Not the number.
I thought it might be fun to put percentages on this topic, if we can figure out what counts and how to count it. A few methodological questions first:
How do we count gay characters? Is the problem with LIs for female PCs, or with male LIs?
What counts as a bad outcome? Does Morrigan count? And we only count stuff that the PC can't avoid, right?
What about the, er, quasi-romances? Characters that doesn't have the same content as other romanceable characters, like Linu, Juhani, Kelly , Diana, Samara? Out-of-scope?
What I see is this:
BG series: 1 straight male LI, three straight female LIs. One female LI has a bigger gut-punch than anything in DA.
NWN. No romance content in the base game except for a hint with Linu. In HotU there are one straight male and two straight females. All three have acceptable outcomes.
KotOR: one straight male , one straight female. Both come to about the same end.
ME series: 3 straight males. 4 straight females. 1 bisexual male. 1 bisexual female. 1 gay male. 1 gay female. Two of the straight male romances come to bad ends; one expected, one not.
DA:O: One of each. I think we can agree that the straight male does have a bit of a gut punch. The straight female is debatable, though I'd personally count it as a punch. (No romance content in DA:A, though I like to ship one of my Wardens and Sigrun.)
DA2: 2 bi males, 2 bi females, plus one straight male in DLC. One bi male turns out to be... not such a great guy, let's say. OTOH, you do know you're getting involved with an abomination if you get with him.
Someone else will have to classify JE and DAI. I still haven't played JE, and don't know all the DAI content yet.
Yeah, I can see a pattern. Vicky makes the average look reasonable, but she was a long time ago.
In ME I romanced Garrus...we couldnt have children.
Would have liked to romance Zaeed...
In here we have Cullan who I hated from DAO and just cant get over that.
And we have IB..who is...The Iron Bull. If I use my Qunari that is ok, but as a relationship in game with a non Qunari...not really seeing that last. Not to mention IB sexual needs are a bit excessive for some of us.
I feel the need to point out that having romances you don't personally like doesn't mean the romances for females are terrible. A lot of people, me included, loved the female romances, and felt that females actually got a better deal than the guys did (with the exception of Cassandra and Dorian). Even if you get just straight female romances, I loved Solas, Blackwall, Iron Bull, and Cullen.
Actually, in that sort of world view, beauty == social status, for both sexes. Women are prized for their beauty, and a man with a beautiful woman on his arm has higher social status.
I've often wondered how much of this 'attraction' is innate and how much is socialized. There is a great deal of social pressure on women to be glamorous and on men to be seen with a glamorous woman. We've certainly been socialized to see certain features as more attractive than others - to the point where cover girl / models are all made-up, lit, and airbrushed to look alike.
I find it refreshing that Bioware is expanding the boundaries by giving us these lovely female characters who don't all look like cookie-cutter Barbies. Of course, I also think Cassandra is by far the most attractive female LI they've ever done, so there's that.
I don't think men's social status comes from the woman on his arm I think that 'can' be a reflection of it. I'm thinking more in the terms that a director of a company is seen as more attractive that a man working in a warehouse (given the same physical appearance). And I think that is about social status not money (see also musician, politicians etc).
The question of innate or socialised is a good one, and I have no answer as to which it is... but what is certainly true is that by the time somebody reaches adulthood it doesn't really matter. Its either in our genes or learnt in childhood. However, one thing I would add is that marketing super-charges this effect... if I want to sell you really expensive make up, I first need to convince you that you really need it. This is the reason why magazines aimed at women have the most extreme depictions of women.
I'm rambling but... I don't want a world of Barbies, but I'm not sure Morrigan and Lelianna in DAO where Barbies and I think that were spectacularly good as LI's that appealed in different ways.
both were even referenced as beautiful by other party members, and Morrigan was half-naked.
Im afraid they were very much Barbies
I thought the point about Barbie was that she is stick thin and has totally unrealistic proportions, not just that she was good looking. If you object to good looking female LI's then it will come as no surprise that I disagree.
I thought the point about Barbie was that she is stick thin and has totally unrealistic proportions, not just that she was good looking. If you object to good looking female LI's then it will come as no surprise that I disagree.
I don't think men's social status comes from the woman on his arm I think that 'can' be a reflection of it.
The question of innate or socialised is a good one, and I have no answer as to which it is... but what is certainly true is that by the time somebody reaches adulthood it doesn't really matter. Its either in our genes or learnt in childhood. However, one thing I would add is that marketing super-charges this effect... if I want to sell you really expensive make up, I first need to convince you that you really need it. This is the reason why magazines aimed at women have the most extreme depictions of women.
I'm rambling but... I don't want a world of Barbies, but I'm not sure Morrigan and Lelianna in DAO where Barbies and I think that were spectacularly good as LI's that appealed in different ways.
It might be a hangover from tv daytime soaps. You know, the "Oh you housewives lead such boring lives, here's some drama to spice things up."
TBH, my life is pretty ordinary, pretty sane, and romantically stable. Where else can a girl who hates daytime soaps and romance novels get her emotional drama??! 
In fairness, if the straight male romances always end in drama, male players are probably more likely than female to get really annoyed, turn gigolo and just bang everyone. This was especially possible in Mass Effect 2, where I was actually able to hook up with Jack, Kelly, Miranda, and Tali all in the same playthrough, all because Ash really, really pissed me off and I needed a little revenge.
Really? Boy do I wish the Cassandra romance is the same kind of fluff as Cullen's. The ending can be laced with all manners of the bitter and the sweet, espeically when you play someone who sees her as the best option for that choice. Josephine is sweet, and is probably the "safe" choice, but her romance arc doesn't appeal to me.
Really? Boy do I wish the Cassandra romance is the same kind of fluff as Cullen's. The ending can be laced with all manners of the bitter and the sweet, espeically when you play someone who sees her as the best option for that choice. Josephine is sweet, and is probably the "safe" choice, but her romance arc doesn't appeal to me.
Cassandra's romance ends sort of on a flat note. I get this horrible feeling like Cassandra WANTS to break up with you, whether she becomes divine or not.
Spoiler
Haha, I woudn't go that far, but no matter the choice, the final scene is always sombre. Perhaps not to that level of gut-punch, but one of the endings is comparable to Solas.
Ladies had it easy in this game, if I may dare to say so.
OMG, so much this. Don't have any siblings, but Dragon Age has taught me a lot too about what kind of men I pick and why.You know I completely agree with you. Playing the entire Dragon Age series taught me that apparently I pick the wrong guys. Luckily this seems to be only in games and not in real life.
I played DA2 and DA3 with my little sister watching much of the time. She thought Cullen is hot and nagged for me to pick Cullen, but I went with Solas instead, because something about his serious air just drew me plus my fiancé said about Cullen: "That book is ALLLLL cover" lol. And... well...
After my first playthrough I had a big-sister life-lesson moment with my little sis. I told her that if her instincts draw her to someone like Cullen, then that instinct will serve her well in life. My instincts draw me to someone mysterious and full-of-drama like Solas (and Anders in DA2), so I told her to never make the mistakes I made. I told her she needs to go for the good, honest, straightforward, LOW DRAMA guy, even if he seems boring in comparison.
See because someone like Solas and Anders will choose his Great Cause over you every time. Yeah he loves you and all but ultimately he loves his Cause more. Ambition and sense of responsibility are very important, of course, but to actually have a life together, you need a man who, when his back is against the wall, will choose you over everything else.
Fenris and Cullen are that kind of man. Solas and Anders are not.
Next time I'll be smarter. I see the pattern now.Always pick the sweet boring guys. (and girls). Or pick the story romance in Bioware games (see Liara, Alistair, Cass). And that romance is going to be a human warrior most likely in Dragon Age
Haha, don't know if the tying of a companion's class into his/her personality is a coincidence or not, but the "warrior romances" in Bioware games are almost always tend to be the most honest and straightforward characters. With the possible exception of Fenris, there is Alistair and Cassandra in Dragon Age, and Garrus and Ashley/Kaiden in Mass Effect.
Haha, don't know if the tying of a companion's class into his/her personality is a coincidence or not, but the "warrior romances" in Bioware games are almost always tend to be the most honest and straightforward characters. With the possible exception of Fenris, there is Alistair and Cassandra in Dragon Age, and Garrus and Ashley/Kaiden in Mass Effect.
I'd have to put Iron Bull on that list. There isn't any real tragedy or ulterior motive behind romancing the player. He's actually one of the most upfront characters in the series so far, in my opinion. Amusing that he's another warrior though. 
Some of the male characters come close. But none are as determined, passionate and strong as Liara and Cassandra. What sets them apart from the rest is that they don't need your help. They are not broken, don't need babysitting so they don't screw up. They have their insecurities and doubts, especially Cassandra. But their flaws are not the kind of flaws Anders or Solas have.
Errr, what? 
Liara is possibly the most helpless female in Mass Effect history. She constantly needs Shepard. Granted, she becomes a lot more independent by the time ME3 rolls around but she gets there with Shepard's help and still needs him after Thessia is glassed and whenever she's feeling worried about the war.
Yes, because she totally needed Shepard to become a good information broker before she became the Shadow Broker. Oh wait, Shepard was on the near dead side at that point. Shepard motivated her, but that isn't the same as needing someone.
Yes, because she totally needed Shepard's help to take down the Shadow Broker. Oh wait, the canon is that if you didn't do the SB DLC, Liara hired a merc squad and did it her damned self. Go look it up.
And sorry if her planet getting overrun was too much for you. She had one cutscene where she cried a little. Yep, she's so weak willed. Oh wait, she's one of the first squad mates to ask how you are doing after Earth, once they get back on board the Normandy after the crap that went down on Mars.
Not sure when you last played the series at all. My last time was September of this year, after getting into the series in May. So I think you're memory is a little off there.
For the most part, Bioware, you have written incredible characters. The dialogue and interactions between the companions and advisors are amazing. I love Cassandra to death, and Solas is probably one of the most interesting and twisty character ever.
I just have to say......it seems like the female romances often involve a sucker punch somewhere along the line. Let's just look back at recent history:
SPOILERS FOR INQUISITION, DA2, DAO, MASS EFFECT
DA:O:
Romance Alistair--If you want to both live, Alistair has to impregnate another woman. Ouch.
DA2:
Romance Anders: He blows up the Chantry and touches off a huge cluckfest. Freakin' A, Anders!
Mass Effect 3:
Romance Thane: He dies.
Romance Jacob: He leaves you.
And here in DA:I:
Romance Blackwall:
SpoilerRomance Solas:
He leaves you and
Spoiler
There is a trend here! I agree that these twists can add depth, but it just seems like if you want a "happy" romance, you have fewer options available to you than to the male romances. Can we add these same twists to the male romances, or have the twists be less punch-in-the-gut-like for the females? Pretty please with ice cream and brownies?
Agree, they do amazing characters.
I'll give you Alistair, I hated the DR. But I did come to enjoy Zev's romance, though never as much as Alistair who made me laugh.
Agree with you on DA2. I am not a rival romance fan, though I did them a few times, I play a lot of mages. Both Anders and Fenris gave me a headach. But I liked them both as characters and actually ended up with Sabastian a few times and Fenris if I didn't support the mages.
ME3 - Thane was a favorite romance, but his death didn't bother me that much. I knew he was sick in 2 and I liked they way they handled it, other than just having the hospital visit and even dying he should have at least wonded Kai Leng.
Jacob, right. I deleted the Shepard who romanced him.
Doing Solas now. Actualy enjoy it quite a lot. Not concerned about how it ends. I can see myself doing his more than once.
I'm looking forward to Cullen's romance. I've heard it's sort of bland with little drama, but I don't need a lot of drama in my romances and I think he may end up being my favorite of all.
Blackwell, well, at a very young age, I had a great crush on Carry Grant and one of my favorite movies was Charade with Audry Hepburn he was 59 she was in her 34 so the Blackwell's age doesn't bother me at all. Will have to decide how I feel about the rest of it after I finish that one. I doubt if it will be a favorite I do more than once but I might be surprised if the dialogue is good.
Sure, If I were to ask for something special, I'd have my romantic idea for the perfect story. Alistair without the DR, he was my BBF as well as my love interest, and he should have acted like it (he did when I married him off to QA, he accepted Loghain as a warden and told my elf who romanced Zev that she was right);
Then Kaidan in ME1 was pretty darn perfect for me. Carth - I LOVED the teasing and dialogue and the ending even without the blackout screne. Sky was also satisfying so more of this would make me very very happy.
But I know there are some who didn't like Carth, who didn't like the dead wife/child showing up again with Sky and who thought Kaidan was boring. I disagree with all of those sentiments
I don't need every romance choice to "end happily" as long as I can find one and from what I've seen and read there will be at last one that will satisfy my happy emotion and maybe more than one. 
Yes, because she totally needed Shepard to become a good information broker before she became the Shadow Broker. Oh wait, Shepard was on the near dead side at that point. Shepard motivated her, but that isn't the same as needing someone.
Yes, because she totally needed Shepard's help to take down the Shadow Broker. Oh wait, the canon is that if you didn't do the SB DLC, Liara hired a merc squad and did it her damned self. Go look it up.
And sorry if her planet getting overrun was too much for you. She had one cutscene where she cried a little. Yep, she's so weak willed. Oh wait, she's one of the first squad mates to ask how you are doing after Earth, once they get back on board the Normandy after the crap that went down on Mars.
Not sure when you last played the series at all. My last time was September of this year, after getting into the series in May. So I think you're memory is a little off there.
Ooooh, sensitive about Liara, aren't you? I see you completely skipped over her helplessness in Mass Effect 1.
Yeah, she hired a merc squad and failed in her attempt to save Feron, which is the only reason she went the Shadow Broker ship. Once again... needed Shepard to do the job right. I don't need to look it up, that's the way it went down on my second playthrough. In one of the conversations in the LotSB DLC, she even complains about her role as a needy person and Shepard can reassure her that she's still a good friend and got his corpse away from the Collectors (I believe there's a brief rehash of this insecurity in ME3, but I'd have to play through it again to check).
I never said Liara wasn't sensitive or thoughtful. I appreciate her a lot and her caring nature for Shepard, asking about Earth. That doesn't take away from her being one of the weakest companions in dealing with the invasion of her home planet. She also requires more comfort than any of the others. I don't blame her. She's basically a civilian in a war. She needs help.
After this buggy mess that is Dragon Age: Inquisition, I can't wait to go back to Mass Effect. However, my last playthrough was several months ago. Yet my memory seems accurate after all, checking the Wiki.
^ Jesus, I'm not even that big of a fan of Liara and I can still tell you she's hardly helpless. You rescue her once from the Prothean security device on Therum, and she gets pretty annoyed about it if you wait too long to help her and then talk over her decades of research in the cutscene following. After that, she easily pulls her own.
And we don't know why she failed to save Feron. Maybe she just took too long to assemble the merc squad and he expired, or maybe he was unconscious and she took him out of the machine and that killed him, or maybe the Shadow Broker saw her coming and killed him beforehand to try and enrage her into making a mistake. Let's not forget Shepard doesn't just offer Liara her assistance, but offers her the Normandy and all of its crew/upgrades, as well.
And her having insecurities about her usefulness hardly makes her helpless. She feels helpless because she sees Shepard accomplishing everything on her own and she was stuck on Ilium with her responsibilities, and then she's stuck near Hagalaz, and she wants to be out fighting alongside her.
What about Tali? And Garrus? They need your help, too. And sure, Liara cries over Thessia, but Thessia is the only planet decisively destroyed - you're still helping the ongoing resistance of Palaven through Menae and the Krogan, so it's not a loss like Thessia was. Tali also commits suicide if you don't pick her side over Legion's; surely her reaction is more extreme than Liara's crying for a few minutes in her room.
I also point out that comforting Liara is optional. She still recovers and does her job if you don't.
^ Jesus, I'm not even that big of a fan of Liara and I can still tell you she's hardly helpless. You rescue her once from the Prothean security device on Therum, and she gets pretty annoyed about it if you wait too long to help her and then talk over her decades of research in the cutscene following. After that, she easily pulls her own.
And we don't know why she failed to save Feron. Maybe she just took too long to assemble the merc squad and he expired, or maybe he was unconscious and she took him out of the machine and that killed him, or maybe the Shadow Broker saw her coming and killed him beforehand to try and enrage her into making a mistake. Let's not forget Shepard doesn't just offer Liara her assistance, but offers her the Normandy and all of its crew/upgrades, as well.
And her having insecurities about her usefulness hardly makes her helpless. She feels helpless because she sees Shepard accomplishing everything on her own and she was stuck on Ilium with her responsibilities, and then she's stuck near Hagalaz, and she wants to be out fighting alongside her.
What about Tali? And Garrus? They need your help, too. And sure, Liara cries over Thessia, but Thessia is the only planet decisively destroyed - you're still helping the ongoing resistance of Palaven through Menae and the Krogan, so it's not a loss like Thessia was. Tali also commits suicide if you don't pick her side over Legion's; surely her reaction is more extreme than Liara's crying for a few minutes in her room.
I also point out that comforting Liara is optional. She still recovers and does her job if you don't.
My original post that was contradicted was in response to someone saying "[Liara doesn't need Shepard's help]." I sufficiently proved that incorrect by providing multiple examples of her needing Shepard. I don't hold this against her character so you don't need to get all defensive over it. Facts are facts. I agree with you that she is far from "totally helpless" but then I never accused her of such. She simply embodies the "helpless female" trope more than any character I can think of in Mass Effect.
What does it matter why? She failed to save Feron on her own and the missing variable is Commander Shepard's assistance. 
The insecurities are there because she realizes that she's frustratingly reliant on Commander Shepard. I'd be annoyed at that in her shoes as well. She specifically states that Shepard is there to help her again just as he/she did on Therum. It's a direct reference and couldn't be much clearer.
I saw no evidence that Thessia was more decisively destroyed than Palaven and certainly not Earth. Unless we're supposed to believe that the "most advanced" race in the galaxy was conquered and obliterated in a few hours while the turians, krogan, and humans held out for months? Tali's reaction is more extreme, definitely, though that's not really related to whether or not Liara needed Shepard's help. Tali's emo suicide was triggered by the utter destruction of her "home" (Migrant Fleet) before her eyes, whereas this did not happen to Thessia.
I'm not exactly complaining, but let's say this is why dudes on these forums whining about how they're oppressed and screwed over because *gasp* their romances options have short hair and brown skin and aren't *pretty enough* to their tastes are really ridiculous and pretty blind. Not only do women have many LI options that aren't traditionally attractive, they can also be dumped/ see their LI get killed off or sleep with another.
And enhance it. All other things being equal, the guy with the prettiest babe on his arm wins. There is a reason, after all, for the existence of the term "trophy wife".
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