#oghren critical

[dragonageconfessions]

CONFESSION:

I could never get Dragon Age Awakening to run on my PS3. It would always crash and glitch. It got me so angry I gave up and didn't play it until a few years later when I had a PC. And it angered me some more because of the mods I needed to get it to function. I finished it once and the only character I really loved was Sigrun. The rest were ok at best and Oghren was the absolute worst. If I decide to play Awakening again, I will not be recruiting him.

[shivunin]

For the character impression ask game: Oghren, and also Alistair 👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀

Have a lovely day!!

Hello and thank you for asking!!

I hope you have a lovely day as well 💗

(Character Ask thing)

Alistair

First impression: I had a vague idea of who he is by the time I played Origins (I played Origins last), but my first impression was something like, "Aww he's just a funny lil guy."

Impression now: I don't think the first impression was inaccurate, but I do think he does a really good job of playing dumb (and I definitely bought it at first). I think it (and the joking) are a defense mechanism that worked well in templar training, so he's carried on doing it. He likes to be underestimated (especially when he does not want to be in charge!) and jokes are only one way he manages others' perceptions of him. It makes me extremely sad to think about how he's been searching for a family all his life, thinks he's found it in the Grey Wardens, and then loses it utterly.

Favorite moment: I really like the conversation that goes with his mother's medallion. Also the eulogy he gives if the HoF dies (I uh...played a Cousland once, they got engaged, and then she died 😬) but it's a really lovely speech.

Idea for a story: I have a loose outline for it, but I have plans for rewriting/writing around the hardening conversation (because I don't think it should happen in just one conversation). I think telling him to stand up for himself shouldn't sound like "get ahold of yourself." Also he and Wen going into the fight with Loghain, which is a scene I've been fiddling with for a while.

Unpopular opinion: If not for Inquisition, I would let him be a Warden. I think he'd be happier. Despite my dislike of Anora, she is a competent ruler. Alistair could absolutely be good at it, too, but I think life with the Wardens would be less isolating.

Favorite relationship: I mean! Wen and Alistair for life. Their friendship means so much to me. But as far as canon dynamics go, I like he and Zev a lot.

Favorite headcanon: I do not believe that Alistair is straight or cis. Not a very detailed headcanon, but there it is.

Oh, also, I like to pretend that he and Fiona get to meet eventually. In my head, that has happened. He deserves to know at least one family member and why their role in his life went down the way it did

Oghren

First impression: Oh cool, dwarf companion! Now I can finally get rid of all this booze I've been carrying for the whole game.

Impression now: Ahh man. Oghren. Could've been such a cool character. Could've supported the themes about being used up and discarded by people in power when you are no longer useful. Unfortunately, the constant sexual harassment is so off-putting that I cannot see past it. I think he's really interesting in theory, but like...his writers were on some nonsense when they put together his dialogue.

Also...the fact that without the gifts in the DLC packs, the only way you can befriend the alcoholic is to give him alcohol...doesn't feel great.

Favorite moment: I think his introduction in the Awakenings DLC is really funny

Idea for a story: Errr well! Wen almost kills him once. On account of the sexual harassment (and the fact that the particular brand of comments he makes really strongly remind her of Vaughan). Also her looming out of the corner of his eye whenever he's running late to visit his kid. He will be a good father or he will pay the price, and that is a threat.

Unpopular opinion: Idk! I think he is definitely a product of his time, so to speak, and the "edgy" tone they were going for accommodated this particular type of toxic masculinity. It's a shame, because I think a frank discussion of addiction and rehabilitation would have been really impactful, but...what can you do?

Favorite relationship: Having just read all of his dialogue with every companion, I am going to have to go with Shale. I think they have some interesting conversations about golems and dwarves.

Favorite headcanon: That he gets clean sometime in the course of Awakening and pulls it together for his family.

[biancadavri]

Do you get it? The way Orzammar ended up loathing Oghren because he was everything his home demanded him to be? Listen to me he's too violent and hot-blooded and reaches for the nearest weapon far too quickly to be allowed to live peacefully in a city still standing because of him and people like him listen. He's a hero and he's no use to anyone like this. Is it really a surpise that he's left behind by his family? And really, it's kind of sad watching him try everything in his power to get them back. He leaves and it's better this way for everyone and he doesn't even miss Orzammar (he does) and he settles into a different life until he doesn't and listen. Do you understand? He's so resentful. He's still clinging onto it all he knows he is and he can't do anything to stop I am gripping you by your shoulders right now do you get it? He joins the wardens he's no longer a dwarf he's a Grey Warden and he wants you to side with the Architect because maybe, maybe that'll help keeping the darkspawn away from Orzammar. Do you get what I'm saying. He doesn't want anything to do with Orzammar anymore. He wants his home to be safe so bad. Can I put whatever the hell was going on in that writers room on a petri dish.

[dungeons-and-dragon-age]

for the record i DO love Taash lots i just think they were done incredibly dirty

[zundely]

One thing that annoys me to no end about how Aveline's involvement and inaction im "Prime suspect" questline pans out is that they basically took the worst of both worlds.

Like you could want Aveline's inaction to be part of her development and a character flaw- which is very consisten with how she usually prioritizes the guards safety and overall image over literally anything else including their duty to protect the people. Like the investigation wasn't going anywhere and it made the guard look bad so she is dropping it because to her the smallest chance that Emeric is in fact right and people are in danger isn't worth the damage to the guard in case he is wrong. This is also good foreshadowing for when this worst trait of Aveline results in Qunari invasion. The only thing that makes me doubt this was the intention is that Aveline never gets the "Oh shit, I am not meant to protect the guard- I am meant to make sure the guard protects everyone else" moment, which was dierly needed if that's what they were going for. It was direly needed in Aveline's case in general because considering all the characters get their "Questioning beliefs" moments... Aveline's questioned beliefs are the most vague.

So lets imagine this is not what they were going for for a moment which honestly I find plausible considering the game tends to frame Aveline as mostly reasonable and how the talk afterwards goes if you do point out it was her fault. Lets imagine that Aveline wasn't supposed to be the one to blame here, the game just needed a reason for why Hawke got mixed up with the investigation- I still to this day do not get why they didn't use the perfect reason we later learned they had.

The investigation was constantly being poisoned by Orsino. Since we learn in the end that Orsino was aware of Quentins existance but keeping it under wraps to not justify Meredith's methods, he could also do what he can to make sure he was untraceable. And obviously he wouldn't know exactly what Quentin was involved with, he wouldn't believe the rumors that were cirrculating- they make every other apostate sound like a bloodthirsty killer after all.

Aveline would notice something is off and official ways of investigating are being stopped in their tracks. So she goes to Hawke with "listen this may be nothing but I feel someone really doesn't want us to find out anything in this case, and I have a bad feeling."

This way you kill two birds with one stone- you absolve Aveline of all the responsibility for what happens and you give a hint Quentin had some powerful friends.

Now I know this would put Orsino in a worse light were in the game he just turns the blind eye, but at least to me it doesn't make him necessarily a bad person? Just a man under immense amount of pressure who is very aware of how one bad thing a out one mage puts all of them in danger. I think this would also potentially make his relationship with Hawke absolutely heartbreaking especially if Hawke supports the mages. Like how do you tell the one most powerfull ally you have that you are indirectly responsible for the worst thing that happened to them.

While I personally think having Aveline be responsible for what happened and take some time to think on it would be better for the story and for her character growth I think the second option also had a good narrative potential- but instead they sort of took both of those but not really. Aveline's inaction hurts the one she swore to protect... but not really. Orsino knew about Quentin and is therefore to some extent responsible for what happened... but not really. Hawke's mother is dead and we didn't even get a churro out of it.

[shoutydwarf]

i would block me too if this was what i was spouting on my solas meatride blog LOl

nice bad faith argument pal, nobody is saying solas is racist because he wants his people to stop being oppressed. they are probably saying he is racist because he is . like explicitly . like i know u probably played inquisition 792 times purely as some white-haired bread personality lavellan but when u play as a dwarf or qunari he quite literally calls you An Exception to either the barbaric, savage nature of your qunari race or your greedy, uncreative dwarven people. nvm the fact that he intends to kill literally everyone

gaider also wrote alistair and dorian and fenris. wtf does that matter. i punched solas as soon as the option surfaced. does that tickle u? coochi coochi coo

"raging" homophobe is a wild way of phrasing a single banter in which he said "gross... wait... no, gross" in response to a male companion flirting with him. not only did he briefly consider it but nothing about it implied he thought mlm was gross - just that he isnt attracted to men. As A Straight Guy. Does That Help ??

even if he was homophobic he is in no position of power to do anything about it. even if he was homophobic and was in a position of power to do something about it, that doesn't mean we can't still poke his brain and take something from his other layers.

u are right though Solavellan NPC #4387643, the intellectual state of this fandom (just you*) is very tragic. you came onto a meta post about oghren, who you kicked out of your party immediately so you dont even know a damn thing about him or have ANY grounds to speak on him because your boring ass didnt even try, said some virtue signaling puritan culture drivel that was not relevant at all, AS A SOLAS FAN!!!!, then blocked and ran back home to NPCville because you got mad someone called out your own bald headed ugly ass bLoRbO.

you don't go here. stay out of this kitchen we are cooking something delicious and you're not allowed to have a bite

[alistairkisser]

"#mostly i want sigrun or velanna to throw hands the first time morrigan or leliana refers to their beloved sergeant as a lecherous old drunk" okay. i mean you can headcanon all you want but it doesn't change the fact that the vast majority of oghren's banters with sigrun are overt sexual harassment and she repeatedly asks him to stop to no avail. in fact, the rest of his misogyny aside, he directs substantially more harassment at sigrun than any other female companion. you can lament his misogyny all you want but it's a central conceit of his character and erasing it because you want to like him more and can't grapple with that is doing a massive disservice to the women of the setting. sorry!

[niofo]

oghren, aveline, cullen... i'm not saying i'm biased, but who will be a warrior character i absolutely can't stand in dreadwolf?

[lesmurples]

So my sister and I were complaining about Veilguard’s milquetoast character writing, as you do, and the conversation devolved into her reading companion dialogues from Origins to me.

All this to say, I have a new OTP. Oghren/Zevran shippers unite 🫡

[vanmarkham]

the desire to do an absent father aeducan playthrough. i can have TWO KIDS

[carrinth]

This has been sitting in my WIP folder for months but finally decided to just share it (I struggled a lot with the coloring lol...) ^_^;;

AU idea where after defeating the Mother and receiving critical information from the Architect, Warden-Commander Marzel Amell was last seen leading a party of Grey Wardens down beyond the depths of the Deep Roads, in search of answers and possibly a cure for the Blight.

I also included Dog because OF COURSE the Warden took their dog with them to Amaranthine.

Also, also I put too much thought into their group positions. Squishy healer Anders must of course be protected and is in the middle. Tank Justice obviously sticks close to keep him safe. Melee up front, ranged behind, with Oghren watching the rear.

Despite being just a DLC, I liked the Awakening crew a lot, mostly because we were an actual group of Grey Wardens doing warden things, if that makes any sense?

[flowersbane]

day 8 of posting random dragon age headcanons until veilguard to cope with the arduous task of waiting

origins companions on vacation:

alistair: prepares days in advance. still manages to forget something critical like s h o e s .

leliana: tries to be the mom of the group, but her luggage gets lost in the airport & everything spirals out of control from there.

morrigan: handles everything great on her end, but doesn’t offer to help anyone else. she would see leliana’s luggage on another belt & kinda just shrug and move on.

zevran: charmed his way into first class. left with all of their silverware.

sten: doesn’t want to admit that the idea of flying on a plane freaks him out.

oghren: had to be tied to his seat because he kept asking when they were gonna get to jump out & getting suspiciously close to the emergency doors.

dog: plays in the pool with alistair, but forgets how big he is and accidentally almost drowns him.

shale: takes one look at the “do not take home shells or rocks from the shores” sign, picks it up, and throws it into the sea before commencing the most ridiculously large collection of rocks & shells. the police see her. they won’t take her alive.

wynne: is the mom of the group. buys alistair new shoes, finds leliana’s luggage, is the one who tied oghren down, resuscitates alistair after dog nearly drowns him, breaks shale out of jail, and still has time to relax by the pool with a drink in her hand and her sunglasses on.

[redjennies]

i see you sometimes in different dragon age tags like "oh yeah the lae'zel fan with the redjenny url. who also likes oghren. extreme good taste" and then as an anders girlie i see your "anti"-anders post and im like "yeah they even have good taste in the way they hate my guy"

aw I really appreciate this! I'm really glad people like my takes on Oghren. I almost posted this long ass meta about him while doing my Brosca playthrough but ended up saving it to the drafts because I was like "girl you are the only person going to bat for this man and everyone else is just tolerating your right to be ornery about disliked characters." I just think about him at the Temple of Sacred Ashes a lot. to anyone reading this, if you've never brought him there, you are truly missing out on some fucking wild character work. he is a gem.

truthfully I'm not even really that anti-Anders when I'm not actively in a mood about how much this fandom annoys me. I'm extremely critical of him as a person and full disclosure, without trauma-dumping too much, I do have a personal history that makes it hard for me to not see him as very manipulative if not outright abusive. but I actually quite enjoy him as a character. I think he's got a lot of flaws and strengths that are really interesting to examine how they coincide with Hawke's larger story. how Anders and Hawke are arguably more intrinsically linked to each other than Varric and Hawke are. it might surprise people but I intentionally max out his friendship every time with my main Hawke because I think their particular story is more tragic if she has fully drunk the Anders kool-aid because he's the first unapologetic apostate she's met outside of her family and because he saved Carver in the Deep Roads and she feels like she owes him. even more of a surprise possibly, I love Sebastian and don't like Anders, but my canon ending is Hawke sparing him one last time and asking him to leave because I think that's the best ending for how I play their relationship. like "no, you have asked so much of me and I have done it for you over and over but I'm not going to give you this, even at the expense of my other friendships. you don't get the easy way out. you have to live with this and you have to do it far away from me." like fuck man! the drama! the poetry! the divorce!

honestly most of my vitriol towards him comes from over a decade now of having an extremely negative experience with what I fully recognize are not all his fans but a vocal group of people who plague the Bioware fandom who are just as bigoted as your average fanboy but in a way they can dress up as "social justice." I've said a lot about how I think the Circle and apostates is just straight up a bad metaphor for systemic oppression (see also: any setting with supers and/or legitimately dangerous monsters as stand-in for oppressed people.) and I won't get into it too much here, but it's worth mentioning because I believe the mage rights discourse and Anders particularly attracts this crowd because you know he's a cute queer whiteboy with legitimate problems and pseudo-radical politics. but I was in the DA Tumblr fandom when Inquisition dropped I remember what group of fans on Tumblr who were particularly rabid in their hatred towards characters like Vivienne and Sera (who are both critical of mage freedom, mind.) 'Twas not primarily the Cullenites calling Vivienne an Uncle Tom, no matter what people will tell you now.

and I also get that there's this way Anders haters talk about him that makes even more otherwise reasonable fans dig their heels in about him. like any critique of him that boils down to "Anders bad because he did a terrorism and terrorism bad" is not really useful to me because yeah, I'm not super keen on bombings as the best course of political action, but terrorism is a very politically loaded and at this point somewhat meaningless term that is mostly used to justify extreme violence against a person or group by the state. I don't need to bring up real life examples because the politics of who is and isn't labeled a terrorist being shorthand for who is and isn't a person deserving of basic human rights has become so obvious over the last three decades that everyone knows at least one example of what I'm talking about. on top of that, I'm a big believer that fiction does not and should not exist in a vacuum and good art should provoke discussions about how we view people who do similar things that these fictional characters do. who are we being asked to give empathy to and who are we not? who are we naturally extending empathy to and who are we not? how do we immediately feel about these things? are we outraged? disgusted? moved? does sympathizing with these characters change our understanding of our personal ethical lines? are certain actions justified under dire circumstances or are there certain lines that should never be crossed? are people forever defined by it when they cross said lines? etc etc. none of these questions can be meaningfully answered by "no, thing bad because thing bad."

that being said, I still come down on the side of Anders is a shitty person at the end of the day. not because he blew up that church or even because he tried to kill that girl, but because there's a consistent lack of compassion for the suffering and/or oppression of others the second someone doesn't fit his mold. because he's honestly pretty sexist and racist in universe. because his romance plot is just a series of progressively worsening red flags in a way that's in my opinion, less sexy and more like he's gonna start punching holes in the wall right next to you. because he's lowkey a tankie. and I've said it before and I'll say it til the day I die, we can have a discussion about how ableism influenced his writing, but at the end of the day, as a mentally ill anarchist, I know buckets and buckets of mentally ill leftist whiteboys who act like this. shit I know women and nonbinary people who act like this too. while I can understand that Bioware wasn't necessarily coming from the same perspective I am and think people are right to call his overarching storyline a tired centrist liberal take on the dangers of radicalism, his character writing still feels not only coherent as a character but very true to a particular type of ain't shit anarchist boy I have encountered over and over. i cannot dismiss his flaws and worst moments as bad writing because I feel like I personally know this asshole.

for example, I once made a post about Dissent years and years ago where I was talking about Anders/Justice/Vengeance/whoever we're calling him depending on what's most useful in the moment's outburst of violence towards Ella through the lens of male entitlement even in leftist circles and like yeah I was being a little tongue in cheek about it because a) I'm pretty tongue in cheek in general, b) I have a tendency to get even more tongue in cheek when I'm talking about things that hit a little too close to home to me, and c) that quest is frankly terrifying if you've lived a life that makes you relate more to Ella in that scene than to Anders. I think it was something along the lines of "people can call Anders a revolutionary all they want but when a mage girl was afraid of him instead of grateful for his rescue, he tried to kill her. [insert anarcho-feminist ranting here]" and I remember someone arguing with me about how that's not what happened at all and how even though I was being pithy, their take on the situation was so utterly removed from what occurs that I had to go back and watch the scene to make sure I wasn't the one completely misremembering it which made me realize just how much Anders has been completely rewritten in parts of the fandom consciousness.

which in and of itself is not really a problem. I know some people just don't care for interacting with fanon at all and want to stay as true to canon as possible and I'm like that sometimes, but there are lots of characters I'm like "oh, I don't like how their story went in canon or think the writer had a neat idea but is too misogynistic to handle her in a way I like and I'm going to basically put them in an AU where they developed their traits in a different way and I can recognize this is more or less my version of them." there's characters I don't care for in canon but I love someone else's fanon version of them. I'm even fine with people doing this with Anders, if they want. I've read really good fic with him that is not my take but hey you do you, this is what transformative fandom is for after all. but I do get more than a little prickly when I'm interacting with my reading of canon that is of course informed by my experiences but still discussing something that just literally happens and someone tells me I'm wrong because of what basically amounts to their fanfics, you know?

anyway that's my very long post about my complicated and extremely nuanced Anders feelings. great character, shitty person, his fans are either really cool or really fucking not. also it's been almost fifteen years, and I still think we should've had Jowan in DA2 as a familiar face helping out in the mage underground to both flesh them out more and to serve as a middle ground between the more circle-aligned Orsino and the initially representing the mage underground before getting progressively more Kaczynski-esque, Anders, instead of Cullen just kind of hanging out in the templars not really doing anything.

[relax-o-vision]

Aren't you worried that Veilguard is going to be bad? Not in a "mediocre game" kind of bad, but in a "homophobic and misogynistic in a woke way" kind o bad?

Not actively worried, but the past games weren't always kind to us, either, and I've always been very critical of the writers because of this.

I remember the whole deal with the brood mothers. I remember Morrigan's story. I remember Oghren's ex, what happened to her, how he objectified her, and how his objectification of her was treated as a joke.

I remember Cullen and how he treated mages, and I remember his disgusting comment about a female mage warden who romanced Leliana.

I'm in no way blind to any of that, and I'm hesitant to start my next sentence with "but", lol

Veilguard already is homophobic in the sense that they deleted gay people out of existence with a cheap excuse.

But (yea, I'm doing it) the series has overall been a lot better than some other games, and rpgs like Dragon Age are practically non existent (BG3 was also.... bad, Cyberpunk was.... bad, and idk wtf Bethesda is smoking).

I'm just really looking forward to the combat, the character creator, and to smooching Scout Harding, finally.

And if there's stuff to criticise, I've always been one of the first people to rant about it.

I'm more worried about the fanbase tbh. Because non-gay fans were horrible after Inquisition released. I'm not planning on interacting with anyone but the few people I know on here, or people who prove I can trust them. I'll be using the block button very frequently, I think.

Or... also possible.....the game actually is just so bad I can't enjoy it, in which case I'll just go back to playing Inquisition.

[shoutydwarf]

It’s funny 2 me that ppl think s*las being ugly is one of the things that drive ppl to hate him but they’re the same ppl that will deny it for a certain short, fat, chubby cheeked, tiny eyed, big nosed dwarf in origins (while hating him and not even giving him a chance).. your ugly elf is just some white guy with very conventional eurocentric pretty features beyond being bald 💀 sorry

[persephoneggsy]

2, 6, 7, 15, and 17, for the DA: TV meme, please!

2. Which Dragon Age game is your favorite so far?

It’s close, but Inquisition beats out the others by a thin margin. I just really love the hopeful, epic tone the game goes for, I love the gameplay, especially for mages and archers, and I just think it’s a really pretty game! Emprise du Lion is so gorgeous, sometimes I just walk around the snow and take it all in. It’s the game I’ve replayed the most out of the trilogy. And also it has the best DLCs, Jaws of Hakkon, The Descent, and Trespasser are all S-tier for me.

And it has my favorite group of companions, in terms of how many I like overall. In Origins I really only feel strongly about Alistair and Morrigan, and I'm fond of Oghren... everyone else I’m lukewarm about. 2 has my best boy Sebastian, and I like Fenris and Merrill, but I largely dislike-to-hate everyone else. Inquisition, though, I bare minimum like all the companions… with one exception lmao.

6. Do you have your Rook(s) planned out to any degree? If so, would you share some details or ideas you have?

I always play a human woman, at least to start with, so there’s that. I have an OC from Star Wars: The Old Republic that I’ve been wanting to turn into a Pathfinder 2e character, but I can definitely rework her for The Veilguard: her name is Solesta, and she’s in her late 50s/early 60s. 

I’m leaning towards Antivan Crow or Mourn Watch for her faction. And I WANT to make a warrior since my previous protags have been Rogue - Mage - Mage, but Rogue might fit her better aesthetically.

Personality wise, she’s a very flirty old woman who can be charming and witty, but absolutely brutal and unforgiving in a fight. Also she has two adult children and two grandsons whom she dotes on.

7. Which character from the previous games or other media are you most hoping will make an appearance in DAV?

I mean… I’d love for Sebastian to get at least a mention that’s nice to him. He’s my canon romance for Hawke so it would be nice to hear that they’re happy ruling Starkhaven together. But given how much BioWare seems to actively dislike or treat Sebastian as lesser than the rest of the DA2 cast, I’d be just as happy if they left him alone and let me just headcanon that he’s happy and thriving with his wife.

Other than him… I really like Professor Kenric from the Jaws of Hakkon DLC. I think he was really adorable (and I possibly just have a thing for Starkhaven boys lol). He had a pretty obvious crush on Harding, she could reference him at least!

15. Do you have any unpopular opinions about DAV so far?

I think my unpopular opinion is just that I’m like… earnestly excited and hype for it. I get the criticisms people have for it, I’m never gonna tell anyone that things shouldn’t be criticized. But I just personally don’t have a problem with anything we’ve been shown so far. 

I think the style of the game looks beautiful, I always preferred stylized characters to realistic ones, I LOVE the colors, and I’ve never really considered the series to be “dark” in the way that other people seem to, so a brighter tone doesn’t bug me either. I’m interested in all the companions, I’m intrigued by the new combat system, and I screamed and cheered and clapped at the reveal trailer we got during the Xbox Showcase. But being earnestly excited is either met with "you're a shill for EA/BioWare", "huffing copium" or "being contrarian" lol.

Honestly, the only thing that might get me some pushback is that I don’t want Varric to be there. Not because I think he deserves rest or whatever, I’m just earnestly sick of him and would prefer if he just fucked off back to Kirkwall and make BioWare come up with a new character. Preferably a dwarf.

17. Are you interested in all the lore and speculation or do you focus more on the games and stories themselves?

I love DA lore, but I leave the analyzing to people smarter and with better retention than I. I tend to focus more on the stories actually being presented to us via the games. Idk, I’m just not like… equipped to speculate, I think. I either need concrete answers or I will make up my own headcanons regardless of supporting evidence lmao