Article: Why Dragon Age's Readiness to Break With Canon Makes its Lore Much Richer

You're conflating two issues, mixing up the real world with in-game lore. The reason they put the idea (in the game) is because they were jumping on the bandwagon (in the real world). The problem was that the in-game lore didn't support it. 

Regardless of original intentions, I think them possibly reworking it in the way they did was a positive. Both in that it simply allowed them to tell a progressive story with Krem and also in that it allowed them to convey what their real intentions with the Qunari were; that they have an alien mindset that's difficult to comprehend to outsiders. Strict gender roles aren't difficult to comprehend. In the real world we all very much understand the idea of strict gender roles and the idea that women aren't allowed to do the same jobs as men and men are discouraged from doing the same jobs as women. That's a very easy thing to wrap our heads around.

And even in the context of Thedas, where women are allowed to fight, it's made clear that this is kind of a new thing. That women had to fight to earn the right to be Chevaliers in Orlais and warriors in Orzamar and that there's enough sexism present that Loghain has to tell a female warden not to let anyone tell her she doesn't belong for being a woman, and that even a female warden will use her gender to shame Jory and Daveth for their cowardice.

So in and of itself, strict gender roles aren't that unusual and a bad place to start when you're trying to create an alien society. But you take that a step further and say, if you fight and you're good at it then you're a man even if you have a vagina, to say that the role and the masculine nature of the role is overriding and all encompassing, even over biology, that's different. It's not wholly unique; there are hindu gurus who are men but dress and live as women, not because they're truly transgender but because they worship and devote themselves to feminine deities who only accept women priests, for instance. But it is a mindset outside of the bounds of what people can easily wrap their heads around.

And it's not even wholly a positive thing. They used it to explore a positive, inclusive, and progressive story with Krem - and good on them for doing so - but the actual concept is mildly horrifying. One of the core elements of trans rights is that imposing gender roles on people is bad; that's often talked about in the context of imposing masculinity on someone with a penis even if they identify as female. But the idea of taking a man, who's gender identity is male, and imposing a female identity on him not because he identifies that way but because he's better suited as a shopkeeper or a teacher than as a soldier or laborer is bad. Taking a woman and imposing a masculine identity on her because she's good at fighting, not because she identifies as male, is bad. For a percentage of Aqun-athlok who legitimately are trans it works out all right. I'd imagine for most of the rest it's more of an inconvenience to be tolerated than anything. But that could still be a traumatic thing for someone to go through. So it's not as simple as Bioware being pro-transrights(which I believe they are, however tonedeaf they can be at times).

One idea I actually had for a DA4 companion would be a female Tal-Vasoth who left the qun because she wanted to both fight, and identify as a woman. I'm curious to see if Bioware can thread that needle of both being pro-trans rights - which they should be - while also saying that imposing gender roles on anyone is wrong.

One of the things that seems often ignored about the Sophie Dryden episode is that she was asked by the Banns to intercede because they viewed Arland as a tyrant. Whilst she was in the wrong because as a Grey Warden she should have remained impartial, it wasn't as though she undertook her action unilaterally in opposition to what other people in Ferelden wanted. It is another reason it angered me to have Teagan quoting Sophie Dryden at me when the people of Ferelden needed the Inquisition to act on their behalf if they weren't to fall prey to bandits, Red Templars, Venatori, demons or whatever. If the Banns were doing their duty, then Caer Bronach would never have been overrun by bandits in the first place.

You're both right. A politician's selective memory about history is infuriating, and a politician making a devil's choice between allowing an imbalance in the functional stalemate of the banns, and maintaining that balance at the cost of throwing the world's savior to the dogs, is totally realistic.

It's no coincidence that the ungrateful nonsense I hear the current US administration spout about the previous gives me Trespasser de ja vu.

Well, is she? And will Inquisition fall prey to world wariness and cynicism setting in? We're yet to find out. But IMO we are supposed to prove Solas - a person whose hopes and faith in the world got too broken at some point - that things aren't necessarily as bleak as they seem to be. Though how we're going to do that, so far is anyone's guess.

Hey, I'm not saying that it is going to be easy. At some point the guy was so badly burnt that the 2nd most frequent thing he says aside from "Fade is amazing" is "I DON'T TRUST ANYONE!" - and it will likely be a tall order to regain that trust. With Inquisition on his good side (well, just +1 approval, really) we managed to make a breach in his resolve, but whatever we're supposed to do, it likely won't be something as simple as "talking him out of it".

He literally says that he wants to be wrong.

And you're right - he's had thousands of years to consider the implications and research all the alternatives. So it's quite likely that the reason for him to see no other way so far is probably something more than his own obstinacy and even his trust issues. He wants to be wrong that things can't be done any other way... but in case everything else, in case Inquisition or whoever else fails, he has to have a fail-safe.

It wouldn't be the first time he did it. From what he said it appears that the Veil was such fail-safe. And he had to deploy it after Evanuris offed Mythal, because at that point nothing else could've stopped them.

That's not news to me, and I don't believe it answers my objection. This question isn't my point. It's meant to lead into my point.

My point, as I detailed immediately afterwards in the same paragraph, is this is not the time for them to do that. Under ordinary circumstances a Grey Warden does that ritual knowing that the future is secure because when they die they'll leave behind an Order capable of doing the work the dying Warden no longer can. A Warden who went on the Calling during a crisis that truly was what Clarel thought she was facing would do so knowing that they were one of the last people capable of slaying an Archdemon, and that when one or both of the other two Archdemons rose it had a very good chance of destroying Thedas.

Possible. But for one thing, like I said above this isn't the time for giving into despair and killing themselves. They believe that they're the last generation of people capable of saving the world from apocalypses that it can't be saved from yet. And for another, while I don't think we're meant to assume so it is possible some Wardens did that despite that very good reason not to and we just didn't hear about it.

Tevinters, maybe. Blood mages, no. Don't forget that every single one of them participated in a blood magic ritual that is eventually going to kill them, and is doing nothing to prevent the Wardens from continuing to perform that ritual even knowing that it is a form of blood magic that eventually kills those who participate in it.

Though on the other hand, given the Tevinter slaver operation in Origins maybe you did answer my question as to how Alistair (and especially a repentant Loghain) smells a rat in this situation.I'd imagine they are wondering what's going on. My understanding is that they went to Weishauppt for an explanation and a way to stop the problem, and didn't hear back. Either way, we know that eventually they went to Tevinter, seeking an explanation...

As for Erimond's explanation, I was never under the impression that he had one. I'd thought he'd pretended not to know more than they did and said that he had no idea how to stop this, but claimed to share their entirely justified concern that this might be it for the Warden Order. Which shouldn't be a hard lie to sell, since unless you know Erimond serves a being who can control darkspawn it would seem logical to assume he has a vested interest in countering the next two Blights however it must be done. If the Blight ends the world, he or whichever of his children or other heirs rules at that time is going to die right next to everyone else.

So their last hope for an explanation says he can't explain it, but has the closest thing they've seen yet to a solution. Even if the explanation is out there, they have good reason to believe they don't have too much longer to look. They have no reason to believe anyone else can end the Blights once they die, and while they've never had any reason to believe more than one Blight would happen within their lifetimes they now have good reason to believe that it's all but inconceivable. What do they do that's not this? This isn't the only place where Bioware is having it both ways on that score. The Wardens aren't the only meek, compliant robots you run into. Look at the Templars at Theirinfal Redoubt, ignoring their misgivings about what's going on until the proof transforms into an Envy Demon right in front of them. Look at the rebel mages at Redcliffe, who accept indentured servitude to a Tevinter magister despite it being a terrible PR move all things considered, and despite the fact that fewer than half the mages we talk to think it's a good idea. And like the Templars but unlike the mages, the Wardens are a military organization accustomed to doing what they're told to by their superiors. They're used to falling into lockstep and doing what the person right above them says to whenever things look bad. Why wouldn't they now?
What do you understand the Grey Wardens as, that blood sacrifice is inconsistent with? They epitomize "desperate times call for desperate measures," and their motto specifically includes the phrase "in death, sacrifice." They give up their own lives unknowingly, and willingly accept being an accessory to the Joining even after they understand that that effectively makes them an accessory to murder. You said yourself that when their bodies begin to break down, they march into the Deep Roads to make the most of what time they've got even though (or partially because) it will shorten their lives. While I don't remember ever getting this line myself, apparently Ser Gilmore from the HN Origin says the Wardens have been known to burn whole villages down because the Taint broke out in them. And to save the best for last: each of the four Blights that ended before Origins started was ended by a Warden who allowed the Archdemon's death to destroy his own soul. How would it be consistent with their previous characterization to flinch from something like this, if they couldn't see any other way out of their predicament?

What we know of him as a character is that he's perfectly willing to commit mass murder. Whatever he tells himself to justify it, to make himself seem less of the monster that he denies that he is but very much is, to make himself sound tragic or sympathetic or conflicted over this act of mass murder he's entirely devoted to committing, can be written off as the delusions of a lunatic.

My personal opinion on Solas' credibility is that if he says he's going to do something horrible - say, murder countless people - then I believe that he is going to at the very least attempt to do that horrible thing that he's told me he's going to do. But, anything he says to try and cast himself in a positive light as a tragic, conflicted figure who's only doing something horrible because it's the only way to do this thing that he believes is truly right and noble, and how this horrible thing he wants to do that's going to kill countless people for the supposed betterment of a few is totally justified and for the best, well, that I'm going to take with every grain of salt I can physically survive.

So, and I apologize for bringing real world politics into this, Solas' credibility is about on par with Donald Trump's as far as I'm concerned.

One thing doesn't follow another. Just because he is willing to do something drastic doesn't mean that he wants to be right about it, and oversimplifying this or comparing him to the shallowest, most self-absorbed and dishonest person in leadership position the world has seen for a while just smells of trying to make this thing as easy and morally black-and-white as possible, while the situation doesn't paint itself that way.

Or woes of a person who's found himself between a rock and a hard place. It wouldn't even be the first BW game where either an NPC or a even PC is standing between choices that could potentially sacrifice whole civilizations, and a great deal of them were not a simple affair.

Yes, the guy who openly admits that he's been wrong many times, minimizes his credit for saving the world before, fully admits that he's left only with worst choices and none of those are right and noble and that he will suffer for it forever, and then risks all his plans by saving the one person who he knows has a shot of stopping him and even expresses wish to be proven wrong... totally sounds like the guy who believes that what he does the only right and noble thing.

Like I said - it's inconsistent with what we know of him as a character, no matter how many grains of salt we add to the mix.

And "killing countless people for the supposed betterment of a few" is a pretty sloppy conjecture. We don't know his full motifs and - if past deeds are anything to go by - he's not the guy who's mashing the history eraser button frivolously.

Yet he still declares "because I am not a monster" because he has made sure that the condemned people of the south will "die in comfort" by stopping the Qun. That is like saying "the condemned man ate a hearty meal". They are still condemned to die by his decision. He only says these things to a friendly Inquisitor so it is obvious he is trying to make them think better of him and I'd rather he'd just been honest with me and said the same as he said to a hostile one "because the Qun offend me".

It is not that I don't sympathise with his character (though I do see saw around a lot over him) but it is the way he expresses himself to his "friend" that infuriates me. As I said above, I say that precisely because I don't recognise him as the person I knew. It would have been better for him to have said nothing than "thank you". It just sounded all wrong to me and rather patronising. It is certainly not what I would say to someone who had expressed the same sentiments to me.

This is pretty much where I was coming from before, yeah. I recognize Fen'harelsays he wants to be proven wrong. Right in step only a few breaths away from "I am not a monster". Remember he considers modern Thedosians sub-human (okay, sub-Elven, technically, but I think the point is still there). He's speaking entirely in self-justification.

I mean, I'm not even the guy in this topic literally calling him "Pride" as a name.