The main argument seems to involve people taking Dorian’s “an ill advised night after drinking” comment to mean “I was completely drunk out of my mind and Iron Bull was completely 100 percent sober.” Where does any of the dialogue say that Bull wasn’t equally as drunk or even moreso, especially if they were drinking together and Dorian is as prolific a drinker as he claims to be? Where is the evidence that the game actually gives us that Iron Bull was sober enough to consciously take advantage? We see in the game that he’s perfectly capable of getting smashed, whereas we don’t actually ever see DORIAN smashed, and are told he’s quite an accomplished drinker who can down the worst swill imaginable and still intellectualize about it. So why is the assumption that Dorian got drunk, Iron Bull took advantage of it, when Dorian apparently has incredible tolerance and practice at drinking, and presumably knows his limits? What’s keeping people from assuming that Iron Bull wasn’t more drunk than Dorian, that Dorian (a masterful drinker by his own admission and those of others) wasn’t the one to take advantage? Just that Bull is bigger and more stereotypically dominant and open about sexuality?
It seems to me that the most likely answer is they were both comparably affected by whatever they were drinking, which puts neither in a clear-cut position to take advantage. Drunk sex isn’t a great time either way, but there is zero text in the dialogue to suggest that there was a disparate level of drunkenness between them. Dorian doesn’t even suggest one way or the other how much they were drinking: we literally don’t and CANNOT know that unless the writers clarify. All he says is that they got together after a night of drinking, not that drinking itself was the sole reason they got together, or even that they were drinking enough to be significantly affected. It’s a medieval RPG, drinking is the main social event, all the characters constantly talk about drinking together at the tavern and three of them literally live in there.
I bring this up specifically not to imply that drinking can’t lead to bad situations for which victims are not at fault, but because we know that Dorian is constantly downplaying himself and the seriousness of his relationships. He does this CONSTANTLY in your romance with the Inq. Even after you tell him you want more, he still tries to give you frequent and persistent outs, like, “oh, I’ve been a port in a storm before, no worries!” See: his joking reaction when you break up with him (“oh, of COURSE naturally it wouldn’t have worked out haha brb going to drink”). See: making comments about the curtains in lieu of revealing how hurt he is if the Inq breaks up with him. See: his response to you asking to take it slow, namely: “what do you want? A RELATIONSHIP?” as though that’s not exactly what he wants.
But with how careful Bull is, with how specific he is about consent even if the writing is a bit weird in places, does anyone really think that it’s MORE LIKELY that the dude who asks your Inq multiple times for consent and insists on established safewords took advantage of a drunk Dorian than it is Dorian ONCE AGAIN trying to downplay something that might actually be more serious to him? Or, alternatively, if it’s just a sex thing, of Dorian trying to give some excuse for why he would sleep with Bull, an experience he compares to the humiliation of “fancying fereldan beer”, of all people? Key word in that comparison: fancying. He fancies Bull, he’s just embarrassed that he does, because Bull is a lewd, savage qunari that would have his “ancestors rolling in their graves”. Especially since Dorian himself is constantly making light of his drinking habits and referring to them in wry, offhanded ways (“Time to drink myself into a stupor, it’s been that sort of day!” / cheerfully agreeing to Blackwall’s assessment of him as a “drunkard with terrible taste”)? This moment reads so clearly to me as one of Dorian trying to rationalize his attraction by blaming the alcohol, an attraction he describes as being on the level of liking a particularly embarrassing brand of beer. Let’s really look at Dorian’s own comparison, though: to drink that beer, he has to make a conscious decision to do so, otherwise it wouldn’t be embarrassing that he’d done it and liked it. There’s consent implied all over this analogy, to the point where Dorian is trying to minimalize exactly how much, because, again, he doesn’t want people to know he actually likes and chooses to drink that awful Fereldan swill (aka, Bull). Gaider uses this analogy again in his Dorian/Bull reply, so it’s not just me reading into things, the Fereldan beer IS Bull.
And has anyone listened to the Cole/Dorian conversations? Dorian is perfectly capable of telling someone to say STOP in clear, forceful words if they go too far. When your Inq tells him not to go back to Tevinter because YOU need him, he straight-up calls out the emotional blackmail (even though he’s teasing, he still calls you on that happily, and I think at that point he’s probably way more emotionally invested in the Inq than he would be with Bull). He also asserts the importance of his emotional wellbeing with the Inq who tells him he just wants to have fun: he basically tells him “I don’t know if I can emotionally handle keeping things fun because it will be harder on me later to break it off, so let’s discuss it later when the timing is better” rather than simply falling into bed with him again. Plus: see literally everything with his father.
With Bull, he complains and huffs about how he’s a loudmouth about it, about how he’s not discrete, but he doesn’t actually make that much of an effort to tell him to cut it out. Think about how often characters ASK Bull/Dorian about their relationship, Varric and Sera both bring up their sex specifically, and *Cassandra* is the one to bring it up when Dorian goes “oh great let’s all discuss this together!”, not Bull. It’s so… tame? Like, his “please stop helping the dwarf” is the closest thing I can think of, but it’s delivered in such an eye-rolling tone it’s so hard for me to take it as anything that serious, especially since he seems more concerned with Varric running wild than Bull. I think most of this is just the writers trying to get across that they have a sexual relationship in light of the fact that we can’t see it because they’re not player characters. And they’re trying to be funny, and they clearly find it hilarious just how much of a loser Dorian thinks he is for “liking Fereldan beer” (whether this humour works for you or not is a total YMMV and I do get that). Fenris/Isabela do the same thing. Does it result in some potentially uncomfortable overtones? It can, I won’t deny it. I just don’t think it rises anywhere close to the level of abuse, but rather a boundary issue that I trust Dorian would bring up if he truly was bothered by it that much.
And is he really that bothered? He also makes a comment about using the bedposts to Varric, so clearly he’s not AGONIZING about Bull being so open about it, nor is he terrified of discussing sex with men in front of other people. It always just sounds so much to me like “oh wonderful everybody knows I’m having regular sex with THIS PEASANT” rather than, like with his banter with Cole, being made actually uncomfortable with it. You can hear it in his voice there: it trembles, it softens, it becomes openly vulnerable and hurt. With Bull, it’s all aggravated sighs and eye-rolling groaning. He makes a few comments about the Inq too, like “if I was any nicer to him, we’d be joined at the hip~”, he tells a REVERED MOTHER about all the credit his tongue gets him, and he offers to DRAW DIAGRAMS for Blackwall (to whom he brings the subject up). When Sera describes their sex with the tree metaphor, Dorian doesn’t wilt, he says, wryly, “I don’t know what’s worse, the mockery or the accuracy.” So Dorian is not some fragile flower who wilts whenever someone starts talking sex, who is deeply troubled and triggered and traumatized by people talking about his sex life because of his queer struggle, he’s embarrassed because PEOPLE KNOW HE SLEPT WITH **BULL**. Again: he’s embarrassed that people know he “fancies Fereldan beer”.
Because a key thing that I think some people are missing is that Dorian is the one in control—completely and one thousand percent in control of how this relationship plays out. Cole (of all people) specifically points out that while Bull plays the Dom role, he lets his partner set the pace completely, which allows them to play the sub while actually being in control THEMSELVES. Notably, when the conquering dialogue happens, Bull backs off when Dorian says he wasn’t flirting with him, and just leaves it at “my door’s always open if you change your mind.” The open door imagery is repeated, it’s a deliberate symbol for their dynamic: Bull is all talk, but Dorian is all action, MUST be if the relationship is to continue. Dorian is the one who “may or may not come” if Bull leaves his door open “like a savage” (again, Dorian himself invokes the dom stuff in conjunction with their sexual relationship). Dorian has to make a conscious and physical effort to continue sleeping with Bull, he has to take that step, traverse that space, and place HIMSELF in Bull’s bedroom, which to me leaves zero ambiguity as to his desires and consent. Dorian is also the one who may or may not have left his underwear in Bull’s room as an excuse to come back—again, Dorian isn’t honest about these things, he needs excuses to keep it casual. But to me, since Dorian doesn’t deny it and in fact immediately identifies that he WILL be coming back, this is another clear sign of Dorian making a move, acting, wanting and TAKING what he wants. I think that’s powerful in the context of his story, where his family tried to take that agency away from him, where they tried to keep it hidden.
David Gaider’s beer analogy is kind of perfect (and tbh I think we all take Bull/Dorian a lot more seriously than he does, based on his response), as is Dorian’s sort of sarcastic description of their relationship to the Inq: it’s SOMETHING, god I don’t know what’s going on, it’s totally embarrassing but ah well, what can be done about it? It’s that causal, airy “ah, well” that he gives your Inq that leaves me having a hard time believing that he really has any serious issues with how the relationship is progressing. Also, depending on your dialogue options when you ask him about the affair, he can also say, “what do I say about it? you know what he’s [Iron Bull] like” in sort of an amorous tone. Again: evidence that he’s actually kind of into it, that it WORKS for him. Again, we don’t know what they’ve discussed in private (though knowing Bull, I cannot IMAGINE certain conversations have not taken place), we only see the fringes of their relationship, which is SO NEW, unlike the Inq romance which is developed over a longer time, in more detail, and involves the wish-fulfilment of a player saying everything they think Dorian wants to hear. (I love the Inq romance, but the player has control there to direct it, and you are not given many options to oppose Dorian’s way of thinking).
I feel like many of the “Dorian/Bull is abusive” arguments want to believe that Dorian is some tortured, traumatized, self-flagellating gay man with self-worth so low that he can’t stand up for himself, or that he’s this victimized guy who doesn’t have all the fire, self-determination and courage to LEAVE HIS WHOLE COUNTRY AND CUT OFF TIES WITH HIS FAMILY when they tried to hurt him. That his stark vulnerability equals broken, or browbeaten, or that he has low standards for himself. But look at the way he stands up to his father. Listen to how firm and convicted he is that HE DESERVES BETTER, that his father was WRONG despite how much he worshipped him before, how much he loves him. “Sometimes, love is not enough” – DORIAN SAYS THAT, later, to Cole. He’s not tortured by his sexuality or ashamed of it, he knows who he is and what he wants, he’s so willing to “fight for what’s in [his] heart.” He’s just not used to a culture where things are open and he can express it freely. Hence, why he’s thrown by Bull’s openness—and why Bull’s openness is maybe not the worst thing, even if they maybe need to have a discussion about it. Still, if that’s a discussion they need to have, I trust that Dorian would bring it up.
Again, too, for a guy who’s had to hide his whole life, I think to some degree, having people talk about it openly and normalizing it isn’t the worst thing that could happen to him. In the context of the IB/Inq relationship, Varric establishes that talking about sex stuff is okay because they’re all friends, and they don’t have to pretend to be anything but themselves in front of the group. I think that same attitude, transferred to Dorian/IB, is a bit more complex and interesting than “Dorian hates it when IB brings up their sex and is humiliated by it and he should stop”. Because here, Dorian’s desire, no matter how kinky it gets, is accepted by his friends, who give him **** for it like any friends would, and whose partner brags about him and openly appreciates, praises, and normalizes their sex. It’s literally the exact opposite of what Tevinter was like for him, and I think that’s… interesting! Complex! Again, if it’s a discussion they need to have, if boundaries are an issue for him, then based on Iron Bull’s romance and Dorian’s consistent assertion of his emotional needs in the Inq romance, they’ll have that talk. Frankly, we don’t know if they haven’t ALREADY had that talk.
Like, it feels like some (not all) of the arguments are really invested in taking away Dorian’s agency as a character, which he displays so powerfully in the confrontation with his father. He says he’s happy with Bull, he makes a conscious decision to stay with a man who makes him so, but clearly he can’t actually know what he wants or stick up for himself because apparently he’s this tortured gay martyr with no self-worth who will accept any level of awful, degrading treatment because he thinks it’s what he deserves. Which just SO does not gel with what I see of him in the game? Like, Dorian’s personality is basically “I HAVE A LOVELY OPINION ON THAT” and “I AM GREAT” and while he does joke to cover up some issues about his desires, he is so open and convicted and strong about asserting how much he matters, how much his choice matters, and how very RIGHT he is in valuing himself. “I wouldn’t like that Dorian” he says of a Dorian whose agency is stripped away, his desires made more acceptable through someone else’s decision; he leave his whole world specifically because he refuses to feel like he’s “screaming on the inside”; I feel like I HAVE to trust him and the choices he makes FOR HIMSELF, uninfluenced by the player, or else I’m doing a disservice to that strength of his.
And I feel like some of the criticisms of Dorian/Bull play into some tired stereotypes of tortured queer folks, of self-hating queer folks. Dorian says he’s happy, clearly whatever they have WORKS for the both of them, even if the particular dynamics would not work for everybody. And I think that’s important: for some people, this dynamic would not be okay, and that’s FINE, but for these two, they’re clearly both happy and into it, and whatever it is works for them enough for Dorian to choose it again and again and again. They might need to work out the details, they might need to talk about how they act in public, they might need to negotiate things more, but they’re still at the beginning of their relationship, working out the baggage that comes with it, and what about Bull’s character suggests that he wouldn’t be open to those discussions if Dorian starts them? HE’S the one who starts them in the IB/Inq romance.
Listen to the entirety of Bull and Dorian’s banter. Listen to Bull support Dorian even though Dorian is still completely antagonistic towards him. Listen to Bull calling Dorian sweet, gentle, brave, strong and caring, not just hot. Listen to Bull talk about how they’re so similar, how he tries to understand Dorian’s hostility and pain; he cares about Dorian as a person, even if they’re just friends, he doesn’t want to see him hurt. Does Dorian at any point sound afraid of Bull’s banter, or intimidated, or genuinely threatened? He’s constantly mouthing off to him, insulting him, snapping at him, calling him a brute and a savage, even making some pretty prejudiced assumptions about him, trying to GOAD him into trying something. He’s just, like… he’s so clearly not afraid of confronting him? Or calling him out? One of the first banters they have is Dorian practically shouting “HEY, YOU SAVAGE *******, WHEN ARE WE GONNA FIGHT?”
To which Bull always, always replies with humour, of turning Dorian’s wrath and potential fear (of him as a QUNARI before they get to know one another) into a flirty joke. Again, Cole gives us insight into this: he tells us that Iron Bull gave himself an animal name to turn it into a joke, so it wouldn’t be true. He’s afraid that without the Qun he’ll become a savage. His greatest fear is losing control of himself, of madness, of demonic possession. This is not a guy who relishes the thought of savagery or violence, or even the thought of controlling OTHER PEOPLE. Again, while Iron Bull plays up the dom role, Cole points out that he’s actually letting his partners set the pace the whole time, letting THEM be in control, so canon directly confronts the whole “Bull is a domineering partner who’s in total control” and tells us it’s straight-up BS. He’s playing a role for the benefit of his partners who are into that specific kink. COLE AGAIN points out that what Iron Bull loves isn’t killing and conquering, it’s DEFENDING; he always, always lets enemies run to him first before striking. Bull’s character is ALL ABOUT laying the cards down and letting others come to him, define their limits. That is so consistent about him, even in the Inq romance. The “don’t top from the bottom” is playing into that role that, at that point, they’ve both established themselves as being into (and Bull also says, before they hook up, “Good! I like that energy! Stoke those fires, big guy” so clearly he is into Dorian being a mouthy, assertive, bossy bottom and he is also making it clear that Dorian standing up to him is GOOD and OKAY). The conquering line is him playing up what he thinks Dorian is into, the whole forbidden fantasy thing, that image that DORIAN HIMSELF PAINTS IN EXQUISITE DETAIL of him as a savage beast, because he thinks Dorian is coming onto him by talking about him as a beast while simultaneously bringing up muscles (specifically: an emblem of his POWER). It doesn’t come out of nowhere: Dorian paints the picture of the conquering savage, Bull sexualizes it to depower it; that’s what they do (or at least, what Bull is TRYING to do; again, we ONLY get the fringes of what’s gone on between them).
It’s a character flaw: Bull thinks he knows what other people need because of his spy training, and he pegs Dorian as being into this kind of power fantasy (which likely he IS because he goes for it later), and is it problematic that he just assumes? Yeah, absolutely, but what matters to me most is that A) Dorian is not intimidated by it (he just goes “uuuh, what?”, and nothing about the line reading or Dorian’s personality or his approach to Bull in following banters suggests to me that he was anything but surprised by it), and 
he backs off when Dorian isn’t into it, puts the power directly into Dorian’s hands, and goes “this is your call, entirely”. Bull fundamentally misinterprets the mood. He thinks that this is the dynamic they’re developing because of their antagonistic banter, the Tevinter/Qunari thing, of Dorian bringing up his body and his muscles more than once in the context of that conflict (the “why don’t qunari wear shirts?” banter, for another example; Dorian brings up his shirtlessness, and if you talk to him as a qunari, he says directly that he’s into qunari men because they’re so muscular, so Bull imo is reading him RIGHT here that he’s into him). So he goes for it, gets shot down, and BACKS OFF. The backing off matters.
Yeah I know. Wall. But very relevant for me.
Retour en haut
Blind rage is blind. smh.
