People have listed a lot of reasons why they want the Inquisitor to be the protagonist in the next DA game. Here, I'm going to list the reasons why I do NOT want that. Basically, it comes down to this: the Inquisitor carries too much ballast around to work for me as a new protagonist. Here is why:
(1) A clean cut with Southern Thedas
I'm sick of southern Thedas and its problems. I'm sick of the Circles, the Orlesian Chantry, mages vs. templars and Orlesian Andrastianism. I was looking forward to playing in Tevinter, playing a native Tevinter citizen, encountering new people from there and immersing myself into a new culture. I want to leave southern Thedas behind as far as possible, and playing as the Ex-Inquisitor would be like a heavy chain binding me to everything I want to leave behind,
(2) Trespasser's ending makes for a lot of ballast I don't want.
I was happy after the ending of the game, before Trespasser. I like my Inquisitors, but I was quite happy to leave them behind as leaders of the Inquisition. It was the first ending of a Bioware game that I found unreservedly satisfying since DAO. Then came Trespasser and ruined everything, and now I'm considerably less happy. I'm quite prepared to start as a character with a low power level in DA4, but for an old protagonist to be hammered down, taking away everything they have gained and more, in order to make them feasible, that would be like a slap in the face by the writers. I do not like to be slapped in the face, and I'd rather not start the next DA game being angry. I'd rather start with the kind of pleasant anticipation I had with DAI. Playing the Ex-Inquisitor would make that impossible.
(3) Trespasser has weakened my connection to the Inquisitor
People have said Trespasser made the Inquisitor more relatable. This term may be important to a story you watch and read, but less to a roleplaying game. I guess some people experience Bioware's games as more of stories they watch than shape, and perhaps with some justification. I'm a roleplayer, however. I do not "relate" to my character, I automatically have a much closer connection to them than that, and I'm automatically invested in them as long as the writers don't put words into their mouths I would never have them say, or make them do things I'd never make them do. That almost never happened in DAI, and so my Inquisitor has been, right from the start, one of three Bioware protagonists I could connect to with no problem at all (the others are the Bhaalspawn and the Warden). Bioware's writers are the GM to me.
Now imagine if in a tabletop RPG campaign, your GM did to your character what was done to the Inquisitor with no input at all from you. I don't know about others, but in that situation, I consider it very likely I'd say "Not with me, I'll make a new character". In that way, Trespasser made the Inquisitor less my character - and thus less "relatable" as the protagonist of a game - than she had been before, and it would be an uphill battle to remake the connection. Again, I'd rather start the game without that kind of ballast.
So...I do NOT want the Ex-Inquisitor to be DA4's protagonist. I'm not saything such a setup couldn't be a success, but I rather suspect that Bioware's writers won't do any of the things that would make it palatable to me.
Edit:
Bhryaen has made a few additional points in this post. They're mostly technical considerations but not less important because of it. I lef them out because they weren't my primary concern.
Edit2:
For a more constructive approach, here's what I want instead (thanks to CardButton for asking the relevant questions):
(1) I want to play a Tevinter native and gain an inside perspective of this fascinating culture (fascinating in spite of the bad stuff, not because of it).
(2) I want a change of theme. There's been all too much about faith and religion and magic as a problem. I want to immerse myself into a culture that appreciates the potential of magic rather than only seeing the downsides, where the birth of a mageborn child to a non-mageborn family is a cause for celebration, not despair, where the dominant religious denomination isn't bound up with reactionary messages about "powers humans shouldn't aspire to", but where I can play a person who fights the abuses of the powerful while also embodying the idea that we may legitimately aspire to powers beyond the human norm.
(3) I want to see Calpernia again, and I'd like to be able to ally with her in her attempts to free the slaves and reform Tevinter into "a crafter of wonders, a beacon for all", rather than the Evil Empire of slavery and human sacrifice it is now. I want to play a character who wants to do that because it's their home and they want it to be a good one - a little bit of down-to-earth motivation to supplement the high-and-mighty saving-the-world one can only benefit the story.
(4) And....I just got this idea, but it refuses to go away....I want Solas and his plans to be a threat that makes the qunari and Tevinter forget their rivalry for a while, because if his plans succeed. it will destroy both sides. That way, btw, the plot could focus on Solas' plans without making it appear that an important conflict is swept under the rug.
(5) In general, I like new characters in DA because they let me adopt new perspectives. However different my Wardens and Inquisitors were, they were all bound up in their roles. The Inquisitor specifically carries a lot of memetic ballast around that ties them to DAI's themes. A new character would make it possible to dispense with such memetic ballast.





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