#who is to blame here Bioware?!?!

[liaragaming]

I will never get over this as long as I live.

He is shaking.

I don't know if this is animation or mocap, but whoever did this deserves a medal for making me die a thousand tiny deaths.

[notmeowse]

That AMA marks the end of Dragon Age.

In my opinion.

I'll start by saying that I have played all 3 of the previous games repeatedly, I've loved the series for 15 years, more than half my life. These games inspired me to become a writer and they've shaped a lot of my tastes and interests in shows and writing -- to say they were formative is kind of an understatement. Don't want to go on and on about how much I loved them, that's not the point here.

I didn't care for Veilguard for pretty much all of the reasons people have already discussed at length on Reddit and Tumblr. The writing is comprehensively bad, the romances are easily the worst Bioware has written by pure virtue of having the most cookie-cutter pacing and shallow characterization I've seen across their games, the lore has been shafted in every direction, and the nuanced storytelling and roleplay I came to expect from the series has been taken out back and shot in the head.

All, apparently, in the name of a "clean slate". It seems to me that, rather than familiarizing himself with the existing lore of the game he took the creative reins on, Epler clearly had a vision for Dragon Age (or perhaps a different IP entirely) in his head that he decided to transplant into the game (and possibly Trick? But they've said so little beyond defending their work that I can hardly theorize what direction they were coming from). That being a sanitized, wildly self-contradicting, morally absolute shitshow focused on distancing itself from the previous games as much as possible. Now, I know it's unrealistic to blame one person entirely, and I don't blame him entirely. Corinne was there. Trick was there.

But if it wasn't already evident from the numerous interviews Epler's given on the game as well as his participation in the Q&A's (while the actual lead writer of the game has been completely absent in not just the marketing, but in most fan-related interaction pre and post-launch outside of BSKY), this AMA seems to have confirmed, more than anything else, that Epler doesn't understand the game nor does he understand its audience. Neither does Corinne Busche, who despite being Game Director for only the last two years of development, has been answering lore questions a) like she has any fucking clue and b) like she thinks Dragon Age is a cozy-gamer IP, meant to appeal to people that want uplifting stories with uncontroversial characters, morally upright heroes, and unquestionably evil villains.

So as of today's AMA, I think I've finally had enough. We're just outright retconning the lore in Reddit AMA's now, I guess. Among other things. I'll provide a few examples, just so we're all on the same page.

This was part of Epler's response to why Solas didn't have his cult following in the game (insert "We Kind of Forgot" meme here):

Solas' experience leading the rebellion against the Evanuris turned him against the idea of being a leader. You see it in the memories - the entire experience of being in charge ate at him and, ultimately, convinced him he needed to do this on his own. And his own motivations were very different from the motivations of those who wanted to follow him - he had no real regard for their lives or their goals. So at some point between Trespasser and DATV, he severed that connection with his 'followers' and went back to being a lone wolf.

The fact that this (the not caring bit) directly contradicts the writing in the actual game is absolutely INSANE to me, moreso than the lack of Solas's spy network (which he apparently carried with him for 10 years only to conveniently drop right before the ritual? Because he clearly had them research Rook?). But in regards to the not caring -- here's a line from Solas's memory of killing Mythal in Veilguard, which. I'll get to Mythal in a minute:

Why should I not tear down the Veil, and bring back immortality to all the elven people? They deserve it!

Which is it? Does Solas care about the people he's saving (the venn diagram of people he's saving vs. the people following him is surely a circle, i.e. elves) or not? Does he even care about the spirits trapped behind the Veil anymore or is it just convenient to abandon them and have him only care about elves, now? What happened to saving The People? What happened to him not identifying as an elf in his conversations with a Dalish Inquisitor? And what the absolute fuck happened to him wanting to bring back the magical marvels (that the ancient elves did in fact achieve) that were greater than anything we see in Thedas today? Here's what Epler has to say about elven magic, now:

I do agree that the elves have had their place in the sun at this point. [...] The thing about the Evanuris is that, ultimately, they were able to take a very specific type of magic and shape it into doing what they wanted. But even their understanding of magic was only skin deep [...] Even the magic that Tevinter wields, the magic of the Southern mages, is different from what the Evanuris used. The magic of the Evanuris is powerful but it's sterile, and it's constrained. So while the Evanuris have made magic work in a way that's more predictable and understandable, it's not the only kind of magic out there, and even then, I'd say they understood it at a very surface level. People were confidently describing how the natural world worked back in the 16th century. Very few of them were right.

First of all, Tevinter has been stated in previous games to have clumsily adapted ancient elven magic for their own, but they did adapt it. To the point where even Solas is surprised that Corypheus achieved effective immortality -- by binding himself to a dragon the same way the Evanuris did. So, cool, more contradicting the lore here. "They understood it at a very surface level" you mean when all of the magic of the Fade wasn't locked behind the Veil? You mean when magic flowed freely through the world? What do you mean, Surface Fucking Level? The entire point of the Dalish elf culture is what they lost; this wasn't the ancient elves thinking the sun revolved around the earth, the Veil was their fucking Library of Alexandria burning. Oh my god. I still cannot believe he said this.

And how have the elves had their day in the sun? I'm sorry, was Arlathan not given to... the Veil Jumpers? Instead of the Dalish? What happened to all the Dalish clans in the south, who had no infrastructure when the world was apparently blighted to hell? I guess they're just gone now! They've had their day! The story of the Dalish and the Evanuris is over (also confirmed in this AMA), and it apparently ends with the final snuff of the candle that is their culture. Congratulations, Chantry, you've won! Only took two genocides and a double blight, but we're done with the Dalish now! We get your mind-numbingly superficial factions instead!

What happened to Mythal, by the way? What happened to "She was betrayed as I was betrayed, as the world was betrayed! Mythal clawed and crawled her way through the ages to me, and I will see her avenged!" What happened to the reckoning that will shake the very heavens? John's answer to this:

People grow and change over time. Mythal's essence - and in particular, the fragment of her spirit that Morrigan carries, that she got from Flemeth - is not the same Mythal who he knew millennia ago. Centuries of living in this world and being around the kinds of people Flemeth found herself around - the Hero of Ferelden, Hawke, the Inquisitor - changed her views, and made her realize her own culpability in turning Solas into the kind of person he is now.

Oh, right, okay. So she was pissed for like a thousand years, got her big speech about the impending "reckoning" out 10 years ago, and then she just chilled out because the last 3 heroes were neat people. What a fucking joke. And yes, here is the confirmation that the Evanuris story is over --

The story of the Evanuris is done - the gods are dead (or imprisoned) and Thedas is in a state of flux and uncertainty. I imagine that whatever happens next is going to be a surprise to everyone, including the people of Thedas."

So I guess Mythal's reckoning is never coming. One of the most fascinating characters in the series, shrouded in mystery for those first 3 games, PROMISING US a blaze of glory, only to fizzle out in this one. Again, and I can't emphasize this enough, for Epler's clean fucking slate. And we've not just tied up her story, but also the Veil and the Blight:

When Solas bound himself (or, depending on your ending, was forcibly bound) to the Veil, it severed the connection that the Blight had to the waking world. The reality is that the Veil has been leaking ever since the Magisters first entered the Black City, and the dreams of the Titans gave it its terrible and awesome power. Now that the Veil is fully repaired, the Blight lacks that motive force, and being so close to the epicenter of that change has stripped the Blight in Minrathous of its vitality. It's calcified now - dead - and Bellara/Neve no longer suffer its effects. If they'd been anywhere else, further from that epicenter, it would've likely been different and they still would be looking for a cure.

So the Veil is permanently fixed now because our half-dead Dread Wolf bound himself to it (a decision I still don't understand) and that somehow fixed every single hole ever poked in it. Fully repaired. No more holes, no more "Veil is thin here" because tons of people died in the same spot, nope, we're washing our hands and leaving it (and the spirits) behind us because we've wrapped up both the series-long Veil storyline and the blight storyline in a big red bow.

And Epler tells us Solas not only bound himself to the Veil but fixed it entirely in one fell swoop, no ritual required, just a little slice to the hand. Again, all in the name of a clean slate, so any future installments or media centered around Thedas can turn away from this story.

Then there's this. What we can expect from future installments, I freaking guess. The aforementioned roleplay getting taken out back and shot:

Q: "What lead you to the decision to step away from active conversations with the companions as in previous Bioware games, where you can initiate them at any moment and ask exhaustive questions?"

John: "For us, because of tech limitations, it became a choice between exhaustive investigate conversations, or letting the companions move more freely around the Lighthouse. With the kind of experience we were going for, one where seeing the team grow around you is paramount, we felt that seeing them interact in common spaces (and in each other's rooms) made more sense."

Literally confirmed that they chose companions moving freely about the cabin over ... interacting with them outside the handful of cutscenes we got. Who in their right mind would think this was a good call in a Dragon Age game? A series that quite literally prides itself on complex character interactions and storytelling? So they could... sit in different places? Are you kidding me?

They don't see an issue with the game's reception. They don't have any interest in addressing or responding to criticism. They're either happy with their choices or EA's got a gun pointed at their heads, I'm honestly not sure anymore. I used to believe the latter was true, but looking at both Epler's and Busche's responses today, I'm inclined to believe the former.

So I think that's it for the series. Not that I thought it was going to get another game after this, but on the absolute off chance it did, what would be the point? The best stories were ruined. Anything left they have to tell is going to read a lot like Veilguard -- superficial, morally absolute, flagrantly disrespectful to the lore, and delivered in a very poorly written package.

[himluv]

Okay, hot take coming in, but I've seen a few posts mentioning that Isseya's character was done dirty in Veilguard. And... I disagree. Here's why:

1. Isseya is already established as a morally gray character, willing to do basically anything if it meant ending the Fourth Blight, even when it went against her own personal morals.

2. Her Calling advanced quickly because of the blight, and it's theorized in Last Flight that all her use of Blood Magic probably didn't help, either.

3. She has been alive for CENTURIES after she should have died on her Calling. She is more Darkspawn than elf, more akin to The Architect or Corypheus than she is Davrin, by the time we meet her in game.

4. And this is the doozy, in the novel The Calling, we see what happens when Wardens don't die on their Calling. We know what happens when they let their taint change them. We saw what happened when the Architect advanced their Calling so that they might keep their minds... They didn't. After only months, Bregan starts to lose it. The blight is anger. It's rage. It is a literal plague of HATE. And it twists not just his body, but his mind too.

So, imagine Isseya, already angry. Already wracked with guilt, grief, and righteous anger when she goes on her Calling. And then she doesn't die, but Revas, her griffon, does. And so Isseya is all alone, festering in her own negative emotions for centuries, all while the blight in her veins slowly takes over and whispers nothing but hate directly into her brain. For over 400 YEARS.

And it all comes down to the Wardens. She blames them for what she became, for the fate of the griffons (understandably so), and her madness spirals into making an alternate Weisshaupt, recruiting her own order of Blighted Wardens.

(side note: was she working with The Architect? Because this is some Architect shit.)

And then Ghilan'nain shows up with an offer to help "save" the griffons. And Isseya is blighted, driven mad with centuries of unmitigated hate. So she takes Ghilan'nain's offer, never once seeing how she's being used all over again. Because the blight has blinded her with hate for the Wardens.

Isseya's character hasn't been botched. They didn't do her dirty. Her story is SAD. Heartbreaking even. It's a tragedy and a warning, of what that much hate can do to a person.

Did I wish better for her? Absolutely. I loved Isseya in Last Flight, and my heart broke for her then. But unraveling the Gloom Howler that first time? Realizing who she was and WHY this was happening? It was an amazing experience. (The way I said, "oh, Isseya"??? Tear my heart to shreds, Bioware.)

But, just because Isseya's fate is tragic, doesn't mean she was written poorly. From what we know about her, the blight, and the Calling, her character is actually very consistent and believable.

Just... really fucking sad.

[vigilskept]

gnashing my teeth thinking about how veilguard talks about the gods only as a joke when they could've gone somewhere truly crazy.... you're so right.

Yeah... you get it. It's just such a missed opportunity!

I don't even mind the jokey tone they use a lot of the time, because we all joke about things we struggle to understand/cope with.

Except Veilguard refuses to let you even try to broach the subject beyond that surface level. In fact, when it does let you engage with it at all, it manages to make things even less nuanced!

I'm just going to talk about Bellara's quest here since it's the most directly linked with the elven gods, and it's already a lot. Fundamentally, her companion quest is asking us two things:

Should elves be blamed for the actions of the Evanuris?

Should they preserve any of their past at all?

The first one is absurd to even begin with. It's not even a good or interesting take on the (very christian!) question: "Are we responsible for the sins of our ancestors?"

The Evanuris are not the ancestors of modern elves. Dalish religion implies that modern elves descend from those who the rebels never freed from slavery to the Evanuris.

This setup is already awful without looking at any of the parallels Bioware has (intentionally) drawn between the elves of Thedas and Jewish/Indigenous people. I have to put the rest of this under the cut because I genuinely don't think it can be shortened without making it sound flippant. In the context of the coding of the elves, the theological/social implications of all of this are so much worse.

TLDR: the indigenous/jewish coding of the elves makes bioware's treatment of elven religion in veilguard thoughtless at best, cruel at worst. they did not have to write themselves into this corner. there was a way of handling this lore reveal without the implication of elven religion (again, jewish/indigenous coded) being obsolete

So, the religion of the Dalish was part of their enslavement. It's the belief they were forced into by the cruel gods they are still devoted to. That's already pretty bad. How could it get worse, you might wonder?

Whether Bioware deviated from their initial inspirations for the elves or not, the implications for these lore reveals in light of those parallels are particularly cruel. Those two core questions in Bellara's quest? Yeah. Those have both been levied against the oppressed groups that Bioware chose to draw inspiration from. Both historically and presently. To justify atrocities against them.

And to be clear, Bioware does not deviate from or subvert the usual indigeous and jewish-coding of the elves in their writing here. If anything, they end up actively endorsing a very significant element of antisemitic and anti-indigenous sentiment.

Indigenous-Coding

Advocates of colonisation have always justified it by arguing they were 'saving' groups of people who were stuck in the past. They had been ‘left in the dark’ through ignorance of Christianity. In the more secular sense, this was framed as Europeans having journeyed through history to reach enlightenment, while the rest of the world was still in an ‘uncivilized’ state.

Christianity and progress had to be brought to these people to save their souls and bring them into the future with everyone else. Their Gods? There were only two possible ways to frame those. Either they were not real at all, or they were evil. Either way, they were obsolete.

In the Americas, these arguments were still used when corralling indigenous children into residential schools or tearing them from communities through the adoption system. Governments pushed the idea that they had to be forced to assimilate because they were 'backward' in their practices and beliefs.

In the settler-colonial state Canada, where Bioware is based, it's still common enough to hear people justify all of this as having been done "for their own good." Even those who admit that the ways colonization was perpetuated were cruel will still try to defend it by telling you, "it was bad, but their ancestors weren't saints either."

Sounding painfully familiar yet? A little uncomfortable in the context of Bellara's questline?

Jewish-Coding

Since the dawn of Christian Church, Jewish people have had a very fraught place in Christian theology. Christianity claims that that the coming of the messiah in the person of Jesus Christ makes the religion of Judaism obsolete. Christians believed the obvious answer to this problem was that Jewish people should convert.

When many did not, they were labeled as ignorant, obstinate, stuck in the past. They were so focused on their history that they couldn't see the truth which had been revealed in the present. There’s a significant legacy of this idea in Christian artwork with depictions of Synagoga blindfolded next to the clear eyed Ecclesia. You still hear echoes of this sentiment in antisemitic language today.

As for the nature of the Jewish God... there is some deviation here. For some Christians, He is God the Father, and He is good. For others — and this idea has been around from early Christianity till now — He is the Creator of the material world, but He is evil.

There are innumerable variations of Christian gnosticism that probably wouldn't be productive to get into on a Dragon Age Blog. What I need to underline here though, is that the idea of the Old Testament God as the devil/the demiurge/fundamentally evil, has been used to justify atrocity towards Jewish people for over a thousand years.

Should elves be blamed then? For the sundering of the Titans? For the Veil? For the Blight? For the evils of this world, created by their Gods?

Implications for Veilguard

Not only is religion in Dragon Age: The Veilguard often devoid of nuance or ignored outright, when the game does engage with it at all, it does so in a way that quite literally draws on these incredibly harmful antisemitic and anti-indigenous sentiments that have been (and still are) used to perpetuate real harm.

To be clear, I don't think the writing here intends to endorse the idea that elves should be blamed for any of what's going on. Bellara's anxieties are being projected onto her people as a whole while she grapples with what this all means for her, I get that. In fact, you could be generous and read some of this as a critique of this particular kind of anti-indigenous/jewish bigotry.

However, I don't think that absolves the writers of any of the implications they've created by confirming that the elven pantheon did exist and was canonically evil.

Elements of Dalish/elven culture might be preserved after all this, but the conclusion the game railroads you into is that their religion is obsolete. Just like Judaism. Just like the many Indigenous religions around the world. Except in Dragon Age: The Veilguard, it’s no longer just the bigotry of outsiders claiming that to be the case. It’s now the objective truth of the setting.

Going forward, the elves of Thedas can keep their culture, but they can’t practice their religion. If they continued to practice, they would be framed the way the Venatori are: evil and stuck in the past. This really can’t be overstated: this is the exact rhetoric that has justified centuries of violence and oppression of Jewish and Indigenous people. This rhetoric is still around and still weaponized.

It’s so cruel to create an in world ‘lineage’ that draws so heavily from their cultures and histories, then validate the rhetoric that has been used to hurt them. At best, it’s thoughtless. But as a company based in a settler-colonial state, this is something they should’ve put thought into, given that they chose to code their elves and Jewish and Indigenous. That was their responsibility, actually.

What gets me about all this is that they actually didn't need to force that conclusion at all. They could have kept the Evanuris as cruel tyrants without demonising the Creators and their worship at the same time.

The Evanuris weren't always Gods. They weren't even always rulers.

In Trespasser, when asked how they became Gods, Solas tells Lavellan that they did so slowly. That it started with a war. That fear bred a desire for simplicity. For right and wrong. For chains of command. That generals became respected elders, then kings, and finally gods.

Veilguard confirms all of this. The addition it makes is that before all this, the first elves were spirits who made their bodies out of the Titans. This all occurred over the course of thousands of years.

None of this needs to be retconned in order to allow for a respectful yet nuanced portrayal of religion!

TLDR pt2: bioware, u could’ve avoided literally ALL of this by making the evanuris part of a priestly class who seized power after the war with the titans. it wouldn’t even have undermined ur lore! u could’ve kept dalish religion alive! u could’ve implied complex political dynamics for your ancient elves without even having to write it! why didn’t you even try?

Trying to Fix This Mess

Say the elves took their bodies from the Titans and settled the lands of Thedas. Say the Titans even allowed this for a time. The dwarves were made from their own bodies after all.

Yet the elves didn't have the same connection with the Titans as the dwarves did. They had no stone-sense, so they couldn't understand the Titans' song.

Generations down the line, some of them took too much from the Titans. More than they were willing to give. That was when the Titans lashed out, making the earth tremble so that all the elves had built crumbled beneath them.

And what if the firstborn among the elves had taken up priesthood to guide the younger ones. They were closer to spirits than the elves that were born into this world, and so the younger ones looked to them for guidance. Maybe they were the ones who were trusted to reach out to the more powerful of the spirits who chosen stay in the Fade, their old kin who preferred to keep their distance from the physical world to preserve the essence of what they were. The spirits of Justice, of Benevolence, of Craft. Those who the elven people paid homage to, and trusted to preserve them in turn.

So when everything seemed to fall apart, the elves turned to their Keepers, their priests, and asked of them what they ought to do. How could they make the earth stop shaking? What would they have to do to be at peace again?

Whatever the spirits themselves may have responded, many of the Keepers (among them the Evanuris) took up arms and chose war. They saw it could be won so they fought, sundering Titans from their dreams and stilling the land.

And yet there was no peace.

Some Keepers sought to hold on to their power as generals, and wanted to wage war on new shores to keep it. Some Keepers thought they had already gone too far, claiming they had acted without the guidance of the spirits who hadn't wanted war.

These Keepers could've caused chaos and endless bloodshed, so the Evanuris formed their alliance to suppress the others. Likely, they thought they were doing so for the benefit of all the elven people. More war meant more death, and it was needless now that the land was still. And even if what they did to the Titans was wrong, it was done and they could not fix it. Better to silence those who meant to stir up fear among the people.

The Evanuris fought until they were the last faction left, naming the few holdouts the Forgotten Ones. They were praised for bringing peace to Elvhenan, and trusting in their guidance their people crowned them as rulers.

Yet some dissent always remained. None of them were infallible. They were no longer spirits, they hadn't been for thousands of years. They were now more accustomed to command than to priesthood after all that war. They had drawn on the power they had stolen from the Titans to gain the advantage over their enemies, and the corruption of the Blight was starting creep in, ever-so-slowly.

Maybe some of the people, unhappy with their rule, started to voice the thought that was expressed by their rival Keepers once more: that the Evanuris had grown distant from the spirits. That Elgar'nan didn't serve Justice anymore. That Mythal had strayed from Benevolence.

So Evanuris took the mantle of godhood for themselves. It was only for peace and stability.

It would be too dangerous if anyone could claim they were deviating from the will of the spirits, so they would claim they were those great spirits. Elgar'nan was Justice, Mythal was Benevolence. They would use their rule only for the benefit of the people, not abuse their power.

And there you go. None of what I've written above can't be neatly incorporated into the existing lore of Veilguard. It leaves the elves of Thedas precisely where they started in Dragon Age: Origins. Distant from their ancient Gods, trying to pick up the pieces of their forgotten past.

[erinsunmentionables]

Veilguard & Victim Blaming

I am an abuse survivor. Part of the reason I empathize so heavily with Solas is because of this. I’m not the first person to point out that his behavior in DAI has all the hallmarks of an abuse victim, and everything we know about Flemeth/Mythal from the first three games and all supplementary content has characterized them both as abusers. Because victims becoming abusers is indeed a real and tragic phenomenon.

I was so hoping they’d handle the subject with the nuance and maturity we’ve come to expect from BioWare. Instead, we spent all of Veilguard combing through the most painful and traumatic memories of someone who was coerced and abused by a person he trusted, all the while the characters we’re meant to view as good and empathetic people mock him and glorify his abuser, who among other things willingly owned slaves.

Because there is no grey area, Mythal abused Solas just as Flemeth abused Morrigan and her son, and Justinia abused Leliana. And it’s clear this was the intention. It was always the intention. The foundations of it were too strong to remove entirely from the game, but I guess someone higher up wasn’t comfortable acknowledging that women can in fact be abusers, and men can in fact be victims.

So instead we get a group of relative strangers rubbernecking the tragedy of an abused man and going out of their way to heap the blame on the victim. At one point Lucanis literally says that he ‘should have just said no’ which is the kind of talk you hear about victims of assault and abuse all the time from the worst kind of people. I should know, because I’ve had the exact same experience.

It’s not just a disappointment. Disappointment doesn’t begin to touch it. I feel sick and I feel betrayed. I came to Dragon Age with DAI. It remains my favorite (or was, now the whole thing just makes me depressed) because, despite how dark things got, compassion and empathy were always there. The abused always had a voice, however singular, to stand up for them and defend them. Not so here.

There’s a sense of callousness and mean spiritedness that permeates Veilguard. Not sure if that was the intention, but that’s what we got. I couldn’t even finish the game—‘just say no’ was the last straw for me—but against my better judgement I looked into the endings, and really that was my mistake. Because the ‘good ending’ essentially boils down to the abuser oh so magnanimously releasing her victim while a group of strangers gaslight him into submission. I don’t really understand how we got here, but I hope the Devs understand just how damaging a message they ended up with. I know what it’s like to be judged with malignant bias by people determined to hate you while your abuser is lauded and praised. Because abusers are often charismatic and excellent at keeping up a saintly appearance to hide their monstrosity and further alienate their victim. That’s what this feels like.

They can try and retcon it all they like, maybe new players won’t notice, but anyone who remembers the last three games knows better. Flemeth and Mythal may have been victims once, but both went on to use and abuse the people closest to them. Sugarcoating them in the interest of ignoring/making their victims look worse is genuinely vile.

I don’t know who let this change happen, but they’ve contributed to an already skewed public perception about what abuse looks like and how abusers get away with their crimes.

[rederiswrites]

Alright, I've got to get the gripes out. Doesn't mean you have to read it. If you love the game you probably shouldn't. This is for people who are really disappointed or angry about...things and would like to feel like they're not alone.

This is not about the absolute value of Veilguard. I enjoyed the game and I am, if anything, enjoying it more on the second playthrough. Like all the other installations, inevitably it is its own thing. Some franchises are just logical continuations of their previous installments, but Dragon Age has never been like that and I sure wouldn't expect it after this long since the last installment.

[Edited to add that I reblog locked it but 100% encourage sharing your feelings in the replies or even my dms. It's fine to talk about it! I want to talk about it!]

That said, my biggest gripes about Veilguard:

The sanitizing of the Crows

Come on now. I even defended you, Bioware! Before the game, I said, nahhhh they won't make the Crows Good Guys just because of Lucanis! Lucanis was tortured too! Well, they didn't do that, I guess. They did it as part of a much larger pattern of ironing out the moral grey areas the franchise was formerly known for.

The Crows are Patriots! Well, they are. And also, though you wouldn't know it, slavers and torturers and murderers of children. You'd be forgiven for not realizing that, considering the creation of the feel good House for orphans who really wanna be contract killers. But it is pretty foundational lore and all. There is the like, one previous Crow character, whom they wrote as going on a righteous mission to kill Crows, because of the whole them being bad thing.

What was being raised by the head of the Crows like, Lucanis? Torture? Hahaha funny oh you mean literally. Literally your grandmother tortured and starved you and never gave you the slightest choice in your life and you've accepted that because you accept the logic that it was necessary. But again. That's based on my knowledge of material outside this game.

Any previous game would have reveled in that! Do you ally yourself with these people, this objectively bad organization full of people who don't see themselves as bad at all? Because they are very good at killing, and that's what you need! But this game just makes them good guys. No moral dilemma needed. Nope, we like black and white now.

And speaking of which,

The dehumanization of the Antaam

Ew. Ew ew ew.

Gimme a minute and I'll come up with something better to say but seriously? Ew.

They neither look nor sound like any of the other qunari characters. They sound like animals, literally. Exactly once does one make the slightest attempt to do anything but attack you--and then he attacks you anyway. Not a single one deserts. I guess the lesson here is that apparently qunari really do become mindless beasts without the structure and discipline of the Qun??? Ew. No thank you.

I know, you gotta have faceless mooks. In Inquisition we fought rebel mages for absolutely no good reason but that they attacked us. In da2 thugs literally fell from the sky. But the absolutely comprehensive way in which the Antaam never spoke for themselves, as actual people... Wow.

Imagine. Imagine if we could have actually negotiated an agreement with a group of them, for that final battle. Would that have been so impossible? To fight mages?! Imagine if we'd had a former Antaam companion. Imagine if he'd been mulling over what the Arishok, Sten, the OG proof that qunari are NOT animals outside the Qun, said before the Antaam rebelled.

Mythal: basically a nice mother goddess!

What. What. What.

In this, the culmination of her sins, the finale of Solas' millennia of taking the blame for shit she set in motion, Mythal is... Flat as hell. Millennia of her scheming. Surviving. Using and abusing her children, arguably using and abusing Solas, seducing and manipulating and whatever it takes to nudge things her way. And now she's just... Kinda imperious I guess? And Morrigan just has her memories and nothing is bad about that ever. Huh.

The thing is, I was never against Mythal, in all her complex nastiness. We didn't know what her game was! I just wanted to know! What made it all worth it? What was the plan?

Well I guess the plan was--nothing? Don't worry about it. I guess.

Side note, the design work on the Mythal fragment was some Computer Animation Is My Passion, early 2000's Barbie straight to VHS looking shit. Profoundly disappointing. Did you even try.

Tell, don't show

Is the strange new voice in the blight coming from over there really horrifying? Or did you just say it was roughly fifteen times, but then actually it was just a big blob of Blight that you had to shoot extra times? Is the Butcher cruel? Or did Teia and Viago just tell us he was cruel with absolutely no detail whatsoever? Is Minrathous really blighted if you choose to save Treviso? Or are there just more beggars and some rubble and literally one blighted character? And so on, and so forth.

Remember that popular post not long ago, about how one of the great joys of Dragon Age was the sifting through unreliable narrators? Piecing together Avvar epic poetry and fragments of ancient elvhen runes and Andrastian canticles to try to guess what actually happened. The unique and unusual (in fiction) joy of the historiography of it all? We got to actively engage with the discovery. We got to piece together that Solas was the Dread Wolf, bit by difficult to find bit.

The fridge horror of it all could be really incredible. Making us work it out for ourselves meant that we experienced it much more intimately. It was an incredible storytelling tool.

Yeah I guess we just watch movies about it now. Just plug in the DVD Wolf statuette and now we know. And the codexes are reduced to flavor text and puzzle clues.

And last but definitely most,

Flat writing

Look man I know that's subjective as shit but it was. A lot of it was. You either agree or you don't, but for me, it was never more obvious than in the moments of contrast, when it was up to standard. The conversation with the Butcher. Every minute with Solas. Spite.

Contrast the Butcher (intense! Passionate! Creepy fucken pale face Harkonnen vibes! Deranged but genuine love for Treviso!) with the Dragon King (I don't even know what to put here. You don't even have to fight him! He just...blusters, and then there's a dragon, and then Taash shoves him and he falls over.)

It's just...I could probably forgive a lot of the stuff that went before if it was just more compellingly written.

Even here I absolutely will not be getting into character complaints. Those are too personal, and frankly I think people should keep them to private conversations. They have too much potential to hurt people for too little gain.

Sigh. I'm done now. I will try to focus on the good and the creative because I think that contributes a great deal more to everything and everyone. But for now, let me contemplate what could have been.

[tila-bean]

Thoughts about the Regret Murals, Solas, the Inquisitor, and their relationship.

So I'm on my first Veilguard playthrough and I have so many feelings after unveiling (hehe) the regret murals in the Lighthouse. SO MANY FEELINGS.

Now, relevant context: It's my first playthrough. Yes, I know I just said that but I need you to understand this: IT'S MY FIRST PLAYTHROUGH. That means I don't know how the rest of the story goes and I don't care to know how it goes from any source that ISN'T the game because I'm avoiding spoilers like Neo dodged bullets on the Matrix. I just really needed to come here to share the full range of feelings I'm feeling. PLEASE DON'T SPOIL ME.

Also, because this is my FIRST PLAYTHROUGH and I don't know how the story goes from here, I might very well change my mind on the thoughts expressed here. I've already been warned that Act 3 will require tissues and perhaps a therapy session. I'm not encouraged by this, but also not surprised. It is a Bioware game after all: they love to destroy us emotionally with their incredible storytelling.

So first of all, the nature of Mythal and Solas's relationship shocked me. We knew from Inquisition that there were some feelings involved, at least from Solas to Mythal, but the depth of them impressed me. In Inquisition, it seemed like a sort of devotion, like a loyal servant's or a good friend's, but wow, it was so much more than that. I know the game tries to make it ambiguous or at the very least leave some amount of interpretation around it (Bellara with her "elves felt very deeply, it didn't have to be romantic", and Taash's "they were doing it!") But to me, it makes more sense to say they were in love. Who becomes flesh against your own judgment just because a friend asked? Who commits the murder of giant magical beings just for a friend? And who seals their old friends, breaking the world in the process, just to avenge another friend? It truly gives the impression that Solas loved Mythal both deeply and desperately, and a small moment tucked in there gave the impression that that love was not only corresponded but that they were even happy together for a while, at least before Mythal left to be part of the Evanuris. I also got the impression Solas loved Mythal more than Mythal loved him, but that could just be because it is his memories we're watching, not hers. From what small bites we get from Morrigan after the fact, making her unable to act against Solas even though both she and Mythal's fragment judge him for his actions, I do think she did. Sadly I can't really quantify how much she did love him and if it was as deep as what Solas felt for her. I do have to mention that I resent Mythal for a variety of reasons and that colors my judgment of her and her actions in all this, although that just might be jealousy speaking. My Dread Wolf! Mine! 😠

The whole Blight revelation was incredible. We knew for years that Mythal and Solas were once close to each other, and there were SO many theories behind Solas being a spirit and/or that other elves used to be spirits too thanks to Cole's dialogue snippets, but to learn that Solas and Mythal were responsible for the creation of the Blight? That they tranquiled the Titans and were the reason why dwarves are the way they are now? That the blight wasn't something that already existed and was found (and blamed on Andruil, usually!) but was the consequence of a desperate act to end a war, which in itself was caused by another fuck up when the elves came to be? Like damn. Really, damn. This memory was the one that shook me the most. And it was this memory that really helped me understand the character of Solas all that much more.

I can't hate him. I completely understand how others could hate him or continue to do so even more than before after learning all of this, but I can't. I just feel this horrible amount of pity for him. He took form under the worst circumstances and made decisions that wildly backfired on him, and I can't blame him for regretting it all and wanting to go back to being a simple spirit. My Inky would understand all of this after learning about it and have this tiny part of her tucked deep inside where, despite knowing how he feels and understanding why he does, shamefully be glad he did take form because she's grateful to have had the chance to meet someone like him.

Now, I can almost hear some of you: "What, she still loves him? After all that??"

YUP.

My Inky is someone who loves deeply. Their time together was short, their relationship even shorter, but it made a tremendous impact on her. To me, she's the type of person to not fall in love easily, but once she does, she's in it. Like really in it.

I didn't think of her as inexperienced (not that that's a bad thing anyway) but she didn't have any meaningful liaisons before the start of DA:I, so her falling for Solas so hard and fast was a very surprising and even terrifying event to her. She was secretly glad he asked for time to think after the Fade kiss, I headcanon, because she was just as confused as him, even if she was the one to take that first step between them. To me, they just clicked together in a way she hadn't ever experienced, and in the time they were together through all of the events of Inquisition, that bond deepened and deepened. She knew she wasn't getting the full picture from him, that there were things he hadn't told her. She patiently waited for him to open up and was devastated when their relationship ended as swiftly as it had started, not knowing even why. She's had a long time to think since then, busy handling the Inquisition through its last years and then later managing the chase to help change his mind. She's had the opportunity to build something new with someone else, but it didn't feel as right as what she had with Solas. And to her that meant it couldn't be as meaningful. Was she right? I don't know, but she chose not to pursue it. That was something she could live with and didn't regret.

I feel like all of these murals would have made Inky feel very similarly to me. She would have understood the man she loved way more than she ever did when he was in front of her, felt horrible for him and his circumstances, but at the same time, she unexpectedly felt something she didn't think she would: she'd feel small.

In the face of his deep love for Mythal and the actions he took for her, she'd feel small. Because here depicted is a man that, when he loved someone, he broke the world for her. And for her? For Inky? He couldn't even be honest, be it with his words or his actions. He never fully opened up to her, and was never fully vulnerable with her, even though she was for him. She'd have these horrible thoughts, after learning about the murals, that would say "You didn't mean anything to him." "You were a distraction, a momentary source of good feelings he hadn't felt for a while, but it was never truly love." "He loved Mythal. See what he did for her? He couldn't even do half of that for you while you were together." And that would break her, at least as much as she allowed herself while managing yet another darkspawn invasion in the South. It would devastate her to see how much of a blip she was in his life when, to her, he was everything. She'd chastise herself, there are more pressing matters to focus on after all, but that doubt, that possibility of being unimportant would catch up to her when she was alone.

Now, is that the truth of the matter? I don't know. I've gotten one, JUST ONE, miserable Solavellan crumb so far in the game (when meeting Inky for the first time in Minrathous) and I'm STARVING for more. Do I love my crumb? HELL YEAH I DO. Do I think it's worth the 10 years I've been waiting for it? No. GIVE ME MORE BIOWARE.

OMG SOLAS DID YOU ACTUALLY LOVE HER. DID YOU LOVE INKY.

Anywho, those are my thoughts so far. DAMN YOU, EGG 🍳

[merrinla]

Halsin and Minthara weren't always mutually exclusive

Even though you can recruit both of them, in the game it looks like a funny bug. I guess this is what's left of the original idea. It was previously planned not only letting you have them at the same time, but also that they would interact in the party like other companions.

In the audio files, you can find lines of their reactions to each other's deaths. I don't know if these are triggered or not. They are both so bugged that sometimes I can hardly tell which is the cut content and which is the bug.

It's kind of funny that Halsin would be so sad.

I recently completed Halsin's quest with Mintara in my party. In the scene by the lake, when Halsin entered the portal, Minthara said "He made it. Now let's just hope he survives what's on the other side"

Actually this is exactly the same line as Tav's.

Halsin also share many lines with Tav and other origins. Most of them are unused. But in this case the line is not only voiced by Emma Gregory (Minthara's VA), it's triggered.

There is another interesting line. In Moonrise Towers, when Ketheric punishes Mintara for a failure in the grove and sends her to the dungeon, the player can choose not to interfere and leave the location without helping her. In this case one of the characters in your party will remind you that she can be saved as a potential companion. I was wondering if Halsin would say anything. And he did. "Minthara may prove useful to us, should we wish to save her…"

This isn't cut content. This isn't new content added with patches. It's in the game since the release. And this line works. Moreover, this is his personal line.

If they implement the dialogue with an ultimatum it will be nonsense. I mean, first he suggests to save her from the Absolute as a useful ally, and then in the camp he will say that it's the right choice to kick her back under the Absolute control. It's even hard to blame the character for such contradiction. Rather, it's just a stupid limit set by the script.

Next. In Act 3 if you make one of them to go up on the clown stage, the other one will approve.

There is also an unused flag for Act 3 in the game files with the description "Orin pretended to kill Halsin during the Minthara abduction campnight." Which means in Act 3 they were both in the party.

You can see what the abduction of Mintara looks like in this video. Only instead of Halsin, Jaheira is mentioned here.

Maybe there are other confirmations that I do not know about, that they were not mutually exclusive before. But that's enough for me.

They were both not originally planned as companions. Their roles were expanded much later. Most likely, Larian didn't have time to polish their content, so scissors were used. This is why their content seems so unfinished compared to others. Except for Wyll, probably. That's why they are so buggy.

I suppose the reason they are both mutually exclusive is because it is the easiest solution when you have a deadline on the horizon. Just easiest as "it's fine for a companion to just hang out at the camp". Otherwise, you need dialogs, animations, scripts, etc. And you also need to make sure that it will work with everything else. This is time and resources. But this doesn't mean that it's impossible to fix anything later.

I faintly hope that the defenetive edition will have the option to recruit them both.

And I really hope that in the future Larian will look at the games of their colleagues from BioWare (who made the original BG). I mean games from better times than now. The companions below will show you how much they "loved" each other. Not all of them became friends in the end. But nevertheless, we saved the world. Together.

[mbep]

DAV Solavellan ending musings

This is too long to post on Twitter so it's going here, on the blog I haven't touched in years, because I have to scream into the void. I can't possibly compete with the hardcore Solavellans who have been following this saga for a long time (I only got into DA last year by playing DAI and the DLCs) so this isn't a comprehensive or deep analysis by any means, but I love them all the same.

I got into DA because the Twitter algorithm put Solavellans on my timeline and I am eternally grateful for that. I already knew all the story beats (and the big reveal that he's Fen'harel) before playing DAI and I enjoyed catching the moments where he's obviously hiding something. The scene in Crestwood and the parting in Trespasser still made me emotional, even knowing what was coming.

The final scene in DAV was short, but no less meaningful. I think that was mostly to avoid creating such a big gulf between romanced and non-romanced Inquisitors and I'm glad Bioware didn't create that inequality, on behalf of the non-Solasmancers.

The first thing I will say is that Gareth David-Lloyd does a phenomenal job with the acting. They've been great since DAI, and they're a big reason why Solas is such a charming, nuanced and compelling character. The whispered "vhenan", the strained "Mythal", the sobbing, how quiet "ar ghilas vir banal" is… They deserve at least an award (all of them in fact) for that.

The animation is amazing too: how Solas doubles over when Mythal finally acknowledges how she set him on this path and shares the blame, his wet eyes and facial expressions looking at the Inquisitor… The thing I love most is him not looking back when leaving, and her putting her hand on his shoulder as they enter the Fade. Very Orpheus and Eurydice, but he does what Orpheus could not: he does not look back. He trusts that she is there and if she is not and has a sudden change of heart and leaves him, he will not blame her. But she is there, and lays a guiding hand on his shoulder; "Ma ghilana, vhenan", as the Inquisitor tells him in Trespasser.

There are a lot of Trespasser parallels and a lot of people more knowledgeable that I have analysed them, but I love how much this scene is a response to that. So here's my two cents: "I walk the din'anshiral. There is only death on this journey." = "I am here, walking the dinan'shiral with you." Weirdly they spell "din'anshiral" differently in the subtitles LOL I personally think the Trespasser spelling is correct. This is the line that hits hardest, in my opinion. She says this the first time they see each other again, when they don't even know they are leaving together. She means that all this time, the years apart, she has walked with him. She has not stopped searching for him, trying to find a way to change his heart (as the epilogue of Trespasser says). All this time he thought he was alone, she was there with him: both have been feeling the pain of their separation, the burden that his duty to Mythal has put on each of them (him having to fix their mistakes and her trying to change his mind), the regret they both have that things might have gone differently.

"Var lath vir suledin." "I wish it could, vhenan." = "There is no fate but the love we share." The translation from elven is very sweet, but a very interesting choice. In elven she actually says "Banal nadas. Ar lath ma, vhenan." Two sentences that Solas says in DAI: "Banal nadas." / "Nothing is known for certain." Said by Solas to the nightmare demon in the Fade when it taunts him by saying "Your pride is responsible for everything that has gone wrong; you will die alone." The same quest reveals that Solas's greatest fear is dying alone. She reminds him of what he said then, that the nightmare demon is wrong: he is not alone, he can change that fate. "Ar lath ma, vhenan." Solas's confession of love to the Inquisitor. I don't think she ever actually tells him she loves him in DAI. Eight-ish years later, she says it back to him, proving that their love did indeed find a way to endure.

"I cannot bear to think of you alone." = "But you do not have to go alone." He is once again leaving to right a wrong. In Trespasser, he was leaving to do what he thought was best, what he wanted to do to fix his mistakes. Here, he is leaving to seek atonement, to soothe hurts not with violence, but repentance. And she once again offers to go with him. (I personally didn't choose this dialogue option in Trespasser because I don't think my Inquisitor agreed with what he wanted to do, but it's a very sweet line nonetheless) This time, with all that has changed, he is more open to letting her go with him, but he still cautions her: "Where I am going is terrible." I love the translation of her reply: "It won't be terrible if you're with me," because the order of the pronouns is interesting to me. Not sure if it's intentional, but I feel like I would have said "It won't be terrible if I'm with you." It's very subtle, but I think there is a difference: "if I'm with you" puts a lot of emphasis on the Inquisitor, i.e. "I make things better"; "if you're with me" means the same thing but it's humbler, less prideful, i.e. "I will be there for you to make things better".

The parallels in animation are also great. The way he turns when she speaks as he's leaving, the bow when he says "ir abelas, vhenan"… THE KISS. God, the way they hold hands like they do in Trespasser is insane.

The music in this scene is the best in the game, and it's a crime that it's not on the official soundtrack. Not just the atonement music, but the way it shifts into "Lost Elf Theme" from Trespasser once the Inquisitor steps forward gives this scene the emotional weight the music in DAV honestly doesn't have. The music is a big part of why I cried watching this.

Side notes:

-My Inquisitor looks nothing like she did in DAI LOL Hey, I was already hours into CC, it frustrated me that the presets were so different from DAI and I did not have the patience to tweak everything. Also I'm horrible at distinguishing faces. She still looks pretty so I guess she got a glow up during their time apart LOL Vivienne and Leliana took her to get a makeover in Val Royeaux.

-The DAV soundtrack honestly isn't bad. I enjoy quite a few tracks on it; "Where the Dead Must Go" and "Not the Chosen One" are among my favorites. The main theme isn't compelling though, and "The Dread Wolf" track would have made a better main theme (it's the best track on the album). The OST lends the atmosphere that music is supposed to, but it doesn't have the character on its own that the music in DAI does (thank you, Trevor Morris). I could be anywhere in the world doing anything and if I heard the DAI main theme I would lose my mind. "Lost Elf Theme" always makes me so emotional; it's a plea, a feeling of hopefulness and being resigned to one's fate at the same time.

[thedarkangel74]

I think DA fans are misunderstanding why other DA fans are upset about the lack of importing choices to Veilguard. Like yeah, it doesn't affect the story if Morrigan mentions whether or not she has a twenty something year old son or not, who was trapped in the fade, or who is currently ruling Ferelden but the importance was never really the point. It was the validation of all the hard choices they had to make.

A nodd and a wink about how the game they are playing is actually their world, the Thedas they saved time and time again. That the game they played when they were 10 or 12 is still alive over a decade later. And so much about game design is about immersion, and the kind of immersion that Dragon Ware offers is unique because it's built on validation. And how relevant past choices are or aren't were never the real selling point.

I'm not blaming the Bioware team or Veilguard here. Development was turbulent, EA meddling fingerprints are everywhere and it's been 10 years since the previous game. Hard choices had to be made and the franchise needed to attract new blood, those who never played a Dragon Age game if they wanted to make the game successful.

[postmanlee514]

Okay I’v been thinking about some post-game Rookanis thing since I finished my first playthrough

Spoiler ahead alert!

So here’s my hc: since my Rook is a Shadow Dragon,they will join the rebuilding of Mintharous and Lucanis needs to take the duty of The First Talon. The couple may have a long time couldn’t be able to make time for each other.

And finally the two get their time to discuss their own business such as:

1) Where to live, they can’t be separated in two city forever. Rook probably will be the one to compromise? They do enjoy the city and I think maybe Teia will invite them even before Lucanis asks LOL

2) my Rook is a Necromancer, It’s time to talk about necromancy with Lucanis 😆 I knew Emmerich tried but Hey! This is Rook speaking! Maybe Lucanis will try to understand necromancy?

3) Keeping pets. Lucanis already has a pet snake but how about Rook? Growing up in a military family, maybe they moved around a lot. This time they finally settle down, so keep pets is a good way to provide a sense of stability. But I also think Spite may disagree Lucanis and Rook�� decision Hahaha

4) About wounds healing . My Rook was a foundling and lost their parents years ago,then was Varric who was their nearly-father for like half a year, then was Harding-their longest-standing companion. They can’t be not having trauma in losing someone and be really fear to be abandone. So after all they’ve been through, maybe this is the chance Lucanis will be there for them for a mind therapy ? I would love to see them curing each other. <3

Followed are some of my gripes(No need to read!)

I literally cried for like 2 hours when I saw what Rook experienced when they trapped in Fade.Varric is always my favorite since DA 2, and damn! Varric’s words really help me to continue the game after the Mintharous or Treviso Choice. Shadow Dragons and Neve blamed all of this to Rook (and I was like “Rook is only one person without army and forces how could they be able to save the city? And Minrathous did have far more forces than Treviso has”)and they’ve already messed up the ritual. The self-doubt was about to overwhelm them, but they had to pretend to be optimistic and help everyone in the team dealing their problems.

My Rook has never considered themselves as a leader, they just stood out and begun to take the duty of finishing the job and they tried their best to take care of everyone. In the game,Varric was the only one asked Rook how long has it been since they’ve slept while they’re worrying others’ sleeping.

And the absence of companion banter, didn’t got their option when companion talking about a mage thing,etc…really made me feel unwanted . I hope maybe someday bioware could add some rook’s reaction to companion banter🥲

I mean, at least they should have comments on Romanced Lucanis told Taash how to kill mages and that’s like dancing or seduction …

“I’m right here hearing! Lucanis! ”

English is not my first language so please forgive me if I say something weird 🥲

about my Rook:

[lilllithdraagon]

PART 5: Blind ‘heroes’ and character foils

MASSIVE SPOILERS FOR DRAGON AGE THE VEILGUARD. READ AT OWN RISK.

Main Post Link

Now. Here’s the thing. We’re Solasmancers. That is going to mean a lot of people are going to disregard this entire segment as social bias. I mean this with my whole heart. I’m putting my pussy aside. (We have spicy-brain it’s not hard for us to do.)

Solas was right.

Solas was FUCKING RIGHT!

I don’t care how you try to fucking frame it. The destruction you caused by interrupting his ritual was worse than the ritual itself. Solas at least, had a contingency to minimize death. Or frankly fine. Whatever. You think you did the right thing? But you’ll NEVER KNOW. Because you stopped it before you could see what destruction it wrought.

Varric was an idiot. A prideful fool who thought he knew best. I’m sorry. I fucking loved his character. I still love him. But here’s the thing about Varric. Out of every character in every bioware game, I can say with almost certainty, he has had the least character growth. He never changes. He never learns.

Solas learned to see Thedosians as people. He woke from a millennia long nap, stuck in his ways, and he still saw them as people when he was casting that ritual.

Varric never sees spirit Cole as a person.

“He needs someone to sell him a better option,” that’s what Varric says before he goes to talk to Solas. But if you listen to what he’s actually saying to Solas, it’s pretty clear Varric isn’t there to do anything other than ask Solas to stop again. He never actually gives Solas a different plan. There is no offer of a compromise. ‘Why don’t we stop this now and talk it through, maybe we can figure out a way to let the Veil down slowly.’ You could still be trying to stop Solas, but Varric doesn’t even lie. He doesn’t even budge. He’s a wall. And so is Solas. And so nothing changes.

Then, Rook decides Varric has talked long enough and takes matters into their own hands. Effectively sabotaging any attempt Varric is making and turning it duplicitous. Neve warns, half heartedly, that disrupting a ritual of that size is bound to have consequences. But Rook knows best.

Rook got Varric killed.

Varric got Varric killed.

Solas was running on instinct and the mantra ‘oh fuck’. And stabbed his friend.

No one in this situation was thinking clearly.

WRESTLING FOR A KNIFE NEVER ENDS WELL.

*breathes* okay. We may have strong views about this. (LunaDys pats Lilllithdraagon gently)

Here’s the thing though. Our feelings aside: Rook’s decision to disrupt the ritual did have consequences. And not a single person involved truly seems to want to take responsibility for it.

Neve, Harding, all your companions will console you if you try. Saying ‘No. Solas did this. It’s not our fault. We stopped him from ending the world.’

And no. They didn’t. In fact most of the world is actively dying.

LOOK AROUND. Does the world seem very saved to you? Does the south? Sure, they bury it in a letter from the Inquisitor, hahaha maybe you won’t notice the ENTIRE SOUTH IS GONE. Orlais is gone. Kirkwall is gone. Ferelden was among the first to fall. Denerim, that city we ran around in for half a fucking game? Is covered in the Blight.

Skyhold is barely holding out. How many people do you think can fit in the Keep? A few hundred? A thousand? Like sardines? Packed so tightly that you’re constantly bumping shoulders in your sleep? How long will food last?

The Inquisitor lost contact with Orzammar. Best case scenario they pulled the same stunt from the previous Blights and locked themselves away. Except Orzammar was suffering during Origins when they locked off a passage because the deshyrs couldn’t agree on a fucking king. How do you think they’re going?

Rook destroyed the world.

There is so little left of Thedas to save by end game. And no one. At any point. Blames them.

Except Solas.

“Do you have any idea what you have done?”

But why would you listen to the man you’ve been hunting down for a decade. You’re the Hero. Right?

The sad part is, the entire game is about Solas’ regrets. He wants to tear down the Veil to make his own, world ending mistake right. He’s trying to atone. You think he doesn’t get it? You think he doesn’t see himself in Rook? How disgusted must he be if you never once take accountability? What a cruel, vapid mirror that must be. A reflection of what he could have been.

You aren’t playing the hero in Veilguard. But you aren’t a villain either. You’re Solas’ character foil. And he’s yours.

I just wish the game would address that more. I wish it would address it at all.

The sad fact is in trying to keep the peace between the Solas haters and the Solasmancers/friends they muddle the narrative. Those excited to take Solas down a peg will never see they played a flawed character. They will never see they played the game as Solas. And those who took the time to pay attention will be derided as apologists forever. By refusing to take a side, the fandom war will continue ad nauseum.

But that just brings in more money right?

[ryssabrin]

saw a take today about davrin that blew my mind (derogatory) but it was on twitter so i ofc just blocked them and will now rant about it here and it is that the writers "didn't do enough" to make him likable????? davrin????? the grey warden dalish elf who is hot and bisexual written by the guy who wrote the most popular mass effect companion isn't likable???? the guy who is funny and warm and approachable and has a sexy voice and abs???? pls stop blaming your skill issue (and let's be fully honest here, internal racist biases) on the writers lmao

also like even if the writers had done a shit job with the character fandom will always somehow manage to adapt when it's a bland white man???? like CULLEN RUTHERFORD of all characters was brought back in da2 and dai and ultimately made a romance because fans kept inventing sympathetic backstories for him. he is the most tagged LI on ao3 and he is boring as hell! (no shade to cullen girlies but where exactly is the energy some people have for humanizing him as both a perpetrator and victim of the chantry circle system when it comes to idk vivienne?)

bioware stacked the deck so fucking high with davrin in terms of giving him fan favorite character traits and rather than confront the fact that his lack of popularity can be pretty reasonably tied to one pretty fucking obvious factor, fans would rather blame "the writing" for not engaging them enough. i guess.

[crossdressingdeath]

And... finished. Y'know I have a lot of positive thoughts on this game and I'll be posting them as I keep working through my screenshots but for now some negativity because my god does this piss me off and I need to get it out of my system before I can go back to focusing on the parts I like.

Hey isn't it real fucking fun that to get out of that prison of regret Rook has to accept that they failed people they loved and have lost some people forever and have to learn to move forward based solely on the fact that they know those people wouldn't want them to blame themselves, moving forward with the help of the living friends they can still support and help and be with, and Bioware had a golden opportunity to complete the parallels between them and Solas by having Solas also accept his failures on his own and move forward with the help of Rook and Quiz, his living friends who he could still keep and support and who wanted to support him in turn? And isn't it even more brilliant that Epler was so desperate to jack off to his favourite hot witch OC that instead of doing that they dragged Mythal out and had her forgive him and wipe the slate clean just so that Morrigan had something to do? Hey isn't it a brilliant storytelling decision that instead of letting the player character (or even the previous player character! I would've been fine with Quiz being the deciding factor here given Rook got it started!) be the one to change Solas's mind by encouraging him to move forward instead of wallowing in the past (you know, like the game has been leading up to the whole damn time) they handed it off to someone he already refused to let change his mind currently inhabiting the body of someone he ACTIVELY DISLIKES so that he didn't have to accept that he could never be forgiven by the people he got killed because Epler couldn't accept that this isn't Morrigan's story?! Fan-fucking-tastic work, Bioware, that ending would've been so good if you hadn't let Morrigan drag it down like a lead balloon in a desperate attempt to pretend she was relevant to the themes at play. It was pretty much perfect but then oh goodness gracious, the writers' pet couldn't possibly not be the centre of attention so now it's about her and not Rook.

[murdercommashewrote]

Dragon age: Veilguard spoilers below SOME MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW (I am saying what most have already said but kind of wanted to contribute.

Normally I don’t post about things like this, but this is common complaint in the community right now and I don’t have others to talk too because my friends don’t play games like these or at all, but I do enjoy the game a lot. I enjoy most do enjoy the story, I don’t find the complaint that’s it isn’t as dark as [insert game here] or the dialogue is too cheesy or bad [granted in spots it is and we will get to that later]. Sure it gets repetitive but I felt the same way about all dragon age: inquisition and about mass effect. When the story is this long it is bound to happen in my opinion. I find myself smiling at parts and really feeling the story and really getting serious about it. I have feelings of hope, guilt, and love. I see fragments of myself in these characters. Bellara is favorite and bestie. Taash is funny and I get the vibes. Seeing Harding again is great. Manfred and Assan are adorable and rock, paper, scissors is great. I just finally won :,). A lot to people may disagree and that is okay because everyone has different experiences and my experience or positive experience doesn’t discount someone who has had a terrible time/experience with the game and their opinions still need to be respected as well.

The addition of the inquisitor is nice; however, not being able to transfer your saves or choices is odd but it is what it is. Not my biggest grip with the game. I already assumed Varric died but was like oh well then I was like I KNEW IT (I spoiled myself). The plot twists are hard to figure out with Illario and such.

But I think my biggest thing is the romance. The writing. We all knew what happened and went wrong with what BioWare did to their writers and the people who are long-time professional in the field. It made me not want to buy the game and maybe I need to reflect on myself playing it and enjoying it.

But Lucanis is disappointing and though I am still romancing him my first run it makes me sad because that is kind of why I play these games lol. Lucanis voice actor did great with what they had and the scenes with Lucanis are okay. I feel like the romance between Neve and Lucanis is better than Rook and Lucanis or, also from what I heard, Rook and Neve. Which kind of pisses me off lol. Kind of the same with Harding and Taash from what I heard as well. I’ve heard a lot of things lol. I want to restart but honestly I’m so invested in time but I can always afford another play through.

But not all romances are bad though. The romance scenes seem shorter but all the scenes and romance characters seem to have similar lengths but idk what you guys think. Davrin (plan on romancing him my third play through) is great from what I heard and somehow my current rook (who is romancing lucanis) has more vibes with Emmerich (my next play through after lucanis). I think there should have been more romance but no hate on actual workers as a whole because there isn’t just ONE person to blame but a chain of events and the links that made them. The development was long, horrid, and crazy and I can’t imagine what everyone went through.

Anyway I wish everyone luck and even if you want to romance Lucanis don’t let others tell you you can’t. You may not get exactly what you want but the other characters got exactly or almost exactly the same treatment. I may have forgotten something but yeah.

Good luck on your adventures through Dragon Age: veilguard!

[stormsbourne]

nobody hates dragon age more than dragon age fans 🎉

light spoilers for world state stuff below

I'm not sure what I think of the "only dai choices and only three of them" stuff but tbh I think there's possible windows for other choices and I'm holding off to see them before I make a judgment, buuuuuuut also I completely understand why the devs would have shied away from other cameos/choices etc.

sure it's remembered well now but at the time, Alistair showing up just to possibly get left in the fucking fade was incredibly unpopular among a certain part of the player base (a large part in fact) who started making arguments that they'd CHANGED it so the only "correct" world state was one where he was king and that bioware was ATTACKING!!!! people who kept him a warden and PUNISHING!!!!!!!!! them. how DARE you making him a warden was the RIGHT choice you're ATTACKING ME

also the time he showed up in da2 and could refer to his (unspecified) spouse as "the old ball and chain" people got furious about that too, how DARE you, Alistair loves me

or the time zevran showed up and people got mad about him being "ugly" (because he was in a different art style) and also flirting how DARE you don't you know zevran only loves m

OR how when hawke shows up people got furious because bioware couldn't possibly account for every nuance of your version of hawke and had to flatten the decisions down to the basic three personality archetypes and how DARE you my hawke was totally cool with (insert plot point here)

Like there's a pattern here lmao who can fucking blame them when it keeps fucking happening