#the grand game

[anneapocalypse]

On the actual significance of the "Grand Game"

In the three Dragon Age games thus far we have seen Orlesians from three perspectives. In Origins we get the Fereldan view, Orlesians Are Evil, this from a nation occupied and oppressed by the empire and not yet over it. In DA2 we get the Marcher view, or you could call it specifically the Tethras view, Orlesians Are Stupid, a view no doubt cultivated by the fact that the only Orlesians you meet in Kirkwall are rich expats wealthy enough to have a second home in the Free Marches but not important enough to actually need to be in Orlais. And in Inquisition we get I think the closest thing to the Orlesian view of Orlais, which is: we're very powerful and you should want to have us on your side; please ignore all the chaos and civil war and how expendable we consider the lower classes.

Throughout all of this I think it is worth noting that the only people who think Orlesians are so subtle and clever are Orlesians, and mostly it's just the nobles and their hangers-on who think that about themselves. We're introduced to the concept of the Grand Game through Leliana, who romanticizes the whole thing due to her life as a bard. Varric by contrast has very little in the way of romantic notions about Orlesian nobles and mostly portrays them as comical buffoons, from Emile de Launcet to Duke Prosper de Montfort; not one of Varric's Orlesian characters is ever meant to be taken seriously by the audience. In Inquisition, a lot of hay is made about the Game and the need for favor and so forth but it pretty much all boils down to "Nobles have money and troops. We need those. Make them like you."

To me, the interesting thing about the Game is not that it's actually deeply complex or intricate, but how central it is to Orlesian identity. Of course there are intricacies to court politics, but most of it comes down to knowing whose interests and connections lie where, and how those interests may be successfully manipulated. That's not "Orlesian politics," that's just politics, and it's not meaningfully different from politics elsewhere. What sets the Orlesian aristocracy apart from Ferelden, when you look past the cultural trappings and the aesthetics, is mainly that Orlais has much stronger barriers to upward mobility in place (freeholds, or land owned by commoners, are practically unheard of in Orlais, whereas the freehold is the backbone of Fereldan culture).

But where I think the cultural significance of the Game truly matters to Orlesians is in the way it's meant to set them apart as the Good Empire. The empire that is cultured, sophisticated, civilized--you know, not like that other, bad empire up north, the one with the blood magic and the legal slavery. Please pay no attention to the blood-soaked floors of the servants' quarters (or the illegal slave trade that flourished in occupied Ferelden and behind closed doors of remote estates). We negotiate power with subtle words and gestures, and definitely don't sustain it with the blood of the powerless just like the magisters do, but without the magic. It's the magic part that makes blood magic bad, not the murder part. (This is a big part of why I love The Masked Empire, so much, as it really has so much to say about the nature of power and empire and who truly suffers for the games the nobles play, but it's also why what we see in the servants' quarters in "Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts" is so important.)

And this all ties into Orlais as the seat of the southern Chantry as well, sitting in opposition to Tevinter politically, culturally, religiously, all of which are inexorably intertwined.

[sniperct]

If true we HAVE to make this the biggest flop in gaming history, as in 'destroys the company' levels of gaming flop as in a 'lesson must be taught' gaming flop, as in 'E.T. destroyed atari' gaming flop

[chloesimaginationthings]

"They call it the MANGLE" - FNAF 2 phone guy

[mf-artdump]

I've been playing Splatoon since the very first game. And seeing my playable character in the first game reappear and grow in Splatoon 2 and 3, makes my heart clench with bittersweet joy because I grew up with them.

Splatoon grew and I also grew and I couldn't be happier to grow up together.

Thank you for the maritime memories.

[bowserinthesky]

As you can see, our team managed to capture the courtship dance between two cephalopods of different species... Really a rare but beautiful display of nature

[smaiart]

rushed this real quick bc i wanna play lmao but lets go team past!! 💖

[blackfeatherdragon]

the amount of games made with unity though...

night in the woods, ori, cuphead, untitled goose game, hiveswap, hollow knight and silksong, pokemon bdsp, pokemon go, fate: grand order, fire emblem engage, genshin impact, doom (switch port only), ultrakill, among us, yugioh duel links, yugioh master duel...

so many games Will be impacted it's not even funny. Fuck Unity.

[immawraffle]

Don’t just leave this in the tags

No lie, I would absolutely love to put any player of the Grand Game in Orzammar. Place your bets everybody, how long are they surviving?

aside from jokes i could make about orzammar's royal court eating orlais' alive, which is true, the real problem here is that they operate by completely different rules. if my enemy's right hand man makes a joke at my family's expense in orlais, i find subtle ways to tip the scale and come out on top a week from now, and if i'm really desperate i might hire an assassin or something. if my enemy's second makes a joke at my house's expense in orzammar, i fucking slash his throat open right here because i'm not taking that. they're not going to be better at each other's games

orzammar certainly gets things done quicker but it's also a hell of a strategy for a people with one (1) city with a dwindling birthrate

[constantinnen]

nostalgic for gta 4.

[retrogamingblog2]

[justabiteofspite]

"Astarion doesn't do big romantic gestures."

My Durge still trying to get graveyard dirt out of her ass crack after being lovingly pounded into it by Astarion who wanted to share with her this deeply joyful and meaningful reclamation of himself after sharing a vulnerable declaration of his love, at this place he hasn't shown anyone else but her: "Then what the actual fuck was that???"

[doktorhoss]

[liquidcrystalsky]

HELP THE PLUSHIES ARE ALL JUST ONE TEXTURE

[never-obsolete]

7 GRAND DAD (NES bootleg)

[captdedeyes]

Congrats to Team Past on winning the Grand Festival!

Stay fresh, everyone 🥲