History YMMV / DragonAgeOrigins

* ObviousBeta: The critically bugged and broken endgame sequence. Among other things, several of the epilogue slides either contain inaccuracies about your playthrough or don't show up at all. The inaccuracies were later {{handwave}}d by the developers as being "rumors" of WhatMightHaveBeen; when they made ''Origins'', they didn't expect it to get a sequel so they weren't concerned about continuity at the time.

* VindicatedByHistory: When the game first released, it was common for players to despise him due to his ruthlessness and backstabbing, with even those who crowned him feeling like they had to "hold their nose" and do it. However, with the epilogues and ''Inquisition'' revealing [[spoiler:he's a far better ruler than Harrowmont, helps Orzammar prosper while Harrowmont causes it to flounder, and Bhelen actually being ''grateful'' to the Warden while Harrowmont is not]], Bhelen is now far and away the most popular choice.

** Duncan killing Jory was a lot more justified than it appears to some. The Warden recruits had all been warned they'd reached the point of no return, they had to go through the Joining. Jory refused, and drew his sword on Duncan. In that moment, he became a deserter, refusing to stay at or report to his assigned post (being a Grey Warden), and showed by drawing his sword that he was prepared to fight, and thus kill, to affect his desertion. Desertion is a pretty stiff crime, especially in medieval times (in fact, in Ostagar, you meet an accused deserter, and it's treated as a ForegoneConclusion he'll be hanged for it as soon as someone gets around to sentencing him). So Duncan wasn't [[KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade killing Jory to keep the Warden's secrets]], he was executing a man who'd proven he didn't have the courage to fight the fight he'd signed on for. A harsh punishment to be sure. . . but a soldier on the line turning tail compromises the entire army; running off while still in the relative safety of the camp is little different.

*** Another explanation is that the ease of the fight is also a sign of how far the great hero has fallen in his intentions.

*** This varies depending on how you are loaded out, level scaling, game difficulty, and outright luck. Some find him an easy fight, others are going to wonder what they are doing wrong that this "supposed to be easy" boss and his cronies have managed to tear your group apart four times in a row.

*** Or he did notice them, and left them alone, as long as they were peaceful, and didn’t cause any trouble.

*** Even worse is the irregular deactivation of abilities which of course have a cooldown, and are sometimes needed to use other skills. Other times you just lose the abilities themselves, which is bad enough.

*** There's also the times that it will stab the player in the back unless the player knows ahead of time or [[SaveScumming Save Scums]] their way through it, which ultimately defeats the purpose. One nasty example is if the player goes to investigate the happenings at the Circle Tower. A male non-mage player, and one who may even be attempting to romance her, may choose to have Morrigan tag along....only to wind up confronting Wynne once it's too late to go back and do anything else. What results next is Morrigan ranting about the Circle, its flaws, and effectively damning them to their deaths, forcing the player to either side with Morrigan if they want her approval and ultimately having to battle and kill Wynne....or shut her down and lose a significant amount of approval from her. In such a case, it may be better to just piss Morrigan off and shove gifts in her face later, else the player will lose Wynne permanently.

*** In a sense, the trope might actually be {{Zig Zagged|Trope}} in this case for some. Most players report that the start-up portion of the Fade is frustrating slow and tedious, but once you acquire all the different transformations and realize what the developers were trying to accomplish, it actually gets quite entertaining experimenting with the forms; there are even some great character moments once you get a glimpse of the companions' dreamscapes. ''Then'' you get to the portion with the aforementioned boss and attribute points collection and it loops around to frustrating and tedious again.

*** Orzammar in general can be this as it drags on for quite a while, with the game requiring a ''lot'' of backtracking in a much bigger location than most of the hubs.

*** His push for Alistair, a Grey Warden infamously known for their low fertility and also low life span, make it look like he's setting himself up for the position of King.

** The Broodmother. Since she can't move away from her spot, you think she'd be easy as pie; but the only way to kill her is approach her (unless you have ranged attackers), and approaching her means you'll probably get grabbed and killed.

** Ser Bryant in Lothering tells a mage Warden that he'd be a pretty lousy Templar if he couldn't tell they were a mage. ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII'' rolls around, and it seems he somehow completely failed to notice his apostate neighbors Malcolm and Bethany Hawke.

* MemeticMutation: For some reason, Bann Teagan's interest in women who aren't human has Flanderized him in the eyes of the fandom into an erotica collecting, ExremeOmnisexual [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Captain Kirk]]-like figure.

* EvilIsSexy: Averted, in an unusual case for a villain voiced by Creator/TimCurry.

* AndYouThoughtItWouldFail: [[https://www.thegamer.com/dragon-age-origins-oral-history/ According to]] its lead writer David Gaider, ''Origins'' was written off by Creator/ElectronicArts even before it was released, who saw it as too old-fashioned and not "sleek and sexy" enough to succeed, especially compared to the concurrent ''Franchise/MassEffect'' releases. All they wanted was for ''DAO'' to break even, so they could [[StillbornFranchise shelve the series for good]] (which is why its ModularEpilogue cast so far into the future, it later had to be officially declared rumors and hearsay, so it wouldn't conflict with the later continuity). Then ''DAO'' came out and sold like hot pancakes, starting Creator/BioWare ''second'' CashCowFranchise (after ''Mass Effect'') and forcing EA to eat crow and to demand that [=BioWare=] makes [[VideoGame/DragonAgeII a sequel]] immediately, which... [[ChristmasRushed backfired]].

* MemeticMutation: For some reason, Bann Teagan's interest in women who aren't human has Flanderized him in the eyes of the fandom into an erotica collecting, AnythingThatMoves [[Series/StarTrekTheOriginalSeries Captain Kirk]]-like figure.