234 réponses à ce sujet

[Bizantura]

As a european I don't see the american continent as doing "dark fantasy" at all.  Its all about the "hero" achetype.  Game of thrones is not dark, its just blood and gore to shock.  The "James Stuart and John Wayne" era of movies slyle and numerous other american actors who did the hero archetype well.  Today the modern movies  shure try to shoehorne in "dark aspects" in the typical hero arcs but like I allready said inserting blood//gore to shock doesn't make it dark.

 

Basically I think sticking to the archetypical hero would be good, americans do it exeptionally well.  Good "dark fantasy" doesn't come from that part of the world.  But I agree that this is strictly my opinion.  Then again "dark fantasy" is not what I seek in Bioware games.

[Ascendra]

This is what I wanted to hear.

 

Yup, I thought you might like the statement.

[Ascendra]

Another point actually, Witcher has a lot of slavic cultural and mythological references in it while both Westeros and Ferelden are very Anglo/Celtic, which naturally makes them similar.

 

I wish more games took inspiration from Slavic mythology. Its very rich, old and very interesting, but it is so underrepresented in the media and Anglo/Celtic are usually so overrepresented to the point of them no longer becoming unique and ending up being compared to each other.

 

As a european I don't see the american continent as doing "dark fantasy" at all.  Its all about the "hero" achetype.  Game of thrones is not dark, its just blood and gore to shock.  The "James Stuart and John Wayne" era of movies slyle and numerous other american actors who did the hero archetype well.  Today the modern movies  shure try to shoehorne in "dark aspects" in the typical hero arcs but like I allready said inserting blood//gore to shock doesn't make it dark.

 

Basically I think sticking to the archetypical hero would be good, americans do it exeptionally well.  Good "dark fantasy" doesn't come from that part of the world.  But I agree that this is strictly my opinion.  Then again "dark fantasy" is not what I seek in Bioware games.

 

While I do agree with you, I thought about something - isn't Obsidian also american continent? They are good at exploring really dark themes in their games, they always seem more tragic and somber than Bioware's and their protagonists always end up as enti-heroes. PoE is supposed to deal with a lot of questionable things, but thats probably because its a Kickstarter and does not have a large company like EA to censor things.

[Giantdeathrobot]

As a european I don't see the american continent as doing "dark fantasy" at all.  Its all about the "hero" achetype.  Game of thrones is not dark, its just blood and gore to shock.  The "James Stuart and John Wayne" era of movies slyle and numerous other american actors who did the hero archetype well.  Today the modern movies  shure try to shoehorne in "dark aspects" in the typical hero arcs but like I allready said inserting blood//gore to shock doesn't make it dark.

 

Basically I think sticking to the archetypical hero would be good, americans do it exeptionally well.  Good "dark fantasy" doesn't come from that part of the world.  But I agree that this is strictly my opinion.  Then again "dark fantasy" is not what I seek in Bioware games.

 

What's your example of dark, then?

 

Please don't say The Witcher.

[lyleoffmyspace]

What's your example of dark, then?

 

Please don't say The Witcher.

 

KOTOR2 is pretty dark.

[MadDemiurg]

What's your example of dark, then?

 

Please don't say The Witcher.

Can't answer for the OP and I personally consider both TW and GoT as good examples of dark fantasy. However if you want something different(but still good) of the same genre:I'd suggest Abercrombie's Blood and Iron and Bakker's Prince of Nothing (esp the latter).

 

Inochoroi are one of the most vile races ever depicted in fantasy literature and Mog Pharau (No God) is probably the single best written evil god entity among the stuff I've read. Lots of cool details like

Spoiler

All children becoming stillborn when he came to the world.

DA villains really look like Disney princesses in comparison.

 

Bakker is Canadian and Abercrombie is English. Don't really know many good European dark fantasy authors and I suppose we're not considering classical literature here.

[Linkenski]

If Dragon Age is now somehow less like GoT then that's a good thing. I can see where both this and DA2 are influenced by it though, but really, it would be best if Bioware found a tone and style that was uniquely memorable of "Dragon Age" and not "that video game IP that feels like that TV show"

 

Mass Effect is like the star wars of video games and Dragon Age is like the LotR and GoT of video games.

 

I guess next step for Bioware is to come up with IPs that don't lean so heavily on other well-known IPs. Last gen was all about video games aping movies. It's about time video games take their storytelling potential, modern tech and gameplay innovations and make video gaming the definitive medium for just about everything.

[Zwingtanz]

What's your example of dark, then?

 

Please don't say The Witcher.

Never heard of dark fantasy before the hype around Dark Souls myself. You could just call it fantasy horror, Vampire the Masquerade or Call of Cthulhu would be examples *shrug*.

[MadDemiurg]

If Dragon Age is now somehow less like GoT then that's a good thing. I can see where both this and DA2 are influenced by it though, but really, it would be best if Bioware found a tone and style that was uniquely memorable of "Dragon Age" and not "that video game IP that feels like that TV show"

 

Mass Effect is like the star wars of video games and Dragon Age is like the LotR and GoT of video games.

 

I guess next step for Bioware is to come up with IPs that don't lean so heavily on other well-known IPs. Last gen was all about video games aping movies. It's about time video games take their storytelling potential, modern tech and gameplay innovations and make video gaming the definitive medium for just about everything.

 

Sorry, but this post almost gave me cancer

 

Ok, chill...

 

I'm even ok with putting ME and SW in one sentence like that, because plot wise I don't like either.

 

But saying that DA is GoT(well, ASOIAF actually and it's not a tv show originally) or LotR of games... arghhhhh...

 

To even consider this BW has to fire the whole story writing team, find new geniuses somewhere and force them to work for BW/EA somehow (torture them by making them listen to DA:I and ME3 story scripts maybe?). And even then the end result will probably be ruined by censorship and other considerations of corporate moneymaking strategies..

[omgodzilla]

The game is severely lacking in ruthlessness. I miss the days of Renegade Shepard. Nothing in DAI can compare to shooting Mordin, Falere, Shiala, killing the Rachni Queen or that scene on Thane's loyalty mission where you could shoot the hostage and say "hostages only work if your enemy cares whether they die". The inquisitor is a very bland character. He's too neutral throughout much of the game. The dialogue wheel doesn't provide as much variety in expressing your moral beliefs as previous games do. 

[Ascendra]

The game is severely lacking in ruthlessness. I miss the days of Renegade Shepard. Nothing in DAI can compare to shooting Mordin, Falere, Shiala, killing the Rachni Queen or that scene on Thane's loyalty mission where you could shoot the hostage and say "hostages only work if your enemy cares whether they die". The inquisitor is a very bland character. He's too neutral throughout much of the game. The dialogue wheel doesn't provide as much variety in expressing your moral beliefs as previous games do. 

 

You shot Mordin????

Thats not ruthlessness, thats called stupid evil I would not want a protagonist like that ever.

[Giantdeathrobot]

Can't answer for the OP and I personally consider both TW and GoT as good examples of dark fantasy. However if you want something different(but still good) of the same genre:I'd suggest Abercrombie's Blood and Iron and Bakker's Prince of Nothing (esp the latter).

 

Inochoroi are one of the most vile races ever depicted in fantasy literature and Mog Pharau (No God) is probably the single best written evil god entity among the stuff I've read. Lots of cool details like

Spoiler

All children becoming stillborn when he came to the world.

DA villains really look like Disney princesses in comparison.

 

Bakker is Canadian and Abercrombie is English. Don't really know many good European dark fantasy authors and I suppose we're not considering classical literature here.

 

I don't consider them that dark. The Witcher is all about a hero, a more flawed hero than most sure but he and his gang are practically saints compared to a lot of the people they face; one can easily play most Bioware games that way.

 

GoT (and ASoIaF) have lots of icky stuff going on, but it still has loads of good people doing good things, and among the grey morality there are also clear heroes (Brienne, Davos, most Starks) and villains (Cercei, Gregor, Ramsay, slavers).

 

To be quite frank I don't even know what ''dark fantasy'' is or why some people hype it up so much like if it was objectively better than ''normal'' fantasy. As someone said, I guess I could see something along the lines of the Lovecraftian universe to be different and dark enough to warrant its own sub-genre, but in my books doing Tolkien with more gore, sex and intrigue doesn't cut it.

[LinksOcarina]

Dark Fantasy is supposed to be more about horrific elements with fantasy tropes included. So Cthulu for example, is a dark fantasy type of thing. Or Dracula or Frankenstein type settings, themes, characters, and so forth. Gothic and gloomy themes,  atmosphere or tone, that type of stuff.

 

for tabletops, it was Ravenloft that kind of fit that bill for DnD for years. You also have horror elements in games like Dragon Age or the Witcher, but also in skyrim and Dark Souls. Stephen King's Dark Tower series is pretty close to that genre as well, as is stuff like the Elric stuff from Michael Moorecock.

 

But they are not Dark Fantasy by pure definition, it's again, hybridization of genres. 

[Bob Walker]

I really don't like ASOIAF. I tried but I could not get into the series. To me, the less DA takes inspiration from ASOIAF, the better.

[Giantdeathrobot]

Dark Fantasy is supposed to be more about horrific elements with fantasy tropes included. So Cthulu for example, is a dark fantasy type of thing. Or Dracula or Frankenstein type settings, themes, characters, and so forth. Gothic and gloomy themes,  atmosphere or tone, that type of stuff.

 

for tabletops, it was Ravenloft that kind of fit that bill for DnD for years. You also have horror elements in games like Dragon Age or the Witcher, but also in skyrim and Dark Souls. Stephen King's Dark Tower series is pretty close to that genre as well, as is stuff like the Elric stuff from Michael Moorecock.

 

But they are not Dark Fantasy by pure definition, it's again, hybridization of genres. 

 

The Dark Tower? I read that series, and while it had loads of creepy stuff it didn't seem that dark to me. It even seemed softer than most Stephen King fare, the darkest part about it were the character deaths and half of them were rather heroic, all things considered.

 

So if I read it correctly, Bioware making dark fantasy would mean an entire game of Broodmothers and/or the like. I'm pretty sure that wouldn't work that well in practice.

[lyleoffmyspace]

I don't consider them that dark. The Witcher is all about a hero, a more flawed hero than most sure but he and his gang are practically saints compared to a lot of the people they face; one can easily play most Bioware games that way.

 

GoT (and ASoIaF) have lots of icky stuff going on, but it still has loads of good people doing good things, and among the grey morality there are also clear heroes (Brienne, Davos, most Starks) and villains (Cercei, Gregor, Ramsay, slavers).

 

To be quite frank I don't even know what ''dark fantasy'' is or why some people hype it up so much like if it was objectively better than ''normal'' fantasy. As someone said, I guess I could see something along the lines of the Lovecraftian universe to be different and dark enough to warrant its own sub-genre, but in my books doing Tolkien with more gore, sex and intrigue doesn't cut it.

 

I think dark fantasy is the horror type of fantasy - Lovecraft and ****, highly spooky, creepy and atmospheric. I'm pretty sure we actually got some of that in the Broodmother section of the Deep Roads, plus the whole ancient horror, Archdemon, old evil, nightmare realm fade type stuff.  That stuff is awesome and we needed some more of it in Inquisition.

 

However most of us just want a better written, more grey characters, especially villains. Corypheus has been heavily criticised for being an extremely one dimensional and cartoonish villain - the same is true of other villains in Inquisition like Florianne and Sansom - they're all doing it "for the power!". Compare that to Origins where villains like Loghain, Branka, Zatharian were complex and multidimensional characters. We see this in The Witcher to a level also, and it's famous in Game of Thrones with characters like Tywin Lannister. 

 

That's what we want from Dragon Age. It's not objectively better for sure, but unless you are 12 it's more interesting.

[Vox Draco]

Okay, you want Dark Fantasy? Reduce the Gamma-setting in the Options

 

But really, what is dark anyway? People dying? Rape, murder? Those things done to the PC? Even committed by the PC?? The whole world destroyed at the end? (I played "Arcanum", I actually achieved that!)

 

Personally, I prefer my games with at least a faint touch of hope. I hate to bring it up again, but one reason (despite illogical writing) the ME-series failed in teh end was that they went a lot too dark and hopeless, leaving the main char (therefore: us!) out of control and feeling useless, without a chance to impact the game. I considered the end to be extremly dark for that matter, and hateit ever since. I am a sissy, yeah...

 

So what I wanna say is: Be careful what you are wishing for. All too easy a world/game gone too dark is more a turn-off than being enjoyable. Even the Witcher has plenty of humour and doesn't take itself too serious at moments to balance the darker streaks of the game (like what happens to Ves, e.g.).

 

And GoT? Yeah, I am intrigued where it will go ... yet I fear Martin might have already jumped the shark with his shocks (hey, maybe he would shock his fans the most if we finally get an all-out happy-ending and generic hero saves the world-plot!? I would laugh my butt off )

[outlaw1109]

Okay, you want Dark Fantasy? Reduce the Gamma-setting in the Options

 

But really, what is dark anyway? People dying? Rape, murder? Those things done to the PC? Even committed by the PC?? The whole world destroyed at the end? (I played "Arcanum", I actually achieved that!)

 

Personally, I prefer my games with at least a faint touch of hope. I hate to bring it up again, but one reason (despite illogical writing) the ME-series failed in teh end was that they went a lot too dark and hopeless, leaving the main char (therefore: us!) out of control and feeling useless, without a chance to impact the game. I considered the end to be extremly dark for that matter, and hateit ever since. I am a sissy, yeah...

 

So what I wanna say is: Be careful what you are wishing for. All too easy a world/game gone too dark is more a turn-off than being enjoyable. Even the Witcher has plenty of humour and doesn't take itself too serious at moments to balance the darker streaks of the game (like what happens to Ves, e.g.)

Totally agree here.  ME 3 they were forced to finally deal with this unbeatable enemy and ME 2 had done nothing to advance that cause.  So, they came up with space magic and that went over real smooth with the community.

I do miss random terrible acts of torture and the "grey areas" from Origins, though.  The one's where you sit there for a few minutes processing what each response will yield.  Not to mention the fact that each choice lead to different reactions from, not only your companions, but the people around you in general.

Will they ever go back to that?  I doubt it.  The tools they use to get feedback from gameplay can't measure how much you enjoyed making those types of decisions, only that you did make them.  As far as the "dark" GoT theme, it was part of the initial Origins ad campaign.  "Dark" stuff...I can't remember exactly...

 

[MadDemiurg]

Spoiler

I don't consider them that dark. The Witcher is all about a hero, a more flawed hero than most sure but he and his gang are practically saints compared to a lot of the people they face; one can easily play most Bioware games that way.

 

GoT (and ASoIaF) have lots of icky stuff going on, but it still has loads of good people doing good things, and among the grey morality there are also clear heroes (Brienne, Davos, most Starks) and villains (Cercei, Gregor, Ramsay, slavers).

 

To be quite frank I don't even know what ''dark fantasy'' is or why some people hype it up so much like if it was objectively better than ''normal'' fantasy. As someone said, I guess I could see something along the lines of the Lovecraftian universe to be different and dark enough to warrant its own sub-genre, but in my books doing Tolkien with more gore, sex and intrigue doesn't cut it.

My own definition of "dark" fantasy is about grey morality. It may not be the correct or universally accepted one, but that's how I understand it. Classical fantasy has black & white image of the world. The bad guy often has no believable human motivation, he's often just pure evil just for the sake if it. And the good guys  often are the lawful stupid paladin kind, refusing to do anything they consider to be bad even if the consequences of not doing it are much worse. Dark fantasy characters are closer to the real life ones, they are not bound by the black & white constraints and can be heroes in one instance and villains in another. This is also often combined with a crapsack world setting with multitude of issues not unlike the real world. The main story is not the fight of All Good vs The Ultimate Evil, but often deals with more mundane stuff (The Ultimate Evil can still be there serving as a background for everything). It can also contain horror elements.

 

Classical fantasy shows you a knight slaying a bad guy with a shining sword. Dark fantasy shows the intestines falling out and the bad guy's family starving to death later.

 

You're right that Tolkien with more gore, sex and intrigue doesn't cut it - Tolkien is still about the bad guys vs the good guys at its core, and the depiction of the world is still too idealistic. GoT and TW OTOH have a lot more grey/ambiguous plot elements and the world is filled with mundane problems.

 

For an actual example of "dark" writing let's consider 

Spoiler

TW depiction of Battle of Brenna and particularly the part about the field hospital, where doctors try to save at least someone from an endless flow of maimed soldiers, only to have all of them killed by the Nilfgaardians shortly after (Overall I consider this battle to be quite well written, and one of the best parts of TW books).

Something like this would never happen or be described in such way in say, LotR.

 

I also don't consider dark fantasy to be necessarily superior. Personally I like it more, but that's a matter of taste.

[Giantdeathrobot]

I think dark fantasy is the horror type of fantasy - Lovecraft and ****, highly spooky, creepy and atmospheric. I'm pretty sure we actually got some of that in the Broodmother section of the Deep Roads, plus the whole ancient horror, Archdemon, old evil, nightmare realm fade type stuff.  That stuff is awesome and we needed some more of it in Inquisition.

 

However most of us just want a better written, more grey characters, especially villains. Corypheus has been heavily criticised for being an extremely one dimensional and cartoonish villain - the same is true of other villains in Inquisition like Florianne and Sansom - they're all doing it "for the power!". Compare that to Origins where villains like Loghain, Branka, Zatharian were complex and multidimensional characters. We see this in The Witcher to a level also, and it's famous in Game of Thrones with characters like Tywin Lannister. 

 

That's what we want from Dragon Age. It's not objectively better for sure, but unless you are 12 it's more interesting.

 

Branka is a complex villain? Really? She's a lunatic out for power too. Zathrian is only a little better, he's a bitter coward unable to let go.

 

Inquisition has Clarel, Calpernia and Alexius as villains that are more than cardboard cut-outs. That's already more than Origins.

 

The Witcher I never saw as having complex villains. Azar Javed, the preacher in act 1, the Professor, Jacques de Aldersberg, the King of the Wild Hunt, they were all straight up evil. The Lodge of sorceresses in TW2 were evil bitches to a woman. Foltest was just a jerk, all the other nobles and kings were complete assholes except for that one prince in the prologue. The Nilfgaardian ambassador? ******* too. Letho is a grey villain, but that's one in two games. I always thought the grey morality in TW was overstated; in truth, it's grey and black, Geralt almost always faces card-carrying villains. TW certainly has nothing on the level of Tywin Lannister.

[Ashagar]

If we were really wanted to talk dark fantasy I would bring up the Black Company by Gen Cook, and  the old anthology series Thieves World, you just don't find series that dark these days and those are admittedly color what I consider dark fantasy.

[MadDemiurg]

Branka is a complex villain? Really? She's a lunatic out for power too. Zathrian is only a little better, he's a bitter coward unable to let go.

 

Inquisition has Clarel, Calpernia and Alexius as villains that are more than cardboard cut-outs. That's already more than Origins.

 

The Witcher I never saw as having complex villains. Azar Javed, the preacher in act 1, the Professor, Jacques de Aldersberg, the King of the Wild Hunt, they were all straight up evil. The Lodge of sorceresses in TW2 were evil bitches to a woman. Foltest was just a jerk, all the other nobles and kings were complete assholes except for that one prince in the prologue. The Nilfgaardian ambassador? ******* too. Letho is a grey villain, but that's one in two games. I always thought the grey morality in TW was overstated; in truth, it's grey and black, Geralt almost always faces card-carrying villains. TW certainly has nothing on the level of Tywin Lannister.

Dunno, I don't consider neither Clarel nor Alexius to be any good. Clarel gets too little screen time to be really developed and she's very one dimensional - We must stop the Darkspawn at all costs! Oh noes, we have been tricked (dies), Alexiuses motivation of doing all the **** he did is almost as lame as Anakin's from SW, and that one almost makes me want to puke given how bad it is. Never met Calpernia, so can't speak about her.

 

Personally I quite like the villains in TW2. To me, a villain doesn't need to be somehow sympathetic as long as his character and motivations make sense. Tywin Lannister is also a jerk. So what? He's a good villain. They are indeed not ASOIAF level, although if you compare with TW books it gets better.

[nici2412]

Branka is a complex villain? Really? She's a lunatic out for power too. Zathrian is only a little better, he's a bitter coward unable to let go.

 

Inquisition has Clarel, Calpernia and Alexius as villains that are more than cardboard cut-outs. That's already more than Origins.

 

The Witcher I never saw as having complex villains. Azar Javed, the preacher in act 1, the Professor, Jacques de Aldersberg, the King of the Wild Hunt, they were all straight up evil. The Lodge of sorceresses in TW2 were evil bitches to a woman. Foltest was just a jerk, all the other nobles and kings were complete assholes except for that one prince in the prologue. The Nilfgaardian ambassador? ******* too. Letho is a grey villain, but that's one in two games. I always thought the grey morality in TW was overstated; in truth, it's grey and black, Geralt almost always faces card-carrying villains. TW certainly has nothing on the level of Tywin Lannister.

Did you even pay any attention to the story of the games? Because it doesn't sound like you did.

Neither the King of the Wild Hunt, nor Jaques de Aldersberg are evil.

de Aldersberg (Alvin) is a source and can travel through time and space. There is a prophecy on the Witcher books that the world will freeze and humanity will die. He traveled into the future and saw this the end of humanity with his own eyes, so he decided to save the humanity by creating mutants that can resist the frost and lead the humans to the south, were they can survive. His saw himself as the savior of humanity and because of this he thought his actions were justified.

 

The King of the Wild Hunt  (Witcher 3 spoliers)

Spoiler

The King of the Wild Hunt is in fact Eredin, an Aen Elle elf, from another world. The Aen Elle are the "brother race" of the elves from the witcher world. They also know about the prophecy, foretelling the end of the world. They wan't to save the elves from the Witcher world by evacuating them from the witcher world into their world. But they can't do that, because their ability to travel between time and space is very limited. That's why they need Ciri (the ashen haired girl). They need her ability to travel between time and space. There are even hints that they wan't to evacuate the humans as well. I don't know how you can call this "straight evil".

 

Lodge of Sorceress:

Evil bitches? Really?You reduce the 10 women of the lodge to that?

The main goal of the lodge of sorceress is to create a state under their rule, which includes the whole north. Creating a united state, which power can match the power of  Nilfgaard is in their opinion the only possibility to create a balance of power between the North and Nilfgaard and finally end the repeating wars with Nilfgaard and the conflicts between the Northern states

 

And there is someone on the level of Tywin Lannister. The guy voiced by Charles Dance:

http://knightofphoen...art-4-emhyr-the

 

Spoiler

[Giantdeathrobot]

Did you even pay any attention to the story of the games? Because it doesn't sound like you did.

Neither the King of the Wild Hunt, nor Jaques de Aldersberg are evil.

de Aldersberg (Alvin) is a source and can travel through time and space. There is a prophecy on the Witcher books that the world will freeze and humanity will die. He traveled into the future and saw this the end of humanity with his own eyes, so he decided to save the humanity by creating mutants that can resist the frost and lead the humans to the south, were they can survive. His saw himself as the savior of humanity and because of this he thought his actions were justified.

 

The King of the Wild Hunt  (Witcher 3 spoliers)

Spoiler

The King of the Wild Hunt is in fact Eredin, an Aen Elle elf, from another world. The Aen Elle are the "brother race" of the elves from the witcher world. They also know about the prophecy, foretelling the end of the world. They wan't to save the elves from the Witcher world by evacuating them from the witcher world into their world. But they can't do that, because their ability to travel between time and space is very limited. That's why they need Ciri (the ashen haired girl). They need her ability to travel between time and space. There are even hints that they wan't to evacuate the humans as well. I don't know how you can call this "straight evil".

 

Lodge of Sorceress:

Evil bitches? Really?You reduce the 10 women of the lodge to that?

The main goal of the lodge of sorceress is to create a state under their rule, which includes the whole north. Creating a united state, which power can match the power of  Nilfgaard is in their opinion the only possibility to create a balance of power between the North and Nilfgaard and finally end the repeating wars with Nilfgaard and the conflicts between the Northern states

 

And there is someone on the level of Tywin Lannister. The guy voiced by Charles Dance:

http://knightofphoen...art-4-emhyr-the

 

Spoiler

 

I know Jacques is Alvin. He's still unleashing mutants that he cannot control and allying with people like Salamandra, causing no end of trouble, and the game makes it clear that his visions are no justification. ''This sword is for monsters'' and all that.

 

I haven't played TW3 nor dwell in its lore forums so I can't say anything about how the King looks like in that game. As we see them in TW1 and the marketing for TW3, they run around destroying villages and tried to kill Geralt. It's nice to know TW3 will make them something else, but this info wasn't present in TW1.

 

So basically yes, their motivation is power from what we see in-game. They take over the dragon, attempt to cause chaos to further their own ends, and get outplayed by basically everyone else. I've played the game, I know what their deal is. Hasn't changed my opinion of them.

 

I concede that Emyr can indeed be considered as such. I just hope they portray him well in TW3.

 

Still leaves lot of card carrying villain in the series. Loredo, Henselt, the Professor, the Reverend, Azar Javed, the Ambassador. The ratio isn't different from Dragon Age's as I see it, which also has a mix of straight up villains (Branka, Howe, Meredith, Erimond) and more complex ones (Loghain, Arishok, Calpernia, perhaps Flemeth and Fen'Harel).