional character—or in this case, an entire fictional race. Coding can be subliminal or obvious, often a combination of both. In genres like fantasy and science-fiction, coding is commonly used in reference to a stand-in racial background and ethnicity.

In the Disney movie Dumbo, the depiction of the crows shows them as a stand-in for Black people, because the way they act, speak, dress, and even their names are all racist stereotypes. This is meant to be taken as “humour”. In the cartoon Arthur, the character Brain is an anthropomorphic animal like all the characters, but there are aspects of Brain’s character that tells the viewer he is coded as Black. Overt examples include Brain having a Martin Luther King Jr. poster in his room, and in the Christmas special, his family celebrates Kwanzaa. Arthur is an educational children’s show, with the intent being to teach. Both these examples are from kid-oriented media that feature cartoon animals as stand-ins for Black people. The difference resides entirely on the execution. For that reason, coding is not inherently a bad thing. It is entirely dependent on how it is used. This is something to keep in mind not just when examining the coding discussed in this piece, but when looking at media with coding in general.

Additionally, should you find yourself wanting to use coding in your own work, be sure to ask questions like “for what purpose am I doing this?” “What message am I sending?” “Do I have a proper understanding of the coding I am applying?” “Is it applicable and better to just say outright?” Be conscious of this throughout, and be open to feedback from the people you are pulling coding from.

The BioWare Approach

Indigenous peoples are not a monolith. The common misconception of a singular “Native culture” is no more accurate than to speak of a singular “European culture.” We are thousands of individual nations, with individual cultures, histories, and languages. There are plenty of overlaps, especially among related tribes, but to dump us all into one bucket is colonial ignorance and disrespect.

The BioWare approach of taking whatever they feel brings a vaguely tribal aesthetic and applying it however they want is a textbook example of the Tipis and Totem Poles Trope; a trope named after the depiction of Native peoples in Disney’s Peter Pan, who are shown with both tipis from the Plains and totem poles from the Pacific Northwest. It is a harmful trope, because it perpetuates this monolithic myth. This is not an approach I would recommend to any aspiring writers, in any way.

This is, however, the state of the Dragon Age franchise now, after more than a decade of world building. To deny it or erase it rather than move forward building it better would be even more disrespectful, as that only sends the message that respect is not worth the effort. A lack of respect is, at the core, the difference between cultural appropriation and inclusivity. The fantasy genre has never been the most inclusive one, to the point where high fantasy is solely associated with a whitewashed version of Medieval Western Europe in the minds of most. By expanding the world of Thedas beyond the myth of a white-only Western Europe, (hand-in-hand with the myth that there has never been genocide and oppression based on ethnicity, language, and culture in Western Europe itself as well), BioWare has made room for fans of colour to imagine they could exist in their fantasy, just like white fans can. The potential is there for so much good, but the developers must chose if they are satisfied sitting on the fence of appropriation, or striving for more.

HISTORY

The Colonization of Thedas

Thedas was once known as Elvhenan, meaning “Place of our People” in the Elven Language. The (above ground) land of Thedas is the homeland of the elves.

The humans came from across the sea, and brought with them new diseases that elves were susceptible to. The humans spread across Thedas in a warring, conquering force, built their empires, and asserted themselves as the dominating authority. They outlawed elven beliefs, cultural practices and the language. Enforcing this, they enslaved and killed the elven population en masse. So many elves were killed that where there was once not a single human in Thedas, they are now the most populous race.

The humans temporarily gave the elves a small portion of the land they once called home entirely, known as the Dales. It is speculated that the Dales were selected as land for the elves, because the land’s harsh and barren nature made it undesirable. This is something repeated with the later creation of alienages.

There is nothing above that could not be directly copied and pasted to briefly describe the beginning of colonization in the Americas and Australasia. The only difference is replacing humans with Europeans, and elves with Indigenous peoples. What especially deserves highlighting is the astronomical death toll echoed. The Indigenous population of the Americas went from 100 million to 12 million; a genocide that turned our peoples into a minority on our own homeland. The world of Thedas is built upon this same kind of genocide.

The Bone Pit

One example of the detailed use of enslaved elves that has horrific real life mirroring, is that of the mining history of Kirkwall. The city of Kirkwall was built around the slave trade and mining industry, of which over a million slaves were used to produce resources for the Tevinter Imperium. The elves were stolen off the land, or shipped in from across the sea. Prior to the Tevinter takeover, there were no such mines in the area. “The Bone Pit” received its name due to the massive amount of death that occurred there. Enslaved people were sacrificed as a means of intimidation.

“The Overseer lined seventeen slaves up, one behind the other, at the lip of the quarry. The second slave in line was ordered to push the man in front over the edge. The third slave pushed the second, the fourth the third, and on it went. Workers in the quarry heard the screams, the crack of bone against rock, and then the survivor's anguished cries as the Overseer's dragonlings feasted on the sixteen helpless bodies splayed upon the quarry's basin. The woman who told me this story was the seventeenth in line, spared only because no one stood behind her.”

The use of enslaved people for massive mining projects was a staple practice of the Spanish in Latin America from the beginning of colonization. Spain’s unquenchable thirst for gold and silver eventually outgrew the hoards acquired by pillaging, and by the mid-1500s, extensive mining was adopted as an equally lucrative method. Subsequently, the use of enslaved Indigenous Americans was no longer enough to satisfy them, and so began the African slave trade, which quickly expanded to North America and Europe as well, eagerly adopted by the other colonizing powers. An estimated 15 million African peoples were enslaved and brought to the Americas by the year 1800, with over twice as many perishing before ever reaching land. Up to 200 tons of gold was transported to Europe by the year 1650. Also by 1650, eight million enslaved people died working in the mines of Potosi, Bolivia alone.

Slavery extended far beyond the use in mining before long, of course. Even after slavery was “abolished” in the Americas, the legal enslavement of people continued in other forms, built into a system of employment inequity. Additionally in a more literal sense, in the case of the labour part of the Indian residential schools in Canada and United States, and the ongoing use of “prison labour” within an injustice system that principally and intentionally discriminates against Black people. Slavery is a complicated topic to discuss in fiction, to say the least, because the damaging effects of it still last to present day, particularly for Black people in the Americas and Europe. It requires a level of sensitivity and understanding that white writers will never be able to have the capacity for, in fullness. This is yet another reason why cultural consultants and sensitivity readers are so valuable, not just in crafting stories, but world building itself, fiction or not.

The Long Walk

When the elves were given the Dales as a new homeland, the journey there became known as The Long Walk. The circumstances of the elven Long Walk is different in that they choose to make this terrible journey to a new homeland, not forced to leave one, but it is literally called The Long Walk, named after a real life event. From 1863-1866, the US government forced a massive march on the Diné. This march, and the eventual return to their home territory, is known as The Long Walk. The depiction of the elven Long Walk leaves no doubt of the analogy.

Accounts of the Long Walk in Dragon Age:

“We walked with what little we had on our backs. Some walked without shoes, for they had none. Whole families, women with infants, the old and young alike—all of them made their way across the land on foot. And if one of our people could no longer walk, we carried him, or sometimes left him behind. Many perished along the way. Some died of exhaustion, others simply gave up and fell by the wayside. A great number were set upon by human bandits, even though we had few possessions.”

“Only sixty-five of our group made it to Halamshiral. Some gave up. Some sickened, especially the little ones. Bandits stalked us. My mother forgive me, I had to steal food. A child fought me for extra scraps of bread. A few days later, I carried her for miles after her legs gave out. She died shivering in my arms.”

Accounts of the real Long Walk:

“My grandma who was captured—she did not have any blankets or any extra clothes. It was just what she was wearing. She wore that all the way in, mend it—mend it over and over again. By the time they got to Fort Sumner, they didn't have any shoes.”

“Going down that there was a lot of people; some of them sick, some of them old, and some of them were children, babies, old people; that some of them were left along that trail because they couldn't keep up—they didn't have the strength. So they were left along that trail maybe with just a little bit of food and water and fire—and that was it. A lot of them never made it down there.”

The Long Walk that the Diné were subjected to was, of course, not the only exodus of Indigenous peoples, either. The Trail of Tears is the most famous; Andrew Jackson’s Indian Removal Act violently displaced Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Muscogee, and Seminole peoples, resulting in thousands of deaths. One out of every four Cherokees died on the journey. All because settlers wanted to purchase the land, in hopes of finding gold.

Assimilation

In the Dales, the elves resumed worship of the Creators, and would not allow the Chantry to build a cathedral. This angered the Chantry. Missionaries and templars harassed the elves, as the humans could not stand them having their own beliefs, just as missionaries believed it their divine duty to spread Christianity in the “New World.” Also just like real world colonizers, the humans in Thedas decided to force their religion onto elves by violent assimilation. They sacked all elven cities and completely annexed the Dales, taking independence from the elves for a second time.

“But the humans and their new Andrastian Chantry would not let us be. They pushed against our borders. They sent missionaries to spread the word of their prophet. They sought ways to subjugate the People once more. When we refused, we angered them. They destroyed us. Even the Emerald Knights could not stand against the might of their army, armored in faith. In the name of their Andraste, they burned Halamshiral, scattering us to the winds.”

This included the creation of sectioned-off lands for the elves to enforce control, assimilation and oppression. Still to present time in Thedas, traditional elven beliefs are outlawed. The creation, intent and laws of alienages falls in line with the creation, intent and historical laws of Canadian reserves and American reservations.

As Representative Henry Southard of the United States Senate wrote: “In the present state of our country, one of two things seems to be necessary, either that those sons of the forest should be moralized or exterminated.” This “moralization” came in the form of criminalizing cultural gatherings, traditions and languages, and exacting control over property, money spending, identification and so much more. In Canada, Indigenous peoples became “wards of the Crown”. Colloquially known as the Potlatch Ban or Potlatch Law, after the banning of potlatch gatherings—an integral part of Pacific Northwest Indigenous cultures—these laws were part of Canada’s Indian Act from 1884 to 1951. In the United States, the American Indian Religious Freedom Act that returned the rights for Indigenous peoples to practice ceremonies, dances, etc. was not passed until 1978. However, the government failed to enforce this law, amendments to actually put this into effect were not made until 1994.

After generations of this aggressive assimilation, the elves have lost so much of their traditions, history, and culture. Elvhen (the Elven language) is barely hinging on the brink of extinction; “each generation forgets a little more of the old tongue, a little more of the traditions.” This is, very sadly, the case of the majority of Indigenous languages in the Americas—those that are not completely dead. (On a hopeful note, however, there has been a rise in preservation and revitalization efforts!)

CITY ELVES

Alienages

City elves living in an alienage do not actually own any land. They are governed by the Hahren (elected Elder), but it is the human rulers that “possess” the land designated as an alienage. This is the exact same as how the Crown holds true ownership of reserves in Canada, “for the use” of Bands.

In the City Elf Origin of Dragon Age: Origins, Nessa and her family say they are getting kicked out of the alienage because the human who owns their building is selling it. The 1876 Indian Act made it illegal for an Indian Agent not to make every effort to sell off Indian Reserve Lands; they would personally be charged $5 for every acre the person offering to buy wanted.

“Every Agent who knowingly and falsely informs, or causes to be informed, any person applying to him to purchase any land within his division and agency, that the same has already been purchased, or who refuses to permit the person so applying to purchase the same according to existing regulations, shall be liable therefore to the person so applying, in the sum of five dollars for each acre of land which the person so applying offered to purchase, recoverable by action of debt in any court of competent jurisdiction.”

Nessa’s parents say that it is difficult moving to another alienage because they need to bribe humans with money to receive permission. This is what many Natives had to resort to in order to get passes to leave reserves from the Indian Agents that controlled this. A person had to present their reason for travel, and the Agent either granted or denied their pass with a set timeframe they were allowed to be off the reserve. This Pass System was enforced by the RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police, AKA “Mounties”) and lasted for over 60 years.

The Pass System was also used to restrict the ability of carrying firearms. This is the same as how elves in Ferelden and Orlais are not allowed to carry weapons while humans can. In Dragon Age: Origins there are signs in the Denerim Alienage the player can click on, banning elves from carrying weapons. In the City Elf Origin, it is mentioned that the elves do not have any weapons as well. In The Masked Empire, the character Lemet reflects on the restrictions in Orlais: “Elves in Halamshiral were forbidden to carry any blade longer than the palm of their hand.”

Family and Community

Family is a key pillar of Indigenous values and community structure. It is a value that the elves in Dragon Age clearly share, particularly seen in the alienages. Alienage elves consider each other to be relatives, and look out for each other. For example, Alarith has the comment, “I don't know what it's like where you're from, but everyone here is family. A cousin, an uncle, a niece.” The concept of family in most North American Indigenous communities are not limited to colonial views on family. A close friend you have known your whole life may be as much brother as one who shares your parent by immediate blood. Your child may call him Uncle, and his child Cousin. The use of these relationship terms is a form of endearment and respect, especially in the case of elder women; the Aunties who form the backbone of every community. There is family found in community and shared blood that is not immediate, but just as valid and recognized.

The importance of family also extends to the historical practice of clans merging to survive, because community is seen as strength. This is just as Valendrian says at the PC’s wedding: “As our community grows, remember that our strength lies in commitment to tradition and to each other.”

Wealth Disparity

Despite making up approximately 5% of the world’s total population, Indigenous peoples make up 15% of the world’s population below the poverty line, and 33% of the world’s extremely poor rural people. The racialized wealth disparity present in Thedas is no matter of fiction; only the application of it in humans vs. elves. One contributing factor to this is the fact that many humans refuse to hire elves for jobs other than servitude or dangerous, expendable positions. This is first explained by a disabled, elderly elf in the City Elf Origin that the player can donate coins to:

“I worked on the docks, living day to day, never knowing if my family would go hungry... The humans always left us the dangerous work in the high beams of the warehouses, or in the water. I was rigged up, cleaning the side of a ship, when it drifted against another and my legs were crushed between. The human foreman had me hauled out and dumped in an alley. My sons didn't find me until day's end. So now I live on the charity of those who don't even have enough for themselves.”

If the player asks him why he was not healed, he says it was denied to him on account that he’s an elf as well. Likewise in Dragon Age II, one bit of ambient dialogue in the Kirkwall Alienage is an elf asking another if there’s any work available, and the response is, “not yet. The shem who oversees the docks says he doesn't want any more “knife ears” than necessary.”

Historically, Indigenous workers were valued as being skilled at high-risk and/or labour intensive work that white men were less inclined to take, often hired as dock workers, lumberjacks, steelworkers, miners, farm hands and plant manufacturers. Despite this, they were paid very low wages—especially Indigenous women, who were at the bottom of the wage hierarchy in Canada.

While workplace discrimination today is illegal in many real life countries, it persists nonetheless, both within and outside the law. In Latin America, Indigenous workers on average make half as much as what non-Indigenous workers earn.

Environmental Racism: The City Elves

Elves who live in alienages do not get to enjoy the same standards of infrastructure and basic necessities of life that humans just outside the walls take for granted. In Wycome for example, the alienage does not have the same source of clean water as the rest of the city. (In a stroke of irony though, it is this reason that the elves do not get infected with the red lyrium in the rest of the city’s water.)

“Many alienages are plagued by poverty and crime. It is also common for infrastructure to fall into disrepair, as humans tend to let alienage residents fend for themselves, often without access to city services. While this segregation has allowed the elves a fair bit of social autonomy among their own people, it has also encouraged their isolation and substandard status.”

The above quote is put into a visual depiction across both Dragon Age: Origins and Dragon Age II, but especially the former. While the cutscene opening to the capital city of Denerim scales over the impressively built stone walls, towers and clean streets, behind locked off gates rests the Denerim Alienage; the walled-off, muddy district with shambled together buildings. The comic Knight Errant also highlights this well with both visual storytelling and exposition. The main character, Vaea, recounts how Edgehall was built to withstand an invasion, but the alienage sits outside the fort’s protection. The Edgehall Alienage elves were nearly wiped out by the Blight, while the humans were sheltered. When the elves asked for repairs, the Arl had the Vhenadahl (the sacred Tree of the People) cut down, to teach them a lesson that everything they had belonged to him, not them.

Environmental racism is one of the most pressing injustices faced by Indigenous peoples around the world, just as much today as it was in the past. Infrastructure on reserves are always an after-thought for the federal government, with sustainability not a priority, but rather just getting it “fixed” so they can say it’s fixed. For example, “repairs” made to water supply systems go back to their original boiling advisories mere weeks later, and houses built on remote northern locations are not done with the environment taken into account, thus not structurally adequate when winter comes. To avoid exposing settler communities to things like oil, natural gas, effluent, garbage, etc., things like pipelines, waste facilities and dumps are built on/near Native communities instead, even at the destruction of sacred land and water, and endangerment of the people.

The United Nation’s 2019 report on Indigenous housing conditions includes the following statistics:

An estimated 67% of people experiencing homelessness in Winnipeg, Canada are Indigenous, despite only making up 11% of the population. (Winnipeg is no special case, either; such statistics echo throughout the country. For example, Vancouver’s homeless count in 2019 revealed 39% of the city’s homeless population is Indigenous, compared to making up 2% of the total population.)

Over 25% of Indigenous peoples living on reserves in Canada are in overcrowded conditions, constituting approximately seven times the proportion of non-Native people nationally.

19% of Indigenous peoples in Canada live in dwellings that need major repairs, and 18% live in crowded housing.

Over 10,000 on-reserve homes in Canada are without indoor plumbing.

25% of reserves in Canada have substandard water/sewage systems.

Despite Canada having more fresh water than any other country in the world, 75% of reserves in Canada have contaminated water.

34% of houses on US reservations have one or more issues, compared with only 7% for non-Native households.

Indigenous peoples in Hawai'i have twice the rate of overcrowded housing compared to the entire population of the islands.

Kānaka Maoli and other Pacific Islanders account for 10% of the population in Hawai’i, but 39% of people experiencing homelessness.

Mexico's housing deficit affects almost 80% of the Indigenous population, compared to the 45% national average.

56% of the Native population in Mexico lacks access to basic housing services, compared with the 15.5% of the non-Native population.

An estimated 36% of urban Indigenous people in Latin America are confined to poor neighbourhoods, with no piped water or sanitation and easy exposure to natural disasters.

Children in Indigenous communities in Australia have higher rates of respiratory, infectious and parasitic diseases, skin diseases and nutritional diseases, all attributable to poor housing conditions.

When living conditions for elves are depicted and described, they ring a familiarity to all these real world injustices.

Injustice System

A plot point to appear more than once in the Dragon Age franchise is the kidnapping and murder of elven women and girls. There is no interference from law enforcement, or worse yet, they are actively involved in covering it up.

In Dragon Age: Origins, the entire origin story of Tabris, the City Elf player character (PC), is about Vaughan, the Arl of Denerim’s son, abducting a group of elven women. He does this using the Arl’s guardsmen, promising them that they will get to participate in raping the women. As a female character, the player has to escape from the estate and save the others. As a male character, the player has to break into the estate and rescue the women. Regardless, there is no assistance from the city guard. Instead, Elder Valendarian explains Vaughan has done this before, and the guard covered it up for him: “When he was done with the girl, she was killed and disposed of. The garrison said she died later, but we all knew better.”

It is widely accepted by the alienage that a rescue attempt will result in the guards killing them in return. Ambient comments after the women are kidnapped include:

“Anything we do now is just going to make things worse.”

“We're going to find those girls dumped in ditch somewhere, aren't we?”

“It's not the first time this sort of thing happened. It won't be the last, either.”

If the PC threatens to tell the authorities what Vaughan has done, he laughs them off. “You think people care about elven whores? You think my father will ignore my death simply because I used some animals as they were meant to be used?” Sure enough, the guards come for the PC, and do not care about Vaughan and his men’s abducting, rape, and murder.

In Dragon Age II, Hawke is hired by the magistrate to take in an escaped criminal unharmed. When Hawke shows up at the scene, it is revealed that said criminal has been kidnapping and murdering dozens of elven girls for years, and has not been punished. He is just taken in and released again.

If Hawke questions this, Elren, an elven father of a girl taken by the criminal, tells him that the law does not work for elves:

Elren: “No! Don't you understand? If you take him in, he'll be free again by nightfall!”

Aveline: “You have so little faith in the law?”

Elren: “For all my damned coin, I'm still only an elf to these shemlen. There'll be no justice for my girl in the courts of Kirkwall.”

If Hawke chooses to side with the magistrate, all of the nonhuman companions will interject that Hawke is making a very ignorant decision:

Fenris: “No human magistrate is going to side with an elf.”

Merrill: “Human laws don't value elven lives, my friend.”

Varric: “Hawke, there's no magistrate in Kirkwall who'll punish a human for crimes against elves.”

It is later revealed the criminal in question is the magistrate’s own son.

All of this hits very close to home with the uncanny resemblance to the missing and murdered Indigenous women crisis.

“Every elf in the city knew to look down when a human walked by. The elven women learned early on how dangerous it could be to travel alone, or to look too pretty.”

Indigenous women are 12 times more likely to be murdered or missing than all other women in Canada. While normally I would go into more detail, because this is a painful and personal topic, I will instead direct you to further external reading.

Learn more about the MMIW crisis:

Canada's missing and murdered Indigenous women (video with captions)

Reclaiming Power and Place: The Final Report of the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (Canada report)

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (US report)

Unresolved: Case Closed or Murder?

Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls in Canada

It Starts With Us

Even worse is that for a long time, it was not only hidden but part of the law to ignore Natives in the Court of “Justice.” Canada’s Indian Act outlawed any Indian—or someone on behalf of an Indian—hiring a lawyer or legal counsel, until 1951. Another such example: the 1850 Act for the Government and Protection of Indians in California, (which was not repealed entirely until 1937) directly stated “in no case shall a white man be convicted of any offense upon the testimony of an Indian.”

It is known in Ferelden and Orlais at least, that there are no legal repercussions to an offense against an elf, no matter how grave, but it is illegal to harm a human in defence of an elf. In Orlais, Chevaliers routinely kill elves in the Val Royeaux Alienage for sport, as part of their graduation ritual of the Academie des Chevaliers. Their “Right Majeste” above all commoners makes this entirely legal.

“Purging” alienages are a repeated occurrence when the human nobility consider the elves rebelling. A large part of the population is massacred and their homes are burned. “Rebelling” can mean anything from an elf accidentally killing a human in a bar fight, to protesting food shortages.

The majority of the most widely known and deadliest massacres in North American history were committed against Indigenous peoples. Wounded Knee, Marias River, Sand Creek, Cholula, Pound Ridge, Bear River, Camp Grant, Bridge Gulch… These almost always also involve the destruction of property by fire, and the fire used to rack up the death toll as well. Just like in the alienages.

Soris on his mother’s death: “They burned our house to the ground… and pushed my mother back inside when she tried to escape.”

Amelia Brown recounting oral history of the Yontocket Massacre: “The white people were all around, they just watched. Then they set fire to the place. Women try to get away, they grab ‘em, throw ‘em in fire. Take pot shots at ‘em when they try to run.”

The lack of police protection for Indigenous peoples and pursuit against those who do harm against us is no thing of the past, either. Canada’s law enforcement system is, by its very creation, institutionalised discrimination. This has not changed with time. The RCMP habitually use their power to dismiss cases with Indigenous victims, and perform the barest minimum work. It is the affected communities themselves that are often forced to do the police’s job for them, such as leading search efforts for missing people, and banning together against assault, property damage and harassment. This inaction is action in favour of colonial assailants; an assertion that crimes against Natives will go unpunished. Simultaneously, in contrast, action against Indigenous peoples by the RCMP is notoriously tyrannical.

This institutionalised discrimination is found across the Americas and Australasia.

Cultural Resilience

Despite all the struggles, a positive to come out of the alienages is that though the intention was to assimilate the elves into the dominant human cultures, many city elves have come to see alienages as a way of keeping their culture alive, and preferable than living among humans.

“Denerim: the largest city and capital of Ferelden. Long ago, the elves lived as slaves to humans, and though they have been free for many generations now, they are far from equals. Here they live in a walled-off community known as the Alienage, working as servants and labourers when they can. Despite these hardships, Denerim's elves are a strong people who take pride in their close community.”

Even with the Chantry’s laws, an elf in an alienage is still able to experience preserved communal culture. Iona defends living in an alienage to Cousland by saying “in an alienage, my daughter learns what it means to be elven.”

Culture is defined by the shared customs, knowledge, beliefs, language, etc. of a group of people, and growing up among your people is part of shaping identity. This is not at all to say that a person off reserve or outside a community with a large Indigenous population is any less Indigenous, but that there are benefits of having direct access to your culture around you, that you may have a harder time finding when you are more isolated.

“But don't be so anxious to start tearing down the walls and picking fights with the guards. They keep out more than they keep in. … Here, we're among family. We look out for each other. Here, we do what we can to remember the old ways.”

DALISH ELVES

Clans

Dalish clans are referred to as tribes. Though Dalish elves can be grouped under the same umbrella, each clan is different. As Solas says in Dragon Age: Inquisition, “it is a mistake to think of the Dalish as a single group.” Just like how Indigenous peoples are not a monolith, neither are the Dalish.

In the Temple of Mythal, when Morrigan the “elven expert” and Solas argue about legends with the Creators, Lavellan the actual Dalish elf has the option to interject that their clan had different stories. Solas’ response is “the further the Dalish spread, the further their stories branch and grow.” While I understand the intention here is most likely to point fingers at how ‘wrong’ the Dalish are, I like the alternative equivalent to how in real life, a lot of neighbouring tribes have varying ancestral stories with the same overlapping concepts. This is comes from thousands of years of shared history between nations. One tribe’s legends do not make another’s wrong.

Keepers

Each Dalish clan is led by a Keeper; a mage of any gender who provides guidance both in the literal management of the clan, and spiritually. Keepers are well respected members of the clan, for their wisdom and knowledge of ancestral traditions and ceremony. Keepers dedicate themselves to the preservation of this knowledge and traditional magic, with a heavy emphasis on healing and herbalism. Keeper Marethari is even able to use “old magic” to stave off the Taint corruption Mahariel, the Dalish Elf PC. Dalish magic is well-protected. It is exceptionally rare for a Keeper to teach these traditions to outsiders. In this way, a Keeper’s role in a Dalish clan holds similarities to Medicine Men or Medicine Women in many North American Indigenous communities.

Elders

Hahrens, or Elders as translated and how they are also referred to as, hold a dignified, respected, and valued role in their communities. (This is a shared cultural view and practice among all elves, not just the Dalish.) Elven Elders lead or are part of major decision processes, are sought out for advice, and especially for the Dalish, play a large part in preserving and passing on history and legends of their people. This is not an honour earned simply by being elderly; Hahrens are chosen for their wisdom and leadership abilities. This is a 1:1 comparison to the traditional valuing of Elders held by most Indigenous cultures far and wide.

Desecration of the Sacred

There are entire museums and “private collections” comprised of looted remains and sacred cultural objects of Indigenous peoples. Of the estimated 100,000 sacred objects and 10,000 human remains of Indigenous Australians still hoarded by institutions around the world today, 32,000 are in UK institutions like the British Museum alone. Most are not even on display, but gathering dust in basements. Colonizers did not find these artifacts and remains, they looted them from graves as “antiquities” worth a year’s wage, or outright murdered people for their bones. There is not a single Ngarrindjeri burial site in Australia left undisturbed. The spirits of the deceased remain in a wandering unrest because of this. There is still today a large market for these stolen remains, and laws such as the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act does not cover “private collections”. This means individuals who hoard stolen Native bones and sacred objects are not obligated to return them. While federal institutions are supposed to do so, enforcing the act remains unsuccessful. 

When petitioning for the return of these remains, objectors often claim that they are “too valuable” and would not be properly taken care of in the hands of the very people from which they came from.

In the Dragon Age: Origins DLC Witch Hunt, the player meets Ariane, a Dalish warrior in search of Morrigan. She explains, “Morrigan stole an ancient book my clan has guarded since the days of Arlathan. We were the only ones with such a piece of our history. Everything we once had, all legacy of our ancient magics were stripped from us, first by the Tevinter magisters, then by the wretched Circle. And Morrigan took what little was left.” Morrigan is just one among many who have done such things. Dalish elders request the Inquisition’s help in recovering artifacts stolen by Orlesian soldiers in the Emerald Graves. The entire region of Emprise du Lion used to be full of elven relics, but now most of them have been destroyed or stolen. During the Exalted March, elven shrines were destroyed wherever they were found. Yet as sad as these cases are, they hold no candle to the actions the player can partake in themselves, without negative consequences, in Dragon Age: Inquisition.

The Spoils of Desecration quest has the player destroy and loot the graves of Var Bellanaris, an elven burial site. Doing so assembles a key that grants access to the underground chamber where more loot can be acquired, as well as a mosaic piece required to complete the collection objective. The only potential repercussions to this defilement is if the player does this before completing the quest From the Beyond, in which Keeper Hawen of the nearby Dalish clan will reprimand the player, and the player receives a loss of favour from the clan that can easily be regained.

The Knights’ Tomb quest first has the player encounter a group of Dalish elves led by a man named Taven. The elves are investigating Din'an Hanin, resting place of the Emerald Knights; the great heroes of their ancestors. If the player offers to help, Taven refuses, saying “with all due respect, our work could mean a lot to the Dalish. I'd rather we handle this ourselves.” (If the PC is an elf, he will offer to contact the Inquisition later.) Unfortunately, when the player later returns, they find Taven and his crew have been murdered. The player is left to explore the burial site themselves, where in the end, a scroll dating back to the beginning of the Exalted March of the Dales is uncovered. If present, Solas, Blackwall and Sera support returning the scroll to Taven’s clan, as he would have wanted. Cassandra and Vivienne support selling the scroll to the Chantry. If the player choses to bring the scroll to Sister Andrea in Val Royeaux, just like robbing Var Bellanaris, there are no negative effects. 

Even if the player does return the recovered records to the Dalish, the game offers one more chance to show disrespect, with the Inquisition’s involvement in the ceremony the clan wishes to hold. The player has three options:

Diplomatically manipulate the humans of Red Crossing into accepting the mourning halla the clan bestows upon them, “but it will end two marriages and lead to at least one duel”.

Lie to the humans of Red Crossing of the meaning of the halla, telling them it is instead a captured trophy and mark of victory against the Dalish.

Send a military force to the village to “march the blasted halla” in as an inconvenient delivery of cynical importance, per Cullen’s tone.

The ceremony is a show of good will from the Dalish to the humans who continue to occupy their land. It is a willingness for “reconciliation” despite no sign of reciprocation. Yet the mission deciding on giving soldiers new books, shoes or better food is presented with a more serious tone than this.

Players have ventured into elven burial grounds before, in previous installments of the franchise. However, the difference lies in it never being for the purpose of looting. It is always with another goal in mind, such as confronting a group of werewolves hiding in ancient ruins, or at the explicit request of Keeper Marethari to escort Merrill safely through Sundermount to complete a ritual.

Dragon Age is a roleplaying franchise that allows players to make different decisions, including morally corrupt ones. That is not the issue. The issue is when these morally corrupt decisions have no realistic ramifications that are applied when the player makes a decision negatively effecting what is valued by the Christian-coded Chantry. One of the central quests in Dragon Age: Origins is the search for the Urn of Sacred Ashes, said to hold the ashes of the Chantry-worshipped Andraste. If the player choses to defile the ashes, Leliana and Wynne will attack the player if in the party, forcing you to kill them. And yet, no one bats an eye when desecrating the remains and artifacts of elven heroes.

Human Threat

Dalish elves are hunted as entertainment. At the Temple of Mythal, Morrigan says “Many Orlesian commanders consider skirmishes against the Dalish excellent sport,” when speaking about the Dalish invoking the Creator Andruil in conflict. In The Masked Empire, Gaspard speaks about hunting parties on expeditions to kill Dalish elves. Briala personally put a stop to three, but it is unknown how many he successfully went on.

Gaspard: “Maker’s breath, how many times did I ask for leave to mount an expedition to drive out the Dalish only to get sent off to hunt for darkspawn instead?”

John Francis Hamtramck, Major of the US Army: “The people of our Frontier carry on private expeditions against the Indians, and kill them whenever they meet them. And I do not believe there is a jury in all of Kentucky who would punish a man for it.”

Average human citizens are sometimes just as hostile to the Dalish. When Velanna’s clan was camping close to a human village, the humans set the woods on fire in attempt to drive them out. While the clan escaped, they lost aravels and several halla to the fire. The mayor of the village then sends a militia after them during the Dragon Age: Origins expansion Awakening, though at this point it is only Velanna and a few others who remain in the woods. This invokes the same comparison to real life massacres that alienage purges do.

The Chantry routinely harasses the Dalish as well, dissatisfied with any elves still practicing their traditional ways of life. Again, this is just like Christian settlers using a mix of force and pseudo charity as continuous colonization. Examples include:

If Feynriel joins Clan Sabrae, Hawke will first hand witness a band of templars attacking the Dalish. The elven hunter explains that the templars kidnapped a young hunter and tortured him with fire.

Josmael’s clan was raided by templars, who kidnapped their Keeper, Yevven. It is revealed he was the elf being tortured by templars in the beginning of the series, in the Chantry’s prison.

Vinell: “Another one? Too many of you shemlen around lately… Traders, mercenaries. Chantry types trying to convert us with their fine talk and veiled threats…”

Merrill: “What is the Keeper thinking? What if the templars come? Or an angry mob! This is madness!”

Lavellan: “Before coming here, my Keeper suggested I avoid templars. Do they do anything besides hunt mages?”

And of course, there are the infamous British Scalp Proclamations in the Maritimes and New England States, where settlers were paid for every Native scalp they provided as proof of murder, even of infants. These proclamations were what instantly came to mind when I first learned how human soldiers hack off elven ears. An even more direct correlation, however, would be the actual practice of cutting off Indigenous ears in Argentina and Chile. The genocide of the Selk’nam people was largely led by mercenaries hired to hunt them, who received their payments by presenting severed ears as proof of their killings.

Hanal'ghilan

Hanal’ghilan, also known as the golden halla, is a uniquely coloured halla that is sacred to the Dalish. Ithiren, a Dalish elf in the Exalted Plains in Dragon Age: Inquisition, explains that Hanal’ghilan visits the Dalish in times of great need. He fears that hunters will kill the golden halla that roams the plains, and asks the Inquisitor to lead it to the clan’s settlement so they can protect it.

Hanal’ghilan is an exact equivalent to the sacred white moose for my people, the Mi’kmaq. The white moose is sent by our ancestors for strength through hard times. This stems all the way back to the legend of the moose’s origin; a gift from Kisu’lk to survive the winters.

Not long before Dragon Age: Inquisition’s release, a group of white hunters killed one of these sacred moose in Unama’ki (Cape Breton), and pictures spread all over social media. This was at the forefront of my mind when The Golden Halla quest appeared. But how do you talk about this, knowing how belittled these beliefs are, at best regarded as nothing but quaint “superstition”? It only makes the fact that the Inquisitor is capable of betraying the Dalish and killing the golden halla for profit, without consequence, all the more hollow-feeling. Imagine if the game had a quest involving breaking into a Chantry—as in a Catholic Church—and stealing the bones of a Saint, without any repercussions from this morally corrupt decision. I wonder if the abhorrence would be recognized, then.

The Mi’kmaq are not the only people who have such sacred animals that are akin to Hanal’ghilan, either. The white deer is sacred to many South/Southeastern Nations of the United States. The white spirit bear is sacred to many Nations of the Pacific Northwest. The white bison is sacred to the Oceti Sakowin in Canada and the States. The significance of the white bison is most widely known by settlers, due to its presence in western media—which sadly is not a good thing, because instead of building respect, this has only put them in danger. Where BioWare’s main headquarters is in Alberta, it is most likely the white bison is what they based the golden halla on.

Vallaslin

Dalish elves tattoo their faces with distinctive markings called vallaslin.

“When the children of our people came of age, they earn the privilege of wearing the vallaslin, the blood writing. It sets us apart from the shemlen, and from the elves who have thrown their lot in with them. It reminds us that we will never again surrender our traditions and beliefs.”

The art of facial tattooing and/or scarification has been practiced for thousands of years as part of Indigenous cultures all over the world, as a rite of passage, a sign of identity and family, and connection to one’s ancestors. From the Inuit of Northern North America, to the Amazigh of North Africa, to the Ainu of East Asia, sacredness in tattooing is found, with different customs nation to nation. The most widely recognized example—and unfortunately, also the most widely fetishized and appropriated—is tā moko; traditional Māori tattooing. Moko is a strong cultural affirmation, with the designs visually telling the person’s family/tribe background and Māori identity.

If the significance and practice of tā moko does not sound similar enough to vallaslin, it is also worth noting that unused, early an vallaslin design found in the Dragon Age: Origins game files includes the same structure of angular lines on the forehead and curls on the cheeks and chin. I question if the reason these designs did not make it to the final games is because the developers did not want to get that close to their source.

(File extracted using the Dragon Age Toolset.)

Dragon Age: Inquisition presents new lore that vallaslin used to be slave markings, in the times of the ancient elves. Even with my opinion that this writing direction has disrespectful connotations given the connection above set aside… This still does not change what vallaslin means to the Dalish. It is now a source of pride; a mark of adulthood that symbolizes ones belonging to their clan. As Lavellan says, “Whatever the marks were before, the Dalish have reclaimed them. They mark me as one of them. I don't wear the vallaslin for the ancient elves. I wear it for me.”

Inuksuit and Tikis

In Dragon Age II, BioWare introduces one of the most blatant examples of copying from Indigenous peoples for use with their elves, deciding to insert inuksuit and inunnguat into the game as ancient elven and modern Dalish markers. In Dragon Age: Inquisition, they pop up even more.

(Files extracted using FrostyEditor v1.0.5.7. Note the anglicized phonetic spelling of inuksuk, and the incorrect labelling of both inuksuit and inunnguat as inuksuit.)

Inuksuit and inunnguat are sacred landmarks used by the Inuit, in various formations for various purposes and meanings. These meanings include navigation, communication, and spiritual connection. There is not a person in Canada who should not recognize these, given an inuksuk is right on Nunavut’s flag. If you are outside of Canada, however, I can understand it not being common knowledge.

This next part is a bit of a mystery as to what the developers were thinking… you see, there are also these objects that in the game files are called “tikis.” A tiki is a carved figure of a man from Central Eastern Polynesia. These things are not tikis:

(Files extracted using FrostyEditor v1.0.5.7.)

So, what are they? I can only assume they are supposed to be a generic piece of the American-made “Tiki Culture,” something many a westerner has mistaken for actual Polynesian art and cultures.

This is not the place to get in depth with American Tiki Culture, nor am I the person to do it, as I have never even seen a “tiki bar” in my life. It is, however, a subject that has been written on by those who do know more about it:

“I personally don’t care if people want to drink mai tais. On some level it is just a drink, and I am not expecting bartenders to change minds. The nostalgia people express through tiki is offensive because it forgets that this colonialism and militarism is ongoing, not temporary. Not past. Not over.” —Stephanie Nohelani Teves, Kānaka Maoli assistant professor in women’s studies at the University of Hawaii

American Tiki Culture is escapism to a fantasy depiction of colonized Polynesia. The aesthetic is about looking vaguely Polynesian, without a care beyond producing an atmosphere for settlers to play pretend in. In that regard, it is downright ironic that BioWare would use this fake culture the way they do.

We also owe BioWare a round of applause for the creation of a new variant of the Tipis and Totem Poles Trope:

(Screenshot of the Arctic meeting fake-Polynesia in Dragon Age: Inquisition)

Environmental Racism: The Dalish

Just like the elves of the city, Dalish elves also suffer from human greed and hate. The way in which humans ignore and disrespect the land that Dalish elves live on directly impacts their ways of life.

In Dragon Age: Inquisition, Keeper Hawen’s clan of the Exalted Plains speak of how the damage done by Celene and Gaspard’s armies have made travel through the Dales difficult. Ditches dug trip up their halla and damage their aravels, rockslides caused by the armies block their usual paths, and necessary resources are more difficult to harvest and hunt for. Most Dalish clans are either nomadic or semi-nomadic. Nomadism is not just a matter of survival and land sustainability, but part of cultural identity. These disruptions caused by humans interfere with said cultural identity.

While most traditionally nomadic Indigenous peoples have become stationary with assimilation, there are many who maintain this way of life today. Increased militarization and globalization (i.e. resource extraction) of their territories presents a threat to culture and livelihood. One such example is the Saami occupation of reindeer herding. In some regions, 40% of the Saami population still uphold this livelihood widely practiced by their ancestors, but reindeer pasturage and migration routes are increasingly disrupted by things like military bases, dams and roads.

There are plenty of intentional disruptions in Dragon Age as well. In Emprise du Lion, the Dalish of the area regard the Pools of the Sun as a sacred site. This did not prevent the Orlesians from taking over the pools and constructing hundreds of Andrastian statues surrounding them.

“According to our legends, what remains of the sun's heat - left in the Earth when Elgar'nan threw the sun from the sky and buried it in the abyss - heats the hot springs in the Dales. The waters of the spring have healing qualities; we have always treated them as sacred. Then, of course, Orlesians moved in, scarring them with their garish statuary.”

As said on the environmental racism city elves likewise face, the destruction of real life sacred sites is one of the largest components of continued colonization today. Sometimes it is because a big corporation wants to expand their mining enterprises, and sometimes it is as petty a reason as wanting a new golf course. This destruction also directly impacts the lives of the People, too. They poison the Earth, poison the Water, and poison the People.

Miscellaneous Culture Points

In The Stolen Throne, Loghain and Maric observe that the Dalish elves they come across place herbs in their fire, notably creating “a cloying smell not unlike jasmine.” While jasmine an extremely odd choice—there is no way jasmine would grow in Ferelden without some sort of magical interference—nonetheless, they do so assumedly for spiritual reasons, since Loghain and Maric do not understand it. Adding sacred medicines to the fire, like tobacco, is a means of passing thoughts and offerings to the Creator.

In Last Flight, Isseya fashions a “padded sling, much like the ones that the Dalish used to carry their babies,” for the griffon eggs she is carrying. Baby wearing is something that has history and practice all around the world, but there are many traditional Indigenous examples from the Americas similar to the slings mentioned. Inarguably the most iconic of these examples would be the rebozo; a culturally significant garment in Mexico that has many, many purposes, one of which is baby carrying. The rebozo has Indigenous Mexican origins (notably the Nahuas and Otomi) with Spanish influence, and is still used today.

In The Masked Empire, Michel recognizes distinct bread that an old Dalish elf drizzles honey over, as the same kind of bread his mother used to make in the alienage, “equal parts wheat, salt and grease.” This is definitely frybread.

Also in The Masked Empire, Felassan comments that one of the medicinal remedies the Dalish are familiar with that humans are not, is that chewing on certain tree bark can relieve headaches. Chewing on willow tree bark is a well-known natural way of relieving aches that Indigenous peoples across North America have relied on for thousands of years. (There are many other types of bark with medicinal uses too, most of which involve boiling, not chewing raw, however.)

When a Dalish elf dies, they are buried with cedar branches and an oak staff for protection in travelling to the Beyond. Cedar is one of the sacred medicines of the Algonquian tribes. Different species of cedar is equally sacred to other peoples in North America, too.

STEREOTYPES

Alienage Suffering

The general outside regard for alienages is that they are all nothing but slums. This is said by many characters, but to quote Leliana as an example: “Did you always live in an alienage? Was it very terrible? I have never been to the Denerim Alienage but I hear that life is hard and... there is so much squalor...” Is there suffering in the alienage? Unfortunately yes, a lot of it. But the elves work to cultivate joy, too.

“Kirkwall's alienage is even more dilapidated than the rest of Lowtown, but the elves go to great lengths keeping the place looking bright and festive. The Vhenadahl ("Tree of the People") standing in the middle of the alienage is a symbol for elven pride and shared cultural identity, and it is lovingly cared for.”

This is the same way reserves are stereotyped as destitute wastelands of constant suffering, full of “lazy Indians” who should somehow miraculously manifest healing out of thin air, but “just don’t care enough”. There is no understanding or acknowledgement of all the commendable parts in communities that people do work towards. From the smallest acts of kindness to the greatest acts of wisdom and talent… Settlers do not want to recognize accomplishments and values, because then they would have to admit Indigenous peoples are people, and deserve basic human rights and essentials of living, too. Alternatively, it paints a better picture for those with a White Saviour Complex, only looking to chase after compliments for their charity; this crafted depiction is referred to as “trauma porn”.

Human/White Saviour Complex

“Trauma porn” goes hand in hand with the Noble Savage Trope’s image that pulls at the heartstrings of white people, who look in despair at what they see as a loss of “primitive purity” in their head. The White Saviour Complex comes into place, when these white people believe it is their job to preserve this imagined “purity,” because of the “primitive” nature of it. Artists such as Emily Carr received fame for depicting the life of what white Canadians viewed as a dying race. As discussed in The Imaginary Indian:

While artists like Emily Carr lamented the fate of the Indian, their success was predicated on it. Having first of all destroyed many aspects of Native culture, White society now turned around and admired its own recreations of what it had destroyed. To the extent that they suffered any guilt over what had happened to the Native people, Whites relieved it by preserving evidence of the supposedly dying culture. Whites convinced themselves that they were in this way saving the Indians. By a curious leap of logic, non-Natives became the saviours of the vanishing Indian. … Although [Carr] had great personal sympathy for the Indian, she nevertheless belongs to the tradition of artists who took for granted that Indians were vanishing and sought to preserve an idealized image of them, and not the reality of Native people.

In Thedas, there are humans like Morrigan, who presents herself as superior to elves in preserving elven history. She claims this is because she has more knowledge than they have or are even capable of having, about their own people. (Ignoring that her knowledge was stolen from the Dalish…) “The Dalish are not the only ones interested in the distant past, Inquisitor. Indeed, my skills allow me access to places the Dalish dare not even dream of,” she says. At the Well of Sorrows in the Temple of Mythal, she even argues with Lavellan that she is better suited to drink from the well and absorb the ancient knowledge, because she knows more about Lavellan’s heritage than they do themselves.

As noble as Morrigan’s intentions may be, she still acts in the exact same fashion as the likes of Emily Carr. She still believes that the elves are incapable of preserving their own culture, and that she will do better.

Laziness

One of the most common stereotypes of Native peoples in North America is that we are all “lazy”, and that is the source of all problems. The origin of this allegation traces all the way back to, unsurprisingly, the dawn of colonialism.

The early European settlers did not understand Indigenous practices of agriculture, mariculture and silviculture. They also did not understand the Indigenous values of only taking what is needed, no more. These Europeans had to call what they saw “lazy” in order to justify their occupation of the “unowned” land, so they framed Indigenous labour as existing outside the economy. It is an allegation that is commonplace to this day.

Humans calling elves lazy and poor workers in equally commonplace in Thedas:

Shianni: “So we should take everything the humans say at face value? We’re all lazy, vulgar, thieves then? That’s what they say, isn’t it?”

Elven servant: “I better go. If the quartermaster sees me chatting, he’ll think I’m being lazy and that’ll be my hide.”

Cook to her elven assistants: “If I can’t get into that larder, I’ll skin both of you useless elves, I swear it!”

Habren to her elven servant: “Be careful with that package, you lazy slut, it’s worth more than you’ll make in ten years.”

Human dock worker: “Step it up, shit for shanks. I've got elves working harder than you.”

Human dock worker: “It’d take five Fereldans or ten elves to do my work, and you know it.”

Noble party guest: “Where has that servant gone? Elves. Always shirking their duties.”

Noble party guest: “Where is that lazy elf?”

Stoic and Emotionless

The most common image of Natives conjured by Non-Natives also includes a lack of shown emotion (other than anger), or understanding of humour. This is largely because of how media presented Indigenous peoples of the Americas for decades as stone cold, stupid or heartless monsters that barely say more than a gruff “how”. This stems from a lack of understanding that different cultures have different paralanguages. When Natives do not express themselves in a way that a white settler expects, then the settler dismisses it as a lack of ability to emote at all, and a stereotype is born.

The Dalish are stereotyped in the same fashion, by other races and even other elves from the cities. In Dragon Age: Inquisition, Sera in particular has multiple comments along these lines, calling “elfy” elves “boring”, and making generalized statements like “my own kind can be a bit of an arse-hole.”

Elven Curses

The humans of Thedas spread many myths about elven curses being the reason behind ill events. Of course, at the expense of elves.

In Dragon Age: Inquisition, the landmark for an elven burial ground says, “perhaps those uncomplimentary tales of elven curses and vengeful spirits have some use after all.” This is clearly a direct reference to the Indian Burial Ground Trope in horror films. It is not a one-off comment, either. The reason Suledin Keep in Emprise du Lion has never been reclaimed is because the humans believe it is haunted by elven spirits of the dead there... failing to remember, apparently, that they are living beside what is called “Elfsblood River,” for reasons not hard to guess at. Humans even make money off of selling old elven homes by advertising that they are haunted by restless spirits, and putting on shows pretending to be possessed.

Just like white settlers place themselves as the victims of their own atrocities with the Indian Burial Ground Trope—the innocent suburban white family haunted by evil Native spirits—humans in Thedas create the same stories with elves.

CONCLUSION

In the tweet from David Gaider included in the Forward, he claimed to regret making real life analogies to the world of Dragon Age. I sincerely disbelieve this. He has never had a problem accepting accolades for his real life analogies before. The only thing Gaider—and Weekes—appear to regret is when people expect accountability for their writing and world-building decisions. But what exactly is praise for things are done well worth, without accountability when things could use improvement?

The solution to this is not stop with the allegories. For one thing, there has been far too much built up already that would require massive retcons to get rid of, which would be hugely detrimental to the franchise that has existed for over a decade. It would also be offensive at this point, to scrap everything as worthless because it is deemed too hard to be respectful. The solution is to make an effort. Talk to cultural consultants. Consider the implications of decisions when viewed with an Indigenous lens—my people call this Etuaptmumk; Two-Eyed Seeing, in which you use your eyes to view the same thing with different perspectives. Today, that being Indigenous and Eurocentric.

“I, you, and we need to learn to see from one eye with the best or the strengths in the Indigenous knowledges and ways of knowing… and learn to see from the other eye with the best or the strengths in the mainstream (Western or Eurocentric) knowledges and ways of knowing… but most importantly, I, you, and we need to learn to see with both these eyes together, for the benefit of all.” —Elder Albert Marshall

Such a concept should not be unfamiliar to BioWare, given their desire to present different perspectives on events in the universe of their games. What I would like to see the company do is take the same consideration unto themselves, and use it for the benefit of Indigenous players. We see all of the above. We know. So give us a little respect.

REFERENCES

All 103 are listed in the PDF copy

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