Dragon Age II / Tropes G to L

G

• Gallows Humor: A shining example from Hawke following the death of the Viscount's son. Though it's less Gallows Humor than straight-up Jerkassery since Hawke is cracking a joke at someone's expense when they're the ones suffering.
  Aveline: "It's pretty late?" You ass.
  Hawke: May as well end as tense as it started.
• Gambit Roulette: Lampshaded. Flemeth's amulet revives her. She actually didn't think you'd go through with it!
• Game-Breaking Bug:
  • Your entire party is dead, but it goes to a cutscene straight from combat (e.g., the Ancient Rock Wraith)? Yeah... At best you'll be starting over from your last save as the game freezes up on a pseudo loading/party screen, at worst the file becomes corrupted and is lost.
  • There are buggy friendship perks that can potentially infinitely drag down your attack rate (Isabela) and damage resistance (Sebastian). This is repairable on PC version, but a console character has no hope. This was patched, but it doesn't work retroactively, meaning any character already afflicted with this bug is stuck with it.
  • Quite a few bugs crop up that can render quests unable to be finished, most of which can be tripped simply by looting things in the wrong order. Normally, these can be fixed by loading up a saved game (or the console on the PC), but if you don't save very often, you may lose hours of gameplay. It's especially grating because some such quests must be completed before moving on with the story.
  • The final PC patch (1.04) causes the game to freeze on Sebastian's second and third quests if the Legacy DLC is installed. Removing the Legacy DLC patch files while those quests are active and putting them back when you are done remedies the problem, though it was over a year before that workaround was discovered.
• Gameplay Ally Immortality: Any friendly characters who are not part of the party cannot die in combat. They will still usually have a health bar, but if it runs out nothing happens.
  • Dog is an exception. While he functions as a friendly character who is not part of the party, he is technically a sustained ability. As such, he merely despawns when he "dies", sustains no injuries, and can be summoned again after a short cooldown.
• Gameplay and Story Integration: As noted below, one of the themes of the game is "you have to pick a side". To get good results with your companions, you need to push the Relationship Values meter all the way to one side or the other—doesn't matter which, just as long as you picked one and stuck with it—and to get better options for yourself, you need to stick to a personality for Hawke. This doesn't mean you can never deviate, but consistency is key.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation:
  • No one ever seems to recognize people wearing robes and carrying mage staffs as mages until they start casting spells, if even then. The extreme cases have to be Mage Hawke and Bethany, who very likely start slinging spells the moment they step into Kirkwall, within direct line of sight of the city guard; but everyone just congratulates them for having killed a bunch of thugs. However, if left behind while Hawke is in the Deep Roads, Bethany will be taken to the Circle. Hawke will arrive home just in time to see her off. At some unknown point during the story (possibly during your first meeting with Knight-Commander Meredith), Hawke's magical talents are discovered, but at that point, the Champion of Kirkwall is already too popular to be deported - though Meredith will threaten Hawke with this fate to ensure their cooperation.
  • Also, for a known Apostate and rebel, Anders has a remarkable degree of freedom of movement in a city where templars tranquilize mages on a whim.
  • Fenris will glow by default when shown in combat during cutscenes (like in his personal quests), but this won't start happening in-game until/unless you start filling out his specialization branch.
  • A possibly amusing one would be if one's warrior Hawke takes part in the "run in a figure 8 around the pillars during the fight with the Arishok while you keep bombing him with tar bombs and combustion grenades in the midst of slashing/bashing at him" tactic; the cut scene and people react as if Hawke charged head-on into the fray, when during gameplay it's more or less a desperate run for life until Hawke finally drains the Arishok of all his health.
  • Aveline is made guard-captain of Kirkwall during Act 1 yet she somehow finds plenty of time to pal around with Hawke, even if you never take her out of your party. Lampshaded in a banter conversation with Varric, when she states her adventures with Hawke happen during her off-duty hours.
  • Early in the game, you can find and read a book in Gamlen's home titled The Cardinal Rules of Magic. It explicitly states that magic cannot be used for travelling beyond the speed of putting one foot in front of the other. Guess what enemy mages can and will do!
  • This game follows the time-honored tradition of hammering home how making deals with demons never works out for the mortals (poor Merrill)... except when the player character does it. ^note The demon Hawke can make a deal with does get loose and kill people, but it's entirely off-screen, the victims are no one Hawke knows, and its presence is never traced back to Hawke. This shows that Hawke personally suffered no consequences for making a deal with a demon.
  • The characters act like Merrill's apartment is a tiny hole in the wall in the worst part of the slums, but you could fit Gamlen's entire (realistically sized) house in her main room. Cutscenes set there act like the tiny bedroom off to the side is the whole thing.
  • A minor one exists in party banter between Aveline and Varric, when she complains that he has a nickname for everyone in the group except her. As part of her complaint, she lists off a few of the others' nicknames; the first one she mentions is "Sunshine," which is what he calls Bethany. However, she will still use the exact same list if Hawke is a mage, meaning that Bethany died in Ferelden and Varric never even met her.
  • Most mages are stated to constantly feel and have to fend off the nigh-irresistible temptations of or straight-up possession attempts by demons, yet Mage Hawke never experiences any of this. David Gaider still laments that they had to cut that.
• Gateless Ghetto: You only get to explore rather limited districts of Kirkwall. Considering the extensiveness of the city's infrastructure, it must be several times larger than shown to keep itself running.
• Gay Option: With the exception of Sebastian, who is a straight male and celibate, all love interests can be romanced regardless of Hawke's gender.
• Genre Blindness: Initially appears played straight, especially when Hawke is a mage. Robe on your shoulders, staff on your back, yet no one knows you're a mage unless you tell them - even the ones trained and posted to watch them on a daily basis. However, by Act 3 it's fairly clear that Hawke and/or Anders are well-known magic users, but are deliberately left alone due to Hawke's social status and Varric's bribes. It's still played straight if Hawke is a blood mage, as no one ever calls them on it, even if constantly accusing other mages of it.
• Genre Shift: Combat is much faster paced and less tactical than the first game. In terms of story, it has a smaller scale focus, is more episodic, and has a much larger emphasis on humor. Sort of the difference between The Lord of the Rings and Buffy the Vampire Slayer if they were in the same universe. This is even lampshaded in-universe by the Talkative Man at the Hanged Man, who comments on the fact that everything, including fighting, seems much simpler these days.
• Genre Throwback: To mid-late Nineties fantasy television series, especially Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, Xena: Warrior Princess, and The Adventures of Sinbad.
• Giant Spider: They're baaaaaack, arachnophobes. They still do the Jump Scare teleport from the ceilings bit but thankfully have their Overwhelm ability removed, and poison versions are Black Widows. The Spider Queen is on par with a dragon in size.
• Gilligan Cut: During the Mark of the Assassin DLC, when Hawke and Tallis get thrown into the dungeon, Hawke can state that their two (currently free) companions will get them out. Cut to the two companions... hopelessly lost. Made even funnier if the other two party members are Anders and Fenris (or Anders and Templar Carver), because not only are they hopelessly lost, they're too busy arguing to make a real attempt at finding Hawke.
• Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death!: Many mages believe it's better to die fighting for their freedom than live in the Circle or be made Tranquil. It's suggested that Anders blows up the Chantry to force mages to rebel or let themselves be killed.
• A Glitch in the Matrix: During "Night Terrors," you have to break Feynriel out of two "demon dreams" like the ones from the first game's Fade quest. Outright telling him it's a trick will freak him out, as will playing along once he realizes everything's too good to be true. The best results come from pointing out loose threads and then letting him pull on them.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Happens a few times - when Vengeance manifests in Anders, Meredith at the end and potentially even for enemies if Hawke drinks an Elixir of Purity.
  • Hawke gets these briefly in some of the cutscenes in Legacy, for no stated reason.
• Go Through Me: Hawke pulls this during the prologue, when Wesley looks askance at the apostate Bethany. Later, when Meredith goes off the deep end, Cullen tells her she'll have to go through him to get to Hawke, regardless of which side Hawke picked. If Carver joined the Templars, he does this too.
• Gondor Calls for Aid: The Seeker is helping the Chantry to seek out both Hawke and the Warden to put an end to the war between the Templars and mages. Hawke is a "Champion" to the people of Kirkwall, and seen as a freedom fighter for defying the tyrannical Meredith. Hawke may also be an inspiration to mage rebels (especially if Hawke is a mage), or respected among certain Templars, depending on which faction they choose to aid. Meanwhile, the Warden is the commander of an elite military order (and might even be royalty, depending on what choices were made) who's most famed for raising an army and stabbing a dragon to death to end an invasion.
• Gratuitous Latin: The Tevinter Imperium is based more on Byzantium (which had Greek as lingua franca) than the Roman Empire, yet everything from there is named in a slightly warped form of Latin, including some remarks by Fenris, a former Tevinter slave. (His name, however, is Norse. His original name, Leto, is Greek.)
• Gravity Master: Force Mages (the only entirely new Prestige Class). Bethany becomes one if she makes it to Act 2.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: None of the major factions are without serious flaws.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: The Harvester in Act 3 will tear off its own arm and beat you with it.
• Group Reacts Individually: There's a number of locations where your current companions will react differently to whatever is around them. Perhaps the best example is found in the "Mark of the Assassin" DLC, where Hawke and Tallis are captured and the remaining two party members attempt to stage a daring rescue, only to get utterly lost in the dungeon. For every possible pair of companions, the devs have recorded an entirely different brief dialogue, which collectively not only give insight into their personality, but paint a comprehensive picture of the tensions and relationships within Hawke's particular Ragtag Bunch of Misfits.
• The Guards Must Be Crazy: The guards at Chateau Haine in Mark of the Assassin are highly susceptible to distraction by thrown pebbles and curiously unconcerned about waking up on the floor after having been sapped unconscious: "Damned blackouts, keeping me off patrol..."
• Guide Dang It!:
  • A couple of the loot-based achievements require you to find items that are only available in one specific area for a very limited amount of time (and you can't go back without reloading). Most notably: To get all 4 volumes of "The History of the Chantry," you have to grab the third volume during a literally couple-seconds-long break in the action during the battle at the Chantry during the "Following the Qun" quest in Act 2. If you're not in exactly the right place when the battle concludes and quick enough to highlight and grab the book (it's on the central altar) in the three seconds before the next cutscene starts, too bad. There's also the option of selecting it during the battle using the radial menu, which is a far easier method, but still ridiculously frustrating.
  • Gaining the achievement for finding all of the crafting materials is an especially egregious case of Guide Dang It!, because the game itself gets it wrong! The achievement claims that unlocking it requires finding one of each crafting component available in the game, but you actually have to find every single instance of every single material. It's slightly mitigated with the Black Emporium DLC, because you can purchase any of the ones you might have missed in the first two acts, but you're on your own for Act 3. The official strategy guide and the wiki are only partially helpful.
  • The events of Act 2's finale depend heavily on how friendly you are with one previously plot-unimportant party member and whether or not you've earned the Arishok's respect. Dialogue with Fenris about the time he spent in Seheron should ring a bell if you befriended Sten in DAO. Letting him talk to the Arishok, informing the Qunari about the Saarebas and Petrice, how you deal with Javaris and Ser Varnell: all of these are important. So is earning Isabela's loyalty, if you want her to return with the Tome. If you get all that right, you get to kill the Arishok in a duel. Otherwise, the victory is not quite so heroic.
  • The completion of Fenris's loyalty quest requires a random encounter outside Kirkwall. So, if you decide to let him brood in his mansion during Act 2, you'll lose him at The Very Definitely Final Dungeon.
  • If you want the reward for finding and returning all of the Qunari swords in Act 3, you're going to want to consult some kind of guide. Some are in trash piles, some are sold by vendors... and one is in the treasure room of the de Launcet mansion, and can only be gotten during the quest "On The Loose."
  • Getting through Merrill's quest in Act 3 without killing her entire clan. Granted, all it takes is a reload, but still... It boils down to one dialogue prompt being massively unintuitive; honestly explain what happened or try to calm the situation and it's a fight, but claim responsibility for killing their leader without explanation and you part peacefully. Also, there's a very simple way to instantly go from almost 100% friendship to nearly 100% rivalry, if you change your mind during Act 2.

H

• Harder Than Hard: Nightmare, whose key feature is enabling friendly fire. Better turn off those auto-cast area-effect spells in your companions' tactics menus.
• Headbutting Heroes:
  • Several party members make it quite clear that they loathe each other and only work together out of loyalty to Hawke. This is especially evident with Fenris and the party mages (barring Bethany).
  • Anders does a really good job of getting on Sebastian's bad side. It gets to the point where Sebastian is flabbergasted as to how Anders has friends at all. By the end of Act 3, he basically doesn't - based on party banter, Varric is pretty much the only one that can stand him anymore, and Anders is increasingly short with him as well as being downright combative with everyone else (including any Hawke that isn't 100% behind his quest for vengeance against the Templars).
• Healing Boss: The Arishok, who is the boss fought at the end of Act 2, is already a difficult fight - but the fact that he will dose himself with healing potions makes it even harder.
• The Heart: Grand Cleric Elthina is the main reason that everyone in Kirkwall hasn't killed each other. Then Anders blows up the Chantry with her in it. The Mage-Templar War promptly ensues.
• Hello, [Insert Name Here]: Lampshaded by King Alistair when Teagan mentions the "The Hero of Ferelden". (This is only seen if the Hero did not romance Alistair.)
  "(S)he has a name, you know."
• The Hero Dies: Conversed. According to Varric, the hero dying makes for a good story. Hawke doesn't.
  • However, he was talking about Anders when he brought it up... See the second entry below.
• Hero of Another Story: Several of the cameos. You only run into the Grey Wardens during Act 2's climax because they were in the area on a secret mission; likewise, Nathaniel never explains what his expedition in Act 3 was doing. Zevran has stopped hiding from the Crows to go on the offensive, and is close to overthrowing the whole organization.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • Marethari pulls off one of these out of love, in order to save Merrill from being possessed by a Pride Demon.
  • Depending on your point of view/actions during the game, Anders either attempts to pull one of these off and fails, or he succeeds rather terribly.
• Heroic Second Wind: In the "Destiny" trailer, Hawke is about to be killed by the Arishok when he draws a rune on his arm, and sees a series of flashbacks. He then proceeds to wipe the floor with the Arishok. This involves him apparently putting his flaming arms into portals, which then come out of portals above and behind the Qunari, much larger, while Hawke's eyes glow in a not-good way This is also a skill of a Warrior, and if fully upgraded, you can recharge your stamina and recharge your skills faster.
• Heroic Willpower: How Mage Hawke is able to stave off Idunna the blood mage's Psychic-Assisted Suicide.
  • A non-mage Hawke can accomplish this as well, if they face Idunna without a mage in the party, but this results in Idunna dying before she can give the information Hawke needs. (The information is elsewhere in the room, however, so Idunna isn't explicitly required.)
• Highly-Visible Ninja: The first rogue set is a muted grey tone suited to lurking the city at night, but the second set is a foppish affair topped with a hat. And the Rogue Champion outfit is very red.
• Hired by the Oppressor: The Qunari hate mages so much that the Qunari word for "mage", "saarebas", translates to "dangerous thing" and anyone in their territory who shows an ability to use magic has their mouth sewn closed and their head encased in a heavy helmet, but this does not stop the Qunari from using mages in their combat units.
• Hit-and-Run Tactics: The rogue uses a series of leaping and tumbling attacks, during which they pass through normal attacks. Whether this is due to an increased defense during their attacks or lack of a bounding box during the animation, even a low-level rogue can take advantage of these with good timing to remain unhittable.
• Holding Out for a Hero: Rampant, a fact that Hawke gleefully lampshades if you choose the snarky option.
• Home Base: You start off in your uncle's house, and upgrade to a mansion as the game progresses. All party members have their own bases around Kirkwall, where you visit them to talk, give gifts, and get their personal quests.
• Hope Spot:
  • Finding the serial killer at the end of "All That Remains" makes it seem like your mother survived, but she is quickly revealed to be undead.
  • If you try to find some kind of compromise between the mages and the Templars, Anders will screw it all up at the last second.
  • In Merrill's Act 3 quest, fighting the Pride Demon on Sundermount has Marethari congratulating the party on being stronger than the demon. If Hawke doesn't question this, "Marethari" then stabs Merrill.
• Horrible Housing: Merrill lives in a run-down one-room hovel in the Alienage, the poorest section of Kirkwall. It's implied that all of the neighboring houses are of comparable size and squalor.
• Horned Humanoid: The new look for Qunari in this game.
• House Squatting: Fenris is an escaped slave who searches for his former owner to kill him. In Act 1, you can help him assault a mansion in Kirkwall belonging to his ex-owner, hoping that the latter would be there, but it turns out he has long since moved out. Upon slaughtering the mansion guards, Fenris decides to stay there for the time being. In later Acts, Varric and Aveline have to pull a number of strings to prevent the City Guard from evicting Fenris from the mansion for unlawfully occupying it (especially since he doesn't exactly take care of the place); Isabela helps by sleeping with the seneschal in exchange for his continuing to ignore the situation as well.
• How We Got Here: The entire story is a framing device of this.
• Hurricane of Euphemisms: Isabela teasing Aveline after her courtship with Donnic:
  Isabela: So how is your Donnic? Is he cocksure? Did he curl your toes? Pudding your peach? Arl your Eamon? Shank your Jory? Grey your Warden? Praise your Maker? How about "satisfy a demand of your Qun"?
• Hypocrite:
  • It seems all the major powers in Thedas like to harp about the dangers of magic as justification for their oppression of mages, yet all are willing to have them develop their gifts in order to use them (healing, making potions, or providing artillery fire on the battlefield). Even the Qunari do it.
  • A Mage Hawke who turns every other apostate back into the Circle with the justification that all mages should be controlled... except them, apparently. It's even worse if Hawke is a blood mage.
  • During the quest "Finders Keepers," Hawke may refuse to reveal the location of Martin's cargo because he's dealing in poison. However, Hawke can use poison in virtually every in-game battle, provided the player's pockets are deep enough.
  • Most of Hawke's companions are prone to it, with their stated beliefs often being at odds with what makes them gain Friendship or Rivalry.
    • Anders hates Templars for enslaving mages, but is surprisingly okay with the slave-keeping mages of the Tevinter Imperium. He'll even support giving Fenris back to his master in Act 3.
    • Anders looks down on those like Fenris and Meridith for being dogmatically dedicated to their ideal's, while being ignorant to his fanatical devotion to cause of the mages to the point ultimately there's no way to talk him down from destroying Chantery, Murdering Elthina, and kicking off the Mage/Templar war.
    • During the Third Act Anders will ask Hawke to distract the Grand Cleric while he sneaks into The Chantry. If Hawke pushes back and ask why Anders will plead for Hawke to just trust him and will resent if they turn him down claiming "that I always been alone" no matter how much Hawke has supported him previously. Meanwhile, Anders will very pointedly refuse to trust Hawke with the reason why he needs them to do this no matter how much friendship or rivalry their is between them, or even in a relationship.
    • Fenris, conversely, hates slavery and mages, but favours enslaving mages.
    • Isabela similarly claims to be all about freedom, and her backstory has her freeing some slaves, but in practice she seems to mostly care about her freedom to do what she pleases. Thus, she usually approves of selfish actions and disapproves of unselfish ones - including at one point when the selfish action is to keep a slave and the unselfish one is to free her.
    • Aveline claims to be all about law and order, but seems to actually care more about laying down righteous smackdowns on the deserving.
    • Sebastian probably takes the palm, here. If Hawke spares Anders, he goes to build up an army and promises to kill everybody in Kirkwall. It's especially hypocritical when you remember that he had previously patronized Varric for not letting go of his desire for revenge against Bartrand.
  • Orsino also counts, considering how he always preaches that he and the Circle are not guilty of Meredith's accusations, when in reality he covered for a truly sick mass murderer (responsible for the death of Hawke's mother and many other women) and secretly studies Blood Magic (which ultimately turns him into a Harvester.)
• Hypocritical Humor: During an Act 2 quest, you'll have to go into an alley full of poisonous gas, and there's a guard there warning people away. Unless Aveline is in the party, Hawke reacts to this effect:
  Guardsman Maecon: All of you, stay out.
  Hawke: Yes, stay out. Now, if you'll excuse me. [walks past]

I

• I Call It "Vera": Varric's crossbow is named Bianca. Inquisition reveals that this is in honor of its creator.
• I Can Live With That: Hawke's Deadpan Snarker response to Meredith is this if they choose to side with the mages in "The Last Straw."
• I Cannot Self-Terminate: A rather chilling and tragic case with Kelder Vanard, a mentally ill kidnapper and murderer (and implied rapist) of elven children. He knows he's ill and will never stop hurting elven children on account of said illness (that no one believes he has), but he also knows that his magistrate father will not allow him to receive justice. When Hawke catches up to him, Kelder begs Hawke to kill him so he can't hurt any more elven children.
• I Don't Like the Sound of That Place:
  • Lampshaded when Anders and Varric discuss the Blackmarsh from Awakening; they conclude that just adding '-marsh' to anything makes it sound like a nasty place.
  • And of course, the Bone Pit sees its fair share of violently cleaned bones.
    Hawke: Your first mistake was naming it the Bone Pit.
    Varric: Why couldn't they call it "The Pie Fields"? Everyone likes pie.
• I Have You Now, My Pretty: Some of Kirkwall's Templars are willing to make their charges Tranquil for this purpose - or use the threat of being made Tranquil for the same result. Danarius also gives off this vibe, as confirmed by the devs.
• I Lied:
  • Said word-for-word, even, if you press Anders for a reason when he asks Hawke to help him get into the Chantry unseen — something that very much does not mesh with his previously-stated purpose of creating a potion to separate himself from Justice. Hawke can demand to know if there was ever any potion at all. Anders flat-out admits that he lied.
  • In a more lighthearted example, Varric will also cop to this on occasion. "Aveline, in case you haven't noticed, I lie a lot."
• Iconic Outfit: The Mantle of the Champion is what Hawke is always depicted wearing, cementing their legend as a Folk Hero. The Mage version of this armour is default Hawke's look on publicity materials.
• Impractically Fancy Outfit: Inverted to hell and back when Hawke acquires the Mantle of the Champion. It's only light armour, and in some places the fabric appears to be torn, ragged, and fraying at the edges, which is exactly what you'd expect from armour that's been in a lot of battles.
• I'm Standing Right Here: Companions talk about each other a fair bit, so humorous and serious versions of this will occur if the third party is present.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Occasionally invoked following certain quests.
• Inescapable Ambush: A number of the encounters.
• Informed Poverty:
  • The Hawke family spends the whole first act complaining about the unbearable living conditions in Lowtown; yet Gamlen's supposedly filthy little hovel is a fairly large and orderly house with multiple rooms, and the Lowtown buildings are as structurally sound and the streets as empty and clean as those in Hightown. Really, it looks like a less fancy version of Hightown with a little smoggy air.
  • The Kirkwall Alienage is also said to be below Lowtown socioeconomically, with "crumbling shacks," "knee-deep mud," and "drunken louts" stumbling around. Yet the Alienage looks even prettier, cleaner, and more colorful than Lowtown, and the elven citizens are shown to be fairly polite and upstanding, and to take turns decorating the Vhenadahl and buildings so it looks like a pleasant place to live. It's especially egregious when Merrill moves in and everyone talks like she lives in a one-room rat hole, complete with her apologizing for the mess. Yet her house is just as spacious as Gamlen's - and also cleaner and brighter and better furnished. One is left wondering just where she got all those books.
  • Only Darktown seems to live up to its name, and it's underground.
• Inherent in the System:
  • While there are external forces at work as well, it's repeatedly pointed out that the Chantry's current system of handling mages is at best a merciful form of slavery and at worst a dehumanizing existence that causes many problems it's supposed to prevent. For every good Templar like Thrask, there are as many like Alrik: corrupt, fanatical, or both with life and death power over mages. The mages themselves are just as dangerous as the Templars say they are, but many see the The Dark Side of their powers as the only way out of a belief system that tells them how much the Maker hates them and guarantees them second-class citizenship (said belief system being formed from the dissenters of a mage-ruled empire may be a factor for this). See Vicious Cycle below.
  • The Arishok's critique of Kirkwall's system deepens into bitterness because he's bound there by a system of his own. And as brutal and ugly as that system appears to outsiders, the Qunari could never do anything but insist on its rightness - even the Saarebas immolating himself. A Tal-Vashoth in the Hanged Man in Act 3 seemed almost as disillusioned with himself for being rid of the Qun.
  • Human crimes against elves are easier to commit and harder to punish than elven crimes against humans, and vice-versa, thanks to the way the legal and justice system is structured. Kelder Vanard is able to get away with murdering so many elven children because a) his magistrate father is able to use his power and influence to shield him from justice, and b) society doesn't care about elves very much. (Doubtful Vanard would have gotten away with it if he'd targeted humans, or at least Hightown human children.) In Act 2, the Arishok admonishes Aveline and Hawke for trying to punish a group of elven brothers for killing a guard after Aveline (Captain of the Guard) didn't do anything to address the rape they reported on their sister. The Arishok sees this as a mere symptom in a larger illness, however, and argues that the elves shouldn't be punished by Aveline's legal system since her legal system failed them, and fails all elves in Kirkwall because of the way it's structured.
• Injured Vulnerability: The Massacre upgrade of the Warrior-Vanguard skill tree lets the character kill any normal enemy whose health is below 20% (and Elite Mooks with health under 10%) in a single blow.
• Ink-Suit Actor: Flemeth bears a passing resemblance to her voice actress, Star Trek: Voyager's Kate Mulgrew. There's also a pretty strong resemblance between Fenris and Gideon Emery.
• In Medias Res: The game begins with Cassandra Pentaghast interrogating Varric after the events of the game. Varric embellishes Hawke's origins a bit before telling Cassandra how they really got to where they are now, the interrogation acting as a Framing Device for each act.
• Innocent Awkward Question: When Isabela (who Really Gets Around) expresses concern that Aveline and her new husband might have children and she's not the sort of person that they would want to be around in that case.
  Isabela: (in a high-pitched, mock-child voice) Mummy, what's a slattern?
  Aveline: I'll just point at you and say, "That's a slattern!"
• Innocent Innuendo: Isabela deliberately subverts her usual Double Entendre with Varric, who enjoys playing along.
• Innocuously Important Episode: Both Act 1 and the game itself. Act 1 introduces a number of different plot threads and items that don't seem very relevant in that act itself, but become quite important in the next two. The game itself was criticized by many for having plot threads that felt too distant and unimportant compared to Origins. With Dragon Age: Inquisition, many of these plot threads (red lyrium, the entire Legacy DLC, Flemeth's scenes with the Dalish, etc.) have turned out to be extremely important to the overall story.
• Insubstantial Ingredients: Lampshaded for the Nevarran food in Mark of the Assassin.
  Tallis: How can ham taste like despair? Why would anyone eat it if it did?
• Insult Friendly Fire: At one point, Varric calls his brother "That son of a bitch! (Sorry, Mother.)"
• Insult of Endearment: Prim-and-proper Aveline keeps calling the Pirate Girl Isabela "whore", at first with disdain (though Isabela doesn't mind the moniker); but as the two women come to know and accept each other, "whore" becomes Aveline's term of affection of sorts for Isabela, who now actively enjoys it from her. Likewise, Isabela initially insults Aveline's statuesque features with the nickname "Big Girl." By Act 3, it has clearly evolved into a compliment.
• Insurmountable Waist-High Fence: Just as frequent as in Origins, though more clearly defined. Dragon Age II plays with players' familiarity with this trope by coloring secret areas outside the lines of the map. Some mountainous areas restrict Hawke's movement via the dreaded insurmountable ankle-high rocks.
• Interface Spoiler:
  • Weeks before BioWare announced any details whatsoever on the first major batch of DLC, the achievements for it were up. The nature of these achievements reveal that Legacy involves a location called the Vimmark Mountains, which includes cave systems and a prison tower.
  • Almost every sidequest with any kind of twist is spoiled by its name. This is especially bad for ones you get in the mail, since the name is the first thing you see. The most blatant is getting a letter clearly labeled "Bait-and-Switch," although exactly why it's a twist is not apparent for some time.
  • One Loading Screen showing Meredith depicts her transforming into her red lyrium-crazed self.
• Internal Affairs: The Seekers are this for the Templars, as one of them interrogates a dwarf in order to find the Champion of Kirkwall. Given the events that occur, this game serves as a study for what happens when IA does nothing or acts far too late.
• Interrogation Flashback: The entire plot is one big flashback of Varric, who is being interrogated by Cassandra Pentaghast, a member of The Order of the Seekers of Truth. Notably, he does lapse into the Tall Tale territory a few times, before being snapped back on track by Cassandra; in the case of Flemeth's appearance in the prologue, however, Cassandra tries to snap him back on track only for him to reveal that he is on track.
• Invisible Bowstring: Same as in the original, but it's much more obvious here since your character does some pretty dramatic poses while firing.
• Ironic Echo: A very subtle example in the phrase "There can be no peace." It's first said by Flemeth after Wesley's death in the prologue, and is repeated word for word by Anders, after he destroys the Chantry.
• Ironic Name: Seen in Kirkwall's backstory. At the dawn of the Dragon Age, the Viscount of Kirkwall was a vicious thug who used a campaign of intimidation to take the crown. His name was Chivalry Threnhold.
• Irony: Meredith in particular doesn't appreciate the irony that Kirkwall, known Thedas-wide as a Templar stronghold and powerhouse of their influence, can decide to crown Mage Hawke as their Champion.
• Irrational Hatred: Grace's hatred for Hawke, which drives her to try and commit Revenge by Proxy, has little justification - especially if Hawke set her free. It's explained that no matter what Hawke does, Grace and her compatriots still end up in the Gallows, and she blames Hawke for that regardless of reality.
• "It" Is Dehumanizing: The Qunari word for all non-Qunari is bas, which literally means "thing." Their word for mage is saarebas, which literally means "dangerous thing." Non-Qunari mages are known as bas-saarebas, which is practically Buffy Speak (literally, "thing-dangerous thing"). Unsurprisingly, they treat outsiders poorly and mages worse.
• It's a Small World, After All: The number of familiar faces from Origins stretch any concept of the scope of Ferelden and Kirkwall.

J-K

• Jerkass: A lot of characters come off this way in your dealings with them, but of all people, Hawke (especially a Snarky Hawke) sometimes seems to act like a sociopathic walking schadenfreude. Of particular note is after sleeping with Anders and he pours his heart out to you and asks to move in, a Snarky Hawke's response (complete with dirty smirk) is as follows, if Anders gets rejected.
  Hawke: This was a bad idea. I think you should go.
  Anders: What?
  Hawke: Sorry. You just weren't that good.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • While Fenris's endless rants about the dangers of magic can be annoying, the game's plot does show that he's not exactly wrong about how dangerous magic can be if used incorrectly or maliciously.
  • Anders goes on and on about the Templars and the poor treatment of mages, but the game repeatedly shows that the Gallows are every bit as bad as he says, if not worse, with Templars abusing their charges and blatantly violating their own laws.
  • Uncle Gamlen is a thoroughly unpleasant person who was wrong to steal his sister's inheritance and use her family's distress to have her kids pay off his gambling debts. But he's nevertheless not wrong when he points out that Leandra chose to give up the family fortune decades ago, never returned until she needed something, expected to be treated to the lifestyle she left behind whenever she decided to return, and then complained when the help he could offer wasn't up to her standards (especially since he still got them into the city and let them stay rent-free for a year).
    Gamlen: We all have our burdens to bear. Mine was taking care of the life you chose to leave behind.
• Kick the Dog:
  • It's been known that the Tevinters were nasty folk to their slaves, but some of the legends of slave treatment depict downright gratuitous cruelty on the part of the slave masters.
  • Varric also mentions how he always pictured Bartrand as a "Kick a puppy" kind of bad guy.
  • Sers Karras and Alrik, oh so much.
  • The history of the Bone Pit.
  • The player has the chance to do this from time to time, though not nearly as much as in the first game.
• Kill the Ones You Love: It's usually a Mercy Kill (and one for which the loved one in question is begging), but the sheer number of times is pretty brutal.
• Kleptomaniac Hero:
  • Lampshaded in the Mark of the Assassin DLC.
    Isabela: Don't forget to loot the bodies.
    Hawke: Do I ever?
  • One of Isabela's combat shouts is "If we kill them, we get their stuff!"
  • Also lampshaded in "A Murder of Crows" in Act 3; if Zevran is spared, he urges Hawke to loot the bodies before they talk.
• Knight Templar: In addition to the more extreme Templars (especially Ser Alrik, who wants to make all mages Tranquil), every single person in Sister/Mother Petrice's faction of the Chantry fits this to a T. If you kill an innocent person because they're becoming "corrupted," and then try to shift the blame onto someone else in order to spark a holy war, this makes you a strong example of a Knight Templar.
• Kraken and Leviathan: The artistic 'narration' cutscenes briefly depict a squid-like creature attacking one of the refugee ships in the prologue. Giant squid do exist in this universe; however, since it is Varric telling the story, it should be taken with a grain of salt.

L

• Lack of Empathy: Despite Purple Hawke being portrayed as the "funny/charming" option, since it always involves cracking cheesy jokes at others' expense, Purple dialogue options often show a stunning disregard for the feelings of others. (See Jerkass).
  • The most prominent example is when the Viscount is cradling his murdered son's still-warm body, to which Purple Hawke can quip that it's still early. This, despite Purple Hawke potentially having failed to think of a joke in an earlier quest when cradling their own dying mother.
• Lampshade Hanging:
  • King Alistair hangs a lampshade on the fact that everyone calls your Warden from Origins "the Hero of Ferelden," if Teagan says that the Hero is waiting for them at Denerim.
  • He will also comment, if Isabela is in your party, that she looks different. Isabela's reply makes sense both as a comment on the years that have passed and a nod to the graphical overhaul between games:
    Isabela: Don't we all?
  • Bodahn mentions how odd it is that messages never arrive while you're at home.
  • Choosing a certain wry dialogue option with Merrill during the scene after her recruitment mission is completed brings up the following exchange:
    Hawke: I miss the cold. And the dirt. Kirkwall isn't brown enough for me.
    Merrill: Ferelden wasn't THAT brown! The dirt and muck gave it character.
  • After his bodyguards are killed and he's looting the bodies, Javaris draws attention to You All Look Familiar ("Why do they look the same? Did I hire brothers?") and Randomly Drops ("Why can't I pick up his boots? They're right there!").
  • Carver questions whether the Qunari you meet are the same sort as Sten. "I don't remember the horns."
• Large Ham:
  • Xenon the Antiquarian.
    Xenon: Don't... MAN-handle the uuuurrrchin! He's not... for sale... FIND YOUR OWN!
  • Hawke, if certain dialogue options are chosen during Mark of the Assassin.
• Last-Second Ending Choice: Various characters (particularly Anders) repeatedly warn you that "there is no halfway" and everyone will have to pick a side eventually. True to their word, your relative standing with the Circle and the Templars prior to the final quest has precisely zero relation to the ending you get. That's decided by a single dialogue choice in a single conversation at the beginning of the quest.
• Laugh of Love: Merrill will sometimes giggle if romanced by a male Hawke.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
  • When Carver discovers that his namesake was a Templar friend of his and Hawke's father, he asks if Hawke ever wonders where their name came from. Hawke replies, "I'm sure someone spent far too much time choosing my name."
  • Comments from a drunkard in the Hanged Man, such as the completely original "Do you ever feel like you're in a story someone else is telling?" And then there's:
    Talkative Man: Do you ever feel like the world's getting... simpler? Like everything from eating to fighting is a lot less complex than it used to be?
  • When Isabela asks Varric (in Legacy) why he has a nickname for everyone but none for himself, he replies:
    Varric: Well, it's my story.
  • One of Isabela's innuendos:
    Isabela: [Does he] establish his canon?
  • A random bit of dialogue when examining the windows in Hawke's estate:
    Hawke: I wonder where Varric is today. Telling stories about my exploits to anyone who will to listen, most likely.
• Let's Dance:
  • Said by Silly Hawke to the Arishok when they accept a duel with him.
  • Also said by Varric in his Act 2 personal quest, when he's depicting himself as a Tony Montana type. "Let's dance, you sons of bitches!"
• Level in Reverse: Some of the 'dungeon' areas use the same geometry, except with start points and objectives moved around. It's pretty blatant as the minimap shows all of the geometry, even when the doors to the other areas won't open.
• Level-Locked Loot: Most equipment requires certain stats. Warrior equipment requires strength and constitution, Rogue equipment requires dexterity and cunning, and mage equipment requires magic and willpower.
• Level Scaling: Affects enemies and most loot. The latter often results in randomly looted equipment outpacing its named but fixed-stat counterparts in terms of quality throughout the entire game. Towards the end, even a designated Infinity +1 Sword (e.g. Celebrant) will prove technically inferior to the "regular" swords you loot everywhere.
• Level-Up at Intimacy 5: This and the inverse; for every possible companion there are perks to having a stronger, though not necessarily positive, relationship. Some of them also upgrade the player character.
• Lightning Bruiser:
  • If you play as a dual-wielding rogue you are this, to an extent. While you might not have as much HP as a warrior, you can still take a good amount of damage, and if you have the Speed buff activated, well...
  • A warrior using the two-handed tree and the right buffs can pull this off too. Nothing like instant kill reaving dashes and whirlwinds against pretty much any non-elite enemy.
• Living Ghost: Fenris has been infused with lyrium in a way that gives him the ability to turn incorporeal of a while. The corresponding gameplay skill is even called "Lyrium Ghost". After DA2, this ability even gains him the sobriquet "Blue Wraith".
• Loading Screen:
  • Used to transition from one location to another. They contain artwork not seen elsewhere in the game, and most of them have assorted bits of trivia on them as well. One of them — the one about the Battle of the Squealing Plains - even gets a tiny Call-Back in the next game.
  • Legacy and Mark of the Assassin have different loading screens than the base game; in MOTA particularly, the artwork featured in these is quite beautiful.
• Lonely Bachelor Pad:
  • Merrill's apartment in Kirkwall is a rat-infested hovel in the Alienage. Curiously, even if you romance her and offer to let her live with you, she'll still keep returning to the hovel in the daytime - presumably because she can't move the Eluvian into your house.
  • Similarly, a romanced Anders can be moved into Hawke's house, but he still returns to his clinic in the Darktown sewers. This is explained by the impoverished people needing him to still be a source of free medical care; in fact, it's even outright stated when Hawke gives him the key to their estate's cellar, as the door is right outside the clinic, so that he has a quick escape if Templars come calling.
• Lost Property Live Drop: Inverted variant - in the quest "Miracle Makers," a city guard sergeant has Hawke eliminate a group of Carta swindlers, and in keeping with the sergeant's need to abide by Plausible Deniability, she pretends not to hear you when you report success... and "accidentally" drops your payment in such a way that it just happens to fall right into your hands.
• Low Fantasy: Not really by proxy of the first game, but the human scale conflict makes it a lot closer to low fantasy, even if that conflict does involve Functional Magic.
• Ludicrous Gibs:
  • Frequently. Very frequently, as critical hits that kill the target reduce them to flying chunks. Weapons with the "Messy Kills" enchantment also deal this. And cross-class combos, especially AoE ones, result in so many, the party would need goggles to do battle. Varric's crossbow is the most egregious case, thanks to his naturally high critical hit chance, rapid firing speed, and high critical damage; pretty much anyone he points his crossbow at has a chance of exploding into a gory mess. Of course, he is the one telling the story.
  • The "Assassinate" ability on the Assassin tree can reduce enemies to mere chunks of themselves.
• Luke, You Are My Father: Gamlen discovering that he has a daughter, Charade, as part of a certain side quest in Act 3.
• Lying Finger Cross: One of the dialogue option icons in certain conversations is crossed fingers, indicating a Lie option.

---