#the narrative makes it clear that some of these templars took the lyrium under false pretenses or were forcefed it

[v-arbellanaris]

in addition to the above... 

on the subject of ableism, mages are routinely lobotomised (in some places, specifically as a punishment to themselves or other mages, but even in places/situations where this isn’t the case, like that’s still fucked up). you can make mages tranquil in inquisition only if you are a mage yourself, further playing into the idea of minorities being responsible for their own oppression, when historically templars made mages tranquil, often for the most minor of infractions such as sending love letters (maddox and karl). the treatment of samson as a “bad addict” all throughout dai, starting from da2, is also ableist. making anders a “violent terrorist” (debatable but that’s the agenda bioware is pushing) and then insisting he’s also bipolar is ableism. the writers often insist that the best romance for anders (has bpd) and merrill (coded autistic) is the rivalmance which is abusive to them -- this is ableism. 

da2 is especially heinous for ableism -- the narrative often leans towards killing “crazy mages” because there’s no other help for them, because they’ve murdered/killed/hurt people (because ofc that’s what crazy people do). kelder’s mental health issues (hearing voices, etc) seem to... that’s right. make him kill elven kids. and the options are to either return him to prison (which gets you rivalry points from everyone) or do the “merciful” thing and simply kill him. the way fandom and the writers react as if it’s a mercy to have killed anders at the end of da2. 

additionally, the options for samson at the end of best served cold are to either ask for mercy from the mages, thereby leaving him to suffer from his lyrium addiction on the streets, or to support his return to the templar order, and continuing his lyrium addiction which is! you guessed it, ableism. unless anders is in the party, there’s no indication that bartrand could be healed or brought back from his red lyrium addiction and the “merciful” option is presented as killing him rather than let him suffer from being insane. which. again. is ableism. dismissing all of meredith’s actions as her being insane from red lyrium is ableism, and so is the fact that despite her apparent “insanity” there’s no option to spare her (even if it’s not a route most players would go through with, it’s.... interesting that you can spare loghain, who knowingly sold elves as slaves to tevinter, in dao but not meredith, who is advocating for the slaughter of every single mage in the circle and is “insane”, in da2) and the pc automatically fights to kill her, which is... ableist.  

bioware also really loves to pit mages and elves (and their oppressions) against each other, and some fans play into it, to a degree that frankly makes me extremely uncomfortable. you see it in da2 with bioware pitting anders and fenris (and merrill) against each other. in dai, bioware gives us sera, a city elf, who is uncomfortable with magic; vivienne, who cares greatly about mages but makes several pointed and racist comments about the dalish; solas who seems to identify more as a mage than an elf despite being a literal elven god. the false dichotomy between the two issues is something bioware constantly pushes, as though the issues are mutually exclusive, and as though mage freedom must mean elven oppression or vice versa, and not an issue of the chantry (tevinter or orlais) oppressing both mages and elves.  

you’ve also got inquisitor ameridan -- a dalish mage and an elf -- who only goes missing after the nevarran accord is signed, which creates the seekers and templars, whose job is to drag mages to the circle. like. inquisitor ameridan, a mage, is implied to be responsible for the creation of the circle, which imprisons mages exactly like him, to be looked over by templars. and there’s already red flags that even as early as that the templars were going to abuse mages; haron, a knight-templar “friend” of ameridan, was already all too happy to kill mages, often to telana’s discomfort and protest. and yet ameridan somehow, for some reason, supported the idea of the circle’s creation being overlooked by templars? he “warns” them of the potential abuse that the rite of tranquility could bring to mages and then seems to have simply... caved with regards to it’s use when they “promised” that wouldn’t happen? how does that even make sense? once again, mages are responsible for their own oppression. and i’ve spoken at length about the portrayal of the mage rebellion in dai and how it’s framed in such a way that mages seem to want to be in the circle, and insisting on mage freedom despite that is painted as oppression of mages who want to be in the circle.

i think with regards to tevinter, i wish they’d just stuck with tevinter being white from the start instead of adding dorian to be brown later and adding all the codified SA/SEA’n stuff for tevinter in tevinter nights. writing tevinter to have colonised the entirety of thedas is really... white history. 

and like this isn’t to exclude imperialism or colonialism in non-western countries  which is extremely important to be aware of. i don’t want people to fall into the trap of thinking imperalism and colonialism can only be done by white people in the past, because non-western colonialism is happening today and oftentimes gets dismissed as being something else. we need to understand that shit happens and we have to expand our understanding of colonialism so we can spot it when and where it’s happening. 

but like... that’s not the purpose or implications behind making tevinter brown. like, the rigidity of the caste system in tevinter, the pantheon of old gods essentially being “replaced” with the worship of the maker, the conflict with the qunari could’ve been some fantasy allusions to things like the mughal empire, or the indian caste system, but then, by having that Very White narrative of them having almost conquered the entire world at one point gets... messy. nasty, even. it certainly reads as an attempt at “reverse racism” hot take bioware is trying here -- in particular, their take on elves (historically in literature an “elevated” or superior race) being an oppressed minority in thedas suddenly reads as kind of disturbing when they’re all white elves being oppressed by nasty poc humans. (like literally in those who speak, the elves that isabela -- a black woman -- is transporting are all white. it’s SO fucked up.)

and it’s not even limited to the history between tevinter and the elves. in addition to the grossness of having the elves be coded white and invaded/colonised by a brown tevinter, like... andraste herself was alamarri, who are white, and a slave of tevinter, a country of brown people. especially considering the british colonisation of india like?? like hello? what the fuck?

I’m a Dragon Age fan who’s also mentally disabled and a person of color.

and let me say this;

i need more people to start criticizing the Dragon Age ‘elves are an oppressed race’ allegory.

and i need people to STOP criticizing the Dragon Age ‘mages face institutionalized ableism’ allegory.

the ancient slave-liberating elf deity Solas is a bald white man, while the colonizing slave-owning Tevinter nation is based off of brown people. this should not be okay with you.

meanwhile, people are real recipient of the idea that mages are prone to having ‘weak minds’ that make them criminally violent.

it doesn’t matter if an individual is stronger, or more powerful than you, nothing justifies forced institutionalization based on mental profiling.

it doesn’t matter if a fictional race has a similar written history, making them white-looking (while their oppressors are brown, no less) is whitewashing.