After finishing Dragon Age Inquisition, I went around the web trying to find discussions about alternate branches, companions, and the like. While doing this I ran across a few videos, and posts, discussing how stupid, and idiotic it is to protest Bioware's inclusion of homosexual relations in their recent games, but specifically Inquisition. These posts really struck a nerve with me. It was as if they, those wanting more inclusion in media, completely ignored the universe Dragon Age is set in, a feudalistic world, where magic exists, and instead focused on the argument of representation, where because of our much more globalized world, and diverse society, specifically U.S, and Canada, media has to be more diverse in the characters it includes. The problem with this idea is that it makes the world Dragon Age is set in seem extraordinarily strange.
(This section has nothing to do with the dwarves, please just ignore they for a minute)
So, the Dragon Age Series is set in the World of Thedas, and this world has a huge amount of problems, every few hundred years a species called Darkspawn, attempts to invade this world, and in the process, thousands if not millions of combatants are killed in the attempt to push them back, not mentioning that the leader of these Darkspawn, called an Archdemon, a powerful dragon like creature that alone, can easily destroy villages, cities, and armies, and that killed be killed ‘easily’ like ‘normal’ dragons, who more or less have the same destructive power as an Archdemon. This world also has to deal with the conflicts that Feudalism brings to the table, bloody succession crises, cultural rebellions, assassinations, and conquests against other nations for land. And if our experiences in all of the games are to be believed, massive amounts of gang violence. This still doesn’t mention the rampant diseases, troubled births, and uncivilized view of medicine that would come with a time period such as this, all of which would result in many more deaths outside of combat. Finish it off with mages, people who society locks up because of the fear associated with their powers, which include creating firestorms, crushing something telekinetically, and being susceptible to the corrupting power of demons, who if they gain control of a mage, will proceed to kill most living things around it, and you’ve got yourself a world where death is nearly everywhere.
Yet, no one really minds two people’s decision to not produce children, apparently these dangers, all of which are much more serious than any threat ever faced by Europeans in the Middle Ages period in the real world, are worth caring too much about. This isn’t to say that I think homosexual, or bisexual romances have no place in this series, I just feel like they, for the most part, aren’t addressed properly. The only one that I think was addressed properly was Zevran’s bisexuality, as the indulgent lifestyle the Crows allowed him to have would lead him down a path of a sexually liberated lifestyle; not to mention Zevran is suppose to view his life as forfeit for the Crows, and is thus not expected to procreate.
However Bioware did show their competence when they created the Dwarf society, with all of its quirks well explained, and how the lost of their kingdom, perpetual war with Darkspawn, and their caste system lead to the dark situation they were trapped in at the beginning of Origins. The writing team showed great skill in crafting this part of the setting
All that I really want is Bioware to make a world that feels real, and this is something modern Bioware has a much harder time doing, I assume because their older games were all licensed, and I just hope that when Bioware starts exploring more touchy subjects related to identity, sexuality, and so on, they don’t screw it up as they’ve done with the Dragon Age series, and don’t just put it in there without regard for the setting. I can only hope the new game Bioware announced at E3 can handle itself better.
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