There's no need to give one to any character.
Fiction is full of badasses.
But often as not, fiction treats badasses as people who apparently spring from the ground fully formed and fully skilled. Characters who came out of the womb knowing how to beat down the bad guys. Who are badasses through sheer awesomeness. Particularly female characters.
It trivializes the qualities from which those skills flow from: courage, willpower, and discipline.
Oh, one last Mass Effect post. Forgive me, but it's too central to the topic to ignore.
If you notice, the male characters don't have a reason to be 'warriors.' They don't have a justification. They just are because they are. Zaeed, Jacob, James, Wrex, Garrus. They're men and they know how to fight. There's no further reason needed.
But look at the female companions. They know how to fight because there was a strong reason they had to know.
Ashley - warrior because she has a very heavy family history in the military
Miranda - not her choice, warrior because she was trained to be perfect
Jack - not her choice, warrior because she was built as a test case for human biotic potential
Samara - warrior because she decided to hunt her daughter.
Liara - probably not a warrior until she met and was trained by Shepard.
Tali - the same, probably not a warrior until she met and was trained by Shepard.
How many people noticed that?
I sure noticed. And I approve.
But once again. I've never seen any complaints about that.
Garrus - followed in his father's footsteps to become a C-Sec officer
Kaidan - Kaidan was born in 2151 into a family already familiar with space: his father served in the Alliance military. What surprise father.
Wrex- Do I need to say something? He Krogan how many Krogan scientist you know?
Joker- Spent his early life on Arcturus Station because of his mother's job there as a civilian contractor, and grew up around ships. When he was old enough to enlist, he joined the Alliance Navy.
Jacob I don't even care. Dos some one even like him? Probably father we have quest in ME
James Vega - My muscles still not big enough. And his childhood was bad. working for drug dealers.
So long story short daddy issues.
Fiction is full of badasses.
But often as not, fiction treats badasses as people who apparently spring from the ground fully formed and fully skilled. Characters who came out of the womb knowing how to beat down the bad guys. Who are badasses through sheer awesomeness. Particularly female characters.
It trivializes the qualities from which those skills flow from: courage, willpower, and discipline.
I'm not sure where you're going with this.
Having women that happen to be skilled fighters without having elaborate (or even any) explanation for why they are skilled fighters trivializes the qualities of courage, willpower, and discipline?
Fiction is full of badasses.
But often as not, fiction treats badasses as people who apparently spring from the ground fully formed and fully skilled. Characters who came out of the womb knowing how to beat down the bad guys. Who are badasses through sheer awesomeness. Particularly female characters.
It trivializes the qualities from which those skills flow from: courage, willpower, and discipline.
Okay, I'll bite. So if this is the case, then I would argue (as I already would, regardless) that male characters also need to be given the treatment of having a background of some sort told as to why they are the mighty badass pinnacles of badassery that they are.
This is an issue that I've heard of, and known of, and been thinking about recently. But I've not posted on it because lately the thread has gone into topics I don't really want to dive into, and topics I DO want to discuss but they were pages back and thus irrelevant to the current conversation.
If there's no reasonably simple way they could have picked up the skills. If they have a personality that doesn't really reflect the serious challenges of learning combat or the mindset of someone who would go into it.
And...women are less likely to have this mindset? 
So...creators just throw women warriors and heroes into things, not explaining their backstory, because if their backstory was explained, it wouldn't line up with someone who had these virtues???
If I'm even remotely on the right track, and I might not be b/c its late, but...earlier in our discussion of this I linked to a REALLY good article about this. It was all about how women characters actually do have to have things done to them for them to be justified as a hero. The most recent example being the Tomb Raider reboot. The trailer at E3 shows Lara still struggling with what happened during the first game. She couldn't just pop into the gaming world a total badass, unlike say, Nathan Drake.
And...women are less likely to have this mindset?
Well...yeah.
Well...yeah.
Are you trolling? If not, could you explain?
Women, on the whole, are less likely than men, on the whole, to go into activities that are high risk or aggressive. Such as learning combat. I would absolutely say women are less likely to have the necessary mindset.
Fiction is full of badasses.
But often as not, fiction treats badasses as people who apparently spring from the ground fully formed and fully skilled. Characters who came out of the womb knowing how to beat down the bad guys. Who are badasses through sheer awesomeness. Particularly female characters.
It trivializes the qualities from which those skills flow from: courage, willpower, and discipline.
If there's no reasonably simple way they could have picked up the skills. If they have a personality that doesn't really reflect the serious challenges of learning combat or the mindset of someone who would go into it.
Well...yeah.
So...those qualities...courage, willpower, disciple...women are less likely to have those traits? Protagonists need to have these traits and they need to have a backstory that explains these traits, otherwise the character is shallow/trivializes ...badassery? And women are less likely to have the traits or have a backstory where they could reasonably acquire said traits?
Women, on the whole, are less likely than men, on the whole, to go into activities that are high risk or aggressive. Such as learning combat. I would absolutely say women are less likely to have the necessary mindset.
Oh, you posted while I was replying. Um...there are sooooooooo many social factors and ways women are socially conditioned against stuff like this. Like there are entire journals, novels, essays...hell there are people who have spent their entire life using science to prove why and how this isn't true. I wouldn't say it has anything to do with predisposition at all. Additionally, there are many many men who aren't aggressive or into anything high risk, yet they aren't seen as evidence that men don't like high risk or aggressive activities.
I don't really know.
It could just be that men are dumber and more likely to ignore legitimate risk. Could be that men generally find aggressive activities such as combat more satisfying.
Are you trolling? If not, could you explain?
At this point I'm putting this guy on ignore. All he wants to do is argue; there is no point to discussing anything with him as he will always support the status quo.
Well...yeah.
THe only reason women are less likely to engage in combat is that most women are taught not to do such things from birth. But there are still plenty of women who would. It is also true that by and large most men do not put themselves into combat/action hero situations. Why then are men special in not needing any explanation for doing so when it's actually quite rare for them to do so, on the whole? And why do women need any more explanation when it is in fact exceptional men who become badasses (most men do not enlist as soldiers, police officers, or firefighters, etc.)?
Recent evidence, in fact, suggests you are very wrong indeed: Recent archaeological digs suggest that almost half, if not actually half, of Viking warrior tombs... contained female warriors. That sort of thing doesn't just go away, even now. And no, arguments that it was only the Vikings who did this will not fly, since it happened in many, many cultures over the millennia. I doubt these Viking warriors felt any need or desire to explain why they chose the lifestyle of the blade over that of the hearth. It was simply who they were.
Women, on the whole, are less likely than men, on the whole, to go into activities that are high risk or aggressive. Such as learning combat. I would absolutely say women are less likely to have the necessary mindset.
I have no idea how this thread ended up here, as I have not read the last few pages, but ...
In our universe this may be true, because women are far less likely to be socialised that way. (And, in fact, often receive disapproval for behaving aggressively or taking risks.)
What the hell does that have to do with life in Thedas, though, where the warrior-prophet was a woman?
I don't really know.
It could just be that men are dumber and more likely to ignore legitimate risk. Could be that men generally find aggressive activities such as combat more satisfying.
I don't agree with that assessment either. Thats obviously not the case, since ones genitals have very little influence on ones scholastic aptitude. Again, you're seeing the results of social conditioning, the idea of 'man up' 
, and the reinforcement of masculinity as dealing with ones feelings through violence (b/c words are for sissys 
) etc etc.
What the hell does that have to do with life in Thedas, though, where the warrior-prophet was a woman?
Because players don't intuitively recognize people in Thedas as different from regular humans. Because sometimes people want to tell stories that aren't based in a different universe.
Gender roles are mostly societal constructs. I dare say at the risk of getting swarmed by the women, that there is a very weak biological argument for a disposition against risk in the Female's of our species. The long gestation period, low "litter" count (almost always one), and high infant mortality rate would make the female averse to risk, and prone to the duties of reproduction. Since the male's part in the ordeal of species propagation is about two minutes long* we tend to be biologically "Expendable" in a way that females aren't.
Of course, if you want my opinion, we tossed out biological standards around the time of the Agricultural revolution. (IE: The birth of civilization)
*Your results may vary.
Because players don't intuitively recognize people in Thedas as different from regular humans. Because sometimes people want to tell stories that aren't based in a different universe.
I think your position is fundamentally antiquated and the assumptions you believe of people are increasingly less common. Because sometimes people just want to tell stories where the bogus gender expectations aren't a reality.
In any case, discussion like this isn't relevant in a thread that is effectively designed to encourage and support this. Telling the women in this thread how women think and behave isn't productive and the tangent stops now.
Further discussion along this lines will be removed.
Gender roles are mostly societal constructs. I dare say at the risk of getting swarmed by the women, that there is a very weak biological argument for a disposition against risk in the Female's of our species. The long gestation period, low "litter" count (almost always one), and high infant mortality rate would make the female averse to risk, and prone to the duties of reproduction. Since the male's part in the ordeal of species propagation is about two minutes long* we tend to be biologically "Expendable" in a way that females aren't.
I understand where you're coming from, but I think it is obsolete, especially in Western World where women have autonomy over their reproductive rights. Many choose to not have kids and our population isn't particularly threatened with minimal enough risks, that it doesn't apply anymore (unlike something like the 30 years war). Situation may change depending on circumstance, but that bridge gets crossed when it gets there.
So about the female PC anyone worried that we might get some head shaking dialog if you choose the female gender again like in DAO? Or wondering that your gender may make it harder or easier to talk to certain characters for information , open up a new area, etc?
I think your position is fundamentally antiquated and the assumptions you believe of people are increasingly less common. Because sometimes people just want to tell stories where the bogus gender expectations aren't a reality.
In any case, discussion like this isn't relevant in a thread that is effectively designed to encourage and support this. Telling the women in this thread how women think and behave isn't productive and the tangent stops now.
Further discussion along this lines will be removed.
I understand where you're coming from, but I think it is obsolete, especially in Western World where women have autonomy over their reproductive rights. Many choose to not have kids because our population is at a level, with minimal enough risks, that it doesn't apply anymore (unlike something like the 30 years war). Situation may change depending on circumstance, but that bridge gets crossed when it gets there.
Thanks Allen. I think, a few pages back, I'd have made the same point about certain people proclaiming loudly how women think, when they weren't women and were ignoring what actual women had said about a topic. But it was a few pages back, and not relevant to the ongoing discussion, so I let it drop.
It is not okay to tell members of a group how they think, when you don't know how they think, and when every individual member of that group has their own patterns of thinking and any one of them or even all of them might not think the same way as what is considered normal. And I'm very glad that you can see that.
At this point I'm putting this guy on ignore. All he wants to do is argue; there is no point to discussing anything with him as he will always support the status quo.
You know what, you're right. I certainly don't need to hear yet another person imply that I'm an anomaly for having served in combat. There have been thousands- thousands!- of women in the U.S. alone who've earned CAB's (5567, to be exact). The fact that its not as high a number as the male equivalent has far more to with the societal restrictions than anything else- you know what? Nope. Not engaging any more.
So about the female PC anyone worried that we might get some head shaking dialog if you choose the female gender again like in DAO? Or wondering that your gender may make it harder or easier to talk to certain characters for information , open up a new area, etc?
I would much rather have everyone flipping out that a Qunari is leading the Inquisition. 
(Especially since I want her to then haveta explain, no I'm not technically a Qunari, I am not a follower of the Qun etc). My first time through will be female Qunari warrior, but later I'll have a mage. I expect alllll sorts of hacov and panic from NPCs when she is in charge. 
So about the female PC anyone worried that we might get some head shaking dialog if you choose the female gender again like in DAO? Or wondering that if your gender may make it harder or easier to talk to certain characters for information , open up a new area, etc?
I don't know how gender will be handled in DA:I but I do remember from previews I read before DA:O that women were going to be intentionally marginalized in that game, so that if you were a female elf mage (my first choice specifically for this reason) you'd be the lowest of the low, and then you could prove via the events in-game that you were better than that. And part of the reason that this was done was not to be sexist but to explore how crappy sexism is (along with racism and other forms of bigotry), so I found myself intrigued.
With the recent attempts at being more inclusive and open-minded, and the acknowledgement that Thedas isn't Earth and doesn't need to share the same sordid social history, however, it might be that women are more equal in game than they were in the previous games. I do know it was noted as being unusual for women to enter the military forces/knighthood, but not unheard of--in both the books and in DAO.
I do want to see gender factor into interactions, but I do not want any more self-disparaging sexist comments from my protagonist as in DA:O. If sexism occurs, I want to be able to deal with it somehow in-game, and not just have that "dealing with" only affect my Inquisitor, but also help other women. Maybe, like in The Banner Saga, turn village homemakers into extra fighters--maybe not the most skilled, but by adding sheer numbers you add to the overall might of your forces (and the villages' defenses). And I'm not really okay with skeevy sexually harrassing comments like we've gotten in the past from certain individual characters (i.e. Harkin in Mass Effect), unless men get an equivalent of this. It's hard for that to happen since men usually just get standard insults, but women get sexual harrassment... So I'd rather they both be insulted, or both be harrassed. If that makes sense. It's late, I'm tired.
So about the female PC anyone worried that we might get some head shaking dialog if you choose the female gender again like in DAO? Or wondering that your gender may make it harder or easier to talk to certain characters for information , open up a new area, etc?
It may have been in this thread but somewhere I read a really good idea where your gender might influence NPC interactions in very specific, personalized kind of examples. For instance your female PC might have trouble convincing a guard to let her in somewhere because he may have grown up with an abusive mother and now mistrusts women. Or a merchant might give a discount at his shop to your male PC because he might remind him of his long dead brother.
Stuff like that that kind of colors all the little side stories. As long as it's not a generalized weird sexism thing, I'm happy.
I would much rather have everyone flipping out that a Qunari is leading the Inquisition.
I have been wondering how they'll deal with NPCs who want to remark on multiple things about your character. I remember some places in Origins where I only found out characters had sexist lines as a human, since as an elf they just said their racist lines instead. For a qunari Inquisitor, I would expect being a woman might help your case if convincing people you don't follow the Qun.
I don't know how gender will be handled in DA:I but I do remember from previews I read before DA:O that women were going to be intentionally marginalized in that game, so that if you were a female elf mage (my first choice specifically for this reason) you'd be the lowest of the low, and then you could prove via the events in-game that you were better than that. And part of the reason that this was done was not to be sexist but to explore how crappy sexism is (along with racism and other forms of bigotry), so I found myself intrigued.
With the recent attempts at being more inclusive and open-minded, and the acknowledgement that Thedas isn't Earth and doesn't need to share the same sordid social history, however, it might be that women are more equal in game than they were in the previous games. I do know it was noted as being unusual for women to enter the military forces/knighthood, but not unheard of--in both the books and in DAO.
I do want to see gender factor into interactions, but I do not want any more self-disparaging sexist comments from my protagonist as in DA:O. If sexism occurs, I want to be able to deal with it somehow in-game, and not just have that "dealing with" only affect my Inquisitor, but also help other women. Maybe, like in The Banner Saga, turn village homemakers into extra fighters--maybe not the most skilled, but by adding sheer numbers you add to the overall might of your forces (and the villages' defenses). And I'm not really okay with skeevy sexually harrassing comments like we've gotten in the past from certain individual characters (i.e. Harkin in Mass Effect), unless men get an equivalent of this. It's hard for that to happen since men usually just get standard insults, but women get sexual harrassment... So I'd rather they both be insulted, or both be harrassed. If that makes sense. It's late, I'm tired.
That's struck me as something they might have shifted on during development (particularly since DA:O was developed for a while). I remember the more dubious gender stuff being concentrated in Ostagar, Redcliffe, and some of the origin stories, though I'm not that confident in my memory. I do think it's something that improved in DA2, and I hope that trend will continue.
I would much rather have everyone flipping out that a Qunari is leading the Inquisition.
Well it was said that races would effect how other reacted to you and how quickly or slowly others would trust you as well so thats why I didn't mention race in my post since thats already been said. That said though I wouldn't mind having both effect that as well though it would be hard to do that with gender without making it come off with some sexism I suppose, maybe, I'm not really sure.
I don't know how gender will be handled in DA:I but I do remember from previews I read before DA:O that women were going to be intentionally marginalized in that game, so that if you were a female elf mage (my first choice specifically for this reason) you'd be the lowest of the low, and then you could prove via the events in-game that you were better than that. And part of the reason that this was done was not to be sexist but to explore how crappy sexism is (along with racism and other forms of bigotry), so I found myself intrigued.
With the recent attempts at being more inclusive and open-minded, and the acknowledgement that Thedas isn't Earth and doesn't need to share the same sordid social history, however, it might be that women are more equal in game than they were in the previous games. I do know it was noted as being unusual for women to enter the military forces/knighthood, but not unheard of--in both the books and in DAO.
I do want to see gender factor into interactions, but I do not want any more self-disparaging sexist comments from my protagonist as in DA:O. If sexism occurs, I want to be able to deal with it somehow in-game, and not just have that "dealing with" only affect my Inquisitor, but also help other women. Maybe, like in The Banner Saga, turn village homemakers into extra fighters--maybe not the most skilled, but by adding sheer numbers you add to the overall might of your forces (and the villages' defenses). And I'm not really okay with skeevy sexually harrassing comments like we've gotten in the past from certain individual characters (i.e. Harkin in Mass Effect), unless men get an equivalent of this. It's hard for that to happen since men usually just get standard insults, but women get sexual harrassment... So I'd rather they both be insulted, or both be harrassed. If that makes sense. It's late, I'm tired.
I was referring more to the comments like 'i'm the bravest one here and I'm a woman.' though its interesting to hear about how they were going to handle it with certain races and classes being treated lesser or better since I didn't get the game until much later through a borrowed copy I never did much research on the game but I do kind of hope DAI goes a similar route at least in the manner of races.
It does make sense and I hope we don't get insults that lean more towards sexual harassment either though from certain characters I could understand them questioning the PC's abilities more so if they are a women, and by certain characters I mean captial Q Qunari since it makes more sense for them. What I was more curious towards say an elven woman who had her spouse killed or kidnapped would be more likely to open up to another elven female. Just little things like that since it was said that are race would change how difficult it may be to get someone else to open up to your PC and I wonder if gender may have any affect as well.
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