Unpopular opinion: Straight Male romance was shafted.

And ME2...

And the "lesbians who weren't thrilled about Liara/Leliana" in ME1/DA:O" club. Moral of the story is: Having one "option" sucks. It means if you want a romance at all, you're going to do this one!

When is society going to get over this whole "certain personality traits or preferences are masculine or feminine" crap? Cass, or any woman, having short hair is not "masculine". In fact, Cass' braid makes it traditionally feminine (a man with long hair isn't "feminine" either). And being direct, stubborn, and driven is not "macho", it's just itself.

I'm glad more people noticed this! It's seriously weird

1. Is a sex scene in a video game romance really that much of a deal-breaker for you? That's just... sad.
2. Well at least you generalize everyone, including men. Double standards are silly, after all.

No, the world is just full of double-standards about everything. It's not a conspiracy against men. But for what it's worth, I fully agree with the two examples I left in. While the first is due to sexism, the latter has more to do with "freedom of religion" being used as an excuse to do... anything.

It's certainly the exception for straight women to have the most options, so it doesn't bug me. In fact, I'm extremely glad it turned out that way, simply because the two original options for straight women would have been abhorrent. Bull or Blackwall? Yeah, no thanks. It's strange we were *this* close to another game where straight women got the short end of the stick, but instead ended up with the first game where they got the... uh, long end?

My point is, it just boggles my mind how Bioware thought most women would be a-OK with Blackwall and Bull instead of Cullen and Solas, who are wildly popular. Just goes to show I don't think they really know what people want.



I don't recall any information stating Mage!Cole was 12. In fact, that is fairly young to be in a circle in the first place. All indications are that he looked exactly how Compassion!Cole does, which ingame is described only as "not-yet 20", and he is clearly older than 12, physically.

Well, first of all, as made clear by this thread, looks are highly subjective. I don't really have an opinion about Cole's looks, but just because you think he's ugly, doesn't necessarily mean his designers did. Conversely, maybe he's supposed to be ugly? Not everyone has to be a model in fiction. I really don't see what this has to do with anything.

I put it in bold for the same reason people usually bold things: emphasis. Not complicated. I emphasized it because I was explaining why he looked gaunt and frail, which was asked. Again, we're seeing different things here, because the Cole in my game doesn't look "super fit". Those weird qunari armours don't count, they change everyone's bodies into something bizarre and inconsistent with how they actually look.

1. Being more or less attracted to certain skin tones is not racism any more than being more or less attracted to certain hair colours is... hairism. Attraction is one of life's great mysteries. I'm mostly attracted to white people, and I'm white. Meanwhile, some white women are primarily attracted to black people, etc. I also, for whatever reason, am not overly attracted to blonde hair. Neither of those things changes my judgement of other people, and does not equate to prejudice.

2. In addition to what dragontartare already said about Dorian, being an elf has little to do with his thoughts on slavery. You might as well say he's totally cool with enslaving your people if you're a human, or especially a Qunari. With that line of thought, you should romance him as a dwarf. Point is, Tevinter enslaves humans, elves, and qunari, so being an elf isn't overly relevant.

It gets even worse after Trespasser, since his romance doesn't change in the slightest whether he'll eventually betray you or not. In other words, his sincere romance is indistinguishable from his insincere one

I was going to like your post until I got to the end. That's just a terrible thing to say. Mutilation is mutilation, it doesn't magically make it okay just because there are worse forms of it out there. Don't let your annoyance at Bayonet Hipshot cloud your judgement; it's unlikely that a person will be wrong about everything, and vice versa.



Even I was disappointed we couldn't romance Joker. They should have just had it so if you didn't romance him, he gets with EDI, similarly to how Garrus and Tali end up together if you didn't romance either of them.

Just want to point out that there is a huge difference between wanting bisexual/biromantic/pansexual etc. romances and wanting your character to actively change other characters' sexualities (playersexual). I want the former, but definitely not the latter.

Exactly, that's the problem

Great post! Just wanted to comment especially on the two bits I left up there.

1. I don't mean to speak for @vivainadx but from what I understood, the intent of the bolded comment was to call out the false equivalency of FGM vs. circumcision in terms of severity and consequences, not to say that circumcision is ok. It is possible I am the one who misinterpreted, though.
(I am also not saying circumcision is ok, just to be clear.)

2. Yes, exactly. I doubt it will do any good to call this out, though, since he spent a huge post condescendingly explaining what generalizing means, while completely missing the actual problem.

That response was reactionary after hearing about some of the horror stories pertaining to female circumcision and the conditions they're sometimes performed in, compared to the common practice of the male version being performed here in the hospitals under sterile conditions, but I forgot that some conditions for males in other parts of the world can be pretty brutal too. I do apologize there...I'm used to thinking of them as a safe, regular occurrence and not a potential threat to male involved.

ah, this thread title is just too fascinating not to watch it unfold. I emphasize with the OP, after having had quite a few unrequited digital crushes. But I sort of find it all the sweeter when the stars align & I get a great lovestory in a game along with an adventure of a lifetime. I don't really buy into my PC being absolutely everyone's cup of tea.

I remember: Zevran mentioned, that he prefer women (and showed this in the whole game... this was fucking annoying!)
I read before this about that Gaider wrote Fenris with Male Hawke, despite if Hawke not in love with Fenris, Fenris will sleep with Isabela (I don't experienced this, but that's not a big problem...)

(Poor straight guys! – how many times I read that they was killed Zevran just because he embarrassed them ... not because he wanted to kill the Warden. Or they were upset, that Anders attracted to their male Hawke!)

I think it was revealed in world of Thedas that Zevran had polyrelationship with Talisien and Rinna. So he had relationship with guy before Warden at least thought it wasn't revealed in actual game.

Iron Bull also has serious relationship with Dorian if you aren't romancing either and drag them along enough for banter to trigger. So while he mostly talks about women he does have relationship with guy that is more meaningful than just fling.

To be honest I thought Cassandra romance was a good one. I've heard people lament that she wasn't available to their female PC, particularly if they didn't know in advance that she wasn't available to them and yet were allowed to flirt until the point she explained their error.

One of the things I would like remedied is having a female elf option for a male elf. This is not racial prejudice. On the whole it is going to be more common for an elf to be attracted to an elf. Plus there is the additional factor that whether a city elf or a Dalish, you are going to be under pressure to get married young and produce kids and because of the risk of the race dying out if you mate with a human, there is going to be a strong cultural bias to forming a relationship with an elf.

Back in DAO the only option for a male elf is a human female. The babies aspect is not important since you are going to be infertile anyway but I still needed to explain why my elf had got that far without being married (well the city elf was but apparently the interrupted ceremony didn't count). The explanation for my Dalish was that he was gay.

Then on to DAI. Again, I needed to explain why my Lavellan wasn't hitched, since I imagined him in his late twenties. Also having human children would be an issue this time round and I think playing the rebel against his culture was a bit clichéd (although this is how I explained my Cassandra romance) Since I knew the female elf option was not going to be available to him, once again I decided the answer was that he was gay and he romanced Dorian. I envisaged he did this fully knowing he might actually become an outcast from Dalish society as a result, not just because he was romancing a man but because that man was an Altus from Tevinter. (It was a pity the writers didn't acknowledge just how momentous this would be in Dalish culture). Don't get me wrong, I loved the Dorian romance but it would be a change in future games to be able to play an elf who was able to find romance and yet be faithful to their culture. In other words have a female elf character who is available to a male elf.  (Mind you, I know he wouldn't have been any better off if Sera had been an option since she insists that female Lavellan rejects her culture if she wants to continue the romance).

That said, whilst I don't personally play dwarves, pity those that do that have not yet been given the option of any dwarven romance (apart from a rather half hearted attempt with Harding).

In terms of both physical beauty and LI's character, I really enjoyed Leliana and Morrigan in DAO and Miranda in ME2/3. The ones who can be described as "traditionally atractive". I am not an OP, but, honestly, I've spoken to many people with similar opinion on DAI straight male options, so we can discuss this issue deeper if you wish so. 

Nah, that takes away the point of having characters. The more alike they are, the more pointless they are... unless you're talking about things like cannon fodder enemies. 

I say, keep the characters unique. 

Yes, maybe it weird that all bisexual, but I still prefer Anders and Fenris, than the Inquisition m/m romances.

I agree completely, I thought the variety was great and it encouraged me to make up different gender Inquisitors to checkout the seprate romances. My female Inquisitors always considered Dorian their platonic bestie that they could flirt with, it didn't seem like he minded. Sera always felt like a little sister, I could never romance her. On the whole I liked that I would have to adjust my Inqusitor to explore each romance option, it ensured I did more than one playthrough.