I'm on my 3rd playthru now, and I understand a lot of your points, however I really do disagree with much of them. I'm afraid that I don't have a ton of time to write today, but if you wouldn't mind, I'd love to talk to you about it later? This sort of thing is very interesting to me.
Per the staff, elves were originally written primarily as Jewish analogs, not as PoC. as PoC began to identify more, they weren't discouraged, but it was an unintended thing. This story, again per staff has been written for years ahead of time.
Given that the elves were written with Jewish peoples in mind, it's easy to see how they lack a lot of understanding of their own history. I found that part of the writing to be painful, yes, but not to be badly done or in poor taste. The problem when your history lies in the hands of other cultures is that you do not get a pure glimpse of it. It makes sense that Morrigan has more information on those magics. She's a mage that was trained by Flemeth, she's basically a doctorate in the subject, given her past 10 years of education and training. She also is wrong about much, as many doctorate students are. It's a pretty close reading of much of academia, in my opinion.
Further, while colorism is hinted at in Orlais, it isn't in the rest of Thedas, Dorian himself makes no mention of it nor does Bull or anyone else. Mages are perhaps the second most disenfranchised class in the game. Vivienne has managed to take that and make it work for her. The whole war while a bit clumsy is a pretty good analogy for how people across the board take institutions. If it works for you and protects you, it's hard for you to want to get rid of it.
Templars themselves aren't even the real reason that the war went on, it was the Rite of Tranquility that started much of the war. In fact, Vivienne says many times that most circles were far more liberal than those in Kirkwall or Ferelden.
I loved Dorian's story not because his father did something wrong and cruel, but because his father did it with the best of intentions. This is how homophobia works these days, it's not overt, it's something people who love us do to us without thinking. The fact that Dorian is actively trying to work past that and bridge a relationship with his father again is really touching to me and it called to a lot of my own personal fears as a gay person.
Going on from that, I honestly think that you're giving the fandom WAY more credit than it deserves. Spend five seconds on the Bioware form and you'll see what I mean. The questions that are in really bad taste are shot down by any characters if the Inquisitor asks them. This is because those questions are not written for us, they're written for people who haven't had exposure or people who need to be called out on it. This is a community where "white Isabella" is one of the most popular mods and people threw complete fits over the fact that Zevran hits on the Warden regardless of gender presentation.
The Dorian/Bull romance could have been handled better in the one part that everyone likes to point to when they are saying it's abusive. However, the understanding was that you'd already bought into the type of relationship at that point. This needed to be better written, hopefully next time they learn from it and don't throw out a kink relationship altogether. There is a vast difference between unwise and chaotic than "unhealthy". I think that people are quick to say "oh it's not perfect, oh someone said something I, personally, don't like, it's abusive."
Is Dragon Age Inquisition perfect? By all means, no. But I don't think that it deserves much of the flack the Tumblr fandom seems to be giving it. In my opinion, the biggest problem is how much of the characters rely on banter and many things needed more. They ran out of time, I get that, but I would have rather waited. For example, you may only get Bull hitting on Cassandra, not the part where she says "Oh, no, you can keep flirting with me, but you'll never get anywhere". A lot is lost when people play only one sort of character and much is missing because of banter.
Like I said, I don't have a lot more time to get into it, but we should hang out soon anyway, it'd be a fun topic to discuss.
no subject
Per the staff, elves were originally written primarily as Jewish analogs, not as PoC. as PoC began to identify more, they weren't discouraged, but it was an unintended thing. This story, again per staff has been written for years ahead of time.
Given that the elves were written with Jewish peoples in mind, it's easy to see how they lack a lot of understanding of their own history. I found that part of the writing to be painful, yes, but not to be badly done or in poor taste. The problem when your history lies in the hands of other cultures is that you do not get a pure glimpse of it. It makes sense that Morrigan has more information on those magics. She's a mage that was trained by Flemeth, she's basically a doctorate in the subject, given her past 10 years of education and training. She also is wrong about much, as many doctorate students are. It's a pretty close reading of much of academia, in my opinion.
Further, while colorism is hinted at in Orlais, it isn't in the rest of Thedas, Dorian himself makes no mention of it nor does Bull or anyone else. Mages are perhaps the second most disenfranchised class in the game. Vivienne has managed to take that and make it work for her. The whole war while a bit clumsy is a pretty good analogy for how people across the board take institutions. If it works for you and protects you, it's hard for you to want to get rid of it.
Templars themselves aren't even the real reason that the war went on, it was the Rite of Tranquility that started much of the war. In fact, Vivienne says many times that most circles were far more liberal than those in Kirkwall or Ferelden.
I loved Dorian's story not because his father did something wrong and cruel, but because his father did it with the best of intentions. This is how homophobia works these days, it's not overt, it's something people who love us do to us without thinking. The fact that Dorian is actively trying to work past that and bridge a relationship with his father again is really touching to me and it called to a lot of my own personal fears as a gay person.
Going on from that, I honestly think that you're giving the fandom WAY more credit than it deserves. Spend five seconds on the Bioware form and you'll see what I mean. The questions that are in really bad taste are shot down by any characters if the Inquisitor asks them. This is because those questions are not written for us, they're written for people who haven't had exposure or people who need to be called out on it. This is a community where "white Isabella" is one of the most popular mods and people threw complete fits over the fact that Zevran hits on the Warden regardless of gender presentation.
The Dorian/Bull romance could have been handled better in the one part that everyone likes to point to when they are saying it's abusive. However, the understanding was that you'd already bought into the type of relationship at that point. This needed to be better written, hopefully next time they learn from it and don't throw out a kink relationship altogether. There is a vast difference between unwise and chaotic than "unhealthy". I think that people are quick to say "oh it's not perfect, oh someone said something I, personally, don't like, it's abusive."
Is Dragon Age Inquisition perfect? By all means, no. But I don't think that it deserves much of the flack the Tumblr fandom seems to be giving it. In my opinion, the biggest problem is how much of the characters rely on banter and many things needed more. They ran out of time, I get that, but I would have rather waited. For example, you may only get Bull hitting on Cassandra, not the part where she says "Oh, no, you can keep flirting with me, but you'll never get anywhere". A lot is lost when people play only one sort of character and much is missing because of banter.
Like I said, I don't have a lot more time to get into it, but we should hang out soon anyway, it'd be a fun topic to discuss.