I know, but I meant it in that sense, none the less. Also one might say that it's very difficult to write a story having a completely blank protagonist, so some things unintentionally slip through, but I don't want to speculate on that.
I always found dragon age to be pretty neutral and good in the way it handled gender. Mass effect was worse in that regard imo.
The word you're looking for is "default".
A canonical protagonist is an unalterable one.
A default one is one that's used as a general placeholder in advertisement and adjunct publications with no player choice, or in a game if you don't override that version with your own.
The default protagonist of DAO is a female Dalish warrior
The default protagonist of DA2 is a male human mage.
I'd say it's balanced gender-wise. 
Canonically in what, the cgi trailiers that were released and a few promational posters? None of those are canon, they are about marketing to a demographic. According to the trailers hawke should be a blood magic using mage/warrior hybrid, while in gameplay mage hawke had difficulty standing ground against the arishok.
Pretty sure in gameplay ALL Hawkes had difficulty with the Arishok. Damn guy could have taken Cory and his pet dragon at the same time given how much damn health and damage he does.
The word you're looking for is "default".
A canon protagonist is an unalterable one.
A default one is one that's used as a general placeholder in advertisement and adjunct publications with no player choice.
Yes, thank you.
I always found dragon age to be pretty neutral and good in the way it handled gender. Mass effect was worse in that regard imo.
Depends on in what way you compare it I guess? My impression is that DA provides more role-playing options, but has very much typical handling of gender roles in many places.
The default protagonist of DAO is a female Dalish warrior
Was there any commercials with Dalish female elf? I always thought that it was an afterthought, that at the point of making the game they were still trying to get the feel for the franchise, if so, the approach was different in DA2.
The word you're looking for is "default".
A canonical protagonist is an unalterable one.
A default one is one that's used as a general placeholder in advertisement and adjunct publications with no player choice, or in a game if you don't override that version with your own.
Exactly, Revan is canonically male, regardless of if you played as them as female in Kotor.
The Warden has no set canon, nor does Hawke, just a default that they go with. Even the novels are intentionally vague about both their genders or race. The most you can infer is Wynne and Leliana mentioning about having worked with elves before during the Blight, but that could easily just as well apply to Zevran than definitively making it so that the Warden was indeed an Elf.
Depends on in what way you compare it I guess? My impression is that DA provides more role-playing options, but has very much typical handling of gender roles in many places.
Unfortunately, that's true. While DA is way better than ME in this, female protagonists still aren't equal. The animations in dialogue scenes and cutscenes are a dead giveaway. They could have been more neutral, but they were often decidedly male, regardless of your Inquisitor's gender. My female Inquisitors often walk as if they had hot coals between their legs.
There are a few marketing materials that also feature female hawke, so if we take all marketing posters and trailers as canon hawke is a person who can change at will between male and female, is at times a mage, warrior or rogue and sometimes all three. Look at the DA:Origin trailers for example, they feature a male warden on his journey to answer the calling and die fighting in the deep roads, then the same warden shows up in the sacred ashes trailer with leliana, morrigan and sten. Is that canon also?
Using trailers and other marketing material as canon is silly. You would have a better arguement if a male mage Hawke were featured in a comic or novel. Say like Alistair being king and working with Varric and Isabella which is in an offically released comic by the writers/creators of dragon age. I also remember Gaider saying he would like to write a comic/book about what happens with Bethany when the circle falls in Kirkwall and is forced to run, which would mean hawke is not a mage. I consider that a better source of canon then some cgi trailer put together for purely marketing reasons.
@Mikael:
I think the official word on the matter is that books feature only one of the possible storylines, not a canonical one. So if DG writes a book about Bethany, we can all read it as an alternate timeline and it doesn't invalidate our mage Hawkes.
Generally, every story one of us plays is an alternate timeline, so we should be used to such things
@Mikael:
I think the official word on the matter is that books feature only one of the possible storylines, not a canonical one. So if DG writes a book about Bethany, we can all read it as an alternate timeline and it doesn't invalidate our mage Hawkes.
Generally, every story one of us plays is an alternate timeline, so we should be used to such things
I understand that, but how do I say this.....it is more likely to be considered canon then marketing material.
Unfortunately, that's true. While DA is way better than ME in this, female protagonists still aren't equal. The animations in cutscenes are a dead giveaway. They could have been more neutral, but they were often decidedly male, regardless of your Inquisitor's gender.
Yes the fact that they are so obviously macho male says a lot on its own.
Aside from that and as a whole there are many little things:
The diplomat and the spymaster are females, the general is male. Cassandra balances this a bit, but her vulnerable side is a typical "girly" side. You can't be Vivienne to Bull (even if he would probably prefer it), you can't return the aggressiveness to Cullen, Morgans growth is shown through her motherhood, when you are appointed "Inquisitor" your symbol is a huge sword and you stick it to the sky, etc. If you really sit and analyze the semantics you can pile quite a bit.
Writing from a gender neutral perspective is very difficult, there are very few games that do it successfully and they do it successfully because the protagonist is always a blank state and is typically the only humanoid or even the only living thing that exists in that environment.
As far as I've heard BioWare always intended for each game to have a new protagonist. I have never seen them say anything to the contrary, so I think it is highly unlikely that Hawke was ever intended to be the Inquisitor.
Remember that there was at one point supposed to be an expansion to Dragon Age 2, but development of that was cancelled in order to focus on Inquisition and some of the stuff that was supposed to be in the expansion ended up in Inquisition, if I remember correctly.
The animations in dialogue scenes and cutscenes are a dead giveaway. They could have been more neutral, but they were often decidedly male, regardless of your Inquisitor's gender. My female Inquisitors often walk as if they had hot coals between their legs.
Funny, another game I play a lot (The Secret World) has also had this complaint about cut scenes. However, the TSW devs are much more involved in the community, and the director of cinematics explained that it's really, really expensive to do the motion capture and to hire actors capable of doing it, so a lot of times they have to cut costs by using whichever motion actor they have on hand to do both genders. So at times they have to have a male motion actor act as a female, which ultimately makes the females in some cut scenes look more "manish" in their movements. It's a matter of physiology -- even the best male motion actor can't 100% imitate female motions due to hip and shoulder structure.
Funny, another game I play a lot (The Secret World) has also had this complaint about cut scenes. However, the TSW devs are much more involved in the community, and the director of cinematics explained that it's really, really expensive to do the motion capture and to hire actors capable of doing it, so a lot of times they have to cut costs by using whichever motion actor they have on hand to do both genders. So at times they have to have a male motion actor act as a female, which ultimately makes the females in some cut scenes look more "manish" in their movements. It's a matter of physiology -- even the best male motion actor can't 100% imitate female motions due to hip and shoulder structure.
The problem with DA (and some other games) is that it's an exaggerated macho walk, I don't think an average guy normally walks around the way the inquisitor does (male or female), none of the NPC walk that way either.
The problem with DA (and some other games) is that it's an exaggerated macho walk, I don't think an average guy normally walks around the way the inquisitor does (male or female), none of the NPC walk that way either.
Indeed. I understand if they do only one because of costs, but it could've been a more neutral-ish set of animations. Instead, they catered to a specific male stereotype at the cost of having it look even more alien with a woman. That it's a stereotype hated by many of us more reflective types does not help at all. I play female characters to get away from such things and they still follow me through the gender divide. I resent that even as a man.
Not saying Bioware was lazy but I think they could have integrated the HoF into the story somehow given more time in production. I don't buy the whole "too much variations" card, cause it's pretty much possible (I'm a programmer myself). As for Hawke being the Inquisitor, I don't think it fits his character, he's the champion of Kirkwill and he just wants his quiet, not being some high shot. After the whole **** he went through, it's pretty obvious that he wanted to be with his family (what left of them) than help save the world AGAIN.
Was Hawk supposed to be the almighty Inquisitor? Who knows? But the sad truth is that he ended up being a underdog in DAI.
That is unfortunate. I feel like character/story development would of just been top notch if they stuck with Hawke as main character. No need to blow resources on extra races.
Then it would have lost customers. Those who hated the second game may not have come back, and those - like me - who loved the first entry but avoided the second (put off by the premise, reviews and friends who hated the thing) would have reconsidered purchasing Inquisition if it continued a story they were not invested in.
Then it would have lost customers. Those who hated the second game may not have come back, and those - like me - who loved the first entry but avoided the second (put off by the premise, reviews and friends who hated the thing) would have reconsidered purchasing Inquisition if it continued a story they were not invested in.
@Darkly Tranquil: Agreed, DA2 afterall gave me Fenris and gave DAI the action based combat it has.
DA2 isn't as completely horrible as people make out. It had some serious flaws, but it was by no means unplayable. It's worth a shot if you can get a copy cheap (which should be easy by now).
An opinion I see a lot on here. But to be fair, this is a Bioware forum. The vast majority of opinions elsewhere online say is blows in comparison to the original. I don't usually give much credence to reviews, but they near unanimously slaughtered the game. Friends with similar tastes who adored the first game also said it was a huge let down. Not bad, just a poor sequel.
I will play it eventually though, if only for the lore.
Ya, well if Inquisitor was HoF they would of had to scrap Qunari and if he he were Hawke, all other races.
Sure the races other than human are cool to have, but they're mostly done poorly in comparison to the human. Pretty noticeable if you played them all.
When i talk to Hawke as my Inquisitor, he's just way more awesome, he speaks like a true leader. My inquisitor is just some poor sap imitator in dialogue... i'm like... uh, why am i in charge?
Hawke is a garbage character and a complete clown and I'm glad they restricted his lame ass to a role more deserving of his/hers stupidity.
I'd say it was the original plan. DA2 was touted as "the rise to power of the most influential character in Thedas" (or words to that effect), so it suggests that Hawke was intended to be the Inquisitor at some stage in their planning. Presumably the very poor reception of DA2 and the strong desire of the fans for race options led the devs to rethink their plans. Personally, I think they were trying to set Hawke up as the Commander Shepard of DA, but for various reasons it didn't pan out.
While I am happy to play as Qunari, it is somewhat sad I did not get to see Hawke's story pan out that way.
An opinion I see a lot on here. But to be fair, this is a Bioware forum. The vast majority of opinions elsewhere online say is blows in comparison to the original. I don't usually give much credence to reviews, but they near unanimously slaughtered the game. Friends with similar tastes who adored the first game also said it was a huge let down. Not bad, just a poor sequel.
I will play it eventually though, if only for the lore.
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