Okay BioWare, you made your point.
You hate elves. You hate elves that like other elves. You hate elves that like being elves. You hate the Dalish!
You've done everything in your power to punish the Dalish every chance you get. You've done everything in your power to try to shame and punish a Dalish PC for being Dalish. You make it absurdly easy to get our clan wiped out in the war table missions. You retconned Dalish culture to having a strict "3 mages per Clan" rule in which most clans abandon excess mage children to die--despite how the previous game stating that magic is dying among them and they're trying to encourage magic as part of their elven heritage. Something which most characters (and the narrative) jump to condemn the entire culture for. You present a people desperate to hold onto their dying culture as backwards and pretentious (unless they say "It's all p!ss! Let's sh!t on it and walk away" like Sera), and you reveal many horrible "truths" about ancient elven religion and history and present it as a poor reflection on the Dalish for not knowing instead of an honest mistake that anyone could have made in their position.
It's fairly clear that the developers seem to prefer Andrastian human culture, to the point where they're willing to provide DLC that whitewashes Drakon (ignoring his Exalted Marches against his neighbors and his massacre of certain religious groups, like the Daughters of Song) while vilifying the elves for not capitulating to Drakon.
There's simply no balance in their depiction of the Dalish in comparison to how they handle Andrastian humans.
And, of course, our two and only elven companions hate the Dalish and pull no punches telling the Dalish PC why. Not only that, but they aren't fond of other elves in general. They try to distance themselves from other elves, put down an Elven PC that tries to claim kin, and jump at the chance to say why modern elves suck any time the topic gets brought up. Sera hates any elf she considers "too elfy" (which is anyone that doesn't actively look down on other elves like her), and Solas makes it clear he doesn't think well of modern city or Dalish elven culture. Both of them don't want to be judged as "just another elf," but each of them freely judges every other elf they come across, and the game doesn't let us call them out on this hypocrisy. Instead, we're made to look like the racists for noticing that they are, in fact, by all appearances, elves.
It's sad that our only two elven companions constantly denigrate our culture and our views, while we constantly get bombarded by Andrastians who prop and laud the Andrastian faith and the Chantry of Andraste (as if only their religion and people mattered); Sera is racist, and her 'elfy' remarks come across as if a racist Latina was telling me I was too 'Latino-y'.
Inquisition doesn't relent in denigrating the Dalish. Look at the 'three mage' rule: it doesn't make sense with establish lore, particularly with Zathrian's clan having more than three mages and Merrill noting both the absurdity of humans locking away their mages where they can't do any good and how any child with magical ability is apprenticed to the Keeper so that they know how to use their magical abilities. It's a fairly transparent attempt to invalidate the Dalish as a legitimate alternative to the Circles, and it vilifies them in the context of Inquisition, even though it doesn't make sense with anything that was previously established about the Dalish elves.
That's part of the problem: the writers tear the Dalish down at every turn; advisors, companions, and even minor characters say incredibly negative things about them, and there is no counterbalance to their derogatory comments. There is none of the balance or nuance that there is with Andrastian humans or the Chantry of Andraste.
Despite my complaints, I still want race selection to come back next game. I still want to play as an elf (and dwarf and Qunari) despite the lengths you go to try to make all non-human cultures look detestable in the audience's eyes. (Unless they act like Andrastian humans who happened to be born with different racial features, like Varric or Sera. Then they're "likable" to you.)
However, next game, could we please get at least one elven companion that doesn't hate other elves?? One who doesn't do everything in his or her power to distance his/herself from other elves, or jump on the flaws of the PC's heritage every chance they get? That'd be lovely, kthnxbai.
I'd love to have a pro-Dalish companion like Merrill and play as an elven protagonist. Honestly, I'd like to finally play as a Dalish without the narrative constantly berating me for not being an Andrastian human.
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It might be an error in connecting dialogue trees or something, or merely a thing they didn't think was significant enough to fix.
