David Gaider @davidgaider.bsky.socialCHARACTERS - Day Eight: Dorian
Now this is a fun one. It's no big secret I have a lot of feelings about Dorian, not least of which because he was my first (and only) gay male companion. There's a lot more to him than that, of course (as there should be), and it was quite a trip. So let's go!
Now, DAI is a story all its own, but I'm sticking to the characters. In this case, back at the beginning, the writers were going to try something new: we were going to let the artists take a more active role in the companion creation process.
Why? Because not doing so had caused a lot of problems.
See, here's the thing: writers and artists speak two different languages. When talking about characters, we talk about their story. Who they are. What they want. We'd write up these briefs, huge and full of information... but it was never the information the artists needed. They wanted visual cues.
I don't mean describing their appearance. Sure, we'd usually provide that, especially if there was a story case to be made, but often the artists vetoed us on appearance stuff anyhow so meh.
No, I mean they looked for visual language while we tended to only talk about who the characters *were*.
What would happen is they'd hone in on something visual in our write-up not intended to be a focus. The first write-up for Anders in DA2, for instance, mentioned he was "haggard" after his journey... and the first concept we got was this pale, shriveled man.
"What... is this?"
"YOU SAID HAGGARD!"
😅
That was the other trick: sometimes when we DID try to be more descriptive, we had to be extra cautious because the words could be interpreted very differently. You encounter this recording VO, too. A VO note says "hysterical" and you *meant* "really upset" but the actor read "scream like a banshee"
Thus this caused problems, like I said. The artists would struggle, sometimes conjuring details just to give the character *something* but which would change the character... and, to us, the character was created. Done. We were already invested, probably already writing them.
Something had to give.
So this time we wrote a bunch of character briefs - but short. One paragraph. We stuck to vibes and the *emotions* we wanted the concepts to evoke. And we didn't name them. They got titles like "Slick Con Man" or "Ice Queen", so we wouldn't get too attached. Then we handed these off to the artists.
And it worked nicely. The ones that just weren't inspiring we'd discard, no problem. The others had juice... and the artists felt free to play and offer lots of variations because we weren't set on anything yet. A lot of times, what they produced ended up inspiring US. It was a neat back-and-forth.
This is what led to Dorian, in fact. He came from a short write-up entitled "Rock Star Mage" and it really boiled down to "I'm cool and I know I'm cool, so take that you cretins".
And just like that, the first sketches (by Casper Konefal, I think? I bet I'm wrong) were all amazing. Instant fire.
Me: "He looks kind of like... Freddie Mercury?"
Him: "Is that bad?"
Me: "NO ARE YOU KIDDING THIS IS AMAZING"
Plus there was a monkey. Sadly, we had to lose the monkey.
There were iterations to come, but this was really where Dorian was born: Tevinter mage, noble, savant, and too cool for school.
One of the concept art variants of the "Rock Star Mage" which provided Dorian's initial inspiration. The one on the left was the first draft. The one on the right was the second draft with a few adjustments (bye monkey). There was more iterating after this, but you see where it was going - and it was so, so good.
When did he become gay? Not right away. Like I said elsewhere, we didn't talk romance and sexuality until after the concepts were more in place.
But as we were brainstorming about why this hot shot mage left Tevinter, the idea DID come up that maybe it was because he was gay. Not directly, however.
Homophobia isn't really a thing in Thedas, after all, so at first blush I didn't think that could work. "Rich kid gets kicked out of the house for being gay" wasn't a trope I wanted to explore. But, then again, magister families in Tevinter are *obsessed* with the appearance of perfection, so...?
Any deviation from the "norm" is considered scandal-worthy. It said weakness. It said you couldn't control your house. Now... THAT had real promise. The writing pit discussed it a lot.
So I think it's fair to say that the gay fairy was already circling Dorian even before we got to the romance talk.
I think it's also fair to say that the rest of the team realized I low-key wanted to write him, because when everyone started calling dibs, who was left standing for me? (I pick last, remember.) I gleefully snatched him up and got to work...
...about six months later. I was very busy at the time. 😅
That late start meant I had to design and write VERY quickly. And I did. Somehow, though, this one... it came easily. "Catty gay man" isn't digging very deep, no surprise to anyone who knows me, and it had an extra layer of being so fun because Dorian was confident. He sparred verbally. I loved it.
There was more to it, however. The conflict between Dorian and his father... ugh, how do I say this? Let's be clear: Dorian's story is not MY story, but it's also not far off.
I wrote the entire confrontation scene in one go. After I was done, I probably cried harder than I ever have in my life. 🫠
I was unsure whether it was any good, however. I just didn't feel objective. I passed it over to Cori May - my friend but also Dorian's editor - and asked her to please tell me and be honest.
She read it. She walked into my office after, tears streaming down her face, and just nodded. "It's good."
Here's the thing. Not everyone is going to agree with this, but: I don't think a writer NEEDS to be a minority in order to write a minority. Sometimes those characters should simply exist, and we want them to. But if that character's story is ABOUT their experience as a minority? That's different.
Dorian's story didn't need to revolve around his sexuality - and, honestly, it only did so as a tangent to his family issue, but they're so bound together it's probably irrelevant to split them - but my writing him meant it could be. It allowed me to SAY something.
That felt good. It felt right.
Ramon Tikaram came on board after a lengthy casting process (so many British Indian accents, oh god). I sat in on a few recording sessions... the confrontation scene, though?
Ramon: *says line*
Me: (curled up on a nearby sofa in fetal position) *shaky thumbs up*
Caroline: "Yep. Great work, Ramon!"
Dorian's sexuality isn't all he's about, but that's certainly how some viewed it. When the character was announced in 2014, his being gay was mentioned as the last of a number of points, and the instant response from some gamers was to act as if we'd called a press conference just to say THAT. 🙄
It was annoying. Still is. Overall, however, the reaction to Dorian was very positive. The number of straight men who said they romanced him still pleases me. The number of fans who privately contacted me who'd been through conversion therapy, some who said Dorian helped them survive? Well. Gosh. 😭
I did write him for Trespasser - though I hear that a late scope cut meant every conversation had been chopped by 1/3rd or more, and that meant a lot of nuance lost. Which is sad, if true, because it sounds like the result of that left some Dorian romancers a bit cold. Such is how game dev rolls. 😔
If you need more proof of how it was hard for me to let go of him, a short story I wrote after Trespasser came out where Dorian has a bit of closure with his dead father:
medium.com/@davidgaider/the-final-conversation-d6258fa6cbdbSo yeah. He'll always be my boi. And I'll always be thankful Bio gave me this opportunity. ❤️
