Returning and new characters for Dragon Age 4

Tallis already has all those plot point wrapped in a single character: an elf sold into slavery, rescued by and converted to the Qun, openly questions it despite believing it to be Thedas' best hope, becomes a Ben-Hassrath spy and manages Qunari networks to erode Theodosian governments and cultures to make them vulnerable to Qunari takeover. The Ben-Hassrath know Fen'Harel's forces are planning something, so she's a good candidate to try and infiltrate them. No one in the Inquisition actually met Tallis, so she fits the whole "people Solas doesn't  know" angle. Tallis' class kit works well against mages, which would be effective against both Solas' forces and Magisters. As a struggling but devout Viddithari, Tallis contrasts nicely with previous Qunari Compnaions Sten (Qunari race, conservative believer) and Iron Bull (Qunari race, on the fence). If the Qunari racial Companion in DA4 is a Tal-Vashoth Saarebas as many speculate/hope, Tallis would make an even better foil to that character. I'm not saying she's a lock, but given all of the above, in my opinion Tallis fits the projected themes of DA4 a lot better than Vaea.

Leaving aside Dorian and Solas who will almost certainly both return.

If we're going to have a companion returning as a companion, as opposed to a companion becoming an npc or vice versa, I'd quite like to see Shale again. The possibility of her having regained dwarven form provides an interesting new character arc not covered in her first appearance, not something every companion you could bring back has.

A companion I'd like to see as an npc is Velanna. The awakening companions got less character development than other games companions. But what Velanna did get, which stayed with me, was the realisation for all the elvish culture that was lost she could still make new stories for her people (when you give her the blank journal). I foresaw 2 paths velanna might go down in the future - one where she ended up entangled with the architect through her sister, and the other where she leads a new dalish clan less focused on being angry about what they lost and more on creating new traditions.

After Trespasser I was left strongly wanting to see elves not all siding with Solas, to see and be allied with one or more Dalish clans who rejected him. So then of course I immediately wanted to see Velanna's clan being against him, because it would feel like a natural evolution for her character arc and because who could tell the dread wolf to get stuffed like Velanna could tell the dread wolf to get stuffed.

If they can bring back Leliana on the excuse that she died in a mountain filled with lyrium than I think they can bring back Shale on the excuse that she is made out of stone and lyrium. Maybe someone strolled up and reanimated her 

Been asking for him since DA2. I know it's useless and I'm in the minority but I don't care.

Well, I am currently running through DA2 again and I think it would be nice to see Fenris again. Perhaps as a cameo on the road. We could help him kill some slavers.

True. I was hesitant to include her but since Leliana can come back to life as a lyrium ghost, the magic golem returning isn't that much of a stretch.

I'm sure they could (and would) handwave some of Cole's character development and have him be somewhere in the middle if they did bring him back in DA4. 

They can't be killed and tend to move around a lot.

At a guess, almost no one.

Dorian is obvious. Solas is a given. Leliana is... the Liara of Dragon Age, so probably unavoidable...

Beyond that, I feel as though the decision to move north was at least partially motivated by not having to juggle the potential decisions and character states of 3 previous games. Any references to the events or characters from the previous games will probably be incredibly vague.

I want as much new and the least old as possible. I'd be cool with just the obvious returning, aka Dorian and Solas. Bringing back characters is fun, but after 3 games and so many possible outcomes it would just be a mess. Too much spending time and resources on the fate of old character A or where old character B ended up, in X or Y? A new slate sounds nice to me. New character, new companions, new place.

Bianca Davri.

Wait! Before you all grab your friggin' pitchforks, can we all acknowledge that crucifying her character based on a scant 15 minutes of screen time seems a bit friggin' daft? It'd be like disliking Merrill for how she appeared in the Dalish Origin (where she was a no-nonsense hardass), rather than how she appeared in DA2 (where she was an adorkable cuckoolander)

I will admit there are several issues in Bianca's presentation in Inquisition and she did appear a tad conceited at times.

But things like Varric's shilling of her abilities can be excused because he's obviously biased. And the "threat" towards the Inquisitor did come immediately after a huge bust-up with Varric, so she was definitely lashing out in frustration at the first person she saw (someone everyone will have done at some point). Neither of those things really seem like justifiable reasons (at least IMO) to call her the worst character in the franchise (particularly when someone like Vivienne exists).

I wouldn't suggest making her a companion, as Scout Harding would be far preferable to have as our resident female Dwarven archer. But if they brought back Bianca to play some role in a questline or in an advisor type capacity, that might allow for some better and more fleshed out characterisation from her, allowing the writers to address some of the issues people had with her in DAI.

Besides, remember when people complained that Cullen was returning in DAI, only for that to seemingly vanish after the game came out? They addressed the issues from previous games, gave him a buttload of development and made him an awesome romance option. If they already managed it before, can't see why doing something similar with Bianca wouldn't fix some of the problems some people have with her?

While Leliana being able to survive a decapitation and become a rock ghost is annoying she definitely isn't a Liara. At least with her I'm not afraid she'll sell the protag's corpse to mad scientista and be a total stalker.