71 replies to this topic

[R2s Muse]

(banner by the talented littlenikki)
 
Welcome to the Official Cullen discussion thread. If you are interested in civil discussion of any aspect of Cullen's involvement in the new game, we encourage you to join us!

Also, note that this is a very SPOILERFUL discussion! You were warned!

Summary of What We "Know" About His Inclusion in DA:I So Far:
1. Cullen will appear in DA:I.

2. He will be voiced by Greg Ellis again. (Ellis in VO booth Apr 28, 2014)

3. He will be romanceable, BUT only for a female Inquisitor.  And only by female human and elves.The romance will have opportunities for "woo breaks."   

4. According to Greg Ellis, Cullen will sing softly and stirringly in-game.

5. He is being written by Brianne Battye.

6. He is not a companion; he is an advisor to the Inquisition and will lead the Inquisition's military forces on your behalf. (source)
 
7. After the mage-templar conflict in Kirkwall, he helped rally the templars and restored order. Cassandra recruited him to the Inquisition because of his integrity and leadership there. (source)

8. He is no longer a member of the Templar Order, which he thinks has not lived up to its ideal. (source) [[HOWEVER, he still wears templar insignia on his gauntlet and his skirt/tabard. Why? No one has explained yet.]]

9. Players will get to know "the person behind the soldier" and learn about why he became a templar and other personal aspects of his character. (source)

10. Advisors like Cullen will not join the Inquisitor's party like followers, but will provide lots of opportunities for interaction. (source)
 
11. Advisor romances like Cullen's will have equal content to regular party members. (source)
 
12. Cullen's new title is Commander. (source [altho video is very spoilery and includes introduction of the advisors in game])
 
DA:I Official Info Sources
DA:I Main Web site Cullen Character Page
DA:I Main Web site Cullen Profile

 
DA:I Pics:
 


Unofficial character kit, courtesy of Galagraphia:

 
More large screenshots from Cullen's character reveal:

Spoiler

 
DA: Keep Cullen Tiles (Art not final and subject to change)
 
From DA2:
Cullen was friends with Hawke

 
Cullen was not friends with Hawke

 
From DA:I:

 
 
DA:I Live Stream: All new Gameplay & Cinematics PC UI [[Shows the introduction of the advisors in game! SPOILERS!!!]]
Plus Part 2 & Part 3 of the stream. Cullen's mostly in Part 1.
 
 

 
(adapted with permission from eternalshiva.tumblr.com -- check out her original, stunning gifs!)

 
 
Cassandra Pentaghast Voice Actor Trailer -- contains a brief shot of Cullen talking with Cassandra
 

 
Enemy of Thedas Screenshots [[BEWARE STORY SPOILERS!!]]




More Enemy of Thedas Screenshots: 

Spoiler

 

GIF of Cullen in action: 

Spoiler

 
War Table closeup :


LolaLei/Ability Drain's special gift closeup.


Cullen in Lion Helmet from "Lead Them or Fall" trailer

 
See more pics from Lead Them or Fall trailer, courtesy of Galagraphia.tumblr.com

Spoiler

 

Fidgety Cullen from E3 Stand Together Trailer
gif courtesy of Galagraphia:

Spoiler

 

Cullen Concept art:
 
War Room inset by Matt Rhodes


General Info About Cullen:
1. Cullen Fan Thread FAQ
2. The Case for Cullen in DA3: Part 1 : Part 2 : Part 3 : All past info and hints about his DA:I inclusion prior to confirmation.
3. Cullen DA Wiki Page
4. A Case of the Cullenites (by our own Chachi vas BoBinks)
 
Previous Incarnations of this Thread:
1. The Tortured Templar: Cullen Appreciation Thread - the DAO thread about Cullen.
2. Official Knight-Captain Cullen Fan Thread. - the first part of his DA2 thread.
3. The Official Knight-Captain Cullen Discussion Thread 2.0 - the second part of his DA2 thread.
 
Other Fan Groups
1. Facebook Fangroup: The Templar's Rest (closed group, so ask for membership)

Popular Cullen tags on Tumblr
1. Cullen (beware sparkly vampires)
2. Knight-Captain Cullen
3. Ser Cullen
4. ALL NEW! Commander Cullen
 
General Links for Cullen Fanfiction:
1. Cullen fic on Fanfiction.net (all ratings)
2. Cullen (Dragon Age) on Archive of Our Own (AO3) (other combinations of tags will net you some additional works)
 
General Links for Cullen Fanart
1. Cullen Club on deviantart (also includes some fanfic)

[Allan Schumacher]

Ummmm hello....I'm new. I usually never comment on posts and such (just stalk them), but I'm curious about this thread annnnddd....yeah, I'm excited about the news, myself, and couldn't help but join in the discussion. Soooo hi.... Please don't eat me! o.o   

 

Welcome

[Allan Schumacher]

WAIT!

On the plus side, semi-confirmed/unconfirmed-partially-seen companions may have been cut! Making room for CULLEN!!!!




Bye bye feathers, sorry bro...

GIF

Spoiler

Guys... I appreciate the enthusiasm but lets not get carried away with David's comment. David was explaining to someone that content that could be cut isn't restricted to only unannounced stuff. Reread the link and please don't jump to hasty conclusions because it facilitates misunderstanding and misinformation.

[Allan Schumacher]

Quite a few people think it might be the interactive party banter, because DG said they were having a little trouble getting to work right. Which is sad if true, but hardly something to panic over.

 

The challenging part is that David wasn't referencing anything.  He was simply pointing out that if content was going to be cut, whether or not it had been revealed content wouldn't be much of a factor.

 

 

But then some conclusions were made and it was being spread as information and then the speculation led to conclusions and then there were speculations about what this might mean for other stuff (i.e. Cullen).

 

It's a bit of a lesson for me to probably not sass much anymore (certainly not in that thread, and probably not on twitter), because I don't want people seeing some of that stuff and getting excited about things that could only lead to huge disappointment.

[Allan Schumacher]

I'm thinking one of three things on this. Either
1.we post a lot of pages and going through them seems daunting
2.they are worried it's all just girls squeeing and being obnoxious
3.They don't really care and are just trying to get peoples dander up.

In that thread does Guy/girl that made it get involved in the discussion a lot?

 

If someone doesn't find a character interesting (yet), there's also this internet mentality of feeling a need to speak up because "otherwise their voices won't be heard."

 

I think a lot of it is politicking and some people believe that Cullen's inclusion is purely a result of giving fan service to the characters, and by being "conscientious objectors" they feel they are providing the counter votes to illustrate that their perspectives are not the overshadowed ones.  I do agree that it keeps Cullen in the spotlight, which is paradoxical to the goals of many of them.

 

Then there's just silly humanity, where people see some news, that news is not happy for them (perhaps even bad), but seeing a lot of other people get really excited over it will draw some level of a "Hmph" type of response.  Pot shots ensue, for a variety of reasons.

[Allan Schumacher]

Yep. This.

 

However, there may be a possibility that they were able to gain a budget increase due to the time extension? One can hope...

 

The game itself, even with the original release date, simply had a longer development period.

[Sheryl Chee]

Here's my reaction to the trailer:

 

 

Ha! That was a great! Thanks!

 

(And your cat was extremely nonchalant about the whole thing. Badass.)

[Allan Schumacher]

161 days sounds way too far away but oddly enough, just thinking about October 7th in general doesn't seem too far away... 161 days of torment. Le sigh.

 

If it makes you feel any better we'll be 161(+) days away from sleeping

[Allan Schumacher]

Perfect excuse to binge on horrible, sugary junk food.

*Looks at chocolate bar*

[Allan Schumacher]

Just as a comment as I've read through the past (several) pages of discussion.  I recognize that for the most part this is a thread of Cullen fans talking about almost anything (Cullen or otherwise....).

But please don't use this thread as a sort of haven to return to if you want to talk about other forum members, particularly in a defensive or potentially negative way.  I know for the most part you get along in part for your enthusiasm for Cullen, but I'd prefer to not have to come in and moderate based upon coming here to seek solace from perceived slights from posters on other parts of the forum.

[Allan Schumacher]

Understood. Sorry for that one post from a couple days ago I think, or may have even been this morning, I don't remember (sad, I know) if I could find it (no idea what page it was on) I'd edit it to empty it.

And sorry to any to may have been offended by my sarcasm. Please call me out if I ever say anything out of line, y'all, and I'll edit and be quiet. Sometimes I joke too much and don't realize it at the time.

@artemis - I thought he may have been talking about what I said joking around with Lola about the whole scribbles thing from the other thread. I don't know, but i would hate to get attention called to everyone over something I may have joked about. And if it wasn't me, well alright. But still, just in case...

 

It's cool and no worries.  I'm very sarcastic too.  I have no issues with it.  It just runs into tip-toeing waters because I came across the post and actually have no context for how it got here.  Based on the nature of the thread based on me catching up on it, the thread was sort of becoming more of a general "Cullen fans talking about whatever" and I prefer to nip any sort of potential animosity in the bud as I've seen LI character conversations get really heated in the past.  Without context I was like "Hmmmm."

 

No hard feelings.  Misunderstandings happen.  I apologize if you feel embarrassed about it (for what it's worth, I don't think you have to), but I mostly aired it to the the group as a whole just because I wasn't sure if there was some level of rallying support and with misunderstandings being inevitable (it's human beings talking to each other) to make sure this remains a positive thread for Cullen discussions.

 

I hope that makes sense.

 

(And as usual if people are griefing you or anything like that, feel free to right up a report or even send a mod or myself a PM if you have a question or need clarification about stuff).

 

Cheers!

[Allan Schumacher]

If anyone is acting offensively towards us, they're likely doing it in other threads and to other users as well, so you're right. We should feel obligated to bring it up.

 

If you find other people doing it in other threads (or in this thread), then yes bring it up.

 

 

I mean, even in the even of some joking around between two groups about "invading" each others threads (I think it was Vivienne and Solas threads?), it's actually something that is a little sensitive because hostility levels HAVE escalated in the past and I don't want people coming onto the forum and feeling threatened because they like a character, or anyone to escalate it.  So even joking about it kinda made me go "ehhhhhhhh."

 

I know Cullen fans have to deal with their share of trolls too.  Remember the report and ignore functions as they are there to help you not have to deal with that sort of stuff, because you shouldn't have to.

 

Cheers.

[Allan Schumacher]

No need to apologize. I think this was all blown way out of proportion. No one in this thread has ever threatened to invade another thread or talked trash about another thread or anything of the sort. Evidently, we aren't supposed to talk about it when we're (or anyone) is bullied. Just report it, I guess. And talk about it via PM. Because yeah, when someone makes you feel bad about yourself, even online, you sometimes need to talk about it. Sorry, I am just not a fan of "blaming the victim" mentality.

 

If you feel you're being bullied, please escalate the issue with the moderating staff and utilize the ignore function to prevent reading further abuse.  If you feel I'm blaming the victim because someone else took issue with a comment in a different thread, lets discuss this further because I'm not sure how I am, especially within the context of what posts I saw and what threads it seemed to be coming from.

 

So rather than keeping airing this further (I just about wrote a large post explaining why I felt compelled to post) without the thread understanding....  If I discuss it further, there's a chance it may just be perceived as continued victim blaming, which I don't want to do.  But I am hoping that if I elaborate, people may understand.  Should I share it with PM?  Are people curious?  I can't take back the posts that I have started but in effect what I saw was a misunderstanding that in a post that set off warning bells for me, within the context of a thread that in my opinion contains a lot of general "Fans of Cullen discussion" as opposed to "Discussion about Cullen" for the last 10 or so pages.

 

So what would people prefer that I do?

[Allan Schumacher]

Anyway, I don't actually KNOW what happened back at that time, but from what I understand, it basically turned into a fandoms war where users from different threads invaded into other threads and such.  I'm sure there was more to it.  Also, its not about "You can't complain about other users on the forum, or about what's happened to you.".  It's about not doing it in plain sight.  When you complain and talk about it in a place where the same users can read what you're posting, it usually only raises animosity and tensions possibly between groups.  I would assume that's why we have a 'If you see someone doing something you think is harmful or against the rules, simply report it instead of getting into a fight.'  The mods already frown on bringing up issues from one thread into others as well.

 

I find it more an issue of "misunderstandings happen."  Often times when an argument gets started, each side perceives the other side as having made an egregious statement that started everything.  Not that this is unexpected... when I say something I have full context of what I mean but only my impressions of what the other person means.

 

 

But to borrow you for the sake of everyone else:

 

Imagine HiroVoid and I are in a thread.  I make a comment regarding my love of Cassandra because she is great and awesome.  HiroVoid chimes in with a sassy "I can't stand chantry lovers" because he is sending a not-serious jab in my direction.  Now, I read this differently than he intends, and take it as him calling me a chantry lover when oh my goodness that's not true.  Cassandra is a seeker yo, and that's different than the chantry and the one good thing.  His sass is misinterpreted by me, and in a different thread I make a comment "Man did you see that crazy guy that called me a chantry lover!? I can't believe that!"  Now I'm saying this because I think it's clear I like the Seekers, but not the Chantry.  But HiroVoid happens upon this post, sees me refer to him as crazy, and with the flippant "I can't believe that" ends up inferring that I must think he's stupid for thinking that.  Things escalate, threads get invaded, ohhhhh my. 

 

Now my example is made up and I tried to make it a bit on the silly side (no harm I hope HiroVoid! ), but it's just sort of an example on how neither of us really did anything wrong aside from interpreting each other's posts incorrectly and things end up escalating.

 

I'll agree Cullen fans are often a target, simply because Cullen has been confirmed and there's been a decent sized group that's been a fan of his for quite some time now.  Some don't understand, or don't like Cullen or whatever, and they act inappropriately.  If you find yourself experiencing something like this in this thread or others, write up a report and ignore that poster.  If you feel you're being bullied and need/want to talk to Cullen friends (or anyone else) I actually don't have any problems with that.  It can be useful, especially to get a second opinion on a post's context, to discuss something like that.  If you absolutely need a second opinion on a reaction and can't find anyone, by all means send me a PM.  I do want people to feel safe, but I also want to make sure that miscommunications don't end up escalating (because I've seen it happen and romance/LI content has exploded in the past).  People are human and they're going to make mistakes and sometimes what I intend as a joke just doesn't come across that way at all.  Heck, I know that I have angered posters because in trying to stop an inappropriate tangent from starting up in one thread, I framed my warning with poor word choice which ended up offending someone, even though that wasn't my intent.

 

 

The mods already frown on bringing up issues from one thread into others as well.

 

I don't really see an issue with Cullen fans doing this, but there are posters that I know have histories with one another and simply by having one poster post in a thread well tend to have that poster's adversaries come in and often old baggage gets brought up and its instant thread derailment.  My standard MO for this is to tell the users to put each other on ignore.

 

 

In any case, I think this has already escalated more than I intended.  My context was that the thread often was already weaving in and out of topic (at one point I thought I clicked on the tab for the Cole thread), making me realize that this was in a lot of ways "A thread for fans of Cullen" (which I don't really have a problem with. It's a positive thread with a lot of people and posts in it) which made me realize "People could come to this thread for incidents that happen outside of this thread and it could cause a problem in the event of misunderstandings."

[Allan Schumacher]

All I said was, if Scribbles were to hit on Cullen, I would kick her in the face. I thought it was clear that I was joking, but it apparently wasn't. Two people were offended by that statement (this was in the married companions thread) mind you, I didn't just type what actual words I used, because I can't remember all the bits. Anyways, I was joking about it to Lola yesterday. I thought this is what Allan was talking about, hence why I apologized. I've never criticized someone who likes a certain character OR a character that someone else likes because why would I want to? I wouldn't want it done to me. Anyways. That's it. I'm not a bad person I just can't convey that I'm kidding properly, I guess. Fail on my part.

 

It's cool.  You're not a bad person.  People read things differently based on their experiences.  I find it awkward when groups often resort to "This person believes X? I hope I can kill them in my playthrough!"  Doubly so because I doublethink and worry if I close a thread down like that if I'm just abusing my power and being too sensitive to what is probably (hopefully?) just people being silly to the extreme and max.  It might have something to do with my own personal experiences surrounding death as well (my Aunt died yesterday, Grandma late last year.  Lost my brother when I was 13.  Stuff like that) leave me feeling a bit touchy about stuff like that.  But it's the type of post content that makes me feel uncomfortable, and I'm often second guessing whether or not I should chime in about it (and possibly face scrutiny/judgment about being too sensitive) or if I should just grin and bear it (at the cost of my own personal well being).

 

Human interaction is a tricky thing in my opinion.  Sometimes we'll make mistakes and things will be taken in a way we didn't mean.

[Allan Schumacher]

For what it's worth, I'm sorry for your loss.

 

It's certainly difficult to tell what's a joke and what's bullying/trolling/etc sometimes, especially when a group of fans or an individual is already sensitive to the topic at hand for whatever given reason. 

 

Thanks.

 

And yeah for some, some topics will affect people in different ways.  When I was younger (growing up in rural community dominated by middle class white people) my sports teams would make gay jokes to each other and stuff like that (including myself...) and in MY mind I knew I wasn't being serious.  But when I grew up and had some people call me on it (to which I openly reacted defensively, naturally....), I realized "ehhhhhhhhhhh, maybe I should rethink whether this is something I should casually joke about."  And I can certainly see how even hearing me say something like that would simply reinforce "being gay is a topic of ridicule" even if that wasn't consciously obvious.  A lot of people never said anything.  They might have been bothered, or they might have realized I was joking.  But some people did speak up because to them they saw it as a problem and felt it'd be best if I understood why it was a problem, so they told me about it.

[Allan Schumacher]

Although looking back, I can understand how some people may have misinterpreted my first post.  When I said I was "looking back the last (several) pages" I didn't mean "There's several pages of bad stuff going on here!!!" but rather was intending on giving the context "I just read through the last several pages and ended up on a post that made me pause for a moment."

 

So on that part, I apologize because I think that caused some people to feel I was overstating how common things happened.  The only reason why I referenced the several pages was because it provided context for the fluid nature of the thread.

[Allan Schumacher]

I was super happy with the drawing I was working on this afternoon and now that I've come back to it, it doesn't much look like Cullen. 

*flips tables*

 

Cullen is more of a feeling.  You know him when you see him, I think

[Allan Schumacher]

You guys... I really need this weekend to finish my thing. I have been working 16 hour days and with one car, some days I get home after 20 hours, scarf some food and go to bed just to start again 5 hours later. I'm probably not gonna have it done by page 1000. So, I guess I should be taken off the list. I'll post as soon as I'm able.

 

I empathize

[Allan Schumacher]

Did you notice Cullen's sword belt? It looks like he's wearing the scabbard on the right, which means his sword arm must be left. I wonder if it's true or just a glitch.
Edit: here's what I mean:

Scabbard is usually attached to that thing.

 

It might be something else (I'm not sure I see that it must be a sword), and it could be a situation of the model being reversed (for some reason).  Sadly I'm not knowledgeable enough to confirm or not.

[Allan Schumacher]

That shot was, yes.  Although that may not be the reason necessarily.  It could also be that someone felt the scene looked a bit better aesthetic  or a host of other reasons.

 

I wouldn't necessarily read too much into it.  It could also be "sweet googly moogly our animation system makes this 1000x easier than it did with the old Eclipse engine!!!"  (assuming it's true)

[Allan Schumacher]

Sense that's pre-alpha, I think my eyes are going to explode when I see the final version. Iz so pwetty! 

Pre-alpha doesn't mean everything is uniformly incomplete.  I think the people in that shot look pretty good all around and wouldn't have any real issues if that's the way that they looked.

 

All alpha really means is "are all the things we want to have in the game now in?"  It doesn't mean done, but it means "exists."  So more polish and bug fixing will continue on as we push closer to ship

[Allan Schumacher]

.... reeeeelooooaaaadddddd!!!!

 

So this would be a bad time to mention the "automatically delete all old saves and immediately autosave after making important romance decisions" save system we have?

 

(I'm not at all being serious hehe)

[Sheryl Chee]

Eluvian went to her profile and saw she had been here, she didn't post anything.

 

I didn't know you could do that! Hmm, it's going to be harder trying to sneak in and out. I can't really keep up with this thread but I usually check out the last couple pages when I can for fanart... mostly so I can send it to Cullen's Writer, a.k.a. He/She Who Must Not  Be Named a.k.a. Voldemort.

 

And yesterday I needed to scar everyone in the Pit with the gif of Miley Chicken twerking.

[Sheryl Chee]

I don't see why you would want more devs. We don't actually SAY anything useful.