193 réponses à ce sujet

[Weltall]

I came into this thread expecting to read some irrational rant about inequality, but now that I think about it, the OP's got a point. I think that with DA, it's debatable. Both genders have their share of good and lousy and/or doomed romances. But Mass Effect, wow. Man, do they get the shaft on that one.

 

I love Mass Effect. I bought all three games at once and marathoned all three games and loved each more than the last. But I played a male Shepard and went for female characters. And I have lots of quality options.

 

FemShep's options:

Jacob: cheats on you/dumps you.

Thane: Dead (and a little on the weird side)

Kaiden: The single most boring character in the entire ME franchise.

James: Drunken one night stand (and a meat head)

Javik: Drunken one night stand (and kind of an insensitive jerk about it)

 

And then there's Garrus. Who is actually one of my favorite characters in the series. He's an extremely likeable character. But he's a turian. Unlike all the female alien options for male Shep, turians don't look even close to human. They look like ugly bug monsters. I could never kiss a turian of any gender, anymore than I could kiss a krogan or elcor.

 

Which is why I'm surprised that so many people love that romance option. I like to think of myself as a fairly progressive person, but that's a little too progressive for me. More power to them. But there's a reason that Garrus never gets out of his armor in FTB scenes (or the cuddle scenes that follow) and the camera angle is set up in such a way that you never actually see him and Shepard kissing. Even the developers couldn't even fathom the logistics seeing these scenes actually play out.

 

But I digress. You definitely have a point about ME, but I think DA has done a fairly decent job of sharing the pain of bad romances across the board.

[Weltall]

I came into this thread expecting to read some irrational rant about inequality, but now that I think about it, the OP's got a point. I think that with DA, it's debatable. Both genders have their share of good and lousy and/or doomed romances. But Mass Effect, wow. Man, do they get the shaft on that one.

 

I love Mass Effect. I bought all three games at once and marathoned all three games and loved each more than the last. But I played a male Shepard and went for female characters. And I have lots of quality options.

 

FemShep's options:

Jacob: cheats on you/dumps you.

Thane: Dead (and a little on the weird side)

Kaiden: The single most boring character in the entire ME franchise.

James: Drunken one night stand (and a meat head)

Javik: Drunken one night stand (and kind of an insensitive jerk about it)

 

And then there's Garrus. Who is actually one of my favorite characters in the series. He's an extremely likeable character. But he's a turian. Unlike all the female alien options for male Shep, turians don't look even close to human. They look like ugly bug monsters. I could never kiss a turian of any gender, anymore than I could kiss a krogan or elcor.

 

Which is why I'm surprised that so many people love that romance option. I like to think of myself as a fairly progressive person, but that's a little too progressive for me. More power to them. But there's a reason that Garrus never gets out of his armor in FTB scenes (or the cuddle scenes that follow) and the camera angle is set up in such a way that you never actually see him and Shepard kissing. Even the developers couldn't even fathom the logistics seeing these scenes actually play out.

 

But I digress. You definitely have a point about ME, but I think DA has done a fairly decent job of sharing the pain of bad romances across the board.

[SerTabris]

Oh and JE doesnt have gut punches, the LIs are also skewed towards male audience. You have two bisexual characters - male and female, and you have a straight female. All three romances end up really nicely.

 

It might be worth noting that JE also has the possibility of a romance with both women if you are male (the fact that one of them doesn't even seem to be interested in women in the first place makes it seem like even more of a 'straight male fantasy' type thing to me, but I haven't actually seen it).  I honestly don't really know what to think about that, though. I just... thought it was worth noting.

[N1X0R2K]

I was mentioning the romances that had something big n' bad happen.  For male and female.  Notice there aren't any for males   I never said all of the female romances were bad, just that several of them knock the wind out of you, whereas that doesn't really happen for the male romances.

 

Morrigan, once she falls in love with you, she forces you to a) dump her or stay in a relationship despite the fact that she has become frigid and will no longer even kiss you.

 

Ashley me1 you die me2 she gets pissed at you for not staying dead me3 she gets blowed up.

 

Jack... now theres one chick that is total crazy pants...

 

isabella doesnt really want anything lasting, also she stole the qunari thingy and bails on you.. though she can come back if you've played your cards right.

 

now we get DA I where josey is cute and all, but it's obvious the time and energy (and money) went into to producing cassandra's romance, which is rough on you because a) her face went through a blender, and she becomes divine

 

oh and for your own list you forgot sebastian, who wants to have a chaste marriage lolololol

[Pauravi]

I actually think the women scored big time on romances in this game.  There are FOUR female-specific romances in this game and only two for males.  Hetero females also have potentially three in-party romances, while males only have one -- and Solas and Iron Bull are two of the most interesting characters in the game, both extremely likeable.  Further, your romances fall on both sides of the mage-vs-templar debate, so you can pick someone who aligns with you.

 

Meanwhile, hetero male romances only have one who is in the party and she can be kind of grating, and downright hostile to mage-friendly players.  Personality-wise she is proving to be a rewarding nut to crack at least -- I'm starting to get to her soft nougat-y center -- but it isn't very big and that hard candy shell is oh so thick.  Plus, she gets mad at me whenever I suggest that mages shouldn't be locked away in Circle Towers.  Frankly I'd have romanced either Solas or Dorian if either of them were females, but alas.  Josephine is nice and likeable and all, but a little fussy and buttoned-up, and not getting to fight at your significant other's side just isn't the same :/  I feel a bit starved for options, frankly, but I acknowledge that I've been spoiled in the past in this regard.  At least Cassandra isn't totally unlikeable, but it took me quite a while to warm up to her.

 

As a sidenote: I wish you could romance Morrigan if you didn't do it as Warden -- she is one serious piece of SMOKIN' HOT MILF.

[Grieving Natashina]

I actually think the women scored big time on romances in this game.  There are FOUR female-specific romances in this game and only two for males.  Hetero females also have potentially three in-party romances, while males only have one -- and Solas and Iron Bull are two of the most interesting characters in the game, both extremely likeable.  Further, your romances fall on both sides of the mage-vs-templar debate, so you can pick someone who aligns with you.

 

She was more referring to how, time and time again, most of the interests for straight women have at least one "Sucker Punch."  Not all, but most.

 

Numbers don't mean squat to her, nor to me.   Okay, so straight women got four...out of which with one of them being a liar and a fake (even if you forgive him,) one of them being what...Solas is, and the other not a party member that's also going through rehab.  

 

Oh and both Solas and Cullen were actually not going to be romances.  Thanks to the deadline extension, those got added.  It would have been 2/2/2, otherwise.

 

What's really funny is that we've read a lot of comments like that about numbers..  When frankly, the numbers mean jack and squat if the romances almost always keep ending badly.  And one of them is a bisexual LI.  As the OP put it:

 

 

 

 

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:

He's actually a former-mercenary who ordered a massacre of children, but now he's reformed, right?  Right?  Also old enough to be daddy in some scenarios.

Romance Solas:

He leaves you and

Spoiler

is actually an ancient elven god of dubious morality

 

 

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?

 

For tragedy, straight men have had to deal with...Morrigan.  Whom they can sleep with themselves to make sure no one dies, instead of squirming uncomfortably and hitting the ESC key as fast as possible because just watched their LI strutting up to someone else.  

 

And everything she listed above happens no matter what the player does, with the exception of Alistair.   If you don't have Morrigan sleep with him and you're playing a female character, one of you guys is going to die.   Anders will always blow up the Chantry.  Blackwall will have always lied and pretended to be something else.  Jacob will always cheat on you in-between games (and get another woman pregnant, during that time too,) Thane always dies and the information about Solas never changes.  Cullen is not a party member.

 

So, going by that, Iron Bull is literally the only companion LI that isn't going to lie to you about a horrific crime (Blackwall), who kills things with you (Cullen can't do that,) and have a dark secret that also ends the romance at the same time. (Solas) 

 

The OP did forget about Cullen is

Spoiler

currently rehabbing from lyrium, depending upon the players choices.  While I've heard that the romance is still good, we get to help "fix" Cullen by helping him through the lyrium thing.

  Cass, as far as I know, doesn't have anything like that happening to her.  She's just, like you said, a "tough nut to crack."  

 

Cassandra--Won't screw over the player.  Doesn't have a secret involving slaughtering an entire family.  Doesn't need Sex Deus Machina in order to for her or the player to survive.  Never committed acts of terrorism, isn't going through rehab, doesn't cheat on the player, doesn't freaking die, and never has the dark secret Solas does, which leads to the breakup between Solas/the player.

 

Josie--Thankfully she's also available to the non-straight women.  She's not as buttoned-up as she appears.  I'm not going to argue about having your LI at your side, but with all of the dialogue in Skyhold, it isn't as necessary as it used to be.  Still, no tragedy, Sex Deus Machina, not cheating, ect ect.

 

I think there is too much of an obsession with numbers.   The OP doesn't care about numbers, and neither do I.   For straight women, I think they would have been happy with two party LIs so long as more than just sodding one of them didn't have a horrible secret (that involved killing kids,) be what Solas was in the spoiler tags, or cheat/get another woman pregnant between games (Jacob); die (Thane;) run away for in-game years at a time (Fenris, and that one irked me)  going through rehab (Cullen) and had to screw another woman just to live (Alistair) and you know, actually be in the party (Cullen again.)

[Pauravi]

She was more referring to how, time and time again, most of the interests for straight women have at least one "Sucker Punch."  Not all, but most.

 

Numbers don't mean squat to her, nor to me.

 

Whatever they do or don't mean to you, numbers aren't meaningless.  I'm not saying that the biggest number wins or anything stupidly simplistic like that, I'm simply pointing out that you have a much wider variety of personalities and backgrounds to engage with.  That's not a trivial matter.  Maybe you have gripes about specifics of each of the romances, but whatever.  I have gripes about Cassandra, too.  No relationship is perfect.

[Tamyn]

I think what made previous LIs better is that their stories ended with the games. PCs story was done so were the companions', and i actually prefer it that way.
With DA people insist on seeing the same characters over and over again, and because every DA game has a different protagonist (unlike Shepard who can build strong attachments over 3 games) the rest of the world has to accommodate the new story. The writers also have to accommodate changes to their characters even if that means breaking established relationships with the previous PCs and separating them from their companions. Maybe Im wrong and maybe the writers write their stories without looking at what their fanbase wants, i still dont like this. I would have preferred Leli/Zev/Fenris/Merrill stay with Warden/Hawke, Anders to run away with Hawke, Morrigan to stay in the Eluvian with the Warden, Alistair to rule Ferelden with Cousland, but it seems they have other fates.

 

 

This is an excellent point. If the LI's story could end with the protagonist's (NOT dead, but together), then it would be more satisfying for me I think. It's sad that they always split up after every DA game. Maybe I shouldn't feel so bad about Solas because when the next sequel rolls around, all the other LIs will be separated from the Inquisitor so the Inquisitor can make a cameo and possibly die.

[Grieving Natashina]

Whatever they do or don't mean to you, numbers aren't meaningless.  I'm not saying that the biggest number wins or anything stupidly simplistic like that, I'm simply pointing out that you have a much wider variety of personalities and backgrounds to engage with.  That's not a trivial matter.  Maybe you have gripes about specifics of each of the romances, but whatever.  I have gripes about Cassandra, too.  No relationship is perfect.

They aren't asking for perfection, they just don't want to feel screwed over.

 

Does Cass do any of the following?  Please bare in mind that this is things that the player cannot change or control and all of these have happened with the LI available for the straight ladies:

 

1) Cheat on you and get pregnant in between games--Jacob.  None of the ladies ever cheat in between games.  Heck, they are keeping Morrigan and Leliana unavailable in Inquistion so they aren't possibly "cheating."

 

2) Hide a horrific crime in their past and lie to you about their identity--Blackwall

 

3) Go through drug withdrawls--Poor Cullen

 

4) Die--Thane

 

5) Need to have sex with another man in order to live--Alistair needed to have sex with Morrigan if the female player didn't want anyone doing the US

 

6)

Spoiler

Dump you because they are a sodding god(dess)?

--Solas

 

7) Blow up a Chantry and become one of the most wanted people in Thedas?--Anders, although that has the "nice" bonus of gay/bi men going through this too.  

 

8) Bonus!  Throw a hissy fit and threaten to attack an entire city if you refuse to kill a friend/ally--Sebastian

 

 

If the answer is no, then hopefully you're beginning to see the problem.  All of this will happen with the love interests for straight women  And there is no other choice.

 

Until Cassandra, or Josie or Morrigan  blows up a church, or turns out to be lying about their entire identity, or has a drug addiction (which makes for a great story, but another "troubled" romance) or needs to have sex with another male party member in order to make sure her or your PC lives, or has to die as the plot dictates (in other words, without the player given a chance to do otherwise), or has a temper tantrum because you won't kill someone that she demanded you to and wants an entire city to be attacked for it, you don't understand.  The numbers don't mean jack if this keeps happening in game after game after sodding game.

 

To be fair, Isabela does lie to you about the "relic" and does cause pretty much all of the problems with the Qunari and Kirkwall.  So that's one straight men could experience for themselves.  One in..how many BioWare games now?  I think it's 6, between the ME and DA franchises at this point.  I'm not going to bother to count the number of romances for straight male PCs between those six games, but you get the idea.

[UltimaLyca]

I actually think it's a good thing. Happily ever after is boring. This way it is far more emotional.

Thane dying hit me so hard because of the romance I had with him.

[Grieving Natashina]

I actually think it's a good thing. Happily ever after is boring. This way it is far more emotional.

Thane dying hit me so hard because of the romance I had with him.

It's great, the first 5 times or so.  It tends to get old, and it's really jarring after doing romances as straight men (which I have.)  The level of tragedy and despair that's in most of the romances for straight women just aren't there for straight men.  I talked about this a lot more in detail during the summer.  Allan (one of the developers) started a thread regarding Romance Tropes that players are finding overdone.  I was far from alone on that as well.

 

 

I'm not asking for "Happily Ever After," all the time.  I'm asking for less tragedy more often.  It's still possible to have stress and drama in these stories without having any of the above circumstances listed above to occur.  Romances for straight male characters get that all the time, without having to resort to some of the things that myself and other folks in here have talked about.

[Ascendra]

She was more referring to how, time and time again, most of the interests for straight women have at least one "Sucker Punch." Not all, but most.

Numbers don't mean squat to her, nor to me. Okay, so straight women got four...out of which with one of them being a liar and a fake (even if you forgive him,) one of them being what...Solas is, and the other not a party member that's also going through rehab.

Oh and both Solas and Cullen were actually not going to be romances. Thanks to the deadline extension, those got added. It would have been 2/2/2, otherwise.

What's really funny is that we've read a lot of comments like that about numbers.. When frankly, the numbers mean jack and squat if the romances almost always keep ending badly. And one of them is a bisexual LI. As the OP put it:


For tragedy, straight men have had to deal with...Morrigan. Whom they can sleep with themselves to make sure no one dies, instead of squirming uncomfortably and hitting the ESC key as fast as possible because just watched their LI strutting up to someone else.

And everything she listed above happens no matter what the player does, with the exception of Alistair. If you don't have Morrigan sleep with him and you're playing a female character, one of you guys is going to die. Anders will always blow up the Chantry. Blackwall will have always lied and pretended to be something else. Jacob will always cheat on you in-between games (and get another woman pregnant, during that time too,) Thane always dies and the information about Solas never changes. Cullen is not a party member.

So, going by that, Iron Bull is literally the only companion LI that isn't going to lie to you about a horrific crime (Blackwall), who kills things with you (Cullen can't do that,) and have a dark secret that also ends the romance at the same time. (Solas)

The OP did forget about Cullen is

Spoiler

currently rehabbing from lyrium, depending upon the players choices. While I've heard that the romance is still good, we get to help "fix" Cullen by helping him through the lyrium thing.

Cass, as far as I know, doesn't have anything like that happening to her. She's just, like you said, a "tough nut to crack."

Cassandra--Won't screw over the player. Doesn't have a secret involving slaughtering an entire family. Doesn't need Sex Deus Machina in order to for her or the player to survive. Never committed acts of terrorism, isn't going through rehab, doesn't cheat on the player, doesn't freaking die, and never has the dark secret Solas does, which leads to the breakup between Solas/the player.

Josie--Thankfully she's also available to the non-straight women. She's not as buttoned-up as she appears. I'm not going to argue about having your LI at your side, but with all of the dialogue in Skyhold, it isn't as necessary as it used to be. Still, no tragedy, Sex Deus Machina, not cheating, ect ect.

I think there is too much of an obsession with numbers. The OP doesn't care about numbers, and neither do I. For straight women, I think they would have been happy with two party LIs so long as more than just sodding one of them didn't have a horrible secret (that involved killing kids,) be what Solas was in the spoiler tags, or cheat/get another woman pregnant between games (Jacob); die (Thane;) run away for in-game years at a time (Fenris, and that one irked me) going through rehab (Cullen) and had to screw another woman just to live (Alistair) and you know, actually be in the party (Cullen again.)

Natashina, I agree with your almost every point, except probably Cullen and Cass.
I think Cullen was done exceptionally well with his addiction. Sure he goes through some drama but its actually much smaller in comparison to others and certainly not as glaring as Fenris/Anders. Theres only one scene where he loses it, afterwards he deals with it quietly on his own, which is what I love the most about his character. He does not dump his problems on Inquisitor. I would say he is along with Bull the most stable/normal romance. I would have wanted him to be a companion though.

And doesnt Cass dump the romanced Inquisitor if you make a particular decision in game?

[Calders]

If you liked the DAI romances enough to be annoyed about the ending then you are one step up on me... I couldn't get interested enough in any of the women to actually care what they did.  I did romance Josephine and almost dumped her when I got to the duel... after all why am I risking my life fighting for somebody who is so meh... he can have her.

 

Remember with Morrigan that if you do the dead she leaves with your unborn child... so this far from a good result (although Witch hunt did give you the opportunity to fix that... until DAI then broke it again).

 

If you don't support Anders in DA2 you probably shouldn't be romancing him, his actions are in keeping with his character. 

 

Also I think complaining about Cullen is a bit of a stretch and I don't think you can complain too much about characters being killed of (or leaving) if this happens at the beginning of a new game because Bioware decided not to use that character in the next game, you could argue that about a lot of the characters.  With Thane the best thing to do is kill him in the suicide mission... at least its a heroic death.

 

To be fair I can see the argument a bit but I think its getting exaggerated somewhat.  Its probably more true with ME than DA (and generally I think men get the better end of the deal in ME series and women are better off in DA post DAO.

[Nilesta]

I doubt we're all ever going to agree.  I happen to enjoy tragic romances.  I get all hot and bothered just thinking about that time when Blackwall peeled off all my clothes then

Spoiler

ran away to atone for slaughtering a family.

 Yeah, baby.  Make it hurt more.

 

Nor do I want to find the next game come out with character built around how their romances should go.  I honestly think the best option, which they appear to be doing, is to create characters, and then work out how and if a romance will work with that character.  Tragic, low drama, or anything in between.

 

Sure, straight ladies have gotten some serious gut punching, but really, it's a fairly recent development that straight ladies got any non-offensive notice at all.  Bioware is doing good things.  I assume, as they continue to do good things, that the gut punches will even out more as more of the female characters are more deeply written.  The fact that we care so much at all about how the romances turn out means a lot.  Imagine arguing about romances on almost any other game's forums.

 

We care about the romances because we care about the characters, and if you peel off the characters to fix the romances, you're just removing any reason to care.

[Smashbuttons]

You didn't mention Zevran who is pretty sweet as romance ^^

He's an alcoholic douchebag.

[Panda]

He's an alcoholic douchebag.

 

Zev-ran. Not Oghren.

[Dreamer]

This seems like such a cherry nitpicking festival.

 

The options for romance are extremely diverse for everyone. Drama in the relationship should be seen as normal, not errant--especially so for characters which live in a troubled world like Thedas.

[Unnamed]

I kind of agree with the creator of the topic. And one more thing: I think all romances are kind of cliche in Inquisition. I mean, always you have to just go go go ahead with the story line and it happens in the end - you sleep with someone. I would like a more flexible and unexpected options like, for example, ... let's see - you are level 8 and doing some minor quest in a hut and then Cassandra looks pretty in there , so you kiss her without any hour long conversations. After that she kicks you in the knee but who cares..... In stead everything is like in the previous games, I mean: slowly, slowly [but surely] you just get the girl