Races and romance poll

But fennecs! And nugs! And mabari as unusually intelligent dogs are pretty awesome. I think the DAI dragons were pretty great as well; I loved how colorful they were.

Though I think fennecs might not count because those are real. Not sure if mabari count or not; dogs are real, but their specific intelligence is not.



Oh... duh!

Keebler Elves y'all xD

oh no this phoenix rant is too powerful

panda i can’t stop cackling

panda the people around me think i’m losing it

panda,

panda why have you done this

Exactly. This isnt a global, hard rule. Bending definitions is one thing if it's done thoughtfully, but making something that's supposed to be magnificent in the larger canon of mythology and making it super not in your story and then expecting people to be cool with it is a lot to ask of your fanbase.

Yeah it's a weird hill to die on lol

It may not be a real thing, but the CONCEPT exists, and it has a name. Words can't just be used to mean whatever anyone wants, or language becomes nonsense.

"Phoenix" may well mean something else in Thedas, but BioWare isn't talking to us in Thedosian, they are talking to us in English.

It's also worth noting that they didn't do this with any other thing. Dragons fit the traditional European concept of dragons, Dwarves and Elves fit the common conception of dwarves and elves. Wyverns are close enough, one giant lizard is pretty much the same as another. Goats and Hyenas are... similar at least. And Fennecs look like fennec foxes. Nugs and druffalo don't have external counterparts, and accordingly, they have original (though somewhat derivative) names.

The only other thing I can think of that is remotely similar to this situation is the DLC "unicorn" mount, which is clearly meant to be ironic, and was specifically designed to subvert our expectations.

But all that aside, I simply just don't want to play in a fantasy world where the beautiful, whimsical creatures of fantasy literature are reduced to a hideous menace that I have to destroy, all in the name of some lame attempt to be 'edgy' or 'mature' or whatever. That's not fun for me.

I don't want to be one of those losers that nitpicks about mythology (you'll notice I'm not bitching about the fact that, traditonally, wyverns are depicted with wings), but if you're going to alter the concept to the point that it bears no resemblance whatsoever to the original, then why not call it something else?

I'm always more in favour of coming up with your own shit in the first place, instead of leaning on tropes.

Perhaps they did it to mess with player expectations?

I'm all for subverting expectations, but up until now, Dragon Age has fallen right in line with bog-standard Western Fantasy and its tropes.

Maybe it behaves like a standard phoenix? Like maybe it has a reincarnation trick, or sleeps in a flaming nest, or something like that?