Archived Discussion Franchise / DragonAge

This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.

Red Viking: It's unfortunate that you write me off as defensive just because I disagree with you. This isn't Misaimed Marketing. If anything, your argument makes it sounds more like it should fall under Never Trust a Trailer. It would be Misaimed Marketing if they were selling ogre plush dolls or Morrigan abstinence rings. Just because they're marketing towards another segment with different tactics doesn't automatically make it Misaimed Marketing. I think the main issue here is that you've categorized sex and violence as being immature while, at the same time, categorizing the Bioware gamer as a mature person to whom sex and violence doesn't appeal to.#

Damsel of Distress: The "new shit" trailer is not an example of Misaimed Marketing. Look at the examples on that page. They are all examples of questionable licensed products; not promotional material like a trailer. That said, Never Trust a Trailer may count.

Danel: I've edited the Karma Meter example - the previous version was just bizarre, with the suggestive tailing-off that didn't really seem to indicate anything - the obvious conclusion from the sequence of Kot OR, Jade Empire, and Mass Effect's take on the trope is that Bioware has been steadily backing away from it, and trying to find better ways of pulling off a similar effect.

Damsel of Distress: Mostly from spending too much time on the Bio Ware forums.

Red Viking: What Damsel of Distress said. Expect this page to explode once the game actually comes out.

Ramidel: Expectation met. Was it ever met.

Red Viking: The closest thing I can think of is Arc Fatigue, but that's talking about a particular story arc and not necessarily the prologue. I don't think we have a trope that deals specifically with prologues.

Some New Guy: Well in that case, maybe its time for a new one. To YKTTY!

Foryn: I thought we had something Morrigan. Why did you do that to me you heartless wench? I THOUGHT WE HAD SOMETHING!!!

TGR: I actually think Leliana is Lawful Good and Allister is Neutral Good. Actually Leliana is more pure good than Alister is, as Alister wanted Loghain dead instead of forgiven.

Red Viking: Question: If you choose to "harden" Leliana, wouldn't her alignment change to Chaotic Good? Also, as long as we're on the subject, wouldn't Zevren's alignment be Chaotic Neutral instead of Neutral Evil?

TGR: Yes, to both questions, and Morrigan is a Chaotic Neutral character as well. Flemeth however is more evil.

Ramidel: Zevran still kills people for money and has no particular loyalty to anyone. Morrigan is actively hostile to you doing anything unselfish, as seen when you help out the peasants in Lothering. (Stealing the child away is a rather Jerkass move too, particularly when we don't know if it's evil or not.)

Also, Alistair is Lawful Good. Note the conflict between justice and mercy when dealing with Loghain; Alistair wants to give Loghain the justice that the law prescribes (a traitor loses his head), and Leliana wants to give him a chance to make up for his deeds.

TGR: Leliana is Lawful Good as well. While she doesn't follow the order of her state, she follows the order of her religion. While her past is shady, its about the present and not the past. Her belief in her religion is why she favors mercy. Its a different kind of Lawful Good than a political ruler or a keeper of the law. Morrigan is Chaotic Nuetral...while she favors a survival of the fittest philosophy and despises humans, she doesn't actually seek to hurt them. She is just very cynical. This game is not black and white. I find Bhelen to be Lawful Neutral as well, despite some of his actions. Also Alistair actually wants Loghain dead out of vengence for Duncan more than said laws of the land. Thats not Lawful, thats more Choatic.

lrrose: I wrote those alignments mainly because I was bored. I've decided to remove them to stop any edit wars. I'm adding them here so anyone who disagrees with my decision can add them back in.

• Edit: Decided that it was stupid of me to remove it in the first place and am adding it back in.

• Character Alignment:
  • Lawful Good: Alistair, Leliana (can be hardened to a Chaotic Good character), the NPC Couslands, arl Eamon, bann Teagan and King Cailan.
    • Lawful Stupid: The templars seem inclined to lean this way, at least in some cases.
  • Neutral Good: Wynne and Irving.
  • Chaotic Good: Your Mabari Hound and Daveth.
  • Lawful Neutral: Sten, Duncan, and Lord Harrowmont.
  • True Neutral: Jowan, Ser Jory, and Bodhan Feddic.
  • Chaotic Neutral: Oghren and Shale. Arguably, some Desire Demons.
  • Lawful Evil: Loghain and Bhelen (can be argued that he is Lawful Neutral as his goals are benevolent).
  • Neutral Evil: Morrigan (can be argued that she is really Chaotic Neutral), Zevran, Flemeth, Bann Vaughan, and Arl Howe.
  • Chaotic Evil: Sentient Darkspawn, Uldred, probably Branka, and most demons.

Darth Howie: Anora may be deceptive and duplicitous, but her love of and continual use of politics implies that she is Lawful.

Valgranth: Being a politician is no indication that you'll value or follow the laws. Politics is simply ruling. History abounds with examples of politicians who do what we might term "extra-legal" activities. In this case, I'd be willing to bet Anora would break a law if it got in the way of her attaining power.

Darth Howie: Anora will NOT kill Alistair for no reason. Indeed, she will only kill him if granted the title of Queen permanently. Is she obsessed with power? Yes. But she is predominantly interested in making sure that power is legitimate and seen to be legitimate. A Neutral Evil character would have Alistair poisoned or some such. Further, Anora rules somewhat benevolently in the endings where she is given the throne. This implies at least SOME belief in the use of power for constructive ends, another lawful trait. Quite frankly, I find her to be Lawful Neutral in most circumstances with the tragic flaw being her lust for power. Lord knows there are plenty of Lawful characters who lie. Power isn't Anora's end goal. Hedonism isn't her end goal. Order is her end goal, except she only trusts herself to pull the strings.

Helter Skelter: Alistair will try to have Alistair killed if he argues to have Loghain put to death and you choose her over him. If not, she's fine with him living. It certainly comes off as she'd like to see him dead when you're not explicitly on his side about Loghain. She's even condescending if you force her to let him live. And I disagree—Anora, unlike Alistair, gets a specific malevolent paragraph about her failure to supply the Alienage with food and the subsequent riot that she cracks down on. As far as I can tell, Anora's agenda is power and only power. She may not be insane like her father, and realize that you need to keep people remotely happy to stay in power, but she's still power-hungry.

If you support Alistair at the Landsmeet, she supports her father. Not because she agrees with him and his choices, but because he'd obviously support her as queen. Regardless of the fact that you have been going out of your way to save Ferelden and assemble armies, she turns on you. You are the commander of almost all of the armies gearing to fight the Blight—the dwarves, elves, mages, and soldiers of Redcliffe. But she still thinks it's more important that she's queen than you defeating the Blight. The woman is power-hungry, and makes a few "evil" decisions from what we know of her. I would say she's Lawful/Neutral evil. Chaotic Evil would imply she'd have Alistair killed for no reason whether you wanted her to or not. She's smart enough to know you won't get her support if she kills one of your closest friends/lover.

• Big Bad Diumvirate: The archdemon and Loghain.

The two are enemies and have nothing to do with each other. Loghain (You Should Know This Already, it's spoiled in the first section of the game...) is just taking advantage of a chance to kill Cailan and blame it on the Wardens, but he definitely doesn't support the archdemon.

lrrose I was under the impression that said trope simply referred to a story having more than one Big Bad, but I stand corrected. Also spoilering Loghain's name seems to be the norm for this page.

Red Viking: I feel that certain trope names are spoilers. Afterall, people aren't stupid. If they see a particular trope, they can infer what happens. If I'm browsing a section and I see, for example, Someone Has to Die, then I know exactly what's going to happen.

Joie De Combat: Agreed. Just seeing things like Someone Has to Die or Heroic Sacrifice on the page can spoil you for it even though you don't know the specific details involved. I ended up spoiling myself for part of the endgame that way.

Rebochan: Yes, but when you spoiler tag an entire trope name, you have no idea why it might be a spoiler or how bad it is. Hence you're going to highlight it anyway and then get spoiled. And look, if you're stupid enough to read an entire trope page discussing this kind of stuff in grand detail when you're terribly allergic to spoilers, you kind of asking for one of the trope names to spoil you. Every single trope name is a spoiler. But for the sake of compromise, I'm just going to move the spoiler-tagged trope names to other tropes that can cover them more effectively (i.e. The Hero Dies can go under "Downer Ending" pretty easily).

• Edit: Okay, there was only one that actually needed to be moved. I shoved a link to The Hero Dies behind the spoiler for Heroic Sacrifice. The others just weren't spoilers because someone who's never read or played it can't get the context from the name alone anyway, so they're not going to get spoiled unless they highlight the tagged text behind the spoiler.

Requia: Should Captain Ersatz really be on here (at least for devouring corpse/wight)? Its two different generic fantasy undeads. Not to mention that the wight is open game content, which would disqualify it for captain ersatz, since anybody can use it.

Danel: It's not a particularly good example. Another question... why is Anora described as Neutral Evil?

Red Viking: People think she's a bad person because she can act against the PC's own interests in a game where NP Cs have their own motivations that don't revolve around the player. Shockingly, she acts that way only if you antagonize her or blow her cover.

Metaphysician: She also backstabs you if you go against any of her wishes at any time despite promises otherwise, has Alistair killed to avoid succession disputes unless you ( the guy who she's relying on to get the throne ) specifically insist she not, commits various atrocities on the elves if she rules alone, and in general never shows a single emotion or motivation that does not align with "Power for Me." Self interest devoid of any compassion is pretty much the definition of Neutral Evil. I'm putting it back in.

Valgranth: She isn't relying on Alistair to get the throne, she's relying on the fact that she was the legitimate king's wife, and that she de facto ruled the kingdom for five years. She can also spare Alistair if you convince her. Her motivation might be power but she has a rightful claim to the throne and is a competent ruler. Not only that but she doesn't make a point of being deliberately malicious at any point, and the kingdom prospers if she gets the throne. She definitely isn't good, so I'd put her somewhere on the neutral side of things, but almost all the epilogue options show her as being a skilled ruler who does what's necessary.

Danel: The problem I have, Metaphysician, is that it's not clear whether each of these things in due to certain actions you take. None of these things happened in my playthrough as an elf mage - she didn't kill Alistair, there's nothing about her doing anything bad to the elves. She ended up with severe daddy issues, yes, and she betrayed me to Cauthrien, but I could understand why she did that.

Red Viking: Exactly. If she were Neutral Evil, she would be acting against the players each and every single time because she would always view them as a threat to her power as Queen. A Neutral Evil Anora would arrange for an unfortunate "accident" to happen to Alistair even if she married him. A Neutral Evil Anora would not be upset at the thought that her father plotted her husband's death. In addition, just because she can act against you just means she's a potential antagonist. Antagonist and evil are not the same things.

• Jerrik: Why exactly would being Neutral Evil require her to act against you every single time? She's not a moron, if you agree to help win the throne (the only way to get her to not turn on you), then she would have no reason to betray you. I mean, when you decide to help her, you're pretty much the best pawn she's ever had. You show up, free her from imprisonment, make her Queen, then go off to fight the Darkspawn invasion for her. And the thing with her husband(s) is pretty easily explained in that she doesn't actually have a claim to the throne except through marriage. Both Cailan and Alistair pretty much let her rule how she wants, so losing husbands does nothing but weaken her position as Queen.

Gfrequency: While we're on the subject of Character Alignments, why was Morrigan edited back into Neutral Evil about five seconds after I put her in Chaotic Evil? The claim that she supports evil decisions for "personal survival" simply isn't true. She really does enjoy death and destruction, and this becomes entirely obvious if you're playing an evil character. She goes along with your evil crap because it's fun, not because it increases her chance of survival, and specifically says so on occasion. I'm a bit tired of seeing Morrigan's morality excused as harsh pragmatism when that's Sten's schtick, not hers. Her wants and needs are simple. She wants you to be nice to her. She wants you to be a Jerkass to everyone else. I thought she was Neutral Evil as well - until I actually played an evil character and saw how clearly Chaotic Evil she is. Ah well, I'm not going to start an edit war or lose any sleep over it.

lrrose: I'm starting to think that I was correct in temporarily removing the character alignments since we can't seem to come to an agreement on who is which alignment. Anyone else think that we should remove them for good?

Foryn I agree, Dn D alignments serve a very specific purpose, that purpose is to show in the space of a few seconds, a broad overview of a certain characters worldview. One of the main factors of Dragon Age is just how complex each character's morality can be. Ergo, a simplistic two-word term raises more questions than it answers. Perhaps the character sheet page should include, oh, I dunno, maybe like a morality wheel or something where intricacies can be explored? It's 22:30 here and my brain has the dumb.

lrrose: Is anyone not in favor of removing the character alignments (from both the main and character pages)?

Some New Guy: I'm not. I honestly see no problem in the Character Alignment concept. :/

Another New Guy: The problem is that Character Alignment is not one of DA:O's tropes. If the alignment of every character essentially comes down to opinion (and, hey look, it does) then the trope simply is not present. So, uh, yeah — that section should be removed for good. :P

• Only I Can Kill Him: Deconstructed. While you're not the only one who can kill the Archdemon, the game seems to prod you in this direction as all the other choices are either asinine or just plain evil.

If you factor in the Loghain option, this doesn't make sense. Alistair being Lawful Stupid and Morrigan having an agenda does not make "let Loghain redeem himself" an evil or stupid option.

The Joxter: I don't see it either, I'm guessing someone thought combat was too hard or something. Removing it until someone comes up with a good justification.

Jerrik: Moved this here.

• Humans Are Bastards: There are exceptions, but for the most part, humans are behind most of the problems in Ferelden, if not the world - humans scattered the elves to the winds and subjugated some who are now little more than slaves (and who *are* still slaves in some parts of the world), can potentially incite a civil war in Orzammar due to religion, want to obliterate various and sundry holy relics, may have created the Darkspawn menace, the Chantry wants to convert the entire world to its faith, and a few hundred years ago humans lead to the werewolf curse by doing unspeakable things to the children of an elf mage.

As this keeps coming back after I delete it, I would like to explain why I deleted it. Being evil is not the defining trait of humanity in this game, as most of the humans in the game are not evil. Some humans doing something wrong doesn't equal Humans Are Bastards. This trope isn't just when any human ever does something evil, it's when humanity as a species is evil, and most of the examples given were about how just a few people did something bad. The Tevinter Imperium being an Evil Empire doesn't qualify the rest of humanity as bastards, seeing as how the magisters were a small group of people who enslaved the rest of humanity, and humans then fought to overthrow them and ensure nothing like that would happen again. The bit about humans destroying holy relics (I'm assuming that's talking about Andraste's ashes) was a small, insane cult. The thing about the werewolf curse is kind of misleading, as all that happened was: some bandits attack the children of an elf mage, and he curses them to become werewolfs. And those are the good examples, the rest don't really work. How is "a religion that wants to convert the world to it's faith" proof that Humans Are Bastards? How is the thing where you (and you might be a dwarf or an elf) can help a dwarf set up a Chantry prove that Humans Are Bastards?

Fading Echo: the Chantry is determined to convert the entire world to its faith and brooks no resistance - they declared holy war on the elves of the Dales for not worshiping the Maker, and setting up a Chantry in Orzammar leads directly to mass rioting and the Chantry proceeding to consider declaring holy war against the dwarves. The Chantry also considers holy war against the dwarves if they dare harbor mages. It's very strongly suggested that the Chantry also hates elves for having their own tradition of magic, despite no evidence of any blood mages who *weren't* raised in human lands. The Orlesians enslaved the Fereldens and continue to oppress the elves, as do the Fereldens. And absolutely none of this bothers the humans unless they were on the losing side. The cult of Andraste is neither insane nor particularly small - and the player can help them create an epilogue where they continue to grow and thrive. On the elves, even Leliana, a forthright good-aligned character, thinks of them as inferior to humanity - and when you call her out on it, she admits she never actually thought about it. So no, humans aren't bastards, perhaps - but they are unthinking, paranoid, short-sighted, religiously bigoted, and have extremely short memories. To my knowledge, there is not a single human in the game who expresses regret over what the humans have done, let alone respects the elves as a very separate culture that rightfully owns Ferelden, having lived there long before the humans ever did.

Jerrik: To make my points easier to read I split them up (Sorry for writing so much).

• The Chantry didn't declare holy war on the elves for not worshiping the Maker, at least not entirely. The elves maintain that was the reason for it because they want to ignore the other reasons for the war that made it completely their own fault, not the humans. It's also worth noting that the chantry doesn't persecute the Dalish nowadays, even though they are still not worshiping the Maker and have their own mages, which kind of undermines the idea that the Chantry has some kind of grudge against them.
• The rioting in Orzammar is bad, yes, but it is the result of a dwarf trying to spread the ideas of the Chantry, so it's not really a reason for why humans would be evil. We don't know if the Chantry actually does decide to attack Orzammar, so that may or may not be evidence for humans being bad. It's again worth noting that while the Chantry has a history of considering a holy war practically every time someone insults it, in practice they only actually go through with it against nations that are serious, expanding threats.
• As for The Disciples of Andraste, they consist of a single village, and they very clearly are messed up- they've completely forgotten about the god they worship and focus only on his prophet, they believe that she was somehow reincarnated as a dragon, they hunt down and murder anyone who tries to find the ashes or them, and there's a good chance they practice human sacrifice. I would definitely call that an insane cult.
• Orlais has taken the role of the Evil Empire from Tevinter, but like before only its rulers are portrayed as extremely evil, power hungry and corrupt, with the common people being oppressed by the nobility.
• The elves are treated poorly, and this is an area where humans are at fault, but it seems to be largely out of ignorance and arrogance rather than any kind of malice. Humans have been living in Fereldan for centuries, and the events that caused the elves to lose their land and culture happened so long ago that no one really understands what happened, let alone still feels responsibility for it. Not many people really hate the elves, they just see them inferior due to being poor and sometimes causing trouble. King Cailan is under the impression that the alienages are a chance for the elves to rebuild after what happened to them, and the nobles are pissed when they learn that Loghain had been selling elves as slaves, so the humans do care, if in a kind of superior, help those underneath-you way.

Helter Skelter: Agreed. Humans are not bastards. Like our qunari says, you can't sum up the species in a few words. There are good people and bad people. And Leliana is an ignorant Cloud Cuckoo Lander.

Helter Skelter: Alright. We need a Crowning Moment Of Funny and Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming page. The Funny one especially is getting out of hand. The game has a lot of humorous and heartwarming moments, evidently. We have a Crowning Momentof Awesome page, and that seems to be smaller than the current list of Funny. Any thoughts?

• Renagade: Agreed, those lists are really getting out of hand, you already made a fuuny page, I'll see what I can do about the heartwarming.
  • Helter Skelter: I seem to have problems indexing the Heartwarming page...I guess it just doesn't auto-add a link to the top of the page, as it did with Funny?
  • Renagade: Correct, the reason for this is that no one has created a Heartwarming button, whereas C Mo F has one, Also, Apparently Dragon Age is the first Video Game on TV Tropes to have a seperate heartwarming page for it. Anyway, when someone makes a button for C Mo H it should appear at the top of the page, until then, just scroll down to the trope in the article and click the link for now.

Helter Skelter: Alright, about the prejudice against LG Bs in DA...

• Unfortunate Implications: The flack Bio Ware took from the religious right - and its coverage in the queer press - brought a lot of gay gamers to the game. What we found when we got there was a world with no gay men, and seven queer characters who were either are/were career assassins (Leliana, Zevran, Marjolaine), an Ax-Crazy lesbian (Branka), gorily murdered immediately after sex (Dairren and Iona), or "dying of something worse than death" (Hespith). Many fans are quick to explain these away in individual cases, but the pattern remains unbroken, and The Calling adds two more bodies to the Bury Your Gays count. Taken together, this game's bisexual and lesbian characters look a little like a montage from the The Celluloid Closet.

I'm sorry, but it can be argued in a case-by-case basis. Zevran might be a Depraved Bisexual, but you can convince him to be a better person, male or not—besides, he's a Punch-Clock Villain who will genuinely fall in love with you. Leliana is a genuinely good (if insane) person who feels bad for what she did and tries to redeem as well. Hespith is evil, yes. So are plenty of straight characters—take Mc Rape Pants Vaughan for instance. And Dairren and Iona die whether you sleep with them or not. Everyone at Chez Cousland does, that's a) the point of Last of Your Line, no one there surviving (clearly Lady Landra and co. were introduce just so you could baw at their death) and b) nothing good comes out of the Origins romances. Both of them, however, are good people. As for the sheer lack of LGB characters, this is a fantasy game about a Middle Ages counterpart culture, and there won't be a lot.

In DA itself, Hespith is the only main storyline character that is bisexual/lesbian. Zevran and Leliana fulfilling romances that have a much higher chance of ending better and happier than the straight ones. I don't think I should have to add that Morrigan is more evil than Zevran is and ends miserably no matter which way you look at it. I've never read The Calling, so I honestly can't give input there. The Unfortunate Implications doesn't really apply when there's just one evil LGB character, no?

Nagisa: My problem with the "case-by-case basis" thing is that there's a pattern here with no break - nine examples and no counterexamples. The point for me (and for a lot of other queer people) is not whether Leliana is good, or Zevran is redeemable, etc, but why straight writers can still only picture us in our traditional roles in 20th century film and nineteenth-century novels: killing and dying.

For comparison's sake, it would not have likely occurred to them to have made Alistair gay (though he's likely to wind up in a loveless marriage anyway, like several homosexual kings and dukes in history). It would not have occurred to them to go this route with Arl Eamon, or Bann Teagan, or with any of the chivalric types. Why not Sten? Plenty of warrior cultures have had traditions accepting male lovers. What it looks like is a montage from The Celluloid Closet of gay and bisexual murderers and murderees - the same old aura of sordidness, secrecy, danger, often ending in a death that somehow feels like it's meant to be (offensively) karmic.

Worse, there are connections between their sexuality and their murders. Leliana's girlfriend Marjolaine trains her in murder, and Leliana seems to murder for her out of love. That's right out of fare like Basic Instinct. Zevran kills during sex, too. The earring he gives you is "about all [his male victim] was wearing." He describes killing in a sexual way, and even at his nicest is still an assassin at the end. Branka felt she could sacrifice Hespith because they were lovers. The two in the human noble opening die horribly right after sex, but other people you can only heterosexual sex with in the origin stories (like Gorim) don't die. For the bisexuals, their sexuality and death are completely intertwined, portrayed as threatening.

Are there nasty heterosexuals here? Certainly. But Bann Vaughn is one among a sea of heterosexuals who run the gamut of characterizations from best to worst, from dyers to survivors.

And as for the middle ages? Or course there were homosexuals and bisexuals. For a game that's so well-researched, they could've read John Boswell (the foremost authority of homosexuality in the middle ages) who has a few wonderful books on the subject. They were even gay subcultures in some places, toward the period of the middle ages that Dragon Age is primarily based on.

Nine examples of murderers and victims - and zero to the contrary. There was no shortage of honourable survivors they could've made bisexual or homosexual, but they went for the assassins, the ax crazy, and people who barely had names before they were added to the bodycount. As this is already a subjective trope, I think there's more than enough of a case to add it, and it should be re-instated.

Josef Bugman: What about the MC his/herself, they can live happily ever after with Zevran and Leliana if they choose and have Alistair sleep with Morigan? You are a stable individual, you can be nice and kind, and who knows maybe you can even be in love. Theres some examples to the contrary.

Also, if you would check the back story it doesn't actually matter about gender all that much: [1]

Its just that the various emotional wrecks that you have cobbeled together might be a bit more interested in their own things, as opposed to simply having sex. Who knows, maybe the threat of annihilation by gigantic f*ck off dragon has spurred them to worry less about it.

Psycho Yoshi: Straight Gay here, and I have absolutely no problems with the portrayals. I'd generally agree with what Josef said; no one is preventing the MC from being a perfectly sane, rational homosexual character if the player so chooses (and I certainly love playing as a Deadpan Snarker Chaotic Good elven mage who specializes in Entropy and Blood Magic). In addition, there is a boatload of subtext between the smith Wade and his manager, and no ill fate befalls either of them.

Most of Zevran's Casanova demeanor is a defensive facade because he is afraid that any compassion on his part will be viewed as weakness (and in the world of the Antivan Crows, he's almost certainly right). Nor can he be blamed for remaining an assassin; he was trained to become one from the age of 7 and would have to start his life all over again.

Branka is Ax-Crazy, but she's not psychotic because of her sexuality, she's psychotic because of her obsession with finding the Anvil of the Void, and by this point it's quite literally all she cares about, and she's more than willing to sacrifice ANYONE, lover or not, to get what she wants.

As a history major, I'd also like to state that Boswell's opinion, while interesting and groundbreaking, by no means represents a consensus viewpoint among medieval historians. Could go on, but I thought I'd stop here for now and see where the discussion goes.