Breaking Canon

Duskwanderer, give over. It's patently obvious to EVERYONE that there's no way to have visible minorities and diversity in Dragon Age, or probably any video game, that you would find acceptable.

Your problem is not that it's written poorly, it's that it's present at all.

Sten could have been Aqun-Athlok in Origins, and you would still complain about it, probably with some excuse about how having transgendered people "doesn't make sense in a medieval world" or some nonsense. You'll always keep moving the goalposts, you will never be satisfied. It's very, very clear that for you to consider a story to be 'good', it needs to align with your personal politics and morals, which is actually how most people feel.

Your arguments are not any more 'objective' than those of the people who disagree with you.

I know that. Next are you going to tell me that water is wet?

I'm Team Let's Just Make Everyone Trans. Now, instead of the Antaam, it's the Transtaam.

Just joking, but I've come back to say that some people should calm down. Regardless of whether the Aqun-Athlok stuff is a retcon, it's probably one of the more innocuous additions to the lore. It's a very small detail about a culture known to need the resources of every body possible in whatever way they can. I don't think it's the Qunari being "woke" or "social justice warriors" to say that, under very specific circumstances that do not apply to everyone, a trans man or trans woman can live as their gender. The lore has never been all that consistent, so I'll leave it at that.

These seem to be wise words. It is a puzzle that this is grounds for such a heated debate when so much else has changed from Dragon Age Origins to Dragon Age Inquisition.

There are many other inconsistencies which people shrug past. For me, Leliana being such a key character despite being 'quantum' (killable) in Dragon Age Origins.

Makes sense. I just thought her body would repel all sorts of blight because she couldn't do the Joining again.



Was it ever clarified whether it was the amulet that cured her?

I didn't read it like that. The amulett was supposed to accelerate, not stop. Some of the more out there theories claim it was Fiona bonking with Maric and his dragon blood that healed her (insert Marvin Gaye joke here). I any case, I never considered it to be so clear cut how the removal of the taint in her worked. Unless the architect has something to say about it in Awakening. Haven't played that.

Just to correct you, that would be 'she'. I know we are discussing canon changes, but this is not such a change (I checked the lore and it's crystal clear).

www.thegamer.com/dragon-age-maevaris-tilani-trivia/

Professionalism was mentioned when it comes to Weekes' writing and I'd like to think that as a writer his creative process, if that includes inclusivity, is up to him. He's not hired to do accounting. He's hired as a writer. And if we want to talk professionalism, even in a business setting, often the consideration is to appeal to as wide a customer base as possible. Professionalism in a game development setting is most often to appeal to a wide audience and thankfully, that means people that weren't considered until recently. If you consider that watering down or cheapening content... *shrug*. Times have moved away from you.

Since, by the developers own words, there were only "almost no" black people and not actually "literally zero black people", he could have, by his own literal admission, included one or even some without sacrificing his ARTHETETINTERGERDER. And if someone puts more value on dumb, ephemeral crap like that than they do on real people's wellbeing, then they are a jerk. "Artistic integrity" isn't a real thing. You can't touch it, you can't measure it, you can't prove it. Whether or not a work has any is entirely up to your own imagination. And it doesn't serve any useful purpose at all, except apparently as a shield for bigots. No serious student of literature or art discards a work or declares it without merit on the basis of a "ret-con".

I don't give a shit about Kingdom Come, and never did anything to anybody except ignore it and not buy it, because the premise never interested me, so I don't know who you mean when you talk about "my side", but since you mention Kingdom Come, I am aware of its plot and mechanics in a broad sense, from the brief period where everyone was talking about it, and it absolutely sacrifices both realism and historical accuracy at various points, in service of both gameplay convenience and an extremely typical plot that, while albeit theoretically possible, is highly contrived and unlikely, like all fiction always is. And while Daniel Vavra (if that is the guy's name, I don't care, I'm not looking it up) might not be aware of any black people in Bohemia in the 1400s, and while they might have been rare, that's not the same as there being literally zero. So he could have made space for one, perhaps a travelling merchant looking to break into new markets or some such, and it wouldn't make the story any more or less plausible than it currently stands, what with all the nonsense about an orphaned blacksmith with no combat skills developing into a war hero and also finding out that the knight he admires is also his biological father and nobody disputing his claim to nobility and privilege and blah blah general wish fulfilment nonsense. If people care enough to nitpick all day and all night about the statistical likelihood of a black person being in a particular place at a particular point in time, then they have no excuse for not criticising the other extreme statistical unlikelihoods that the plot of Kingdom Come relies on in order to function.

Also, "cancelling" isn't real. I've yet to see anyone face any genuine long-term consequences for doing even extremely obviously bigoted things, so I don't know what you're bragging about here. Like, I'm so upset that some European dude who made a whole one game with mixed reviews is still active on Twitter. 

But Kingdom Come isn't remotely relevant, because Dragon Age is a fantasy game, and as such, is not bound by whatever strictures you seem to imagine should be in place. It may have some of the decorative trappings of what a very ignorant person might think "the medieval period" looks like, based on Hollywood films that are, themselves, wildly inaccurate. But even if it was intended to look like medieval Europe (in which case they did a very bad job), from the very first instalment it has made large, deliberate departures in service to modern values, because BioWare wants to make money (and there is a slim chance that they might be genuinely sensitive to the wants of gamers who aren't white, straight men). Thedas is not required to develop along the same technological and cultural trajectories as what we now call "The Western World", especially not to maintain your personal definition of "artistic integrity" and I know that you must know this, because you're a fan of Discworld, and Terry Pratchett used Discworld and his other novels as extremely obvious vehicles for talking about and satirising the modern world.

Krem may sound like a "modern Twitter user", but that's not inherently disruptive to the setting. When Alistair in Origins refers to Leliana as "Princess Stabbity" or what the fuck ever it was, not to mention his various other "random" asides and digressions, that's employing an undeniably modern style of humour, lifted almost directly from tumblr and fanfiction culture and children's cartoons of the time. In fact, Morrigan is the only character in Origins (besides maybe Flemeth), who talks remotely differently from the way a "modern person" might, and that was a purely stylistic choice, and modern audiences still understand her perfectly well, because she's using a modern theatrical manner of speaking, not a genuinely historical one. And this is all perfectly fine. The language the characters use needs to be modern, because modern people need to understand what is going on. The games were made by and for modern people, not medieval peasants. Modern influences are inescapable. Dragon Age as a cultural product doesn't actually tell us anything useful or even true about the "medieval period", it is (like all fiction deep down ultimately is) about the time and place in which it was made, not the time and place in which it was set. So Krem's dialogue may be written well or poorly, I don't remember how I thought about it, and I'm not playing the game through again to find out, but that's not the same as not fitting the setting.

As for "harmful to women", well, politics is verboeten, but I'm across the broader talking points of the... philosophy, let's say (what if penis in bathroom, I think Psycho is a historical documentary, etc), and I reject them utterly, and since you've seen fit to carry on in previous threads about how too many bisexuals makes you no imaginayshun so gud, I suspect your personal philosophy actually extends perhaps a bit further than just the T's in LGBT. So I'm not inclined to be sympathetic about your views on which women in particular are being hurt and how. And I'm definitely not going to throw an important part of my own community under the bus after they've been so historically instrumental in the advancement of my own rights, collectively speaking, and certainly not over a damn video game. Because I possess integrity*, whether Patrick Weekes does or not.

*"Integrity" here being defined as "having strong moral principles", not "having the exact same moral principles as me, Bierkrug", just to be clear.

So it's only what you say goes? Sorry, but Hainly Abrams was just proof that the woke screechers are never satisfied and will whine loudly about not getting what they want. A minor character with a smidge of character development (love of big boom explosions, and honestly, minor characters don't require any more) was turned into a joke. 

I seriosuly doubt that any Qunari anywhere said anything about planning to rape people, and the concept of "Aqun-Athlok" isn't remotely the same as simply believing that "trans lives matter" and respecting gender identity without question.

Biological females can join the Antaam if they demonstrate the talent and dedication for military combat, and they are henceforth regarded as men, becasue they are acting in a male roles. That's not actually getting to choose your own gender, and Iron Bull doesn't say anything at all about it working the other way.

Who are 'woke screechers' please? I understood that this extremely minor character was really badly implemented and was understandably patched. Why is this a matter of concern to you?