Characters / Dragon Age II Rogues

Dragon Age Character Index
Dragon Age II: The Hawke Estate | The Companions (Warriors | Mages | Rogues) | Non-Playable Characters
Dragon Age: Origins | Dragon Age: Inquisition

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Tropes relating to characters who appear in Dragon Age 2 as one of Hawke's rogue companions.

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Isabela

Isabela in 2

^{Isabela in Origins}

^{Isabela in Inquisition}

Appears in: Origins | Dragon Age II | The Silent Grove | Those Who Speak | Until We Sleep | Inquisition

Voiced by: Mika Simmons (Origins), Victoria Kruger (Dragon Age II and Dragon Age: Inquisition) (English)^{Foreign VAs}Bianca Krahl (German)

"Everyone should be free, not just mages. It's not about who's dangerous. It's about having choices made for you."

A pirate captain who can only be found in The Pearl, a brothel in Denerim. She's only a minor character in the first game, although she is the only person who can teach the Warden the "Duelist" specialization. After her ship was destroyed, Isabela is stranded in Kirkwall and can enlist Hawke's help in searching for a relic to pay back her former employer, Castillon. Isabela returns as a playable character in the Dragon Age: Inquisition multiplayer as a Swashbuckler.

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Tropes In Dragon Age: Origins

• Action Girl: A female pirate captain, she's introduced making short work of some thugs in a Bar Brawl and can even teach the Warden about the Duelist specialization for rogues.
• Badass Normal: A normal human being, she's good enough at dueling to parry 3 men at once.
• The Captain: She's the female pirate captain of the "Siren's Call". Casavir, one of the men on her ship, indicates that she's extremely beloved by her crew.
• Defeating the Cheating Opponent: One of the ways to get her to teach the Warden the dueling specialization is to defeat her in a game of Wicked Grace. However, she cheats and she's unbeatable unless the Warden has either high enough Cunning score to realize it or if Leliana or Zevran are in the party and point it out.
• Distaff Counterpart: She shares quite a few similarities with Zevran and they get along quite well.
• Dual Wielding: Like most melee-oriented rogues, though her dueling subclass actually specialized in it.
• Establishing Character Moment: Her introduction is her easily defeating a group of men with her dueling skills at a Bar Brawl in Denerim.
• Friendly Pirate: She's a pirate captain, but is only in Denerim to stock up and let herself and her men rest up and is quite friendly to the Warden and their party.
• The Mentor: She'll teach the Warden the "Duelist" specialization for rogues if they either: beat her in a game of Wicked Grace or seduce her.
• Not Cheating Unless You Get Caught: She insists that the Warden beat her in a card game before she'll teach him or her what she knows; in reality, this is impossible due to her cheating, and the only way to win the game is by catching her cheating or having the Warden cheat. If the Warden's Cunning isn't high enough, neither works properly, but having Leliana or Zevran in the active party will make it possible.
• Optional Sexual Encounter: Perhaps the most infamous one in Origins, due to it ending up on a threesome or foursome though nothing is shown. A Warden of any gender can persuade her into having a one-night-stand with them. And if the Warden has a Love Interest, they can even join in for a threesome (and even a foursome in the case the Love Interest is a hardened Leliana, she'll allow Zevran to join in as well).
• Pirate Girl: A female pirate captain in an all-male crew.Though her outfit in this game doesn't look like what a pirate would wear.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: She and her men are openly pirates, but are just on Denerim to rest and stock up.
• Serial Homewrecker: Averted. She's an Ethical Slut who will offer a threesome with the Warden and their Love Interest, but if Morrigan, unhardened Alistair, or unhardened Leliana object to it, she'll refuse to sleep with the Warden.
• Take a Third Option: As noted above, the only way to win at her card game is to cheat or to catch her cheating. However, the card game can be skipped entirely if the Warden's Coercion skill is high enough; they can persuade her to sleep with them instead.
• A Threesome Is Hot: She's up for pretty much any sexual configuration party the player can throw at her, even a potential foursome.

Tropes In Dragon Age II

• Action Girl: Even more of one now that she's a party member. She's even introduced in the same manner, by easily beating up a bunch of thugs in a Bar Brawl. She might be without her ship and crew, but she's anything but helpless.
• Ascended Extra: In the first game, she was a rogue who taught the Warden the duelist specialization in the Pearl. She also was an optional quick Optional Sexual Encounter with the Warden and Leliana, Zevran, Leliana and Zevran, or Alistair. She returns in the second game with a new model and a new voice actress as a party member.Lampshaded if the party meets Alistair as the King of Ferelden and she's in the group; he remembers her and remarks, "You look... different."
• Awful Wedded Life: Her marriage to Luis was anything but happy. Not only was she forced to marry him at a very young age, she frequently pressured her to act more "ladylike", and while at first he tried to please her with his wealth, he quickly grew tired of her rebellious attitude and became abusive, even planning to "lend" her to some of his friends.
• Badass Normal: The main menu for Heroes of Dragon Age has her roaring right in Coryphetits' face, and Isabela is naught but a pirate captain in a world of mages and those Badass Abnormal.
• Bad Liar: She's not very good at being subtle when she's hiding something; she stutters, avoids eye contact, and hesitates a lot. More often, though, she just dodges unwanted questions or starts talking about what pretty eyes the questioner has.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Particularly if Hawke is either romancing or previously romanced her. According to the Codex, her final words to Hawke before storming off for some time between Act 2 and 3 were:
  Isabela: I didn't do it for them. I did it for you. It was always about you.
• Betty and Veronica: Is always the Veronica in the potential Love Triangles due to her unreliability compared to the other much more loyal love interests.
• Big Damn Heroes: If Hawke has a high enough friendship or rivalry level, she pulls this during the Qunari invasion by returning their relic, thereby creating a relatively peaceful solution to the problem.
• Blade Enthusiast: She dual-wields and carries plenty of knives and daggers.
• Brain Bleach: Invokes this reaction in Hawke and the other party members more than once when she talks about her more salacious sex stories.
• Bring My Brown Pants: During the "Haunted" quest, three guesses why.
  Isabela: I really should have gone to the privy before coming here.
• Broken Bird: Has a few elements of one, though she'd never admit it, especially the issues with emotional intimacy.
• Buxom Beauty Standard: Her new design in the second game gave her an ample bust, which is emphasized by the cleavage in her corset, and is part of the reason why she's such a Dude Magnet.
• Bystander Syndrome: She's a cynical person who always prioritizes self-preservation, and doesn't like to risk her neck for "noble causes". As she says: "We're not responsible for anyone but ourselves."
• Call-Back: When the Warden meets Isabela, she is dueling people in a bar who claim she cheated them of their coin. After defeating them, they run off. When Hawke meets Isabela, she is dueling people in a bar who claim she cheated them of their coin. After defeating them, they run off.
• The Casanova: A female version; she wins the eyes of many men and Really Gets Around.
• Changed My Mind, Kid: On the eve of the Qunari invasion, she abandons the party because they're after her personally. She turns around and returns to give them back their relic. Mind you, the trope will be subverted depending on Hawke's relationship with her.
• Character Development:
  • If full Rivalry is achieved, she admits helping others and not always being selfish feels good, and vows to become a better person. Evident later when, if Hawke sides with the mages at the final quest, she seems enthusiastic about protecting them.
  • With high Friendship, she starts drifting more towards the good side of the morality scale, though with much more reluctance than as a Rival, and expresses similar sentiment in the endgame. If you kill Castillon but otherwise have high Friendship, she admits that getting a ship doesn't seem so important when everyone she cares about is in Kirkwall.
    Isabela: I'd just hate to have to say goodbye. You're the best friend I've had in...in a very long time.
• Chekhov's Gunman: She only has one scene in the first game, but was popular/infamous enough to be made a full companion in the sequel.
• Claustrophobia: Nervously says she "really doesn't like tight spaces" when Hawke takes her with them on the Deep Roads expedition.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Mark of the Assassin reveals that if romanced, she can be this towards Hawke. She admits, however, that she's willing to have a threesome, or let Tallis sleep with Hawke, as long as Tallis asks first. In Act 3, should she be in the party if they encounter Zevran, she's also open to that threesome configuration.
• Commitment Issues: She's an Ethical Slut that Really Gets Around, but has trouble actually having romantic feelings for someone. In the past, she actually abandoned a man she loved when he asked her to marry him, because she couldn't handle the idea of being tied down. Her Romance Arc involves Hawk helping her getting over her issues and she's notably the only Love Interest that never moves in to Hawk's estate.
• Cool Big Sis: She tries to act like a cool, older female figure to Merrill and Bethany, though given her obsession with sex sometimes it comes across as Corrupt the Cutie.
• Corrupt the Cutie: Jokingly invoked in several conversations with Bethany.
  • If Bethany ends up in the Circle, Isabela sends her many erotic books to get her through the night.
  • Does this to a lesser extent with Merrill (teaching her how to do body shots) and Carver, whom she goads into "growing into his fangs". By Act 2, he proves he can give her a run for her money when it comes to innuendos.
  • In Legacy, her influence is confirmed to have rubbed off on a romanced Merrill if Hawke brings them both along with Anders. The player learn that Merrill was looking through his grimoire in the hopes of finding "dirty spells" to "make things more interesting" with Hawke. Isabela's response? "That's my girl!"
  • Also invoked with, of all possibilities, Bianca, which appears to end the playful flirting between Isabela and Varric.
  • Invoked with Aveline after they settled into the role of Vitriolic Best Buds by Act 3, where she offers tips on how to spice things up with Donnic in the bedroom. Considering Aveline's response to Isabela asking if Donnic's bedroom prowess leads to Aveline being "flipped arse over tits and hammered like a bent nail," Isabela apparently succeeded.
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot: In Act 2, Aveline mentions this in disgust when she and Hawke learn that Isabela stole the Tome of Koslun and only decides to tell them this now that the Qunari are acting up.
• The Cynic: Behind her Friendly Pirate persona, she is a deeply cynical woman who believes she's living in a Crapsack World that has no chance of getting better and sees no point in doing anything other than looking out for herself. A Good Hawke and Anders constantly challenge her on this, and with Hawke's help she learns to be more optimistic and care for others.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Heavily hinted throughout the game, though she is reluctant to go into details. Those Who Speak reveals that her mother was a Viddethari, who sold her into slavery after she refused to convert. The comic also tells of a particularly low moment for her, when she offloaded an entire ship's galley worth of elven slaves into the ocean to drown so she could make a faster getaway from her pursuers. Her self-disgust and guilt over this is why she would later free Castillon's slaves, starting the chain of events that would bring her to Kirkwall.
• Deadpan Snarker: Quite easily the snarkiest female character in the game.
  Martin: I'm not a raider, anymore, Isabela. I'm just an honest merchant, now.
  Isabela: You wouldn't know "honest" if I tied you up and spanked you with it.
• Depending on the Artist: The tone of her skin can change drastically in the comic series. One of the most notable examples is the cover art for The Silent Grove #5, where she practically has white skin.
• Disappeared Dad: Her father was a random man her Madam mother slept with and has never had a presence in her life.
• Divergent Character Evolution: In Origins, she uses the same assets like any other NPC character. In Dragon Age II she has her own unique model. This is Lampshaded if she gets to meet Alistair, who mentions she looks quite different.
• Does Not Like Men: A very mild case, and played very subtly, but Isabela seems quick to believe the worst when it concerns men and how they view women, even if she has no trouble befriending or sleeping with them. This almost certainly stems from her treatment at the hands of her late husband. Also worth mentioning is that, both in Origins and here, her reactions to sleeping with Hawke and the Warden change depending on their gender; she's quick to tease men about their performance, but is even quicker to praise women for theirs.
• Double Entendre:
  • Very commonly, sometimes Imagined Innuendo, and very rarely, Innocent Innuendo. Sex drips off her tongue every time her mouth opens. For every subversion, she plays it twice as hard, even while Carver is chastising her for it.
  Carver: Why is it always about sex with you?
  Isabela: It's not. Sometimes it's about sex with other people.
  Carver: You see? It comes up every single time we talk!
  • A notable subversion occurs while she's speaking with Varric, and serves as a Call-Back to a similar conversation between Alistair and Oghren. For once, Varric and Isabela really were just talking about weapons.
  • One of her armor upgrades is called "Rigid Boning." Now, her outfit is not unlike Of Corsets Sexy, and corsets do have "boning" (a rigid structure, so named because at one point the structure actually was made from bone), and more rigid boning would be an upgrade in a sense. . . but still.
• Drowning My Sorrows: She's found at the Hanged Man's counter when she's not in the party.
• Dual Wielding: Is restricted to this in the second game.
• Duel to the Death: With Hayder. Isabela suspects foul play, so when she meets Hawke, she asks for potential backup.
• Establishing Character Moment: Her introductory scene is a Bar Brawl, as a Call-Back to how she was introduced in Origins. Apparently, this happens with her fairly often.
• Ethical Slut: While perfectly willing to sleep with anyone and anything, she is greatly concerned with not hurting others' (especially Merrill's) feelings and gets incredibly angry with men who mistreat women.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • Isabela is a pirate to the core, but she would never condone slave trading, which is why she betrays Hayder before Hawke first meets her. However, she's perfectly willing to let unrepentant slavers get away clean if it means she can have a ship again.
  • As shown in Mark of the Assassin, Isabela is not comfortable with Gamlen hitting on her, but equally, if Aggressive Hawke suggests driving him off with violence, she's taken aback.
    Isabela: ...You want me to beat up a feeble old man? That's cold, even for you.
• Expy: With her Devil-may-care swagger, lecherous personality, penchant for heavy drinking and betrayal, emphasis on personal freedom, obsessive mission to reclaim a lost ship even to the point of making a Deal with the Devil, and the fact that she's in her current predicament a job transporting slaves didn't work out, you'd be forgiven for mistaking her for a beardless Captain Jack Sparrow.
• Extreme Omnisexual: According to her, she's had relations with men, women, elves, and a cross-dressing dwarf. She doesn't recommend that last one. Subverted if Hawke attempts to pimp her to the pathetic Emile de Launcet. Even sluttiness has its standards. Subverted farther than that, ironically enough, if Hawke pursues a romance with Isabela. Isabela's behavior is mostly for her image as a pirate, and while she has no problems with a Friends with Benefits relationship (or a one night stand), she doesn't have nearly as many of those as she implies.
• Four-Star Badass: Talking with Varric in Inquisition reveals that, after Kirkwall, Isabela can potentially go back to the Raiders and become an admiral. Though, as Varric puts it:
  Varric: I'm not sure if she's really an admiral or she just has a really big hat. Might be the same thing, honestly.
• Friendly Pirate: Played With. Isabela has been a pirate captain for a decade and engaged in all sorts of amoral activities such as raiding and smuggling but she draws the line at heinous stuff like slave trafficking. Despite her selfish self-preservation tendencies, she can be a charming and friendly person who gets along well with the rest of the party. As the game progresses, character progression pushes her further and further into this trope, to the point that if her Companion Meter is maxed out she admits that Good Feels Good and she's happy to have found you and the rest of the party.
• Friends with Benefits: While a tremendous flirt, she only appears to have such a relationship with Hawke (if Hawke accepts) and, depending on his relationship to the player, Fenris.
• Friend to All Children: It's mentioned that most of the pirates on the Waking Sea want Isabela dead for performing a one-woman army stunt, seizing the vessel she was meant to be escorting, after she discovered it actually contained slaves who were mostly women and children.
• The Gadfly: Her preferred form of humor is to tease and torment other people, especially if they're stuck-up prudes. Which makes Aveline her prime target, such as how she constantly teases Aveline about her sex life with Donnic just to see how she reacts, but then acts like it's Too Much Information when Aveline breaks down.
  Isabela: How about "satisfy a demand of your Qun." Or did he Cup your Joining? Or master your taint? That's an old one.
  Aveline: Yes, all right? He is an incredibly proficient lover. Happy?
  Isabela: Well that's rather personal, don't you think?
• Gay Option: She's bisexual, so can be a Love Interest for a female Hawke.
• Guide Dang It!: Averted with regards to sleeping with her — she comes on to Hawke quickly, and follows through early in Act 2, before players even kiss some love interests. Played surprisingly straight with genuine romance, however, to a point where even the official guide gets it wrong, and her romance is only completed half an hour or so before the game's end.
• The Hedonist: She had a very unhappy life before becoming a pirate, so once she did she fully embraced the hedonistic lifestyle and seems to live for three things: the thrill of adventure, alcohol, and sexual gratification.
• Hero of Another Story: Alongside Varric and King Alistair in The Silent Grove/Those Who Speak/Until We Sleep trilogy.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: If Isabela returns to Kirkwall at the end of Act 2, Hawke can potentially hand her over to the Arishok to prevent his rampage.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Isabela's promiscuity and "who needs love?" attitude is an act to cover up the guilt she feels for breaking the heart of a former lover. Hawke can point this out to her after having sex with her by stating "You're not afraid of falling in love; you're afraid of being loved."
  • She can also be surprisingly eloquent and wise, if deeply cynical, at times concerning philosophical ideas such as freedom and justice.
  Anders: There is justice in the world.
  Isabela: Is there? You want to free the mages. Let's say you do, but to get there, you kill a bunch of innocent people. What about them? Don't they then deserve justice?
  Anders: Yes.
  Isabela: And Then What?? Where does it end? It's like a bar brawl: people are continuously pulled into the fray, and nobody remembers why it started. Justice is an idea. It makes sense in a world of ideas, but not in our world.
• Hidden Heart of Gold:
  • She'll try to excuse any altruistic acts as self serving in some manner. Nobody buys it. Anders and a silly Hawke actually tease her about it, and invoke the trope by name.
  • Most obviously in Act 2 where her Big Damn Hero entrance has her irritably say that "This is your damned influence, Hawke!"
• Hidden Weapons: She mentions she keeps some daggers hidden with her at all times. Even when she's naked.
• Hit Me, Dammit!: Enables this as a plan to get to Castillion. Also one of her many battle quotes.
• Hoist by Her Own Petard: Isabela occasionally uses the line "You have pretty eyes" as a way to shut down conversations she doesn't want. In Mark of the Assassin, she complains to Hawke that Gamlen's been inappropriate, and she wants Hawke to convince him to stop. Guess what Hawke's response is?
  Isabela: Ugh, you are impossible!
• I Can't Believe a Guy Like You Would Notice Me: She's not surprised if Hawke agrees to casual sex with her, but is shocked if Hawke wants a serious relationship with her (owing to Isabela's failed previous marriage.) If she is spared from being handed over to the Arishok, she's shocked that Hawke even wants to still be friends with her.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: At the start of Act 3, especially.
• I Need to Go Iron My Dog: Every time Hawke goes to the Qunari Compound with her in your party, she will suddenly bail and run off. At first, it seems odd that she would do this, but as the player finds out later, she stole one of the Qunari's prized relics. If she were to enter the compound she would most likely be recognized and either killed on sight or taken prisoner.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: If Hawke sleeps with her but then moves on to Merrill, she seems a little wistful when Merrill gushes about how wonderful Hawke is, then assures the elf how happy she is for her. She later tells Hawke that she thinks Merrill was very lonely before and tells them to look after her. If Hawke is male, she also threatens to cut of his balls if he hurts her in any way.
• If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her...: Gives male Hawke this one if he's romancing Merrill.
  Isabela: I get the feeling the girl's involved in something deep and dangerous. Look out for her, will you? Make sure she doesn't hurt herself. ... Oh, and if you ever do anything nasty to her, I'll cut off your balls.
• Indy Ploy: Most of her "plans" tend to involve little planning and mostly going with her gut. Hawke can express frustration with this.
  Hawke: You haven't exactly thought this out, have you?
  Isabela: I haven't exactly worked out all of the kinks. Step one, we find Castillon... step two, I don't know. Something exciting happens. Step three, profit. Any questions?
• Informed Attractiveness: Discussed in-game. Isabela readily admits that she is not as attractive as her reputation leads one to believe. Her real secret is that she just casts a wide net.
• Irony: If the player goes through Mark of the Assassin in Act 3 and agree to help Tallis at the end, Isabela is bemused to find herself helping the Qunari recover a priceless artifact.
• It Doesn't Mean Anything: She brushes off the idea of being in anything other than a Friends with Benefits situation if Hawke asks about it, and will deny anything more between them to the other party members when it comes up for the vast majority of the game.
  Isabela: (annoyed and dismayed) Wait. You're not thinking of bringing feelings into this, are you?
  • According to the Codex entry for Act 3, if previously romanced, then Isabela has a particularly meaningful outburst towards Hawke before storming off for the next three years:
    Isabela: I didn't do it for them, I did it for you! It was always about you!
• It's All About Me: While she can be a lot of fun, and even very affectionate at times (mainly to Merrill), it is made uncomfortably clear at several points in the game that she places herself and her hedonistic tendencies first, even when it might hurt others. Under Hawke's influence, her conscience can start to get the better of her, much to her dismay.
• It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time: In party banter, if Fenris asks her about the incident where she released Castillon's would-be slaves, she downplays it with this exact phrase.
• Karma Houdini: For stealing the Tome of Koslun, especially if she either does not return after abandoning Hawke or Hawke kills the Arishok to secure her freedom. Even if Hawke does turn her over to the Arishok, Varric will reveal in Inquisition that she managed to escape and the Arishok was demoted for his failures.
• The Lad-ette: She enjoys dirty jokes, drinking and getting into duels and bar-room fights.
• Lady Killer In Love:
  • If romanced, she will reveal in Act 2 that she did truly love someone once, a man she doesn't name, but after he asked for her hand, she panicked and ran way, thus breaking his heart.
  • If romanced, she realises in Act 3 that she's fallen in love with Hawke, despite herself.
• The Lady's Favour: If romanced, she adds a red armband to her outfit — Word of God confirms it's this.
• Lampshade Hanging: She lampshades quite a few things.
  Isabela: If we kill them we get their stuff!
  Alistair: Isabela, right? You look... different.
  Isabela: Don't we all?
• Lovable Rogue: A pirate captain not afraid to fight dirty and is quite the snarker.
• Lovable Sex Maniac: She's a Lovable Rogue and Ethical Slut who has a very positive outlook on sex and constantly talks about it, as long as it remains Safe, Sane, and Consensual.
• Love Redeems: If romanced, she will return to give back the Tome of Koslun even if her personal quest was not completed.
• Made a Slave: Her own mother sold Isabela to a man (who would later become her husband) for a goat and some coins, all because Isabela didn't want to convert to the Qun. She remained his "wife" until he was killed by Zevran, which is when she inherited his ship and decided to become a pirate.
• Missing Steps Plan: Invoked during her summing up the plan to deal with Velasco and Castillion.
  Isabela: Step one, we go to Velasco! Step two, something exciting happens! Step three, profit!
• Mommy Issues: Not fond of the woman. Given her mother sold Isabela into marriage to an Antivan merchant for a few gold pieces and a goat (without even haggling the price), it's hard to blame Isabela for how she feels.
  • To add insult to injury, her mother was a Qunari convert who sold her because she refused to follow in her footsteps. No wonder she also holds a grudge against the Qunari.
• Morality Chain: The player can be this to her, particularly at the end of Act 2.
• Morality Pet: Isabela's friendship with Merrill may be the only one that the pirate has that isn't based on teasing them. In fact, when Merrill wishes that she had an 'interesting' life like Isabela, she tells Merrill that she's a good person and deserves better than that.
  • Her fond anecdotes about her crew before the shipwreck indicate that they actually had quite a bit of camaraderie, and she clearly misses them.
• Ms. Fanservice: She has about a foot of cleavage to back this up. And no pants. And frequent panty shots. Less than thirty seconds after she invites herself to the party, she invites Hawke up to her room. This appears to be approximately fifteen minutes after meeting, as well.
• Ms. Vice Girl: She's a Friendly Pirate who revels in sex, violence, greed, and drunken revelry. She does admit to Hawke that part of is just to keep up her Pirate, since she's a Pirate Girl in a male-dominated environment.
• Mundane Object Amazement: Merrill's so fascinated by boots that reach thigh length that she sometimes drops marbles in them.
• My Grandma Can Do Better Than You: One of her in-battle taunts is mocking her opponent by saying they hit as hard as her grandmother.
• My Greatest Failure: In Those Who Speak, she reveals her greatest regret is taking on a job to smuggle slaves, and having to sacrifice them by throwing them overboard in order to escape the Orlesean navy. This is partly why she has such a strong stance against slavery, despite her Bystander Syndrome.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: By stealing the Qunari relic, Isabela set a chain of events in motion that resulted in the Qunari attacking Kirkwall, the deaths of many innocent people, and a power vacuum that allowed Meredith to abuse her power and bring the Mage/Templar conflict closer to exploding.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: She got stuck and shipwrecked in Kirkwall as a consequence one of the few selfless good acts she did in her life, when she freed a bunch of refugees from a slave ship after she got hired to escort it. In order to pay off her debt, her employer Castillion tasked her with the near-impossible task of stealing the Tome of Koslun, which ended up with her being pursued by the Qunari and getting shipwrecked in Kirkwall.
• Noodle Incident: She's behind a few of them. One of them involved a duel that somehow grew into a 20 person brawl in the streets.
  • Hawke mentions the time she thought she had found the Relic and led them on a wild-goose chase all across the Wounded Coast, only to discover that the chest contained nothing more than some bad poetry... and an old boot.
  • There's also a letter from her at Hawke's estate, at the beginning of Act 2, saying that she "expected treasure, not spiders. Get well soon." It seems like they had several unsuccessful treasure chases in the wilderness during the three-year intermission.
  • If she and Sebastian are both brought along for the Mark of the Assassin DLC, she apparently wound up in the Chantry bound, gagged, and with a contusion on her forehead.
    Isabela: Just... don't ask for the "bad girl special" at the Blooming Rose.
  • Also, in Legacy banter with Fenris:
    Fenris: Interesting story I heard about you, Isabela...
    Isabela: Yes, yes, all right. I just want it known I never asked for the goat. And the fire was accidental.
    Fenris: I... that wasn't the story.
• Once Done, Never Forgotten: Invoked in Act 3 when snarky Hawke comments that her last bright idea was stealing the Qunari relic.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Isabela is not her birth name, but it's the only name to which she'll respond. Her birth name is revealed to be Naishe in the comic Those Who Speak, but she considers that person to be dead.
• Optional Party Member: She doesn't have to join the party, and if Hawke doesn't go to the Hanged Man at the right time, they may never even see her.
• ...Or So I Heard: "There's no way this Javaris stole from the Qunari. That's hard — I've heard."
• Pair the Spares: Hooks up with Fenris, of all people, in Act 3, if the player does not choose to romance either of them. Granted, the relationship is purely physical by all accounts.
• Parental Abandonment: She was sold into marriage at an implied young age by her mother and never knew her father. Those Who Speak sheds new light on this; Isabela's mother was a thief and a con woman who grew disillusioned with her criminal life and started to seek "salvation" by converting into the Qun, but Isabela refused to convert, so she gave her away. She mentions in the Legacy DLC that she never knew her father, and her mother didn't particularly know him either.
• Permanently Missable Content: The Champion can choose to betray her and hand her over to the Qunari.
• Phrase Catcher: "Shut up, whore!" from Aveline. It becomes an Insult of Endearment if their friendship grows.
• Pirate Girl: She used to be a fearsome pirate captain. Her ship is the Siren's Call, which she inherited from her deceased husband, a merchant whom Zevran killed. She even called herself the "Queen of the Eastern Seas". But her pirate days were over when her ship sank sometime before Act 1, during the same storm that wrecked the Qunari in Kirkwall, leaving her stuck in the city. Given that we later learn she was on the run from said Qunari, it's left ambiguous whether it was the storm or Qunari cannons that actually sank her ship.
• The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything: Not by choice. Due to the loss of her ship and crew as well as the Qunari tome, Isabela is forced to spend most of the game standing around the Hanged Man, drinking and acting vaguely pirate-y when not with Hawke.
• Pun: Every single one of the talents in her unique skill tree is a pirate reference of some kind. Notable because almost every other skill tree's names try to be serious or informative. Not Isabela.
  • She has an armor upgrade named Rigid Boning.
  • She seems quite fond of puns at times in-game, chuckling at the sound of "ghast-hole" and dubbing Idunna an "apostitute" before laughing delightedly. Yeah... Bela's kind of a dork.
• Rape as Backstory: It's implied the reason she let her husband Luis get assassinated was because he had her "entertain" his friends.
• "Rashomon"-Style:
  • She has given different accounts of how exactly the assassination of her husband Luis went. She has claimed she had nothing to do with it but was glad it happened, or to have helped Zevran do it after she found out he wanted to kill her husband or to have actually been the one to have contracted the Antivan Crows to assassinate him.
  • Varric notes Isabela has given conflicting stories on the details of her Parental Abandonment. Sometimes her mother sold her off as a slave for some coins, sometimes she gave Isabela away with the promise she would be "looked after". Whatever the case, it is very clear she resents her mother for it.
• Really Gets Around: Her sex life is a constant topic in conversations with the party, to the point finding past lovers of hers is a Running Gag. It reaches in-game memetic levels as time goes by, as she and Varric recall several patrons who attempted to (unsuccessfully) flirt with her and she recalls her vast sex life. If importing a save where the Warden was a Female Noble, romanced Alistair, convinced him to have a threesome and later ascended him to the throne and married him, Isabela jokes that having slept with the King and Queen of Ferelden gives her something new to brag about.
• Running Gag:
  • "Have you slept with everyone in Ferelden?"
  • Another running gag, especially in Legacy and Mark of the Assassin, is her perpetual pantslessness.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: If her friendship or rivalry isn't high enough, she will abandon Hawke at the end of Act 2, taking the Relic with her.
• Sex Goddess: Her promiscuous life has led her to become a very experienced and skilled lover, to the point she often talks about kinky sexual techniques. She even claims to be so good in bed, she can turn even the straightest woman lesbian/bisexual.
• Shipper on Deck:
  • Approves of Hawke hooking up with Merrill, trusting Hawke to keep her safe to the point of threatening to cut a male Hawke's balls off if he ever does anything to hurt her.
  • In Mark of the Assassin, if she is in the party with Carver and Merrill is unromanced, she catches onto Carver's crush on Merrill and tries to help him, much to his horror.
  • She writes erotic "Friend-fiction" involving Aveline and Donnic, and shares it with Varric.
• Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: She might be an amoral Pirate, but she drew the line at slave trafficking, and one of her few selfless acts was turning on her employer Castillion when he hired her to escort a slave ship. She not only refused to finish the job but actually freed the captured refugees. In Those Who Speak, her past with slavery is fleshed out more, revealing she was a slave herself, being sold out by her mother. When she earned her freedom and became a pirate, she avoided slavery until she got deep into debt with the Felicisima Armada and was forced to take a slave trafficking job, but ended up botching the job when she got caught by Orlesian pirate hunters and she was forced to throw the slaves into the sea to escape, something she considers to be her greatest failure and she swore never to get involved with slavery again.
• Slut-Shaming: Her own friends and many NPCs often look down on her, or at least deride her for her promiscuous life.
• So Long, and Thanks for All the Gear: She may return, however with a high enough friendship/rivalry score.
• STD Immunity: Averted. It's all but outright stated that Isabela does face repercussions for her grandiose sex life, but Anders is able to cure these without much trouble.
• Stripperific: Isabela has the bustiest model in the game and she has the outfit to show it off. Also, no pants.
• Stone Wall: Her specialization abilities can make her a very evasion-focused example. She becomes harder to hit and less effective at hitting — not very useful in of itself but paired with another party member it forms the combat equivalent of a two-man con.
• Supermodel Strut: Isabela walks with a deliberate swagger to her hips. This is even pointed out and Discussed by Merrill, who wants Isabela to teach her how to do it, but Isabela more-or-less says that a sexy strut just comes to a woman naturally.
  Merrill: How do you do that?
  Isabela: Do what, Kitten?
  Merrill: You sort of... swagger when you walk. I've been trying, but I trip over my own feet when I do it.
  Isabela: You just strut. It's not something you practice.
  Merrill: How do I learn it, then?
  Isabela: It comes to you. Usually at night. It's like a lover... or maybe a burglar. Either it ravishes you or runs off with all your jewelry. And you have to run it down and stab it in the heart. And... that metaphor got a bit away from me, didn't it?
  Merrill: I think it did, but it was certainly exciting!
• The Tease: She's openly flirtatious with most people, sometimes as an actual come-on, but often just because she has fun riling them up. This is especially noticeable in her banter with Carver.
  Carver: Why is it always about sex with you?
  Isabela: It's not. Sometimes it's about sex with other people.
  Carver: You see? It comes up every single time we talk.
  Isabela: We're just talking, Carver. If it comes up, that's not my fault.
  Carver: What? I mean... that's not what I meant. It... it doesn't! I hate you so much!
• A Threesome Is Hot: If Hawke is romancing her when she propositions Zevran, she's quick to invite them to join in, a Call-Back to the Optional Sexual Encounter in Origins.
• Thrill Seeker: Part of why she's a pirate and why she likes working with Hawk is that she simply enjoys the thrill and the danger. When recovering from being KO, she even says that "Nothing like a Near-Death Experience to get the blood pumping".
• Trick Bomb: She is a Rogue, so she can use different types of bombs.
• Urban Legend Love Life: While she's still quite promiscuous, she admits she exaggerates when talking about her sex life, in order to preserve her "image" as The Lad-ette Pirate Girl. But she also seems to do it because she likes to scandalize people.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: Some of her dialogue with Hawke hints at this if they sleep with her but later break it off.
• Venturous Smuggler: During her time as a pirate captain, most of her jobs were smuggling illegal contraband through the seas.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: While she and Aveline obviously don't get along at the start of the game, due to being on opposite sides of the law, by the end of the game they develop an unusual friendship, even though they never stop insulting each other.
• Yaoi Fangirl: In party banter, she seems really turned on at the thought of Danarius oiling Fenris up and "keeping [him] close at hand" while Fenris "glistens." Fenris asks her if she's already written a whole story about it in her head, and she doesn't deny it.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Fully befriending or rivaling her can convince her of this in different ways. It gets more complicated with Hawke's variable personality. It ranges from "Whatever you think you are, I still care about you", all the way to "Bullshit! Stop making excuses for yourself!"
• You Fight Like a Cow: Some of her combat lines can get pretty snarky:
  Isabela: You hit like my grandmother!
  Isabela: You hit like an Orlesian dandy!
• You Lose at Zero Trust: She leaves Hawke's party for good if they haven't completed her Act 2 "Questioning Beliefs" quest, which is obtained by getting her Friendship or Rivalry to at least 50.
• Your Door Was Open: Apparently she breaks into Hawke's estate frequently.
  Silly Hawke: Oh, look who's here! Time to change the locks again...
  Isabela: I knocked this time!

Tropes In Dragon Age: Inquisition

• Can't Stand Them, Can't Live Without Them: Downplayed. Her relationship with Aveline is vitriol on Aveline's part and teasing on Isabela's part, but she could always rely on Aveline to protect her. Her line if she's hurt indicates she misses her old party mate.
• Demoted to Extra: After being playable and one of the important characters in DAII, she is just an agent of the Inquisition, and only playable in DA multiplayer. She doesn't even have a single conversation with Varric or Hawke, and doesn't appear at all in the single-player campaign, although Varric can discuss her with the Inquisitor.
• Hard-Drinking Party Girl: One of her lines reflects her bad moods when hungover.
  Isabela: Could you please not talk? I have the worst hangover.
• Rank Up: She becomes a pirate admiral by the time of Inquisition, but it's unknown if it's real or just her self-styling title. Varric suspects she just owns the biggest hat.
• Took a Level in Badass: Leliana says of recruiting her that however good she was before, now she is considered untouchable, and she specifically sought out Isabela to defend the south against dragons.

---

Varric Tethras

Varric in 2

^{Varric in Inquisition}

Appears in: Dragon Age II | The Silent Grove | Those Who Speak | Until We Sleep | Inquisition | Knight Errant | The Missing | Dreadwolf

Voiced by: Brian Bloom (English)^{Foreign VAs}Tilo Schmitz (German)

"There's power in stories, though. That's all history is: the best tales. The ones that last. Might as well be mine."

A friendly surface dwarf with an Automatic Crossbow and a fondness for storytelling. Varric serves as the narrator of Dragon Age II, with the backdrop set in 9:40 Dragon being his relating the history of the Champion to the Seeker, Cassandra Pentaghast and attempting to set the story straight as he was a companion to the Champion during that time. Varric joins the Inquisitor's party, along with Cassandra, during the events of Dragon Age: Inquisition.

---

Tropes In Dragon Age II

• Anti-Hero: A little greedy, but when it comes down to it, he's actually more moral than most of the residents of Kirkwall put together. Not that that's really too difficult...
• Best Friend: Varric's friendship with Hawke is the strongest non-romantic relationship in the entire franchise, and even surpasses most of those as well. Notably, when Hawke becomes a fugitive, Varric is the only one (apart from their Love Interest, if they accompanied Hawke on the run) who knows where Hawke is. He clearly likes the Inquisitor, but when Hawke shows up, it's clear which one he follows due to a common goal, and which he follows out of an extremely strong bond.
• Big Brother Instinct: Demonstrates this toward Bethany, perhaps because of their early Party Banter in which she talks about how much she misses Carver. He also behaves this way a lot toward Merrill.
  • He also shows this toward Hawke, evincing concern they might get hurt in a romantic relationship with any of the companions.
• BFG: Bianca, Varric's tricked-out, custom-made, and rather large crossbow.
• Breakout Character: Despite debuting in the most controversial game in the series, he's one of the franchise's most popular characters. He was the only one universally well-received from II, and since then has been the star of three comic series and one of the only characters to be a constant party member in more than one game.
• Buxom Beauty Standard: Varric certainly thinks so in regards to Bethany, as demonstrated in her character model when he starts telling the story. When Cassandra tells him to knock it off, she's far more modestly endowed. Female Hawke, on the other hand, gets no such upgrades.
• Cain and Abel: The Abel to his brother Bartrand. They're initially antagonistic, but once Bartrand gets a hold of the red lyrium idol he goes crazy and leaves Hawke and Varric for dead.
• Cargo Ship: Invoked. His fondness for Bianca often rolls past mere praise into the realm of flirtation. He's not a romance option because he's already found the love of his life. The devs specifically made Bianca level up with Varric so as to make players never want to part the two without breaking the game. It gets lampshaded several times.
  • He gets very protective when Isabela suggests Bianca "deserves to feel a woman's touch on her trigger", and again when Sebastian asks if he can examine Bianca's cocking ring, even though Sebastian's intentions were pure (he wanted to see if she was firing off to the side because of a mechanical fault). In a form of Hypocritical Humor, he may turn down advances from a female Hawke on the grounds of Bianca being "the jealous type".
  • When Merrill asks Sebastian if his bow has a name like Varric's, Sebastian notes wryly that he can't compete with Varric's "relationship" to his weapon.
  • Fenris grunts that the way Varric fondles his weapon is disgusting. Varric claims he's a perfect gentleman... in public.
  • In Dragon Age: Inquisition, the Iron Bull notes that Bianca would never work as a Safe Word for Varric since a safe word has to be something you wouldn't normally yell during sex. The same game also reveals that Bianca is named after his old girlfriend, which just adds even more to it. And at one point, when Varric asks the Iron Bull what the deal is with Qunari and their swords, Bull points out that Varric named his weapon after a woman; Varric concedes the point.
  • In keeping with some of the tarot themes in Dragon Age: Inquisition, the Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition had a real tarot deck as one of the included items. The card for The Lovers in that deck is a picture of Varric holding Bianca.
• Carpet of Virility: Notable, as he's the first BioWare character since The Black Whirlwind with real chest hair. Fenris lampshades this when he asks why Varric doesn't have a beard, and guesses that it "fell down onto [his] chest." Enhanced by a rare example of male Navel-Deep Neckline.
• The Charmer: Word of God has said that no matter what danger he's in, the moment you let Varric begin to talk, he's won.
• City Mouse: Varric isn't comfortable anywhere without streets and buildings. He likes the ground to be horizontal, thank you.
• Combat Pragmatist: Spare Gascard early in the game and he'll aid Hawke in the search for their mother. Then it turns out that he's the necromancer's apprentice and is only interested in learning the rest of his secrets. Varric will promptly shoot him in the throat.
  Varric: What? You were going to do that, right?
• Consummate Liar: His ability to spin up a good line of bullshit can help Hawke avoid a fight once in a while. He lampshades this in a party banter with Aveline, where he says he lies a lot. Subverted if he tries this with Merrill in the party, as she will always absentmindedly correct him.
• Covert Pervert: While Varric's usually more interested in being a Deadpan Snarker, he sometimes slips and shows he has a bit of a pervert side.
  • He often flirts shamelessly with Isabela.
  • He bemoans a lack of dwarven barmaids at The Hanged Man.
  • When Aveline convinces him to do some recruitment posters for the city guard. He intentionally swaps the text with those for the local brothel's recruitment. This leads to a Funny Moment when Aveline points out that while he filled the city guardhouse with whores, he filled the brothel with guardsmen.
  • Isabela shares her "friend-fiction" with him. He finds it hilarious.
  • He artificially gives Bethany a Buxom Beauty Standard when first telling the story to Cassandra.
• Cultural Cringe: While the rest of his family were born in Orzammar and mourn being exiled nobility, Varric was born and raised on the surface. Thus, he is very critical of Orzammar culture (finding it very rigid, stuffy, and elitist) and vastly prefers surface human culture (finding it more loose, casual, and fun), and is not afraid to say so.
• Deadpan Snarker: It's practically his stated purpose in life, apart from dodging Merchants' Guild meetings and 'dramatizing' Hawke's life story. In the entire game, Snarky Hawke is the only one who outdoes him.
• Defensive "What?": Pulls this on Cassandra when she calls him out on his... less-than-accurate version of the Bartrand confrontation.
• The Dutiful Son: Varric played this role when he was a kid, taking care of his alcoholic mother, as Bartrand was too busy building their business empire.
• Establishing Character Moment: No matter whether the player approaches it narratively or chronologically, Varric gets one.
  • Narrative: After being forcibly dragged into a dark room by heavily armored men, he immediately begins snarking. He does not stop. After being threatened and assaulted by a heavily armed woman of some importance, he proceeds to tell her outrageous Blatant Lies and doesn't act at all ashamed when caught. He then proceeds to tell her (mostly) the truth, never once losing his cool.
  • Chronologically: He (non-fatally) pins a moving target to a wall with a precision shot from Bianca, and proceeds to lecture and snark at his victim. He then returns Hawke's stolen purse and suavely introduces himself, followed by a business proposition.
• Even the Guys Want Him:
  • During a conversation with Anders, this exchange;
    Varric: If you have something to say, just spit it out.
    Anders: Are you sure you want to encourage me? I might be about to confess my undying love.
    Varric: I get that a lot. So what's on your mind?
  • If male Hawke tells Merrill she's prettier than the Eluvian:
    Merrill: I'm sure you say that to Varric at least once a day.
    Varric: Twice, usually. But can you blame him? Nobody can resist this face!
• The Exile: Due to the entire Noble House of Tethras being exiled from Orzammar after his father was caught fixing Provings, Varric was born on the surface in Kirkwall.
• Fantastic Racism: Downplayed, but Varric doesn't particularly understand or like the Qunari. He's the only one to disapprove of helping Ketojan, and is not even a little surprised when Arvaraad executes him. ("I knew it! Can't trust a zealot.") In Act 2, he offhandedly calls the Arishok an 'ox-man'. If Mark of the Assassin is done in Act 3, he asks Tallis if she really thinks it was worth going to war over a book.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: If Hawke is either a warrior or a mage, Varric forms this trio with them and the surviving twin at the outset of Act 1, since they are initially the only three members of the party.
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: He's the progressive surfacer to Bartrand's traditionalist Dwarven ideals. Which one is really "foolish" and which is "responsible" is debatable.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: Inverted. He and Bethany are the only two of Hawke's companions who are liked by all the others.
• Friendly Sniper: Varric gets along with everybody, both inside the party and outside of it. His official bio from the Dragon Age tabletop RPG indicates that pretty much everyone is his friend unless they give him a reason to consider them otherwise.
• Glass Cannon: Bianca (especially a fully-upgraded Bianca) has one of the highest damage outputs of any weapon in the game; but Varric himself is a rogue, not a tank. He tends to get taken down a lot, absent some means of drawing aggro away from him.
• Going Native: Having grown up on the surface world, due to the entire House of Tethras having been exiled from Orzammar, Varric has genuinely no idea why the dwarves of Orzammar willingly choose to live in a dark, smelly hole, filled with darkspawn.
• Guile Hero: Varric doesn't mind violence, but prefers to settle things through trickery or bribery if possible. Deferring to Varric and letting him lie to your adversary, when the option exists, is a great way to earn friendship points. He's the only one who gives friendship points for bargaining with Castillon — Isabela blusters, but her opinion of Hawke doesn't actually change either way.^note However, this happens so late in the game that unless the player has been deliberately striving against it, Varric's friendship meter will likely have been long since maxed out, so the friendship gain won't show.
• Her Code Name Was "Mary Sue": During his companion quest, he briefly turns himself into a dwarven Tony Montana, rips through an army of mercenaries like it was nothing, and his brother spends the whole time talking about the awesomeness of Varric. Cassandra calls him out on this, and Varric tells the real story.
• Hero of Another Story: Alongside Isabela and King Alistair in the The Silent Grove/Those Who Speak/Until We Sleep trilogy.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: He's the only party member besides Aveline and Hawke's sibling who cannot be romanced, though he remains incredibly close to Hawke throughout their relationship.
  • Word of God has said they seriously considered adding a post-credits scene to games in which Hawke didn't romance anyone, showing Varric and Hawke reuniting and the dwarf saying not to worry, he didn't tell the Seekers anything about them.
• Hidden Depths: He may like to give the appearance of being a layabout storyteller who spends his time drinking and playing cards, but Varric is a lot smarter than that. He's very well-read; his rooms at the Hanged Man have a lot of books in them, and interacting with the bookcase in Hawke's mansion may prompt Hawke to remark that Varric has recommended the works of Genitivi, arguably the most famous historian in Thedas. Legacy shows that he also knows more about dwarven history than he likes to admit.
• Hidden Heart of Gold:
  • It is indicated in cutscenes and his Party Banter that he does a lot of things in the background to help the other party members who really need the assistance, like keeping thugs from causing trouble at Anders's clinic and making sure Merrill won't be have any trouble when she wanders into the wrong part of town (most nights). Apparently it costs him a fortune.
  • He gives Merrill a ball of twine when she first arrives in Kirkwall, to help her find her way back home again. When she offers to return it in Act 3, he tells her to keep it. If she isn't romanced, it's revealed that during the years between Acts 2 and 3, Merrill stops leaving the house while obsessively working on the Eluvian. Varric apparently visits her every week to try to coax her out and out of his own pocket pays for food to be delivered to her door because she's forgetting to eat.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: His penchant for exaggerating parts of Hawke's tale eventually gets him dragged in front of the Seekers, who are essentially Thedas's equivalent of the Spanish Inquisition, desperate for the truth about the Champion of Kirkwall. He's then brought to bear witness before the Divine, dragging him into the events of the third game...
• I Call It "Vera": He has a crossbow named Bianca.
• I Just Write the Thing: In Legacy, he admits to Aveline that he rarely writes with a concrete ending in mind, trusting his characters to drive the story rather than vice versa.
• I Should Write a Book About This: In addition to his narration, this is a hobby of his. He frequently tells stories about Hawke and their adventures, though the stories are wildly exaggerated and very different from the truth.
• It's All My Fault: If Bethany or Carver dies in the Deep Roads, Varric never stops blaming himself for it. It's more apparent with Bethany, as he has party banter three years later in which he's still openly grieving - and then again in Inquisition. His narration to Cassandra, at the beginning of Act 2, makes it explicitly clear that he blames himself for what happened. Again, this is more apparent if it's Bethany.
• Jaw Drop: He offers a verbal one when Aveline admits she wants a relationship with Guardsman Donnic.
  Varric: I think my jaw just landed in the Deep Roads somewhere.
• Knowledge Broker: One of his side jobs. Part of the reason he's so good as a Consummate Liar is that Varric knows everything that's going on in Kirkwall. He manages to keep himself just beneath suspicion of more prying eyes, but if characters need information and don't want the law finding out, they go to Varric. In Varric's words, "it means coins flow when I talk and when I shut up".
• Lady Drunk: His mother was an angry drunk with worse hangovers; try bringing him for "Repentance," if The Exiled Prince is installed, and listen to his commentary when the party encounters Flora.
• The Lancer: Due to his role in the story, Varric is the only party member who never leaves Hawke's side under any circumstances, and provides a counterpoint to both Diplomatic and Aggressive Hawke. With Silly Hawke, it seems like the two of them are snarking best buds.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: As justified as can be since he's telling the story. Lampshaded in some Legacy dialogue with Isabela, in which she asks him why he doesn't give himself a nickname. "Well, it's my story." She doesn't understand what he means, but the player does.
• Manly Tears: He has a moment where he's on the verge of them in the Legacy DLC, if Hawke completes the optional side quest "The Paragon's Heir." Watching Hawke perform the traditional dwarven rite for the dead for one of Varric's distant relatives leaves the dwarf speaking in a husky voice and asking if the party could please "get out of here before you see me cry."
• Merchant Prince: Varric's specialization tree calls him one, though the truth is more complicated. He's very wealthy and well-connected, but isn't interested in politics and tends to skip Merchants' Guild meetings.
• Mercy Kill: Hawke can convince him to do this to Bartrand. Varric tries to convince himself he'll enjoy it, but he describes it afterward as "the hardest thing I've ever done." He clearly regrets what happened to his brother, even bringing it up to Fenris when the elf is about to kill his sister.
• Momma's Boy: Despite having to single-handedly care for his alcoholic mother from a young age, he doesn't seem to resent her for it.
  Varric: I swear, I will find that son of a bitch - sorry, Mother - and kill him!
• My Greatest Failure: Both optional moments, but they weigh heavily on Varric's conscience if they player sees them.
  • The first one can occur in the Deep Roads at the end of Act 1. Should Hawke's sister Bethany die during the expedition, Varric never stops blaming himself for Bethany's death. Even three years after it happens, dialogue around town still shows that Varric is guilt-ridden and grieving.
  • The second one can occur with Varric's brother Bartrand. Should the player choose to raid Bartrand's mansion without Anders, Varric is forced to give Bartrand a Mercy Kill after seeing how the lyrium has dissolved his mind. While Varric tries to convince himself that he enjoyed it, he very clearly hated it.
• My Species Doth Protest Too Much:
  • Varric is a rare example of a surface dwarf who sincerely believes that the dwarves of Orzammar are morons for not realizing just why living on the surface is actually completely fantastic. Not only does he hate caves, but he looks down on most of what the other dwarfs take seriously, and often makes it a point to criticize the history of his people when he can.
  • Despite being from a house of exiled nobles, he has utter contempt for their entire caste system, seeing the elite as petty for looking down on others just because their ancestor "built a water clock or something". He dismisses Harrowmont for his isolationism and approves of Bhelen dissolving the Assembly (but "it's still Orzammar").
• Nice Guy: Apart from Bethany (if she's alive) and possibly Hawke, he's the only person liked by pretty much everyone in the group.
• The Nicknamer: According to Mary Kirby on Twitter, "Varric's nicknames are 100% friendly-shit-giving. Every one is intended to bug the recipient. Every. One."
  • Merrill is "Daisy," Bethany is "Sunshine," Anders is "Blondie," Carver is "Junior" and "little Hawke," Isabela is "Rivaini," Sebastian is "Choir Boy," and Fenris is "Elf." He doesn't have one for Aveline, which bothers her - he says it's because he can't think of anything better than "Red," which they agree is too common.
    Aveline: You don't call anyone by their real name, except me. Where's my nickname?
    Varric: That's not true, there's Hawke and Bianca.
    Aveline: Hawke is a family name. And Bianca is a crossbow.
  • In Mark of the Assassin, Hawke can also complain that Varric doesn't have a proper nickname for them, prompting Varric to bestow Hawke with a nickname that suits their personality - diplomatic Hawke is Waffles, silly Hawke is Chuckles, and aggressive Hawke is Killer. He also dubs Tallis "Shivs."
  • If he's brought along for the Act 1 quest "Magistrate's Orders," he may give one to the elf girl Lia when the party finds her. When she pleads for leniency for her kidnapper, if Hawke selects the snarky response, Varric will add a (non-snarky) comment in which he gently addresses Lia as "princess."
• Noodle Incident: He refuses to tell anyone how Bianca got her name, just that Mirabelle was taken. According to the descriptions of his personal abilities, he's written a song about it, but will only ever hum it quietly to help his concentration.
• No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: Bianca, the only working Automatic Crossbow in the setting, especially after its designer gets killed in Legacy... Then, during the course of Mark of the Assassin, this trope is averted, with Duke Prosper making use of a repeating crossbow pistol. Basically, this trope only appears because Varric is an Unreliable Narrator. As Inquisition shows, the "designer" killed in Legacy was not really Bianca's creator at all. The World of Thedas, vol. 2 explains that Gerav did come up with the idea but couldn't get it to work - but someone else could.
• Odd Friendship: With practically everybody in the party. It's revealed he's taught the game of Diamondback to the dog. And he's a better card player than Anders, although that's not hard.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: During "Haunted" in Act 3, he becomes more and more agitated, finally yelling at Hawke and demanding to have the shard of the idol they found. It certainly freaks Anders out a bit, who tells Hawke that the idol is affecting Varric's mind. Varric apologizes afterwards, and he appears to have suffered no permanent ill effects by the time Cassandra finds him, even if Hawke allows him to have the shard. Granted, it did take several years for Bartrand to go completely Ax-Crazy...
• Out-of-Character Moment: Look closely and it's clear that every scene Bartrand is in, Varric loses his jovial demeanor and suddenly becomes a perfect model of saintly patience and rationality in the face of his brother's raging jerkass tantrums.
• The Resenter: The Pride Demon in "Night Terrors" implies that part of him is very bitter about his role sitting just outside the spotlight, and mostly how it pertains to Bartrand.
  Varric: I did everything for the family. My whole life... and he's still the favorite son.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: He indulges in a Cliché Storm invoked of Pre Mortem One Liners while single-handedly raiding his brother's hideout. Except, no he doesn't.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Varric was born of the House Tethras, disgraced nobles exiled from Orzammar after his father was caught fixing Provings. Unlike Bartrand, Varric is more flexible and willing to compromise to achieve his ends, willing to get his hands dirty if needs be, and recognises Hawke as someone to be counted on get things done. He joins the Deep Roads Expedition to keep his brother from harm; he's willing to follow Hawke into dangerous territory to rescue Sandal; and, despite the implication that he's probably even wealthier than Hawke, he still chooses to live in the Hanged Man down in Lowtown.
• Sad Clown: He's already snarky on a good day, but his standard reaction to things getting tense or emotional (especially when it comes to his own issues) is deflection.
  Varric: Don't worry, Sunshine. The laughter just... hides the pain.
• Sarcastic Devotee: Always expect to hear at least one snarky comment from the dwarf when he's in Hawke's party.
  Varric: (if Anders falls) They got what's-his-name! The mage!
• Secret-Keeper: He's very good at this, being The Spymaster. It even forms part of his introductory dialogue with Hawke if Bethany is the surviving twin; when Hawke asks if Varric has heard of Bethany as well, she demurs, and he assures her that "Your secrets are safe with me." (In other words, he knows she's a mage but he's not going to out her to the Templars.)
• Self-Proclaimed Liar: "I love the sound of my own voice, and I'm a compulsive liar."
• Ship Tease:
  • Some conversational options will allow him to flirt with a female Hawke, though it's treated like a running joke between them. (Unlike the actual potential love interests, there are never any serious "heart" dialogue options for Varric^note There's one if you took him into the Fade and the desire demon managed to get him to attack you, but it's played as a joke rather than actual flirting..)
  • He and Isabela flirt occasionally in party banter. She seems interested in his chest hair.
  • He also has a subtler but more genuine tease with Bethany, to whom he is shown to be particularly attached; it's examined carefully on the Heartwarming page.
• The Spymaster: He runs a spy network to help his friends and family.
• The Storyteller: Of course he ends up the narrator.
  Varric: There's power in stories, though. That's all history is: the best tales. The ones that last. Might as well be mine.
• Sweet Tooth: If Merrill is to be believed.
  Merrill: His mind draws [demons] the same way pastries draw Varric.
• Swiss-Army Weapon: Bianca is an Automatic Crossbow, with a mounted grenade launcher that Varric uses when firing Miasmic Flask, and a hidden bayonet the size of an arming sword.
• Tagalong Chronicler: Not only is he the Character Narrator, but even in-story, it is acknowledged that he will be the main influence on how history will remember Hawke.
• The Team Benefactor: Like Aveline, party banter reveals things Varric is doing behind the scenes to try and keep members of the group out of trouble, such as bribing the Lowtown gangs to leave Merrill alone.
• Team Mom: He's only one, besides Bethany and possibly Hawke, to really be on the good side of everyone in the party. And with a Dysfunction Junction this bad, that is an accomplishment.
• Undying Loyalty: He's the only member of the party who will never leave Hawke, no matter what happens. (He's also, by far, the easiest party member to befriend. If the player brings him along on most quests, they will have to deliberately antagonize him to avoid getting 100% Friendship with him in Act 1, long before it becomes possible for any other party member besides Bethany.) He can, however, be tempted to betray Hawke in the Fade by a demon; he'll simply apologize later. At one point in Legacy, without any hesitation, he turns Bianca on a former friend of his who is preparing to attack Hawke.
  • His loyalty even extends beyond the physical. At the end of the Legacy DLC if done after the murder of Leandra, he recounts how Hawke had a conversation with their deceased mother. He quickly admits that this didn't actually happen. He only said it because he wished his friend had gotten that closure, despite knowing that they never did.
• The Unfavorite: "Night Terrors" implies that he sees himself as such, compared to Bartrand.
• Unreliable Narrator: For portions of the story, he'll exaggerate certain events just to make the story more interesting or if he's hiding something. Cassandra will ask questions occasionally to discern Varric's hyperbole from the truth.
  • The game literally opens with Varric telling an exaggerated account of how, when the Hawke family fled Lothering, Hawke the One-Man Army (who tellingly is the default model of the character before the player can change their looks) effortlessly mowed down hordes of darkspawn beside their well-endowed mage sister / heavily-armored Gray Warden brother, only for Cassandra to scream "Bullshit!" and demand he tell her what really happened.
  • Played with through most of the game as Cassandra ecourages him to tell Hawke's story free of the exaggerations as part of the story of the Champion. For the most part he seems to be telling the truth, From a Certain Point of View. On the other hand, the better known exaggerations are also written by him...
  • Played for Laughs later, when the game suddenly switches to Varric killing a ridiculously implausible number of enemies by himself and making a crossbow shot with Improbable Aiming Skills. Cut back to an extremely skeptical Cassandra, and then gameplay returns to normal.
  • He also freely admits as much when, in Legacy, he invents a conversation between Hawke and Leandra's ghost. As noted above, he concedes that it never happened; he just wanted to give his dear friend some closure regarding their mother's murder.
  • The in-story explanation for Legacy and Mark of the Assassin within the Framing Device is that Varric left them out at first, "assuming" Cassandra wouldn't be interested. Also, that she wouldn't believe either story - heck, even he has difficulty believing what happened during Legacy, and he was there!
  • As revealed in Inquisition, he knew where Hawke was all along and could get in contact with them anytime he needed, but he lied about this in order to protect his friend.
• Upper-Class Twit: He plays the part, particularly in Act 1, but in truth he's a Knowledge Broker/The Spymaster, and a very business-savvy one at that. He makes a point of missing Merchants' Guild meetings, never replies to his mail, and registers the family businesses to an imaginary cousin.
• Vitriolic Best Buds:
  • Some of his party banter with Carver suggests that this is their relationship.
  • With Sebastian as well, especially if they're the companions for Mark of the Assassin.
• Vocal Evolution: In the very first cut scenes, Varric has a noticeably deeper lilt to his voice than in later scenes, sounding very different from the more lighthearted and easygoing dwarf the player becomes familiar with from his introduction to Hawke and onward. By the end of the game, it's clear just why this is the case.
• Wardrobe Wound: He occasionally complains about the gang's activities getting blood on his coat or ruining his boots.
• Warrior Poet: He actually writes poetry in his spare time, and his relationship with Hawke could easily be seen as a self-appointed poet laureate. According to his specialization tree, he's even written a song about Bianca, although he'll only hum it under his breath to improve his concentration.
• We Used to Be Friends: He stays on mostly good terms with Anders right up to the Chantry attack. After that, he says he's sick of mages and Templars and seems bitter about having introduced him to Hawke in the first place. In Inquisition, when speaking of the mage rebellion, he notes that "the guy who started it used to be a friend of mine." If Anders survived DAII, Varric bluntly states in the next game that he doesn't know or care about his current whereabouts.
• What, Exactly, Is His Job?: Aveline tries to work this out in party banter. He just confuses her. The reality is that he's a Knowledge Broker and The Spymaster, but he prefers to let people think he's a Upper-Class Twit.
• Write Who You Know: Invoked during Party Banter in Act 2 with Aveline, which reveals he's writing a series of novels starring a rogue guardsman called Donnen Brennokovic. Apparently, there have been fistfights in the barracks over which guard Varric based him on. It might be simple coincidence, but Donnic and Brennan, two actual guardsmen Hawke meets during Act 1, seem the most likely candidates at least for the name. Extracts from the book itself have the guard captain as a no-nonsense female redhead beset by paperwork (Aveline); other characters include a surly white-haired bartender called Ferris (Fenris), a sexy and reckless lady pirate named Captain Belladonna (Isabela), and a cute scatterbrained elf historian named Maisy (Merrill). There's also Lady Marielle, a significant character whose description and personality seem to be a mash-up of female Hawke and Bethany. The entire story can be read in a series of codex entries on the official wiki, and in late 2017, Bioware announced that actual printed, illustrated copies would be produced and are now available.

Tropes In Dragon Age: Inquisition

• Abhorrent Admirer: After the completion of "Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts," Varric has a lengthy bit of party banter with Dorian, in which Dorian says that Empress Celene's trio of identically-dressed handmaidens were asking him questions about Varric's romantic availability and chest hair. Varric's tone as he replies sounds quite disgruntled.
  Varric: Huh. Creepy.
• Actor Allusion: An extremely subtle and humorous one on the war table. If the chain of operations is completed for Varric's plagiarism issues, one of them has him contact Jerrik Dace and call in a debt regarding 'the Amgarrak expedition,' referencing the Origins DLC Golems of Amgarrak. It's funny for two reasons because it means that House Tethras funded the expedition, and financing a DLC campaign is a very Varric thing to do.
• Aesop Amnesia: The end of DA2 and DAI especially explores how Varric saw firsthand how Hawke was just a regular person who rose to fame due to external circumstances, and had their life ruined by other people putting them on a pedestal and then turning on them when they failed to live up to their larger-than-life reputation. In DAI, Varric himself fully believes the Inquisitor is the Herald of Andraste and encourages them to live up to reputation that countless people have given them. Admittedly the circumstances to start with are different, and by Tresspasser he eases up on this.
• Affectionate Nickname: Solas refers to him with a solemn "child of the Stone," which is especially notable since Varric is a surface dwarf without a lick of stone-sense. Solas seems to mean it genuinely, though.
• The Anti-Nihilist: When Solas keeps badgering him about his willingness to abandon the old dwarf empire and be happy with his kind living on the surface, equating it to giving up, Varric handily shuts him down by arguing that accepting the impossibility of defeating entropy and living a good life anyway is the only real way to beat it.
  Solas: You truly are content to sit in the sun, never wondering what you could've been, never fighting back?
  Varric: Ha, you've got it all wrong, Chuckles. This is fighting back.
  Solas: How does passively accepting your fate constitute a fight?
  Varric: In that story of yours — the fisherman watching the stars, dying alone — you thought he gave up right? [...] But he went on living. He lost everyone, but he still got up every morning. He made a life, even if it was alone. That's the world. Everything you build, it tears down. Everything you've got, it takes — and it's gone forever. The only choices you get are to lie down and die or keep going. He kept going. That's as close to beating the world as anyone gets.
  Solas: Well said. Perhaps I was mistaken.
• Badass Bookworm: Varric's career as an author receives more attention in Inquisition. Apparently, he's quite the bestseller, so he's basically a demon-slaying Stephen King with a crossbow - except in Orlais, where his books don't sell. (But that turns out to be Varric's publisher screwing him out of money, and he's absolutely bewildered to be mobbed by readers at the Winter Palace.)
• Badass Longcoat: Now available in a variety of colors, depending on what material the player uses.
• Bag of Spilling: When the Inquisitor meets him at the beginning of the game, he's back to first level and without all those trick bolts, just like the rest of the party.
• Be Careful What You Wish For:
  • During his dialogue with Cassandra in regards on how he creates his main characters in his books, he notes how a likable main character should be given pain, suffering, ruin their lives, or even a heroic death. Depending on the player's choices during the Here Lies the Abyss, Hawke will probably meet their end there.
  • After the events of Inquisition, Varric joined the Kirkwall restoration efforts, but not without complaining how the lack of a proper Viscount makes things difficult. The nobles in the city council took his complaints as a volunteer and appointed him to that position instead, much to his dismay.
• Bearer of Bad News: If Hawke is left in the Fade, Varric has to do this for the rest of the old gang from Kirkwall, sending letters to inform them of the situation. Cassandra will ask him about it in party banter.
• Belligerent Sexual Tension:
  • People accuse him and Cassandra of having this. Neither of them are amused by the suggestion. When Discussed by the party, they conclude that the reason people accuse him and Cassandra of this is because it's a common trope in his own books... or rather, in the Shoddy Knock Off sequels written by someone else.
  • He and Bianca actually do have this going on. They insult each other as often as they make small talk. Most telling is that if the Inquisitor defends her from his own rants, Varric actually approves both times. The Inquisitor can even tell them to Get a Room!.
    Inquisitor: After all this, do you think you'll see Bianca again?
    Varric: I always do.
• Big Brother Instinct:
  • He takes Cole under his wing and does his best to foster the growth of his human side. Blackwall even lampshades it, saying that Varric seems to have adopted him.
  • Also has a bit of this toward the newly-minted Herald of Andraste, periodically inquiring as to whether events are taking a toll on them. The most notable example comes after the events of the prologue, when the player character is walking around Haven and interacting with everyone; Varric is the only person to ask them if they're okay.
    Varric: So, now that Cassandra is out of earshot, are you holding up all right?
  • Still exhibits this towards Hawke.
    Cassandra: Hawke would have been at the temple! If anyone could have saved Most Holy-!
    Varric: You know what I think? If Hawke had been at the temple, he/she would be dead too. You people have done enough to him/her.
  • He also still has a little of this, still overlapping with Ship Tease, for Circle Bethany. When the Herald inquires about the whereabouts of his friends, he fondly notes that "Hawke's little sister" is helping mage refugees in the Free Marches. After Adamant, if Hawke survived, Cassandra brings her up and asks if she's still alive, which gets an immediate and slightly hostile response of "Better be!" More calmly, Varric then adds that "Sunshine will go" to join her elder sibling as soon as Varric informs her of their whereabouts. As noted below, she seems to be the one companion with whom he remains in regular contact.
• Blatant Lies: He's still prone to extravagant lies, although now he freely admits it. His recounting of the activities of the Inquisition in his book All This Shit Is Weird includes Cassandra weeping at his feet begging for forgiveness, which - needless to say - did not happen. (The real Cassandra, however, is actually delighted by the fabrication.)
• Carpet of Virility:
  • Some of his outfits are now covering it, but not all of them. One of the servant girls in Skyhold expresses interest and asks some lewd questions about him because of his chest hair, and Cassandra, of all people, actually jokes about it when describing things about him the Divine wanted to see and hear in person.
  • His initial Tarot card displays a view of his smirking mouth, the end of Bianca you don't want to have pointing at you... and his chest hair. The card doesn't even show his eyes!
• Casual Danger Dialogue: In the Inquisition trailer, in between shooting several demons with Bianca.
  Varric: You might want to watch yourself, it's raining demons out here.
• The Chains of Commanding: In Trespasser, he's now Viscount of Kirkwall, and he'll complain about the Merchants Guild and Starkhaven (read: Sebastian) constantly pestering him with complaints and requests. In the DLC epilogue, he's still ignoring letters from both, rolling his eyes at whatever Seneschal Bran is saying while an amused Aveline walks away grinning. If the Inquisitor is a Dwarf, he even remarks that he tried to give his seat in the Merchant's Guild to you, but "they, uh... got mad."
• City Mouse: Some of his banter and random comments include complaints about foul weather, uneven terrain, and how much he'd really like to be indoors right about now. The Descent DLC even adds a string of party banter in which the other companions mock his many complaints, the majority of which are related to the outdoors. As he points out, he was raised in the city; that's where he's comfortable.
• Cloudcuckoolander's Minder: To Cole on physical and tangible objects like clothes, as he hasn't got much experience with them.
• Content Warnings: Hilariously, the World of Thedas books contain a segment in which it's shown that the Chantry (or at least "Sister Lilian Hatch," the author of the segment) frowns upon Varric's popular novels. This is partly due to his previous association with Anders, but it's also because they think he's a terrible writer. The faithful are warned that "...his body of work remains, by and large, little more than smut, pulp, or, at times, smutty pulp." This warning is then followed by an excerpt from Hard in Hightown.
• Cooldown Manipulation: Varric's Artificer specialization focuses on improving critical hit chances for himself and the party, and using critical hits to reduce the cooldowns on all his talents so he can use them faster.
• Cosmic Plaything: As he says, he's been in his own stories enough times to know a tragedy starting when he sees one.
  Varric: Most of my stories end in tragedy. Probably that says something unfortunate about me personally.
• Cultural Cringe: Like the previous game, he's very critical of Orzammar, vastly prefers surface (human) culture, and isn't afraid to say so.
• Dirty Coward: He seems to think this of himself. In one conversation, he mentions that it took him three years just to work up the nerve to confront Bartrand for trying to murder him, and even then he needed someone else to convince him to do it. He then wonders if he'd be running from the current crisis if Cassandra hadn't literally dragged him into it in the first place. The Inquisitor can point out that nothing is actually stopping him.
• Dual Wielding: Unlike the previous game, it is possible for Varric to dual-wield daggers (his new specialisation works pretty well regardless). However, the only ranged weapon he will use is still invokedBianca, who gets a whole range of exclusive upgrades to keep her in the running throughout the game. The descriptions for the regular bows seem to lampshade this; "Not Varric" is listed as a secondary class restriction alongside Rogue. It should also be noted that dual wielding will prevent Varric from using his Focus Ability, which requires a ranged weapon (in Varric's case, it requires Bianca).
• Excellent Judge of Character: The nicknames he gives people are usually based on first impressions, and are usually right on the money, much to Dorian's chagrin.
  Dorian: Varric, I want a new nickname.
  Varric: What's wrong with "Sparkler"? Not colorful enough for you?
  Dorian: You must know me better now, or does the moniker you gave me five minutes after we met still apply?
  Varric: I have the eyes of a storyteller. It's a gift.
  Dorian: So, I'm a bit of light you stick in a window sill to impress passersby? All flash, no heat? Hmm… that's actually pretty clever.
• Fan of Underdog: While he and Blackwall have their favourite jousters in the Grand Tourney, he admits that Blackwall's pick is the most skilled, but stands by his own choice. It's not hard to imagine who else he's thinking about.
  Varric: Scrappy is better than flawless. I like heroes who try their damnedest, even if they fail a lot. It's easy to be valiant when you always win and everything goes your way. There's nothing great in that.
• Fantastic Racism: He's somewhat suspicious of the Qunari after the events of DAII, though he still gets along pretty well with the Iron Bull all things considered. If Bull becomes Tal-Vashoth, he happily tells him it was the right choice. If the player picks the alliance with the Qunari, Varric is skeptical... which arguably doubles as foreshadowing for Trespasser.
• Friendly Sniper: Wields an Automatic Crossbow with deadly precision in combat, and is still one of the nicest guys in the series.
• Genre Savvy: We can see now that it wasn't just him spicing up the story to make himself seem like this in Dragon Age II. Varric really gets how stories work and displays this in multiple dialogues throughout the game.
  • If Hawke allowed him to keep the idol shard, he's taking zero chances with it — it's in a custom-made safe back in Kirkwall, and alchemists are studying it in hour-long shifts with weekly intervals. Unfortunately, they still don't know how to stop it from "singing".
  • His party banter indicates that he figures out very early in their acquaintance that Blackwall has some kind of Dark and Troubled Past, although his exact guesses are completely off the mark. Notably, if he's in the party when the Inquisitor goes to Val Royeaux as part of that character's personal quest, Varric realizes what's happening faster than anyone else.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Picked up what would qualify on anyone else as a nasty Evil Scar (under his left eye, diagonally across the nose almost to his right side jaw) sometime between the games.
• Heartbroken Badass: He's always shown signs of this, but he especially does if Hawke dies.
• Hero of Another Story: In addition to the original DA comics, he's now a main character in two more comic series set after the events of Inquisition.
  • He's central to the plot of Knight Errant, which takes place after the Trespasser DLC and has him working with a sticky-fingered squire to help the Inquisition back in his native Kirkwall.
  • He has a starring role alongside Scout Harding in The Missing, as the two dwarves team up and search for clues about Solas in the abandoned Deep Roads under Tevinter.
• Hero-Worshipper: A relatively mild example, but Varric firmly believes that the player character is Andraste's chosen champion, and tells them that he's not sure how to be a disciple; if told that the Inquisitor needs a friend, not a disciple, he laughs and says they don't understand what they are to people. After the group game of Wicked Grace, he tells the Inquisitor that he sees them as being "like one of those statues of Andraste holding bowls of fire." He also, in party banter with Dorian, refers to them as "our beloved Inquisitor." It's a different kind of reverence than the sort he has for Hawke, but still there.
• Heroic BSoD: If Hawke dies, he's completely at a loss for what to say, trying to say something before completely giving up and just silently walking away.
• Hidden Depths: As mentioned by Cassandra and later confirmed by Varric himself, he's Andrastian (rather than a Stone-worshiper); furthermore, he fully believes that the Inquisitor is the Herald of Andraste, pointing to the extraordinary events surrounding the Inquisitor since literally stepping out of the Fade as proof.
  • Bringing him along for the "Tomb of Fairel" quest in the Hissing Wastes once again shows that Varric understands dwarven history much more than he likes to admit, especially when looting the treasure of the final tomb. The Inquisitor will playfully call him out on it, to which he replies, "If you want an encyclopedia entry, it might as well be from someone charming."
  • Having him along for Jaws of Hakkon helps to illustrate how good Varric is at recognizing the need for diplomacy and kindness. He approves of letting the Inquisitor's name be included in an Avvar prayer (at the conclusion of "Up and Away") because he says it's smart to show respect for local traditions, and urges the Inquisitor to let Finn take the credit for hunting the fade-touched beasts (at the end of "A Father's Name") because the young man has already lost his father, and shouldn't have to lose his name too. He also makes a number of wise comments regarding the history uncovered in the quest, and expresses particular admiration for Ameridan's dwarven companion Orinna.
• Home Sweet Home: He tries to downplay it, but Varric is desperately homesick during the events of Inquisition. Sera actually complains about it in party banter, saying that she's tired of him talking about his "better" friends back in Kirkwall.
  • After the events at the ritual tower in the Western Approach, the Inquisitor can find him in the hallway by the war room with Hawke, talking about the situation, and his old friend comments that "I know how much you hated leaving Kirkwall." He expresses distaste for being where he is ("Did you know they eat snails here?") but adds that he has to see it through to the end.
  • Taking him to the Storm Coast can net this bit of wistful dialogue:
    Varric: The Waking Sea... somewhere across all that water is Kirkwall.
• Humble Hero: He has shades of this in party banter with Blackwall, who compliments him on his prowess with the crossbow. Varric demurs, saying that Bianca does most of the work.
• I Call It "Vera": Bianca's back! And she fits in quite well with the weapon/armor component upgrade system in Inquisition, having the most upgrade slots of any item, and most of them unique to her: a tension limb slot, a foregrip slot, a stock/sighting slot, and a more standard rune slot as well for good measure.
• I Just Want to Be Normal: His dialogue is peppered with this throughout the game. The events of II and now Inquisition have definitely taken a toll on Varric, and all he really wants to do is go home - but he feels so responsible for things that he just can't go until he's set things right. Take him to the Storm Coast and listen to his lament about Kirkwall being "somewhere across all that water". Post-game, he reveals that he simply wants to settle back down in Kirkwall. The Trespasser DLC shows him doing exactly that... except now he's the Viscount, so 'settling down' isn't what it used to be.
• It Will Never Catch On: He claims he won't write a book about the Inquisition because they aren't that interesting. He reconsiders it later on, although he's not sure anyone will believe it. At the very end of the Trespasser DLC, he presents Cassandra with a copy of the book he did end up writing. It's called All This Shit Is Weird, and players are treated to her reading excerpts aloud over the closing credits. It's hilarious.
• It's All My Fault:
  • Varric co-led the expedition that unearthed the first red lyrium seen in the modern Age, and isn't happy now that it's popping up everywhere. When Corypheus reappears, he starts kicking himself for leading Hawke to the Warden prison. If Hawke sacrifices themselves to save the Inquisitor and the Grey Warden ally, this attitude becomes even more apparent. It's even worse in his personal quest, when he finds out that Corypheus is getting most of his red lyrium from the very same Primeval Thaig that Varric and Hawke discovered.
  • The Nightmare demon specifically gives him a "Reason You Suck" Speech over his guilt of constantly getting Hawke into life-threatening situations.
  • He's still blaming himself if Hawke's sibling contracted the taint in the previous game. Bring him to the Storm Coast to fight the darkspawn on the surface and listen to him talk about it. It's more pronounced if Bethany died as a result; he's very obviously still grieving the loss, and he even says the same phrase he uttered when they realized what was happening: "Oh, Sunshine."
• Knight Errant: He gets a bit of this in his character trailer, which features him defending Haven's barmaid from the unwanted advances of a ruffian - by using Bianca to pin the man to the wall. (Doubles as something of a Call-Back to Dragon Age II, where he did the exact same thing to a pickpocket the first time he met Hawke.)
  Varric: She's not interested. But Bianca here is a sucker for drunk, dumb, and ugly. Take a hint, human.
• Knight in Sour Armour: He's considerably more bitter and confrontational by the time he joins the Inquisition, and he's not quite as quick to warm up to the newly acquired companions (although he gets better as the game progresses). Most tellingly, it takes him the better part of the game to move into a pleasant relationship with Cassandra, especially after Hawke comes to Skyhold. They just can't seem to let go of their animosity for a long time, which is a dramatic shift from the easygoing storyteller Varric was in the previous game.
• Like Father, Like Son: His greatest fear as revealed in the Fade is "[becoming] his parents". Given that his family legacy is centered around messing things up^note His father got the Tethras family exiled from Orzammar for fixing Provings; his mother died of alcoholism; and Bartrand became corrupted by the Lyrium Idol - which got Hawke and company trapped in the Deep Roads, may have indirectly led to one of Hawke's siblings getting killed or forced to join the Wardens (depending on player choices), and then ended up in Knight-Commander Meredith's hands and corrupted her as well, making her one of the the driving forces behind the Kirkwall rebellion., his fear probably stems from continuing this legacy of "messing things up" for everyone around him.
• Multiple-Choice Past: When the Inquisitor asks how Varric got Bianca, the dwarf may tell a story of how he found her in a barrel in the Black Emporium for a few coins. The codex adds a few more possible origin stories for Bianca as well, and playing multiple playthroughs reveals that with each of them, Varric's story of finding Bianca randomly changes. From his sidequest, it's heavily implied that the origin of the crossbow Bianca is somehow related to a girl named Bianca, with whom Varric obviously has history. If the Inquisitor asks him if it originates with her, he doesn't directly deny it, but does say that saying anything about it might endanger her life. The World of Thedas, vol. 2 finally clears up the matter. Gerav, the tinkerer whom Hawke and Varric encountered in the Legacy DLC, was Bianca's original designer, but he couldn't get the thing to work. He sold it to Varric, who took it to the dwarf Bianca; she turned the crossbow into the deadly work of art he loves so much, prompting him to name it after her.
• Nice Guy:
  • As in the previous game, Varric can make friends with just about anyone, and seems to be on friendly or at least amiable terms with just about every other character in the party. He makes an analogy of people with cats: they either arch their back up to seem threatening, or hide to avoid detection.
    Varric: Show that you're not a victim or a threat, and they're in your lap and purring before you know it.
  • He is one of the only party members, almost as much as Cole, to consistently give approval for dialogue and action choices which indicate a selfless nature. For example, he's the only one who "greatly approves" if the Herald manages to save all of the endangered villagers when Haven is attacked, and the only one who "approves" if they make an effort and save at least one. (The only other companion who gives any approval for these actions is Vivienne, of all people.)
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Varric gets accused of this by Cassandra after she finds out he lied about Hawke's whereabouts. Cassandra sought him out because she wanted Hawke to become the leader of the Inquisition and feels that Hawke's presence may have prevented the destruction at the Conclave. Varric points out that if Hawke had been at the Conclave, they would almost certainly have died, and "You people have done enough to him/her."
• The Nicknamer: Varric still gives nicknames to his companions. He addresses Cassandra as "Seeker"; Josephine is "Ruffles"; Leliana is "Nightingale"; and Cullen is "Curly." The ever-serious Solas is "Chuckles", the Iron Bull is "Tiny", Dorian is "Sparkler", Cole is "Kid", Blackwall is "Warden" or "Hero", and Sera is "Buttercup." Vivienne comes pre-nicknamed as "Iron Lady". And, like Hawke before them, the Inquisitor doesn't have a nickname beyond simply "Inquisitor," although he may sometimes play with it by calling them "Your Inquisitorialness." He also has a nickname for Bianca's husband: "What's-his-name." In the Descent DLC, he nicknames Lieutenant Renn "Grisly" for his graphic tales of darkspawn-slaying, and Shaper Valta "Scribbles" because she's a scholar.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Dwarven Friendly Sniper author merchant.
• Noodle Incident: Apparently, once he becomes Viscount, he regularly bets public buildings during card games including Wicked Grace.
  • His "promotion" to Viscount is also sort of one as well. Apparently Kirkwall's not having an official viscount got in the way of one of his schemes, and he lodged a complaint with the nobility. Whatever he said, they apparently combined it with the amount of money he had contributed to the restoration of the city, and interpreted it as him volunteering for the position. There's even a Noodle Incident within the Noodle Incident, since exactly what the "scheme" was that he was trying to pull is never explained.
• Odd Friendship: Once again, Varric gets along with just about everyone, including many the player might not expect. Even those that start off tense at first, such as Cassandra, become significantly warmer over the course of the game.
• Oh, Crap!: When he realizes that Bianca met the Grey Warden Corypheus was possessing at the end of Legacy and that's how Corypheus discovered Red Lyrium.
• Oh, No... Not Again!: Almost his exact words at the conclusion of his character trailer, which shows him in the tavern in Haven at the time of the Conclave explosion. He gets to the door, stares up at the Breach, and groans, clearly comparing this new crisis to that in the final act of the previous game. He makes the disgruntled comment, then advances the magazine on Bianca, indicating that he's prepared to do his part to fight the new menace.
• Old Shame: In-Universe, he considers his Swords and Shields romance series the worst thing he's ever written. However, it turns out that Cassandra is a fan of the series and the Inquisitor can convince him to write another book for it on her behalf.
• Platonic Life-Partners: Once again, Varric cannot be romanced by the player character. In this game, however, it's heavily implied that this is at least partly because of his past relationship with another dwarf named Bianca. He still remains this to Hawke as well, being the only person with whom they were in constant contact while they were on the run.
• Precision F-Strike: He may make one if his opinion of the Inquisitor drops low enough that he delivers a "The Reason You Suck" Speech, depending on the player's choices in the conversation.
  Varric: This 'all that matters is the goal, and fuck the consequences' thing of yours? I've seen where that road leads. Anders was the last guy I knew who thought like that, and he was an abomination. What's your excuse?
• Rain of Arrows: Varric's Focus Ability is Hail of Arrows, which allows him to use any archery ability twice simultaneously while it is active. It lives up to its name when combined with Leaping Shot.
• Resignations Not Accepted: Played for Laughs in Trespasser. If the Inquisitor is a Dwarf, Varric mentions that he tried giving them his seat in the Dwarven Merchant's Guild, but "they got so angry about it!" He settles on giving them their own seat, instead.
• Right to Bare Arms: Some of the armor sets are sleeveless on him, revealing a pair of extremely muscular arms.
• Rocks Fall, Everyone Dies: An Easter Egg in the Jaws of Hakkon DLC (see You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!, below) reveals that Hard in Hightown has an alternate banned version in which this is apparently the ending. (Unlike the regular version of the story, this one is not available in the real world.)
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Just like before. He's one of the wealthiest people in the inner circle, possibly even the wealthiest, yet he's down in the muck with everyone else. As of Trespasser, Varric is the new Viscount of Kirkwall, meaning that he's now fully-fledged royalty - but still very hands-on.
• Runaway Bride: Implied to have happened to him. Let's just say we finally find out some of the story behind Bianca.
  Varric: I heard the wedding was lovely. The one she actually showed up for, anyway.
  • Her first appearance, in the comic Until We Sleep, also corroborates this.
• Scarf of Asskicking: One of his outfits features a red one, not unlike Bethany's or Warrior Hawke's.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: In Trespasser, he's not above using his new position as Viscount of Kirkwall to give the Inquisitor a new title and the key to the chains of the city. He thought it was just ornamental, but when Bran explains the real significance, he finds the idea hilarious.
  Varric: What kind of viscount would I be if I didn't abuse my position to give shit to my friends? I've got traditions to uphold!
• Secretly Selfish: Although he genuinely cares about Cole and looks out for him, there are hints that his reasons for wanting Cole to become more human is more about him wanting Cole to transform into someone that he can make better sense of more than anything else, and Varric has shown on more than one occasion to not be the most fond of anything involving the Fade.
  • One of his arguments to make Cole more human is his claim that Cole came into the mortal world so that he could become human, when that couldn't be any further from the truth: Cole entered the mortal world to help the original Cole, not to change his own identity and form, the latter of which he only did when he was unable to save the original Cole in time and so assumed his identity as a form of repentance. On the other hand, Solas — despite clearly preferring the company of spirits to that of humans — correctly surmised the reason why Cole left Fade in the first place.
  • After Cole reassesses his identity as a spirit, when Varric asks Solas about what Cole sounds like now, the latter suddenly appears and narrates Varric's thoughts: "Nonsense words, just like Bartrand at the end." — further hinting at Varric's inability to understand Cole's nature as a spirit of compassion. Then when Cole disappears, Varric despondently laments that Cole could have been more human, to which Solas then gives an Armor-Piercing Question by asking Varric if that would make Cole happier, further hinting that Varric's primary reason for wanting Cole to become a human is for his own benefit rather than for Cole's.
• Self-Proclaimed Liar: He's still this, and quite up front about it if the Inquisitor wants to ask him something personal. "You want to talk about me? I'm flattered. Also inclined toward extravagant lies." Somewhat subverted, since he doesn't really tell any lies this time (at least, not to you); and if he's brought along for The Descent, the one thing he says that sounds like Blatant Lies - telling you about the existence of the Nug King - turns out to be the absolute truth.
• She Is Not My Girlfriend: His (honest) reaction to Dorian asking if there's something between him and Cassandra.
  Varric: Just because two people dislike each other doesn't mean they're about to kiss, Sparkler.
  • However, he makes no such denial concerning Bianca, no matter how much the rest of the party pesters him about it. The Iron Bull even outright calls her that, and he goes with it.
• Sherlock Scan: He gives an impressive one to the player character shortly after they meet. No matter what race (except for elves, who get to talk with Solas instead), gender, or class the Herald is, he always accurately guesses their origins and reason for being at the Conclave.
• So Bad, It's Good: Invoked if the Inquisitor asks him to complete his Swords and Shields series as a gift for Cassandra.
  Varric: You know, the fact that it's so terrible makes it worthwhile.
• Spanner in the Works: Turns out, he actually managed to save the world by releasing Corypheus to perform his own Spanner moment by refusing to die when Solas wanted and instead using the Orb for his own ends. This leads to a series of events that allows for the Inquisition to form, and not only kill Corypheus, but also learn who Solas really is, and begin the process of at least trying to stop him.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: Bianca, as it turns out, is a surface dwarf whose parents arranged for her to marry a smith. She and Varric obviously have a history, and some lingering feelings, but are not allowed to meet.
  Varric: If I came over, your parents would kill me.
  Bianca: Oh, you're just overreacting.
  Varric: You always say that, but they always send assassins.
• Stop Worshipping Me: Inverted. The Inquisitor can ask him to stop revering them as the Herald of Andraste, but Varric brushes them off each time, reminding you what you mean to people and the example you should set. It takes until Trespasser for Varric to start treating you like a person and friend.
• Survivor Guilt: As noted above, he still blames himself if the Deep Roads killed Hawke's sibling.
• Take Care of the Kids: He's on the receiving end of an unusual variant. If Hawke survives the Fade in "Here Lies the Abyss," s/he volunteers to make the trek to Weisshaupt to inform the First Warden of what's been happening. Their parting words to the Inquisitor include a somewhat emotional request: "Take care of Varric for me."
• Team Mom: Most obvious during the Wicked Grace game and in some of Cole's sidequests - just like last time, he's determined to take care of everyone, even if that just means making sure they're taking the time to relax. He'll even talk about it, saying that he's not a great spymaster despite his numerous contacts because he winds up getting too involved and "worrying about their families."
• To Absent Friends: He and the Inquisitor mourn the one who died in the Fade. If the Grey Warden died, Varric says that even though he didn't know him well, he is saddened by his death and notes that these times are not kind to heroes. But if Hawke died, he is devastated. He tries to tell an amusing story about his best friend, a farewell of sorts, but almost breaks down in tears in the middle of it. The Inquisitor can hug him.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Downplayed, as Varric is friendly and gets along with everyone, but during the base game he pointedly refuses to treat the Inquisitor like a regular person or friend, putting them on a pedestal and treating them as The Herald of Andraste. Two years later in Trespasser, he eases up on this significantly, and treats them like a regular friend on whom to lavish expensive gifts and favors.
• Trap Master: Varric's specialization in this game is called Artificer, and it involves using traps, grenades, and other trickery. Combine it with the Sabotage skill tree, and Varric can practically set a minefield of traps around him while he sits back and shoots at the enemy, with anyone trying to get to him having to deal with all the different things he's thrown out to distract them.
• Undying Loyalty:
  • It's revealed that he's known where Hawke has been all along, but did everything he could to hide this in order to protect his closest friend, as he was not sure of what the Inquisition wanted from them, and was just plain trying to keep them as far away from any more danger as possible.
  • He also demonstrates this towards the Inquisitor, as he will never leave the party, exactly like in Dragon Age II.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • Varric is indirectly responsible for majority of the major events that transpired over the course of II and Inquisition. Hawke's sibling getting the taint (if they did), Corypheus being released, Anders getting pushed over the edge and kickstarting the Mage Rebellion, the red lyrium spreading, the Inquisitor getting the rift mark? The origin for all these started with Varric spearheading his Expedition to the Deep Roads, and he feels terrible about it. This is especially true if Hawke is killed as a result of it all.
  • On the bright side, he is also the reason Cassandra and Leliana did not die at the Conclave, since they were delayed interrogating him; since Cullen traveled with them on the same ship, the delay may have saved his life as well.
  • Also on the plus side, Trespasser reveals that, by releasing Corypheus, Varric turns out to be an Unwitting Instigator of World-Saving, since Corypheus ended up inadvertently thwarting Solas's plan to bring about The End of the World as We Know It.
• War Is Hell: The teaser trailer shows a shell-shocked Varric standing over a battleground, filled with bodies.
• Wardrobe Wound: Just like in the last game, depending on the location, Varric may register a complaint about what's happening to his outfit.
• Warrior Poet: In his spare time, Varric is an accomplished poet and author, having reached renown enough for his works to be en vogue in Empress Celene's court. His novel Hard in Hightown is apparently popular enough that it has even generated a pair of Shoddy Knock Off sequels, much to Varric's chagrin. The first is subtitled Siege Harder, which could be seen on Hawke's bookshelf in II, and the second is The Re-Punchening. ("I'll give you a moment to contemplate the horror that is that title.") He wants them destroyed if for no other reason than their horrible titles.
• What, Exactly, Is His Job?: He's the head of his family now, and thus the deshyr of Kirkwall in the Dwarven Merchants' Guild; he's also an accomplished author, and he's still a Knowledge Broker and The Spymaster (although he notes that Leliana is much better at being a spymaster for the Inquisition than he would be, since he worries too much about his informants and their families). His actual purpose within the Inquisition itself, however, is pretty much a mystery to anyone who doesn't know him well. Vivienne even lampshades it, if the Inquisitor asks for her opinion of Varric - she wants to know what role he holds in the organization, apart from "irritating Cassandra".
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • In the game proper, he will eventually call the Inquisitor out if his approval drops too far. He's one of the few companions who will never leave, but he isn't shy about making his annoyances known if they act like a tyrant.
  • He also calls Cassandra out on her anger at him for keeping Hawke's location a secret, pointing out that if she'd gotten her way and Hawke had been at the Conclave, all it would have accomplished would have been to get them killed too.
• Write Who You Know: Varric continues to use this In-Universe, and starts writing a political thriller series that features an evil duchess based on Vivienne as the overarching villain. Notably, Varric does ask Vivienne for permission to base a character on her (if only because he's so scared of her), and Vivienne loves the idea from the get-go and even starts bombarding him with demands for more details in the Party Banter.
  Vivienne: You're not going to describe me in anything less than the latest fashions, are you?
  Varric: I'm... going to spend the next few weeks researching Orlesian gowns, aren't I?
  Vivienne: Yes, my dear. And my mask should be inlaid with opals.
• You Are in Command Now: With his connections, accolades, and accomplishments, Varric is made Viscount of Kirkwall by the nobility in Trespasser.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: He says exactly this in Jaws of Hakkon, when Trader Helsdim recognizes him (from his picture on book covers) and reveals himself to be a major fan.

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Sebastian Vael

Prince Sebastian Vael

Appears in: Dragon Age II | Inquisition^note War table | Knight Errant

Voiced by: Alec Newman (English)^{Foreign VAs}Roland Wolf (German)

"It's odd... when I wanted to rule, I would have been terrible at it. Now that I might be decent, I don't know if it's the right thing to do."

An archer of noble birth and brother of the Chantry, Sebastian is recruited via The Exiled Prince DLC. He joins Hawke in Act 2 after Hawke helps him avenge the death of his family (the rulers of Starkhaven) in Act 1. He becomes torn between his loyalty to the Chantry and his desire to retake Starkhaven. He is a romance option for a female Hawke.

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• Ancestral Weapon: His grandfather's bow, which Hawke can recover for him during one of his quests.
• Badass Normal: All he's got is his bow, and he's effective with it.
• Badass Preacher: One who does a surprisingly small amount of preaching. It gets discussed in Act 3 party banter with Isabela, who expresses surprise that he never tries to lecture her. He replies that straight-up dictating to people rarely works to convert them, and that he prefers to live his faith in order to serve as an example. She says she can respect that.
• Be Careful What You Wish For/Give Me a Sign: At one point, Sebastian prays to the Maker to send him a sign for what to do about his Conflicting Loyalty. Then the Chantry blows up. If Anders is left to live, he leaves the party and declares that he will invade Kirkwall. If Hawke kills Anders, he's still very upset, but not enough to take it out on a whole city. Whether he remains with the Chantry or retakes the throne ultimately depends on whether Hawke has made him a friend or a rival, although the next game reveals that he retakes the throne no matter what.
• Berserk Button: Having his family or surrogate family murdered. Understandably.
• Betty and Veronica: The religious, approachable and safe Betty to any of the other potential love interests.
• Beware the Nice Ones: One of the nicest and most moral characters in the game. This doesn't change the fact that he can use that bow to turn you into a pincushion.
• Big "NO!": He gives a good one if he's in the party when Anders blows up the Chantry. Even parodied.
• Birthday Episode: He features in the spinoff comic Knight Errant, with Varric traveling to Starkhaven to celebrate Sebastian's birthday. Despite how much he annoys Varric in the game, their reunion is extremely cordial.
• Bling of War: Brought up to the extent of a Running Gag. Isabela even uses it as a mirror.
• Brave Scot: Has the accent and the Hot-Bloodedness.
• Break the Haughty: A mild version in his backstory.
• Butt-Monkey: In Inquisition's DLC Trespasser, the new Viscount of Kirkwall, Varric, will ignore his letters in the same way he does with the Dwarven Merchant's Guild. There is a good reason for this if Sebastian tries to annex Kirkwall, but he's pretty much trolling him if he didn't.
• Celibate Hero: He took a vow of celibacy when he joined the Chantry, and won't break it even if romanced. That said, Sebastian is definitely not a virgin.
• The Champion: Following the secret meeting he and Hawke attend with Leliana, he swears himself this for Elthina, stating that if she will not leave Kirkwall for her own safety, then he will make sure she is safe and the dissident forces will have to go through him to get to her. It makes his Big "NO!" at the Chantry explosion all the more poignant, since he was unable to uphold that promise.
• Chastity Couple: If a female Hawke pursues him and is in a friendship with him, they exchange vows (becoming "married in the sight of the Maker") but don't break Sebastian's own vow of celibacy.
• Conflicting Loyalty: He is torn between keeping his vows to the Chantry and his desire to reclaim his family's throne. The player can encourage him either way. No matter what choice he makes in the end, he will decide not to pursue it until the main plot is resolved and Hawke no longer needs his loyalty.
• Corrupt the Cutie: Hawke can push him towards Well-Intentioned Extremism if they're in a rivalry.
• The Ditherer:
  • He spends most of the game in doubt and unable to choose any course of action. Elthina calls him on this when he decides to return to the Chantry and complains when she refuses him, stating that she can't trust he won't leave again on a whim.
  • This also, unfortunately, applies to his Character Development. If you choose to spare Anders near the end of the game, Sebastian dives headfirst back into his start of game mindset and leaves the party swearing revenge on the wrong people, this time the entire city of Kirkwall instead of Anders personally.
• Disproportionate Retribution: If Anders survives Dragon Age II, Sebastian declares war on Kirkwall in Inquisition in hopes of annexing the city-state, even though Anders is not affiliated with Kirkwall and hasn't been there for years.
• Easy Evangelism: Averted. While Sebastian is very dedicated to the Chantry, he doesn't push the other companions to convert. In party banter with Isabela, Sebastian admits that preaching seldom works, and it's better to lead by example.
• Former Teen Rebel: His wild youth embarrassed his family into giving him to the priesthood.
• Freak Out: If Hawke refuses to kill Anders for blowing up the Chantry in the finale, Sebastian flips from a Wide-Eyed Idealist Prince Charming to a Revenge Before Reason Knight Templar.
• The Friend Nobody Likes: No party members besides Anders and Varric dislike Sebastian, but they frequently poke fun at his do-gooder idealism and excessive faith. He is the clear outsider of the group, with Fenris being the only one (besides Hawke, potentially) who actually likes him. (Bethany also likes him, if they meet, but their interactions are extremely limited.)
• Gondor Calls for Aid: He's been traveling to different cities in the Free Marches between Acts 1 and 2, talking to the nobility and trying to gather allies, but his efforts are halted by his own hesitation. He'll run off to try again with much less doubt holding him back if Hawke spares Anders.
• Good Counterpart: To Sister Petrice, in that he represents a side of the Chantry that actually is charitable and compassionate, instead of just self-righteous. If you don't kill Anders in the finale, this all goes out the window.
• Government in Exile: In between acts, Sebastian tries to set up La Résistance so he can regain the throne, but doesn't get far due to his Conflicting Loyalty.
• Happily Married: If Legacy is played after his last "Questioning Beliefs" scene in Act 2, it's revealed that he and a female Hawke who romanced him as a friend tied the knot. And no, she doesn't mind the chastity bit (although if Carver is alive and along for the quest, he's not impressed). He's the only companion Hawke can actually marry before the end of the game.
• Headbutting Heroes: He and Anders do a really good job of getting on each other's bad side. At the end of Act 3, they become Mutually Exclusive Party Members.
• The Hedonist: His past life as prince had him living life decadently, sleeping with noblewomen and getting drunk. His parents made him join the Chantry because of that reputation.
• Hero-Worshipper: He never has anything but praise for the Grey Wardens. He leaps at the chance to help them in Nathaniel's sidequest, and is almost a fanboy in Legacy. He'll even support Janeka's plan to utilise Corypheus using forbidden magic. The only Grey Warden he dislikes is Anders, and even that might have started because Anders left the Wardens and has a dim view of the order.
• Hot-Blooded: Apparent during battle. More seriously, he repeatedly demonstrates that succumbing to Revenge Before Reason is his biggest flaw.
• Hypocrite: After spending most of the game letting go of his bitterness towards his family's deaths and scolding other party members for letting revenge consume them, it goes out the window if Hawke spares Anders. He swears to build up an army and kill everybody in Kirkwall to avenge Elthina, a pacifist who had consistently urged him not to seek revenge. If he is rivals with Hawke he states "the end justifies the means" as his reasoning for starting a war and committing mass murder, apparently not seeing the irony in using the exact same justification and methods as Anders.
• Ignored Epiphany: Over the course of his companion quests, Sebastian comes to learn that his Revenge Before Reason mindset is flawed, growing as a person and even regretting ordering the deaths of an entire mercenary company for doing their jobs instead of seeking out the true culprits. However, all his Character Development gets flushed right down the drain after Anders blows up the Chantry and he'll flat out be right back where he was at the start of the game, baying for the blood of the one who's wronged him and abandoning the party if he doesn't get his way.
• Innocent Blue Eyes: One of the more noble and idealistic party members and his clear blue eyes help paint this image.
• Knight in Shining Armor: He at first appears to be this played straight, but as the game goes on it becomes Deconstructed. His Wide-Eyed Idealism and self-righteousness makes him something of an irritating outsider to the rest of the party, sans Fenris, and can ultimately lead to him abandoning the party over Anders being spared.
• Lack of Empathy:
  • Although Sebastian is nice, virtuous, and has no personal bad feelings against mages, he completely fails to see any problems with the Circle system or any cause for mages to rebel, even considering how bad things get during the course of the game. However, if Sebastian was fully befriended and Anders is executed, he will acknowledge that not every mage is like him and that they should fight for the mages who were treated unjustly at the hands of the Templars. Double Subverted in that he still doesn't get why Anders was pushed to destroy the Chantry.
  • If Hawke allows Gascard to perform a blood magic ritual to find their mother, Sebastian is the only party member who will gain rivalry points. Keep in mind that both Anders and Fenris, who are outspoken against blood magic, will not show any disapproval since they both know how serious the situation is for Hawke.
• Locked Away in a Monastery: His parents gave him to the Chantry to stop him from dragging down their reputation; unusually, he declares it was the best thing that ever happened to him. Supplemental material reveals that Elthina allowed him to leave, and he returned out of a genuine desire for purpose.
• Meaningful Name: In the Catholic Church, Saint Sebastian is a martyred priest and the Patron Saint of archers. Sebastian Vael is a Chantry brother and archer.
• Mutually Exclusive Party Members: After the destruction of the Chantry, if you refuse to execute Anders, he deserts you on the spot.
• Nice Guy: The kindest companion overall. The only exception comes at the end in regards to Anders; however, considering that the man just blew up the chantry with his mother figure Elthina and dozens of his brothers and sisters in faith inside, it's quite understandable. He even observes that the only reason he himself escaped the same fate is because he was with Hawke at the time.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Admits that before he found the Chantry, he used to be just like Isabela.
• Odd Friendship: With Fenris. The two are on the opposite sides of the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism, but they get along really well.
• The Pollyanna: To an extent. When he gets mad, he gets mad. But for the most part, he's optimistic and relatively cheerful, if a bit more mature than this trope usually implies, despite his personal tragedies... which puts him in stark contrast with most of the party. Hilarity Ensues.
  Sebastian: I've never had so many opportunities to help people!
  Varric: ... All right. I thought I was getting tired of moody. I take it back. You're making my teeth ache.
• Princely Young Man: The Prince Charming type, though he was more of a Royal Brat when he was younger.
• Really Gets Around: In his younger years only, obviously.
• Real Men Love Jesus: He's the most devoutly religious companion in the game. He's also a villain's nightmare with the bow.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: In Inquisition, Sebastian is one of the first rulers to offer an alliance to the Inquisition. This is subverted if Anders is alive, as Sebastian eventually demands that the Inquisition honor their alliance by helping him with his pointless war to annex Kirkwall; but it's played straight if Anders is dead, in which case he pleads with the Inquisition to help Kirkwall.
• Redemption Failure: What happens if Hawke lets Anders live, especially if they were on the Friendship route and he'd decided to stay in Kirkwall.
• Religious Bruiser: He's a Chantry Brother but that doesn't stop him from kicking ass.
• The Resenter: He was this toward his brothers for being favored by his parents. After their murder, he worries that he is not completely over this, and that his desire for vengeance is actually a desire to get what his family never let him have.
• Revenge Before Reason:
  • Played with. When Hawke first meets him, he is outraged by his family's murder, but is unable to do anything about it except ask them to kill the mercenaries responsible. After a Time Skip, he's calmed down considerably and is much more hesitant to take vengeance, due to the revelation that the murders were ordered by old friends of his family's and his own worries that he seeks justice for the wrong reasons.
  • Though it happens all over again when the Chantry is destroyed. He will leave the party if Hawke won't kill Anders and swears to bring an army to Kirkwall for the sole purpose of bringing him to "justice." This despite the fact that Anders has no intention of staying in Kirkwall.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: As the youngest son of the Starkhaven royal family, he was supposed to lead the militia (hence his archery training).
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Abandons Hawke and vows revenge if Anders is not executed after destroying the Chantry.
• Sesquipedalian Smith: He has a very long first name and a very short last name (Vael is pronounced like "veil").
• Sheltered Aristocrat: He's only ever lived in the royal court of Starkhaven and the Kirkwall Chantry. Aveline sometimes insinuates that he doesn't really understand how common people live, and views his efforts to gain power and act for the greater good with suspicion (though she's clearly citing Loghain), but how well he fits this trope is a matter of debate.
• Ship Tease:
  • If Sebastian isn't romanced and Bethany is alive, they have some adorable flirty banter. It doesn't really go anywhere, though, because he doesn't become an actual companion until after she's joined the Circle/the Grey Wardens; they therefore only see each other if they're both brought along for either of the DLC campaigns.
  • There's also a bit of teasing between Sebastian and Vaea from the comic book Knight Errant.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: In his Act 2 companion quest, if Hawke doesn't do this to Allure, he will.
• Sickeningly Sweethearts: How Carver reacts to Sebastian's romance with female Hawke, if they're both brought for Legacy. It's especially pronounced if Hawke "friendmances" Sebastian, and Legacy is done after Hawke and Sebastian are married.
• Sixth Ranger: Well, ninth ranger to be exact. He is the only companion to be recruited in Act 2, rather than Act 1, though he is featured beforehand.
• Spare to the Throne: Resented the fact that he's actually the spare to the spare.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: To Alistair, even abandoning the party if the hero refuses to kill someone. He even mentions being a fan of Alistair; depending on the preset or Origins import being used, he can remark that he's been reading about the Fifth Blight and finds King Alistair's story to be particularly inspiring. Unlike Alistair, however, he's nobility that actually wants to remain in the Chantry and isn't afraid of using royal power.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: Pretty much designed that way. Isabela and Bethany have their moments of Eating the Eye Candy.
• Token Good Teammate: Not quite so much as Bethany, but he tries.
• Token Religious Teammate: As a character, he's defined by his piety.
• Toxic Friend Influence: If Sebastian is in a rivalry with Hawke, Grand Cleric Elthina will view their relationship as this, after Sebastian is coaxed into abandoning his vows and retaking Starkhaven.
• The Unfavorite: His using his family's money for his personal pleasure made them send him to the Kirkwall Chantry. His parents also did not want him fathering any illegitimate children who might challenge his brothers' heirs.
  • It's implied that this might have happened anyway, even if he'd been a model prince. A codex entry about the Vael family history (found during the quest "Repentance") says that it's a tradition to dedicate one child in every generation to the Chantry.
• The Unfought: In Inquisition, if Anders is alive and the player decides to side with Aveline. Since the quest is a War Table operation, the player never actually fights Sebastian himself, only being told of the battle and its aftermath from Cullen's report.
• Vow of Celibacy: Religious, due to his Chantry affiliation. Isabela teases him about it, and so can a female Hawke.
• We Used to Be Friends: He and Aveline are friendly, but if Hawke spares Anders, they fight a war over the city of Kirkwall.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: His parents were "rather traditional," and the relative of whom he speaks most fondly is his grandfather.
  Sebastian: I wish my parents could see me now. They always said I had "no sense of the dignity of my station." A disgrace to the Vael name. Now, here I am, traipsing around the Deep Roads like a common soldier ...
  Hawke: If you could bring your family back from the dead, that's what you'd want? For them to be disappointed in you?
  Sebastian: How else would I know it's really them?
• Well-Intentioned Extremist: He claims to be one, but clearly lacks the ruthlessness required to fit the trope. His rivalry path involves turning him into a real one. He also becomes one if Hawke chooses not to kill Anders.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: Played cheerfully straight, much in the same manner as Leliana. He's relatively idealistic in a cynical story, but doesn't usually come off as particularly naïve or foolish, nor does the story go out of the way to break him (at least, no more than it does anyone else). The rest of the party seems unsure of how to respond to this.
  Anders: How can you have so much faith? Does nothing bother you?
• You Killed My Family: When he's first introduced, he's looking for the mercenaries who murdered his family (and in a later quest, the person who hired them). Bookended when Anders blows up the Chantry, killing everyone inside, including Sebastian's surrogate mother Elthina. If the player decides to let Anders live, Sebastian leaves the party and swears revenge.

Tallis

Tallis

Appears in: Redemption | Dragon Age II - Mark of the Assassin

Voiced by and modeled after: Felicia Day

"You go elbow-deep in wyvern shit and I'M the weird one?"

An elven thief who teams up with Hawke in Mark of the Assassin to steal a gem called the Heart of the Many from Duke Prosper.

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• Anti-Magic: Her Cloak ability gives her temporary resistance to magic. The rest of her personal skill tree works on anything, but is especially effective against mages. It's revealed she's an agent of the Qun.
• The Bad Guy Wins: While calling her a villain might be a bit of an exaggeration (even if the Qunari are definitely not nice), Mark of the Assassin ends with her succeeding in her objectives regardless of your actions.
• Blaming the Victim: If the DLC is completed after Act II, Hawke criticizes her revelation as a Qunari agent by bringing up the Arishok's wonton slaughter of innocent people. She returns by stating that Hawke simply doesn't understand the Qun and can't blame him for not doing so after witnessing the Arishok's actions, placing the blame on Hawke for not looking beyond the fact that the Arishok slaughtered countless people for his own failures.
• Can't Argue with Elves: Well, Qunari, but she's an elf too. Almost all of Tallis' dialogue about the Qun veers into this territory. Anyone who raises a critique, such as the treatment of the Saarebas mages, Tallis simply ignores it. Whereas if Hawke brings up the Arishok's slaughtering the city in Act II, she treats it as Hawke not being able to understand the Qun after watching the carnage. Both Hawke and the companions notice.
• Cuteness Proximity: No one can resist mabari. "Who's a cute puppy? I suppose we can't keep him, can we? His owner is probably waiting back at camp."
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: It's strongly implied that she's only following the Qun to give herself a role rather than actually believing in it. The entire quest is her going directly against the Qun, using Exact Words to justify herself. She pokes holes in her own arguments before Hawke does, and outright admits that she struggles to believe as strongly as is required; every one of Hawke's companions calls her on this. Even her signature phrase, "The same path doesn't have to have the same destination," flies in the face of the finality every other Qunari has expressed throughout the game.
• Dual Wielding: Though she's more of a distance fighter.
• Enemy Mine: As a follower of the Qun, working with Hawke and their companions counts as this. After her identity is revealed, they're more antagonistic towards her, particularly Anders and Fenris; Bethany is also less than thrilled, though she takes it mostly in stride, while Isabela just observes the irony of her situation. Hawke seems less angry about the Qunari revelation, and more about the fact that she lied to them.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": She is known as Tallis because that is her role in Qunari society; Tallis is the Qunlat word for "to solve". Like them, she doesn't actually have a name.
• Extra Digits: She says she has six toes on her left foot, although this is an Informed Attribute since we never see it.
• Flechette Storm: She can use her daggers for both melee and ranged attacks.
• Girl of the Week: If the player does all the flirtation options, then Tallis becomes this to Hawke; as Varric notes to Cassandra afterward, neither he nor Hawke have seen or heard from her since. His banter in Inquisition implies that this is still true.
• Gosh Darn It to Heck!: During Aveline's sidequest, when Aveline finds the black vial that has the revenant inside: "Oh crackers."
• Gray-and-Gray Morality: In discussion about the Qun; where Hawke sees an oppressive society where Individuality Is Illegal, Tallis sees one where everyone's needs are met, and all members have equal value. Hawke can admit she has a point. Alternatively, he can say she doesn't, and the Qun is little more than excuse to slaughter people who disagree.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Only available for the Mark of the Assassin DLC. Also a literal "guest star," given who voiced/modeled her.
• Hero of Another Story: She's the protagonist of Dragon Age: Redemption.
• Highly-Conspicuous Uniform: The revelation that Tallis is really Qunari would have come as more of a shock if she didn't have their sigil stamped on the stomach of her armor. It's the same color and material as the rest of her outfit, but still, it's there. Also, when she 'disguises' herself to sneak up on the Duke and his men, it's... rather remarkable that she succeeds.
• Hitman with a Heart: Despite being a highly skilled assassin, she regrets having to kill people during a job if she can at all help it.
• Hypocrite: For how preachy she is about the Qun, Tallis breaks almost every regulation it has on a regular basis.
• Ink-Suit Actor: She's modeled after Felicia Day. Of course, since Day also played her in the live action Dragon Age: Redemption, it would be bizarre if this wasn't the case. Day also did the motion capture for Tallis.
• It's Quiet… Too Quiet: During the wyvern hunt.
  Tallis: Wait, what happened to all the birds? And... everything? ...uh-oh.
• Koan: Does manage to give one of these, when questioned about freedom.
  Tallis: Is a sparrow buffeted by the wind free to choose where she flies?
• Karma Houdini: As mentioned above in The Bad Guy Wins, Hawke has no option but to help Tallis with her objective, which is stealing back a list of Qunari spies across Thedas, and is unable to prevent her from leaving with it to preserve their identities. While Hawke is allowed to disagree with the Qun and openly call them butchers, that's the extent of the criticism allowed.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Implied to be the reason why she chose to seek out Hawke.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Tallis being a member of the Qunari might be a shocker if one doesn't know of Dragon Age Redemption, which spoils her affiliation in the opening minutes.
• Made a Slave: Conversations with Fenris and Sebastian mention she grew up in Tevinter and was once a slave. Redemption reveals her parents sold her into it. The Qunari rescued her.
• My Species Doth Protest Too Much: In conversation, she downplays it: She thinks the Qun is the best path for Thedas, but she admits it could do the job better, in a "nobody's perfect" sort of way. However, through her actions, she clearly has serious issues with her duties and openly defies her superiors (something the Qun does not tolerate) with very thin Exact Words being her only excuse.
• Noble Demon: Sure, she's a very pleasant young woman; but her entire mission, which she wholeheartedly supports, is to retrieve a NOC list of Qunari sleeper agents in Chantry territory so that the land will be observed and more easily conquered when the eventual new invasion happens.
• Non-Standard Character Design: Due to being an Ink-Suit Actor, she looks quite different from other elves in the game.
• Noodle Incident: Should you encounter Leliana, Tallis suddenly seems to be afraid that the other redhead is going to filet her alive. Sure, Leliana is a Chantry enforcer and Tallis is basically trying to help the Qunari invade, but it's pretty clear the two have a history. Leliana seems just as astonished to see Tallis, if less alarmed.
• Odd Friendship: With Hawke, particularly a mage Hawke, since Tallis is a member of the Qunari, freely admits that she's not a fan of magic, and largely agrees with their philosophy that mages should be be locked up for their own good (and bluntly agrees with the Qunari principle of what happens to mages). Despite this, if Hawke has become basilit'an, she has no problem with them and states that all Qunari know and respect them as an equal.
• Overt Operative: Wears the same armor with the Qun symbol as she and Hawke are meeting the Duke!
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Has a Qunari emblem on her armor.
• Professional Killer: One part of her job. The Ben-Hassrath are considered enforcers of religious law rather than soldiers - their job sometimes involves killing, but it can also be espionage or teaching new converts.
  Tallis: There are other paths. They do not all lead to the same destination.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder: When she suggests that under the Qun, Hawke could have a purpose.
  Hawke: I have a purpose. I protect Kirkwall.
  • Which makes her subsequent comment that this was not what she meant a tad ironic, since she's failed to realise that by fully embracing the role that they have been given, Hawke actually is living by one of the central tenets of the Qun, at least in their own way. Even the Arishok can point this out in conversation.
• The Schlub Pub Seduction Deduction: Parodied. There's a Running Gag where she attempts this with multiple people in order to get a key, and keeps failing for various reasons. ^note The first two didn't have the key, and the third simply wasn't into her. According to her, she's done this multiple times in the past, and Hawke just caught her on a bad day.
• Secret Police: Her previous job before she was kicked out. She's trying to rejoin.
• Selective Obliviousness: When confronted over the more murkier aspects of the Qun, she simply comments that they don't understand. She even states emphatically that submitting to the Qun would not make them slaves... to Mage Hawke, who would be made a slave under the Qun. She also tells Anders essentially that she knows how saarebas are treated, doesn't care, and wishes he would shut up about it.
  Anders: But you think it's all right for them to sew up a mage's mouth or cut out his tongue?
  Tallis: Right this second I do, yes.
• Snark-to-Snark Combat: Her banter with Snarky Hawke, which seemingly turns into a verbal sparring match over who can outsnark the other. Most of her her dialogue with the rest of the party tends to veer into this territory.
• Spirited Competitor: She dislikes collateral damage, but gets rather enthusiastic during the wyvern hunt. She seems unimpressed if Hawke doesn't care about getting a big one, but if they do...
  Hawke: Lay [the bait] all out. I'm bringing the Duke a trophy to talk about.
  Tallis: YES! I mean, if you're sure.
• Tomboyish Ponytail: Befitting an Action Girl. If Hawke and Tallis speak to Leliana at the party, she compliments Tallis on it, saying, "Your hair is darling. Did you do it yourself?"
• Turn in Your Badge: Part of her backstory is that she was kicked out of the Ben-Hassrath, the religious enforcers of the Qunari. She's trying to atone for this and rejoin them.
• Unresolved Sexual Tension: Several lines of dialogue indicate that she develops this with Hawke, even if you don't use the flirt options.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: Her ultimate fate beyond the conclusion of the DLC remains unknown. It gets a little confusing in the next game, when a Tallis ends up helping the Inquisition through war table missions; Tallis is a title, not a name, so it may not specifically refer to her, and given what we know it could be anything from Enemy Mine to Legacy Character. This gets lampshaded at one point when Varric asks after her, but Iron Bull has never met her.
• Wide-Eyed Idealist: She strongly dislikes unnecessary killing and genuinely believes that the Qun is the best path for Thedas. Her idealism also seems to have colored her view to such a degree that it's clear she doesn't actually understand the Qunari philosophy at all, to the point you start to suspect it's part of why they kicked her out.
• Worthy Opponent: If Hawke has become basilit'an, Tallis mentions that because they defeated the Arishok in honorable single-combat, all Qunari have come to know and respect Hawke as an equal. This makes them one of the rare outsiders that they can trust to ask for assistance or deal with them fairly in a parley. It's implied to be the reason she sought them out.

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