#Thinking about David Gaider's tweet about Veilguard trailer highlighting “power fantasy” in a new light

[burning2know]

OP such good ideas! Hope you are in the business of making your own story, game, philsophical thesis, whatever. I'd really enjoy that.

I'll pile on my own (more broader) critique under the cut.

"No bad actors and moral quandaries" Yes!! Because of this, I don't think the game as a whole actually conveys the idea that colonialism is bad anymore. It's almost like it's saying "if you admit it's bad, it all goes away" which is so insulting.

It shows this (quite popular) misunderstanding of what critiques of colonialism are about… Like yes, stealing cultural artifacts is bad, but that doesn't mean that every thief of a cultural artifact is necesaarily an irredeemable villain. The problem is the system that incentivizes this and keeps allowing it to happen, and it has very little to do with whether an individual is personally morally good or not.

This difference is highlighted by Dorian in DAI vs Dorian in DAV, imo. It bothers me to no end that the devs decided to walk all the way back to this very naive view that the outcomes of entire societal structures is determined by whether individual (powerful) actors are morally good/bad. But the game seems to be obsessed with proving to the audience that these characters and factions are morally good, while simply ignoring anything that's actually critically relevant. This treatment actually trivializes the very devastating effects of colonialism. It shows, ironically, that the people making the game don't know that it's bad.

I got a party banter between Bellara and Taash about how the Lords of Fortune steal elven artifacts. And then Taash clarifies later that they have a Dalish expert on the team so they can check to make sure the Lords don't sell something culturally important and instead return it to the elves.

Like. I get it. You want the Lords to be fun swashbuckler Disney pirates and Robin Hoods instead of actual pirates who steal and plunder. Because we're only now in Western society realizing that stealing from indigenous groups is, uh, bad. But like. Writing really uninteresting factions for your "dark" fantasy (tho lbr Dragon Age hasn't been dark fantasy since DA2) isn't gonna solve real-world neo-colonialism, ya know? The Lords not stealing priceless elven artifacts and returning them to the elves doesn't signal to me that the Lords are total rascally good guys, it signals to me that BioWare itself is trying really hard to seem morally conscious. "See? We know stealing from other cultures is bad!!!"

And man. Not to be a "political correctness has poisoned media" grifter on main (tbh it's less political correctness itself and more the commodification of real-world activism) but I couldn't help but imagine how this convo would've played out in earlier games, potentially even Inquisition.

You could've so EASILY made this interesting while giving the Lords and Taash and Bellara a lot more depth, while also making it clear that stealing from indigenous groups is wrong.

Just have the Lords, yeah, actually sell those artifacts. But also establish that the Lords take in and help elves from all walks of life. That they free slaves, or collaborate with alienages. Then you could have Taash defend the practice by saying to Bellara that little orphaned elf kids being sold as slaves probably don't give a flying fuck about some artifacts they're never gonna see, but the money from selling those artifacts goes to buying them food. And have Bellara fire back that preserving elven culture is also part of its survival, and that there are Dalish clans that would be willing to pay for them or offer something in return. Or have her say that the Lords are doing charity for the sake of recruitment rather than actual altruism. And then Taash responds that those high and mighty Dalish elves don't do shit to help abandoned city elves, just because those aren't part of their correct elven subculture, and they care more about reclaiming old glory than helping the people that exist here and now.

Then you could have side missions or at least codex entries that describe maybe some Lord recruit being conflicted about what they're doing. Maybe a few of them are collaborating to hijack a deal or steal back an artifact. Have implications that some high-ranking Lords are, in fact, using those artifacts for their own gain, despite claiming otherwise. Have some Lords genuinely trying to help, and believing that gold and trinkets don't matter as much as people's lives, so they sell them in exchange for safety for refugees or slaves or some other helpless group.

But no. Instead it's "hey do you steal from my people?" "nah lmao we have a cultural advisor don't even worry about it" "oh wow so cool and woke of you!" And then that's it. No need for any further discussion. No conflict and no complexity. No bad actors and moral quandaries.

Weh.