Guest Post! Dragon Age: Inquisition -- Glimmering Gems in a Morass of Disappointment

[helloladies]

Today we're excited to welcome Ira to Lady Business to talk about Dragon Age: Inquisition! Ira is a kickass illustrator, writer, and web developer who gained their powers by consuming the bones of their enemies. They make art, comics, and writing when they are not distracted by way too many video games. You can find more of Ira's work at their tumblr.

---

So I suppose it's time to talk about Dragon Age: Inquisition! In the last 2-3 months I bulldozed my way through the entire DA game series, have arrived at the end of DAI, and boy howdy, I have opinions. Let's have a spoiler-free summary up here first, with spoilery details below the cut. Overall I feel like Bioware tried to add a lot of grey, particularly to issues they'd seen people getting pretty black-and-white over, and really overcorrected with the grey.

Grey for everyone!
(Image credit: Dragon Age Wiki)

Many thanks to owlmoose for helping me figure out some of what was bothering me and playing editor. She may not agree with all I say, but helped shape the saying.

Things I liked!

• Cassandra Pentaghast. She is nearly perfect as a character, imperfections and all. She's determined, loyal, iron-willed, unwavering, and sees the faults in the systems she's part of. If only my lady Inquisitor could have romanced her! But overall? This is one part of DAI that gets no [disgusted noise] from me.


• Josephine was a treat, and I appreciate the alternate approach she represents; I often find diplomatic or third-option solutions far more interesting and satisfying. Her romance is adorable, her character is great, and I just wish we weren't such a terribly, terribly underutilized gem.


• Cullen grew a lot -- good work, buddy. Shame you're straight too.


• It was great to see Morrigan again, with how she's matured and changed.


• The game is beautiful and huge -- overwhelmingly so much of the time, but I think that has more to do with my sensory overload threshold than anything else. Whenever I was up to handling it, the scale and scenery were breathtaking.


• DAI does... some... amount of work to correct some of the flaws in its inherently misogynistic worldbuilding. There are more and more varied women, gender is made less an issue of, and overall the treatment of women is improving.


• Krem is fucking great and I will hear no words against him and his awesomeness.


• Dagna! Scout Harding! Dwarf ladies!

Things that rubbed me a wee bit the wrong way

• Oppression as a theme is treated with none of the care and gravity it or Bioware's own worldbuilding deserve. The mage-templar conflict is papered over with a bit too much "both sides are just as bad" hand-waving, and the elves, POC-coded as they are, are treated terribly by the narrative, painted as foolish and participants in their own demise and ongoing oppression.


• There's a lot of tricky-to-icky racial subtext in the game, from Morrigan's blatant elfsplaining to the first Black playable female character being classist and supportive of oppressive regimes to a POC party member being a slavery apologist.


• GSM people continue to be majority outcast or problematic in some way while straight people continue to be majority upstanding folk. The only to-date canonical gay companion romance is written deliberately as a questionable idea. One of the gay characters gets an arc about how very tragically gay and outcast they are.


• Most returning or past characters and factions are treated poorly by the narrative. The Grey Wardens got some unbelievably bad writing, right down to a moustache-twirling villain. Characters who would have been thematically appropriate to return, such as Merrill, didn't, while characters who did show up are poorly used and executed, written into corners by worldstates.


• The large-scale writing is poor. The antagonists were wildly uneven, culminating with Corypheus himself who, drop dead deeply satisfyingly awesome as his voice was, amounted to little more than a by-the-numbers, suitable-for-mass-consumption, uncomplicated Big Bad. The overall plot is thin and poorly tied together.


• The Inquisitor themselves is handed some dialogue options that are homophobic and transphobic at worst, ignorant and clumsy at best. Why?

Let's just dive right in to the dirty stuff, right? SPOILERS AHOY.

The Mage-Templar Conflict

Bioware kind of wrote themselves into a corner here. With the way they do their narratives, there was no way for the third game to explicitly take a side in the mage-templar conflict -- the plot had to stand outside the conflict or run aground on the reefs of previous player choices. Then, when they found themselves in this situation, it seems like they tried to give a more "even-handed" portrayal of both mages and templars -- we meet some good templars (but most of them only if you side with the templars anyway), as well as mages who misuse their power. But I do want to note that you'll meet Circle-supporting mages regardless of who you side with, and it's just a bit... weird... to listen to characters saying, "Well I don't mind this oppressive system! I, personally, did not feel oppressed by it!" Reminds a bit too strongly of some real-world narratives, you know?

Let's be clear, there is no viable real-world analogue for mages. Bioware built their mages that way: they are inherently dangerous, arguably inherently damaging to the world simply by existing. But around this concept of mages, Bioware has built narratives about oppression (and, arguably, economics). And sure, it's fair to ask the audience to do a bit of critical thinking with something like this -- I like that it invites thought. But at the same time, when playing around with oppression narratives, it behooves creators to be aware that they're playing with fire. Comparisons to real-world systems of oppression are inevitable: the only way we understand fantasy worlds is through the lens of our real world. So peppering the game with mages who support the Circle system is just a wee bit dangerous, especially when you make one of the most vocal supporters a Black woman. Just sayin.

So, cool, I get that players were getting pretty het up about mages vs templars after DA2 and Bioware wanted to capitalize on that without invalidating player choices/worldstates. But this is truly treacherous ground. I understand that it was narratively necessary to meet pro-Circle mages, same as Wynne was necessary to DAO's worldbuilding. But this is just the result of a large-scale problem with Bioware's worldbuilding and handling of the consequences of those choices. And speaking of playing with narratives of oppression...

How the Elves Got Everything Wrong, Did Everything Wrong, and Were Wrong in General

This game is terrible to the elves. Bioware created a POC-coded race and then spent the latter half of DAI dumping all over them. The elves got their own history wrong. The elves' own infighting led to their downfall, not the invasion of the humans. The elves practiced slavery. "Elfy elves," as Sera would call them, are continually derided by the two members of their own race we get as companions. To quote the post I just linked:

And the fact that a group of largely white, Western video game writers continually appropriate real world narratives of oppression for a fictional setting and then proceed to use real world denialist arguments to minimize that oppression in the setting and even blame the oppressed people for their oppression is disgusting and racist.

And to top it all off, Minaeve's backstory shows that Dalish (or her clan, at least) abandon unwanted mage-children. The Dalish once provided a counter-narrative for how mages might be treated, as attested in Merrill's codex entry, which implies that Dalish clans carefully cultivate mage numbers and treat mages as a communal resource and responsibility. But now even this is taken from them. I understand that Minaeve's backstory depends on her being too weak a mage to be useful as a Keeper, but strong enough to be a danger, therefore making her the type of mage that is, of all mages, perhaps best served by a Circle life. I understand that they're trying to show that there are no perfect, easy answers to the question of mages. But set alongside all the other things DAI has done to elves and especially the Dalish, it's a bit much.

In DAI, despite how many opinions we get on the Dalish from Sera and Solas (particularly if the Inquisitor themselves is Dalish), the Dalish are not granted a voice of their own. Merrill, for example, would have been an interesting character to carry forward. But instead, Solas belittles modern elves at every turn, and is retroactively framed as authoritative on the matter once he is revealed to be the Dread Wolf, and we are provided no foil for him. Unless you count Sera's own flavour of contempt or Morrigan's elfsplaining. And it's funny how when Merrill, an actual elf, tries to explore forgotten parts of her heritage she's foolish and endangering the clan and ostracized, but when Morrigan explores some of the self-same topics she's elevated, willing to look everywhere for knowledge and to preserve the old world. Hmmmmmm.

  ;

Which of these characters from previous DA games seems a natural choice to make a return appearance largely for the purpose of expounding on elven history and magic?
(Credits: Velanna, Merril, Morrigan)

Speaking of which, much as I love Morrigan, it was outright bizarre to watch a human white(*) character spouting off all this narration about our local POC-coded race, especially if you happen to bring actual elves with you. Or play an actual elf. Like wow. Why this choice? Why keep Solas so quiet or provide some other elvhen voice to do this part? Sure, with the Flemeth reveal it makes some poetic sense. But is this really the price you want to pay for your poetry? Presenting a non-elf as the local authority on all things elf-related?

I have no more words. Wow.

Surprise Racial Politics! Or How to Pair Characters WIth Narratives for Great Results

Speaking of Morrigan's elfsplaining, there are some other pretty questionable pairings of race and narrative. Now, Morrigan's elfsplaining is not framed as unequivocally a good idea -- in fact after the Mythal and Fen'Harel reveals she seems a little foolish. But it exists in a narrative where we're presented with mages who agree with oppressive systems and characters of colour who agree with slavery. (We all still remember the difference between realism and realism porn, right? Good.) The context is... unhelpful.

One of those mages is Vivienne, powerful both magically and socially, extremely refined and smart, and a supporter of the Circle system. It's... a pretty questionable choice to have your first playable woman of colour be an advocate for an oppressive, easily abused system. Just... just examine that pairing of character and narrative again just a bit?

And then we have Dorian and his opinions on slavery. He's a POC character who is a slaveowner and slavery apologist -- oh sure, he claims he did not himself have any personal slaves, but his family owns slaves, whom he seems to have used and benefitted from himself with no issue. And then there's this, keeping in mind everything said earlier about elves:

Dorian: Solas, for what it's worth, I'm sorry.
Dorian: The elven city of Arlathan sounds like a magical place, and for my ancestors to have destroyed it...
Solas: Dorian... hush.
Solas: Empires rise and fall. Arlathan was no more "innocent" than your own Tevinter in its time.
Solas: Your nostalgia for the ancient elves, however romanticized, is pointless.
Solas: If you wish to make amends for past transgressions, free the slaves of all races who live in Tevinter today.
Dorian: I... don't know that I can do that.
Solas: Then how sorry are you?

Ahh racial politics.

Never change.

Those Queer People Sure Are Queer

So Bioware has kind of a history with trends regarding straight people versus GSM people, in that a far greater percentage of the DA universe's GSM population is morally grey and/or ostracized, while comparatively more of the people presented in-universe as overall good are straight. This isn't to say that the straight characters never have flaws (see: Morrigan disapproves; Alistair's lying; Sebastian's vengeance), but there is an overall... leaning... where straight characters are from socially-supported backgrounds (Alistair, Sebastian, Cullen, and Cassandra are all affiliated with the Chantry and presented as generally good) or at least powerful (Morrigan, Cassandra), while mogai characters are morally grey, disenfranchised, or dead. Again, there are counterexamples (Josephine on the one hand, Blackwall on the other), but the trends aren't great.

And DAI has... Dorian. Oh, Dorian. I love Dorian. I do. He and my Inquisitor got along famously. But why did Bioware make their first canonically gay character a POC who is a slavery apologist? Then make his companion quest about him being gay? Protip: unless you're willing to devote A LOT of care and space to it, do not make a marginalized character's story arc about their marginalization. It's reductivist. Yes, it's important to have stories that acknowledge the familial conflict and ostracization that many gay people go through. But unless your story is about that, don't make your character about that. (Once again: realism vs. realism porn, yes?) Dorian was all set to be a character who, just, well, happened to be gay (you know, like people do?) until I hit his personal quest. And then suddenly we were all about how very gay he was. Good to know.

But while we're on the topic of Dorian, he also had the privilege of being half of the canonical companion couple this time around, the other one being Iron Bull. Now, I'm overall pretty okay with how Iron Bull is portrayed in terms of his sexuality. But a lot of people have been triggered by the writing around Dorian and Bull's relationship, or have otherwise perceived it as an abusive one. I think there are valid counterarguments, and myself fall somewhere in the middle, as, apparently, does David Gaider. But the best takeaway I can find here is that the first canonical gay companion relationship was intentionally (if poorly) written as a questionable idea.

Bioware, you and your questionable ideas.

Hawke and the Grey Wardens; Or, Fighting Outside Your Narrative Weight Class

Here Lies the Abyss deserved better writing. It had some of the worst writing I've seen from Bioware, ever. The villain was deplorably simple. Clarel was treated with laughable indignity -- literally, I let out a bark of mortified laughter when the dragon chomped her. Hawke was poorly utilized. But I am pleased to say that here, at least, I'm upset about poor writing that is simply poor writing, as opposed to writing that participates in racist, misogynistic, homophobic, or otherwise oppressive and problematic narratives.

So, you know. There's that.

But this entire arc and the Grey Wardens deserved better. I'm not objecting to portraying the order as making a mistake -- Wardens have been, well, grey since the start. It's one of their defining characteristics, and a thing I thoroughly enjoy about them. But their descent deserved better. The idea of Corypheus being able to Call them is a necessary followup on the Legacy DLC, but they were given so little nuance and agency with it. The Wardens in the Legacy DLC got way more.

And the poor writing extends to the handling of the default Warden, Stroud. Simply put, he's just not in the same narrative weight class as the likes of Alistair or Loghain or, most importantly, Hawke. One of the culminating choices of Here Lies The Abyss relies for its pathos on having to choose between a Hawke (who is at the very least Varric's good friend, at most is someone players have spent an entire game with) and a Grey Warden. For the choice to have any meaning, that Warden better be in the same weight class as Hawke. Alistair and Loghain carry that, but Stroud straight up doesn't. He, or a fresh Warden character, really needed to have some quality writing invested to get them awesome'd up quite a bit for the choice to feel like it mattered. It is possible to write characters with limited screentime who the players end up caring about and valuing. But this time, they just didn't do so.

I do appreciate the exquisite pain of having to choose between Hawke and a Grey Warden you (presumably) care about. That was a neat setup. But Hawke themselves is used... weirdly. Badly. It was a risky move to bring the previous game's protagonist into this game, and they tried to play a tricky balance of keeping the "Ooh wow Hawke" factor while keeping Hawke distant enough so as to not overshadow the Inquisitor. But they paired this challenge with the challenge of writing a post-DA2 Hawke at all, especially given all the various choices the player could have made, and I think it was just too many risky moves paired with writers of not enough skill. I played a friendly, pro-mage, neutral-on-blood-magic purple Hawke, and the Hawke I was given simply did not match a reasonable extrapolation of my Hawke's choices, their love interest clumsily waved away. It's just a result of getting boxed in by worldstates, and it was a gamble upon a gamble for Bioware to take.

It's just a shame that Hawke was paired with such simplistic villains.

We Deserve Better Villains and More Plot

My favourite villains in the game is probably Florianne, followed by Alexius and Calpernia. That's because they are the only ones given any real pathos or interaction with the Inquisitor. Dancing with Florianne was the highlight of Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts for me (oh my god the fucking halla statuettes).

On the flip side we have, well, every other antagonist, but particularly Corypheus. DA2 has many, many flaws, but I appreciated the nods of humanity Meredith is given, and that you have a chance to work with her. These are interesting choices for a game's antagonist. In DAO, the ultimate big bad is the archdemon, sure, but you spend at least as much time squaring off against Loghain and his many schemes, and are given the chance to even recruit him and talk deeply with him. Corypheus's voice is an utter delight to my ears, but as a villain he is extremely shallow and out of keeping with series tradition.

DAO showed that it's perfectly possible to have a big dumb Big Bad at the end as long as you spend time with other antagonists, often agents or underlings -- ironically enough roles like the one tvtropes labels as the Dragon. Corypheus has (one literal dragon and) two possible Dragons -- antagonists who have a relatively constant presence throughout the main plot. But the parts of the plot that try to make these antagonists at all interesting are relegated to optional sidequests, inner circle quests, and a lot of reading material. (Also, Samson is just boring.) If Corypheus himself were more nuanced and compelling, then his lieutenant(s) could stand to be thin or their interesting bits hidden away. But Corypheus is pretty simplistic, and his lieutenants don't make up for it, bits of themselves scattered all over the map, loosely tied together and very optional.

This is just one symptom of an overall thin and shallow plot -- at least in proportion to the sheer size and scope of the rest of the game. The game world felt huge and epic, and I expected a plot to match, with choices of similar scope. Probably what bothered me the most on an overall writing level was how little my choices seemed to matter in the lead-up to Corypheus. What you do with Orlais and the Wardens seems to matter to war table missions more than anywhere else, not even some nice cinematics to show the results of my choices. Instead I got a lot of optional sort of related mini-plots in side areas and a handful of Here Is The Actual Plot dungeon-style areas. Some of those side plots could easily have been beefed up a bit and made into pieces of the main plot. But given how they did with Here Lies The Abyss, I'm half afraid of what the results would have been.

Why Is the Inquisitor Forced to Be An Ignorant Jackass?

So Krem is great. Overall, I really liked the writing of and around Krem, including how his dad was a positive figure (contrast Dorian's father). However, the Inquisitor was given a bafflingly large array of possible responses to Krem that were ignorant or transphobic, and vanishingly few options that were informed and supportive. Why? I understand this was probably an attempt at some Trans 101, but what about for players who don't need it and would rather give supportive and informed responses? I know Bioware gives players the chance to play as complete assholes, sure. But usually this is paired with the chance to not play as an asshole maybe?

There was a similar odd moment during Dorian's very gay quest about how very gay he is where I meant for my Inquisitor to say something like "oh, you're gay? that's cool" but what came out of her mouth was some ignorant remark along the lines of "what, no women at all?" Why? I can understand (if not really agree) the reasoning behind giving players who have maybe never been exposed to trans characters before a chance to be a bit ??? about it, but I'm pretty sure Bioware's audience know how gay people work and there's no call to be weird about it.

While I'm complaining about ignorant Inquisitors, let's bring up Morrigan's elfsplaining again in the context of a Dalish Inquisitor. Ouch. This was apparently a scripting error, and I know QA isn't perfect (boy howdy do I), but once again, Bioware is playing with a marginalized population here, and handling a conversation with someone outside that population who is presenting herself as an expert. This is some tricky ground here; is it too much to ask to double check that scripting in particular to make sure it doesn't, however accidentally, dump all over the marginalized race?

There Were Things I Liked, I Swear

I didn't hate the game. Really. I finished it in pretty decent spirits and I loved exploring the huge world and the scenery was often just damn gorgeous. I liked the companions in general. I loved that the cast overall was less straight while male than ever before. I liked the companions having distinct sexualities and orientations, including that some would always be unavailable on any given playthrough. Cassandra was a consistent delight, aided strongly by her wonderful VA Mirandra Raison. Jennifer Hale and Allegra Clark did similarly enchanting turns as Krem and Josephine, respectively. Seeing and especially hearing more of Orlais was great, though I was a bit underwhelmed by the Summer Bazaar. Having an entire "dungeon" dedicated in large part to information-gathering and intrigue was a nice change of pace -- and such a woeful missed opportunity for Josephine to shine. The potential for diplomacy in general was underutilized, but what little I got was much appreciated. Cullen, Disney Prince makeover aside, had a satisfying arc in the context of the previous two games and was an appreciated presence -- clearly still with his own biases, but always struggling to be a better person. Dagna was perfect. Scout Harding was an utter treasure.

 



 

Gaze upon the faces of perfection!
(Credits: Cassandra and Josephine, Krem, Dagna, Harding)

I want to pull out Josephine in particular as a character I really enjoyed and explain what I mean about her being underused. Josephine represents an entire approach to gameplay that I feel was sorely missing from DAI. Throughout the game you can, of course, kill your way to victory, or search out secrets and blackmail people or sometimes reason them into doing what you want. But did anyone else notice the lack of a Persuade skill a la DAO? Or Bribe options a la DA2? I sure did. For a game that takes you through so many political situations, there is surprisingly little politicking you can personally participate in. DAI already has an "influence" meter and clearly tracks a lot of things about how you interact with everyone, such as your stance on the whole Herald of Andraste question. What if those mechanics had been leveraged into a reputation system like in the Mass Effect games, where the way you act and how skilled a charmer you are impacts what kind of outcomes and dialogue options are available to you, opening doors for clever, diplomatic solutions. Leliana and especially Cullen's approaches are well represented in gameplay and game mechanics, but Josephine's isn't. Sometimes the special options do come along that are in Josephine's vein, but not nearly often enough. Even in Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts, which should have been her chance to shine alongside Leliana, she spent the ball accosted by family while Leliana participated in the secret-gathering quests.

Leliana's growth was particularly interesting and rewarding to watch, though. I tried but failed to make her Divine, and made her a bit alarmingly ruthless in my playthrough, but I appreciate that it's possible to shape her personality so deeply through her interactions with the Inquisitor.

Overall, it was a game that tried to give more detail and nuance. In some things, like the physical world and scenery and characters like Cassandra, it succeeded with beauty and gusto. In other areas, like its treatment of oppression narratives, it overcorrected badly.

Look. I know Bioware doesn't deal in happily ever afters. I didn't come here looking for that. I don't need the Grey Wardens to not make mistakes. I don't need for Hawke to survive, or even thrive. I don't need for elves to be "perfect victims" (may I use that phrase infrequently ever after). I don't need every member of every minority to be flawless and perfect. But it's about trends. It's about having enough diversity that no one character can really be an example of anything the way Vivienne and Dorian and Sera can be.

If nothing else, I look forward to reading more about the thoughts this game has engendered. It's gonna be an interesting ride.

---

(*) Morrigan's father is implied to be Chasind, so depending on how you read the Chasind, it's possible that Morrigan may be white-passing here rather than white.