Dorian is one of my favorite companions from Inquisition, but the gay companion boat sailed all the way back during Origins with Leliana and Zevran. One could claim that those characters were bisexual, but why quibble?
I think the OP has a valid inquiry. Could it be that Dorian was written, developed as a character and put into the game before Sera was? Perhaps Bioware is simply seeing this from a linear development perspective.
Consider this Sera doesn't get the title because Sera serves two purposes. She is a male fantasy. Two girls making out. Please note they show more skin in her romance scene.
Dorian is picked because he is the romance scene for a selective market. He is well written and acted. Don't want him leaving even if he is not my romance pick. As far as I'm concern more choices help the game.
The above statement no doubt makes Lesbian players feel even more special.
This is ridiculous.
Gaider said Dorian is the first homosexual character he has written ('fully gay' were the exact words). That is what Gaider said. He never said Dorian was Bioware's first gay male (which is Steve), or first gay character (which was Juhani, unless one does consider gay only to apply to men (I don't, but whatever), in which it was still Steve). News sites will run with that however they like: is anyone really surprised that news takes one sentence someone made completely out of context to shift it in to something completely different in order to have a more SENSATIONAL headline? Because if so, I have bad news for you; the news is doing it *all* the time. All the time. Right now. Seriously, they're doing it right this second. 
Why is Sera not getting as much attention? Because of Juhani. Knights of the Old Republic. Came out in 2003. Remember that game? Stared fan favorite Darth Revan, pushed an era in to huge popularity for Star Wars marketing, spawned a sequal by Obsidian and an MMO by Bioware? IT EXISTED. Juhani was in it! She was a Cathar Jedi! You could recruit her! She followed you around! And she was lesbian! Had a huge crush on the female protagonist no matter what you did, and often confessed her love even if you basically ignored her/were totally in to Carth! Some people could get a bug that allowed her confession to show up for guys (but none of her other romance dialog), but that was at least patched out (or they tried to patch it out, at any rate) of the PC version, I know. SHE EXISTED, TOO. Not to mention we've had Leianna, who unlike some of the guys mentioned below, seemed to prefer woman (in game, there's like five more times to trigger her romance as a gal then there is as a guy).
There's also the quiet thought that former love interests by bioware who could be romanced as a male by male mostly seemed to prefer woman- Sky, Zev and Kaiden in paticular (Zev, in fact, is basically like 'Hey, boyfriend, I like woman better!' which, uh- thanks, dear, while the other two it implies that they're normally straight, but the male protagonist is just that special someone they make exceptions for, which... sounds like a lot of slash fiction I've read rather then how things actually work, in truth). DAII did better in that regard, but there's still the issue with Anders never mentioning the fact that he just killed his former lover to a female Hawke (or ever mentioning he also liked dudes), and Fenris will never bring it up to a female Hawke either and hooks up with Isabella (having said that and to be fair, Merill doesn't bring up liking gals to a male Hawke, either, so that was just a sort of thing with the game in which everyone was by word of god bi but never mentioned it, ever). Then we go back to the issue of Steve, who while a very well written character, his romance just seemed horrible: you are romancing a guy who's husband basically just died a year ago who he's still listening to voice recordings of and crying over. Help him move on and learn to enjoy life, awesome! Romance him? I felt like a major creeper when I tried it. So Dorian, in some ways, felt like the first full romance for a male who liked males that didn't lean on either 'He only likes you because you because you're special and would proabbly prefer if you were a woman'/'HIS HUSBAND JUST DIED', which aren't very fun ways to lean.
As for the ridiculous thing that Sera is just fanservice for guys: first, tongue in cheek, if they were going to make a character just fanservice for male f/f fans to get their rocks off, don't you think they would have made her 'prettier' (I think she's cute, personally) and less abrasive? Sera is there for people who like Sera. Yes, she does show skin- but so do most of the romances (Solas and Josie obviously don't, and I don't think you see much of Blackwall (just your poor naked Inquisitor when he abandons her, jerk), but I think the others all show skin). I think Bioware has stayed away from 'f/f relationship just to add fanservice'- with one notable exception in Samantha.
(Who, sadly, was a well developed character for someone just hanging around the ship (I liked her and Steve!), I thought- but the random shower scene and the bath scene also showing up for male Shepards sort of was... awkward. Very awkward. Not the best design choice.)
Oh, and just to make a note- gals not liking m/m? Hah. Every gal in the world is different, but seriously, do you know how huge yaoi/shounen ai/BL is? And over here in the West and pertaining to the subject... go to Archive of Our Own. Search Anders.
You're going to find pairings of him with fem!Hawke and occasionally the female Warden (and even more occasionally, Isabella or Merill, but that's pretty rare), but him with male!Hawke and Fenris are going to dwarf them (Fenders is huge on the internet!). And those are the only four gals I ever really see him with (and finding Isabella or Merill works is hard!), while there's still strong shippers of him with the male!Warden, Nate and Justice (...those are mostly AU's, I think?). There are still smaller groups shipping him with Varric and now Dorian or even the male!Inquisitor, too- not to mention Zev, or Cullen, or Seb. And the majority of those? Written by woman, which you can find by following their links back to their own tumblrs and the like.
Some guys think f/f is gross, and some gals think m/m is gross. But I don't think there are less female m/m shippers then there are male f/f shippers: they're just on different parts of the 'internet'. It's big enough for all of us, after all.
One could similarly say that Leliana and Zevran were straight.Dorian is one of my favorite companions from Inquisition, but the gay companion boat sailed all the way back during Origins with Leliana and Zevran. One could claim that those characters were bisexual, but why quibble?
Consider this Sera doesn't get the title because Sera serves two purposes. She is a male fantasy. Two girls making out. Please note they show more skin in her romance scene.
Dorian is picked because he is the romance scene for a selective market. He is well written and acted. Don't want him leaving even if he is not my romance pick. As far as I'm concern more choices help the game.
Eh, Dorian does show some skin as well. And i'm not sure about men but gay ladies loved this scene as well.
Eh, Dorian does show some skin as well. And i'm not sure about men but gay ladies loved this scene as well.
In fact, Dorian is the ONLY male character who shows actual nudity and not silly Austin Powers-style obscured alluded nudity.
Cullen's walk of shame.
I was including Cullen in the Austin Powers style obscured nudity. You don't really see anything. It's the implied nudity equivalent of Liara in ME1.
I thought Austin Powers nudity included cheesy jokes and props resembling breasts and genitals.
No, Dorian was hyped up by Gaider before the game was released. "He's gay, but he still kicks ass" is a quote I remember.
And Dorian's pathetic as a character. He ranks down with Liara as one of the worst BioWARE's ever made. I can ignore Dorian, at least, and I don't have to be forced to talk about how great he is.
That's not hype. That's a discription.
And no he's not pathetic at all. The fact that he act and believes to live the way he does in a tevinter society that looks down at him for it makes him a great character.
Sorry, you may not like him but he is a great character.
Consider this Sera doesn't get the title because Sera serves two purposes. She is a male fantasy. Two girls making out. Please note they show more skin in her romance scene.
I'm not female or gay and I'm insulted by that comment.
What's the argument here? That the stuff you didn't like would have been better if there had been less gay content? How would that have worked, exactly? A straight version of Dorian would have still needed content. I don't see how gayness burns more zots.
No, that's not what I meant at all. What I meant was representation is not enough without the fundamental pillars of good storytelling and gameplay to support it. It's kinda like a car; it doesn't really matter how good the paint job is if the engine and transmission are completely busted.
And again, like I said before, representation and good storytelling are not mutually exclusive concepts, and doing both is to be applauded. Lots of my favourite media have a focus on diversity while still telling awesome stories; The Legend of Korra, Sense8, Mad Max: Fury Road, Ms. Marvel, among others. But the existence of the former does not adequately compensate for the absence of the latter. Making Dorian straight would not have solved Inquisition's core issues any more than keeping him gay would. They exist independently of the whole identity politics thing.
That's not hype. That's a discription.
And no he's not pathetic at all. The fact that he act and believes to live the way he does in a tevinter society that looks down at him for it makes him a great character.
Sorry, you may not like him but he is a great character.
How droll and cliche. And yes, it is hype. If that's all you can say about a character, than you failed at making a good one.
Ah, I see more absolute truth and definitely not hyperbole here. The fact that Dorian is gay is, in fact, all that David Gaider has said about that character. Yes, definitely. That is most certainly true in every way and not at all any kind of untruthful exaggeration......
Ah, I see more absolute truth and definitely not hyperbole here. The fact that Dorian is gay is, in fact, all that David Gaider has said about that character. Yes, definitely. That is most certainly true in every way and not at all any kind of untruthful exaggeration......
I don't know, I feel there was some commentary about moustaches in there somewhere.
Consider this Sera doesn't get the title because Sera serves two purposes. She is a male fantasy. Two girls making out. Please note they show more skin in her romance scene.
Dorian is picked because he is the romance scene for a selective market. He is well written and acted. Don't want him leaving even if he is not my romance pick. As far as I'm concern more choices help the game.
Let me get this straight. Your assumption of Sera's "purpose" is based on the fact that she gets her boobs out in the sex scene? 
God forbid lesbians actually enjoy seeing a naked woman.. couldn't possibly be.
You know, I'm still waiting on my Mother Giselle romance. 
How droll and cliche. And yes, it is hype. If that's all you can say about a character, than you failed at making a good one.
It's not dull or cliche because of how it was done. His issue was never that he was gay, it's was just him not living by the expectation of the society he lived in. That him living honestly is why he is being shunned. And that's a breath of fresh air because is relatable. Anyone can relate to him straight or gay. So no it was not hype.
His issue was never that he was gay, [it] was just him not living by the expectation of the society he lived in.
...because he was gay.
...because he was gay.
He left his father's proximity a long time before leaving Tevinter. He worked as Alexius' assistant until he finally decided to take matters into his own hands when he saw what they did down in Ferelden. The fact that he was gay was primarily responsible in him breaking with his family (which by the way was more about him being against arranged marriage and procreating with a woman he couldn't truly love. His father didn't even have a problem with him being gay per se), but his character arc is restoring his home country's remaining virtues. That's also like 90% of his dialogue in the Keep.
Listen, it weirds you out, that's fine. But this discussion depleted to blind flailing & snappy one liners at this point.
Wow. This really puts in perspective how lesbians are more catered to than gay guys.
...because he was gay.
No, because he refused to, as Dorian himself puts it, "play pretend for the rest of my life".
The issue did not lie in his sexual orientation but in his refusal to marry and father an heir, something that could as easily have been brought about because Dorian refused to marry without love or because he had no interest in children. Dorian could have married and sired a child regardless of his sexual orientation, there would have been ways for him to do so. It was because of his refusal to do so that Halward, his father, resorted to blood magic to forcibly make it so.
Actually, how straight men are catered to. If straight guys didn't dig girl on girl action, then we gay women wouldn't be represented.
Regardless of whether the content was really created for straight guys or not, the fact is that lesbians are still able to enjoy such content and have had a lesbian companion 11 years longer than gay guys, thus have been catered to for far longer than we have.
He left his father's proximity a long time before leaving Tevinter. He worked as Alexius' assistant until he finally decided to take matters into his own hands when he saw what they did down in Ferelden. The fact that he was gay was primarily responsible in him breaking with his family (which by the way was more about him being against arranged marriage and procreating with a woman he couldn't truly love. His father didn't even have a problem with him being gay per se), but his character arc is restoring his home country's remaining virtues. That's also like 90% of his dialogue in the Keep.
Listen, it weirds you out, that's fine. But this discussion depleted to blind flailing & snappy one liners at this point.
Look, it has nothing to do with my opinion. I was just pointing out what the game says. Halward did have a problem with Dorian's sexuality. Dorian says so.
Dorian is a much, much better written character and his sexuality forms an integral part of his personal conflict.
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