DAO: Alistair, so far. And I don't think I need to explain why my Warden fell for him.
DA2: Anders. He's one of my favorite characters in Thedas. He's silly, flippant and easy to be around in Awakening, and seeing his contrasting demeanor in DA2 is kind of tragic. In the latter, he's complicated and tormented, but every now and then the Anders from before Justice breaks through, and that makes it kind of... more sad, actually. Anyway, his angsty passion thrown at my sarcastic LadyHawke mage just felt right.
DAI: Rainier. (I'm playing Trespasser right now. Just can't bring myself to call him "Blackwall".) At first he's all "I don't deserve you! We'll regret this! Something inspirational about duty! RESOLVE!!!" And then he realizes he's not going to be the man she deserves unless he mans up and faces his past. Which requires him paying for his crimes by dying, so he just skedaddles. But if the Inquisitor persues him, recognizes how far he's come and who he really is THEN as opposed to who he was when he committed his crimes, there's an opportunity for growth, for both of them, I think. And when he wasn't pretending super hard to be a Warden, he was a pretty normal guy who just wanted to help people. His and the Inquisitor's relationship becomes more about sharing each other's burden in difficult times than anything angsty or dark.
Your choices are almost exactly the same as mine, and for many of the same reasons.
Alistair: Fans of the romance know why, but I've read enough posts from detractors to understand that a lot of people simply don't get the appeal. He's funny. A lot of people like other people who can make them laugh. The fact that his humor comes from his own insecurities is endearing, and makes me want to protect the part of him that is vulnerable. He grew up knowing that he wasn't wanted, and it left him scarred, but not uncaring. He doubts his own worth, but rather than building a shell around himself, he reaches out. He loves, and it's lovable.
Anders: The whole thing was a punch in the feels. I have a thing for men with a sense of humor, apparently. But Anders's hurt goes a lot deeper than Alistair's, and there's no way to fix it. Even love isn't enough. The romance evokes such intense emotion from me, it's hard for me to even articulate it. It probably helped that my favorite kind of Hawke to run was exactly the right kind to make the romance even more poignant: a mage with a similar attitude about Circles and a similar passion about freedom. They understood each other, and it worked... until the inevitable trainwreck. I was running a really, really compassionate Hawke, so I like to think that they worked everything out eventually, but it would have taken a while.
But for DAI, Blackwall (and I do call him Blackwall because he requests it) is going to have to share his place with Cullen. That was unexpected, actually. Not the Blackwall part. Even before the game came out, I had a feeling that I was going to fall hard for Beardy, and nothing that happened during the game changed that in any way. I'm talking about Cullen. I always liked him, even as a staunch supporter of mage freedom. An interesting character is an interesting character, regardless of political opinions. I just didn't expect any of my characters to be drawn to him romantically despite his adorkable-ness and good looks. I expected them to have heated discussions about his past, and to eventually become somewhat grudging friends. That doesn't indicate a lack of appreciation for him as a character! Far from it. But I expected the whole thing to be a lot more platonic. The heated discussions part didn't really happen. There were opportunities to talk to him about his past, yes, but he was already so remorseful over it, there seemed little point in beating him over the head with past failures. I'm not cruel. So it became more "What do you want to do with your life now?" It was an odd conversation to be having with a man in his early 30s, but as he himself says, he isn't used to having to make personal choices. All his life, it was duty and responsibility first, sublimating whatever personal drive or desires he had for his obligations. Now, he still has responsibilities, but he no longer has anyone else telling him what he should be feeling or how he should handle personal decisions. There were glimmers of a sense of humor previously, but it was hard to see through the huge wall of DUTY TO THE ORDER. In DAI, he was still very professional, but he was also a lot more willing to let his natural personality shine through. It was engaging and endearing, and I fell for him. Before the game came out, I was very afraid that they'd get the balance wrong, that it wouldn't be handled with the necessary subtlety. I was pleasantly surprised.
Honorable mention goes to Dorian. I loved the romance, it's true, but my appreciation of it was mostly because I simply loved the character. I can't say that I got more out of his character as a lover than I did as a friend. It might sound like a lukewarm assessment of the romance, but it isn't. It's more a measure of how satisfying the friendship path with him actually is. He felt like my characters' best friend first and foremost, and a lover (if it happened) as a natural consequence of that (if it happened). That isn't a bad model for a relationship at all. For so many characters, I feel as if you don't really get to know them unless you're in a romance with them. I'm looking at you, Blackwall. That isn't to disparage the romance. I loved it. I guess I just wish that friendship with him could have been... closer, I guess. But that wouldn't have worked for him, now, would it? The entire point was that he was actively hiding who he really was. Oh well. I enjoyed all three characters. I liked their romances. It worked.
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