Dragon Age

You know, is that even explicitly stated? Honest question because when I was leading up to Branka there was stuff about the cannibalism but no particular mention of rape that I can recall offhand.

It's based on what Hespith says:

Fifth day, they return and it's another girl's turn. Sixth day, her screams we hear in our dreams. Seventh day, she grew as in her mouth they spew. Eighth day, we hated as she is violated.

But I don't think it's explicitly stated.

Edited by deludedmusings on Jun 15th 2019 at 9:20:10 PM

It's in no way explicitly stated, but oh boy does everything in that level implicitly tell me that. The Broodmothers are always female while the men are explicitly eaten instead of the women. The women are locked away and 'wait for their fate' until the next day when it's 'another girl's turn'. The victim is screaming 'in their dreams' and the act is described as "she grew as in her mouth they spew" and "we hated as she is violated".

They don't say it but the word choices of 'in her mouth', 'spew', 'violated' feel... pretty indicative. And then there's the EXPLICITLY sexual design of the Broodmother with tentacles and nudity. Like, None of the other Darkspawn have genitalia but the Broodmother has naked breasts and a mouth that is clearly shaped like a vagina... Also, it's called a 'Broodmother'. It's whole existence is to sit there and release more baby Darkspawn on the world that it is mother to.

The uncomfortable sexual tone of the Broodmother is TOTALLY intentional. It's done that way for a reason. They want you to be uncomfortable. There is no way they 'accidentally' did it that way, as comforting as it might be to think otherwise.

Let us also note that they do have publishing execs and rating groups they need to tone down their games around. There are lists of levels and story beats from other games that had to be toned down because it was too much. G La DOS' backstory in Portal 2 comes to mind. I can almost assure you that this is probably not their original vision and more or less toned down to what they felt 'comfortable' publishing.

Edited by InkDagger on Jun 15th 2019 at 4:27:28 AM

I give props to the fact that Dragon Age showed a racially segregated society, ghetto, and other things from Medieval life you don't normally see in Tolkien-inspired games.

I kinda thought they were going for same thing as aliens from the Alien <_< Aka the whole parasitic "Well its not technically sexual assault, but its metaphor for that"

Honestly, this one feels like dancing around outright saying it to build suspense and horror. There's too much explicit image in the word choice and visuals for it to be a 'metaphor'.

And, even if it was, I do still consider Alien to be sexual assault since that's the anxiety the horror is expressing in the first place, metaphor or no.

"Fifth day, they return and it's another girl's turn. Sixth day, her screams we hear in our dreams. Seventh day, she grew as in her mouth they spew. Eighth day, we hated as she is violated."

I would argue that's exactly explicitly stated.

If the veil around that euphemism were any thinner, demons would start crawling out of it and possessing people.

Regarding the Black-and-Gray Morality discussion, I would say unambiguously that Origins was Black-and-Gray Morality.

The Black side is the Blight. A force of pure evil is descending upon the land, which creates the impetus for all the complex Gray characters to enter into conflict with one another. None of the events that transpire in Origins would have taken place were it not for the ravenous horde of murder-zombies powered by pure evil and commanded by a corrupted god.

At the end of the day, most of the conflict between the Gray sides in Origins boils down to violently hashing out a) whether a Blight is even occurring and b) how best to deal with it. As Morrigan puts it, everyone seems to have decided that a Blight is the perfect time to murder each other.

What Origins doesn't have is a pristine White side. Some characters are more sympathetic than others but the closest thing to full-on heroes would be the Grey Wardens, a faction with its own problematic history and methodology. I really appreciate II and Inquisition giving us a glimpse into what the Wardens look like when you're not playing as one.

"We reserve the right to break all of your laws constantly and overrule your judiciary system whenever we see fit. In return, we vow to stand by and let your nations and cities burn whenever there is a crisis not related to the Blight. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got a date with some maleficars who are advising me on this super-illegal demon experiment. Don't try to stop me! We're outside your jurisdiction."

The kind of people you really want to have around when the Blight rolls in, but may have a hard time tolerating during the Darkspawn's downtime.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Jun 17th 2019 at 12:02:55 PM

And that's just the stuff outsiders can observe. The Wardens have much darker secrets such as what exactly makes them the only ones who can slay Archdemons. There's a reason they don't tell recruits what they're actually signing on for until it's too late. If they were honest about what being a Warden means, no one would ever join.

Dragon Age II also gave us a glimpse into what life is like for Wardens when a Blight isn't happening. Turns out it kind of sucks — you spend your time regularly going into the Deep Roads to try and keep Darkspawn numbers down. Bethany in particular seems to dislike it, though Carver at least manages to find it fulfilling.

Even during a Blight, the Wardens don't get a break. They have to constantly be on patrol looking out for signs of Darkspawn activity. Especially anything that could indicate a Blight.

Edited by M84 on Jun 18th 2019 at 5:08:15 PM

The Gray Warden's morally ambiguous side is almost entirely absent in Origins. Even Sophia Dryden doesn't count because she was breaking orders.

I’d say it’s there, but it depends on player choice more than anything.

Also, the bit where Duncan straight up murders a dude.

The Grey Wardens antihero side doesn't show up at all except for the fact they freely use blood magic, murder people to keep their secrets, and protect anyone they feel could be useful to them.

Also, Sophia Dryden was a hero against an evil tyrant.

She was just blackened by history.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Jun 18th 2019 at 9:39:08 AM

The Grey Wardens' ambiguous side can be entirely and safely ignored in Origins — no one's forcing you to be an asshole in that game and you get a lot of the better endings by emphatically not playing that line of characterization straight. It's kind of hard to take the extolling of pragmatism seriously when the game taking place when all of that behavior would be considered justified, necessary, or even heroic, rewards the rejection of that kind of worldview, and the other two games portray the Wardens as either indolent or a liability.

Tying this into the broader discussion, there's still a wide gulf between the stated authorial intent and the actual presentation with respect to DAO the Dark Fantasy. It almost comes off as a meme nowadays, since it's been repeated so often unquestioningly that upon closer examination, you see a disconnect.

Edited by CrimsonZephyr on Jun 18th 2019 at 1:49:26 PM

The Wardens in Origins are in the one specific situation that all their morally questionable elements are meant to serve. "Whatever means necessary to combat the Blight" means more when there is, in fact, an active Blight going on.

That's true, and they can pretty much all be safely ignored in DAO. You can be the picture of a Knight in Shining Armor and get the Golden Ending.

The morally grey or compromised aspects of the Grey Wardens' lore simply don't matter. Even uncomfortable moments like Duncan killing Jory are safely ignored by the latter being a total craven at the moment of his death. The grey morality of the Wardens has no teeth.

Edited by CrimsonZephyr on Jun 18th 2019 at 3:01:49 PM

That's only the case if you choose not to be a total douchebag. Part of this is that you are the storyteller and if you want to be the guy who is a complete asshole then it falls to you to do so.

I'd argue it's a smarter developmental decision that the Wardens feel pretty safely 'light' in the morality scale of Origins. Since you already are one and probably a little paranoid about who you're trusting or just how awful the people around you are, being able to trust Alistair and Duncan for the most part is a lot more helpful. This isn't a game to be self-doubting if you're the hero TOO much.

It would also ruin other moments later, like when Riordan shows up. That moment should be full of RELIEF and we want to like Riordan and feel like 'Finally, there's an adult here who can lead us to safety because we don't know what we're doing!". Introducing that doubt about Wardens too much and the player could feel hostile or doubtful of Riordan's intentions and a lot of the emotional climax falls apart.

It also feels interesting that we feel 'Grey Wardens = Good' going into the rest of the series and that opinion gets changed as we progress through DA 2 and Inquisition. A player opinion being challenged and changing as a result is good development. It wouldn't hit if, well, we though all Wardens were bastards and awful from day one.

Also, as Duncan said, Jory drew his blade. Duncan chalks it up to self-defense in the end.

Origins and Inquisition hinted that the Wardens might be incredibly short-sighted in killing the Archdemons. The reason Flemeth sent Morrigan with you is to preserve Urthemiel. Solas hates them. Granted, in the middle of the Blight, you have very little choice - but the Wardens have decades and centuries between Blights. And they never seem to stop and think "hey, maybe Tainting ourselves and killing gods isn't the best idea? Now that there isn't a Blight, let's learn more about it." They don't seem to care about what an Old God is aside from "evil intelligent dragon that we need to kill."

Edited by SilentColossus on Jun 18th 2019 at 12:48:53 PM

And what information they do gather is all refracted through that lens, as we see in Legacy and with the Wardens in Inquisition. Granted, the world coming within a hair's breadth of ending during the First Blight is a better reason for a Dark Age than some, but ideally yes, someone's got to break that pattern.

Yeeeeah...most of the darker decisions in Origins don't really tie into the questionable morality of the order.

The only ones that might are keeping the Anvil or killing the Dalish, since those choices can have pragmatic application for the Wardens: "golems and werewolves will make for devastating weapons against the darkspawn and that takes priority over the danger they pose." Or minor choices, such as stealing merchants' things by justifying it as necessary against the Blight.

There's no reason a Grey Warden would destroy Andraste's ashes, given how valuable a tool they are. It can be justified by personal reasons, such as a Dalish Warden being resentful of the Chantry, but it has no pragmatic application against the Blight.

You are never given a choice where you have to, say, put a village to the torch or let it fall to darkspawn.

Edited by lu127 on Jun 18th 2019 at 9:54:39 AM

Well, I mean... in theory that's what Redcliffe exactly is supposed to be, but there's no incentive whatsoever to not helping them fight, just like there's no actual consequences to stopping in the middle of Connor's exorcism to go to the Circle. The game plays it up like there will be, but yes, as noted, there's no teeth to any of the decisions.

The reason to destroy the Urn of Sacred Ashes is that you get Berserker powers for it.

Also, they're not valuable beyond how they help you stop the Blight.

Well, they're of enormous cultural value in a deeply religious time and place. For a choice that's portrayed as pretty momentous in-game, it's kind of simplistic at the same time.

Edited by Unsung on Jun 19th 2019 at 11:06:05 AM

A...panacea that heals literally anything is somehow not useful to guys who may get killed any minute? Of which there are only 2? News to me.

But you don't know you are getting Berserker powers. The crazy cultist just vaguely promises you the same power as them...after you've cut them down like cake. And Reaver sucks in Origins.

Not if it requires a war to wipe out an existing organization to do it.

And the panacea isn't useful beyond healing the Arl to stopping the Blight.