Dorian Pavus Thread "He's More Handsome Than A Cockroach"

I have mixed feelings about knowing in advance. With DAO I had no prior knowledge having come to the game by recommendation well after its release. So the only disappointment I felt was having decided to start with a male PC, I preferred the options for a female (I totally missed Leliana on my first run so thought there was only Morrigan) only to discover that Zevran was an option for him, whereupon it all became clear why he wasn't enthused by Morrigan (and why he wasn't married already since he was a Dalish), clearly he was gay.

With DA2 I decided to find out what the romance options were before playing and was delighted discover both Anders and Fenris were, although after I discovered how much Anders had changed from how I remembered him, I was rather less enthusiastic. Then he nearly tore of Ella's head, only prevented by my influence over him and I decided that perhaps he wasn't for me. Of course with DA2 it didn't matter what gender you were since the characters you could romance were available to all regardless.

I did get caught up in all the speculation over who would be romanceable and who would not in DAI. Seeing as there did seem to be so many companions, I thought it would be helpful knowing in advance so I could tailor my character accordingly. I had thought out my female Lavallen back story more than my male going into the game, thought Solas might prove interesting so went with her, knowing that Dorian wouldn't be available to me. Then the moment I met him I started to regret having gone with my female PC first and even more confusingly, I flirted with him and he didn't say anything. After you have played through as a male PC you can see the difference in his reaction to flirts from a male character as against a female, but first run I didn't know this, so whilst the confrontation with his father wasn't entirely a surprise, it was a relief that it was finally out in the open and we could move on as friends.

I must admit, if I had been one of those people who hadn't known in advance that he was gay, I probably would have been extremely disappointed that I had been misled by the flirts but I agree with you the scene with his father is less about revealing his sexual orientation and more about discovering the whole history with his father and showing you more of the real Dorian behind the sarcastic and flippant façade, which you do whether you are interested in romancing him or not. Given the general attitude to sexuality in Thedas outside of Tevinter, it isn't a big deal if you are simply a friend but what his father tried to do to him is. Nothing that I had read prior to playing the game really prepared me for that and so its impact for me was still just as strong.

I prefer going in without knowing, can't complain about my turnouts. (Even though I love Anders and loved romancing him first I don't like how different his romance feels between male and female Hawke. I would've preferred to see the mHawke romance first.) So I am staying as far away from any Andromeda info as I can.

I didn't/don't think Dorian is "flaming" either. He struck me as someone with zest and seemed receptive enough to my female character's flirts so I thought he might be interested in women -- though most of the time in BioWare games just having the flirt option meant you could romance them. I was already leaning toward Solas anyway but thought Dorian was so awesome I already knew I'd romance him in another run. It wasn't a big deal to me when playing as a female character first. I also happened to trigger/play his quest super fast, so I didn't spend a lot of time traveling around with him and hearing his banter beforehand.

Generally my first playthroughs are also about experiencing the game for the first time, "real" role play comes after. Which often leads me to replaying/reshaping my first character.

It doesn't matter, certainly not in the same vein as Cullen having special dialogue options for a mage.

There are some differences for class and race. A human Trevelyan non-mage will get a certain dialogue and a flirt that the others do not have. In the first "getting to know you" conversation, he has a different remark for all of the races, with the human having the mage and non-mage options. For class, he does remark on some specialization picks, Assassin for rogue, Templar for warrior, I don't think anything for mage, which is silly.

Those are really the only differences. Everything else is up to your headcanon and how you like the pairing to be/look.

But you know, if you're going for all mages everywhere, having a mage Inquisitor with a mage boyfriend sounds like fun. Since you haven't done the Dorian romance before, I do hope you enjoy it.

Doesn't Dorian comment if you take Necromancer? I've never done so myself as it seems a bit redundant if I am going to have Dorian in my party much of the time (which I do), but I thought I saw someone say he does bring it up if you do (probably back on the old boards).

I wouldn't consider Dorian's romance to be "fun" either, but it's not sappy like Cullen's is, though Dorian has his moments. If you like angst, Dorian's romance is a good balance between Cullen and Solas. There is that angsty factor, but there is true romance as well, and even though he doesn't outright say so, as Cullen does, Dorian's feelings are quite clear.

When you think about it, doesn't it seem strange that they don't allow Dorian to comment on your mage specialisation at all? It is clear from his conversations with Solas that he has a genuine interest in magical technique for its own sake, so you think he would talk to his friend/lover about their choice. Instead we have Cole talking to a Necromancer about their choice of spec and Dorian talking to an Assassin about theirs. Meanwhile Solas gets to comment on every mage spec, although I suppose that figures considering he considers he is such an expert.

It is also sad that Dorian never gets to talk with you about simply being a mage from a different background if your aren't human. I know that he and Vivienne tend to look down a bit on "hedge" mages but Vivienne asks you about your training and Dorian is much more open minded and curious about magic generally than she is, so you could at least see him discussing it at some point because Lavellan or Adaar do come from such a different tradition of magic to his own. It is another of those aspects that makes you feel that the Inquisitor is less part of the world than the other companions because they chat with each other endlessly about subjects of similar interest or even disagreements about the culture they come from but after the initial info dump about Tevinter, there is very little opportunity to actually talk about their own experience.

I miss the chats we used to have with companions in DAO, where it did seem much more a sharing of life stories rather than all one sided. May be there was only the same amount of dialogue but because it was spread out rather than all in one block, it didn't seem that way. One thing I definitely preferred from DAO was that they separated out the dialogue about romance issues from general chat, so you didn't feel you were missing out on some ordinary conversation just to get the romance option.

Eh I just look at those dialogue deficiencies as word budget issues. Dorian has a lot of investigative dialogue about Tevinter, so I imagine that a lot of his non-cinematic word budget was taken up with that. They also try to have things more or less equal with respect to the different origins. I'm actually not a fan of having too many unique things spread out over different origins. Cullen has unique dialogue for mages, and I'm glad Dorian does not.

However, with regard to the specializations, those follower remarks were specific dev choices, and I'm not a fan of most of them. I think they absolutely should have, for every single one, had that same follower comment on it. After that, if they want to add other, miscellaneous followers and their remarks on an individual basis, then have at it. I feel I lucked out with my Champion spec, because I like both Iron Bull and Sera's remarks about it, and it affords me the opportunity to add to my character's RP, especially responding to Bull's question, "Why did you decided to turtle up?" But I wasn't keen on the Solas and Cole choice on my Necromancer mage and would rather have had Dorian's comment over Solas's; they could have even had another flirt opportunity .

There's something about Dorian's confrontation with his father that struck a chord with me. It was unexpected as I'm the farthest from Dorian as a person can be and yet, his feeling betrayed by the parent he once admired and the raw anger that will never entirely go away was the closest I've ever related to a character.

I'm glad they had Dorian in the story, he's a complicated individual who was fascinating to talk to and a funny companion. I don't know why, but it surprises me whenever someone doesn't like him.

Ah Dorian, my favorite companion in DAI. I have so many pics of his handsome mug, so I'll just throw one on here

I can show you the world~
smuttine.tumblr.com/post/145046497536/pannan-art-mine-and-friends-inqusitors-in-my