The Character Romance thread (Official)

I only ever played the main story through once, and I never actually took Danse with me or did his mission, so I never learned much about him except for what I've seen people post about him. But 'can be interpreted that way if you want' is a far cry from MacCready's sad story about his dead wife and their son, or Deacon's sad story about his dead wife, or Valentine's sad story about his (sort of) really long dead fiancee, so it is at best another example of Bethesda playing it really safe by making gay relationships non-explicit and open for interpretation, while making straight relationships overt and near impossible to interpret as anything but a hetero relationship. 

As the original Varric stan, I wanna agree with that specifically a lot (and also with more rep in general). I was severely disappointed with the Bianca story in DA:I in general. For all they did to subvert dwarven clichés, they defaulted to one of the most boring romance clichés here. Being gay could have only made him more interesting, since a gay dwarf, and, if you wanna start earlier, a weapon being named after a man instead of a woman, would both have been unexpected in much the same way that a lot of Varric's character design is, which is all about subverting standard expectations for the tropes he at first glance should fulfil. There was all this clever talk about how "this is the one story he will never tell" and such in DA2, and I think I know why now: Varric's a passable storyteller, so he knows not to bore his audience with another version of "man names weapon after lost(ish) girlfriend". Doesn't even make sense considering she doesn't want to build the crossbow again and every dwarf in Hightown probably knows about their affair (considering they almost caused a clan war) and that she's a talented smith. It must be daylight clear to pretty much the whole Merchant's Guild who Varric is referring to when he calls his crossbow that. He might actually get her in trouble with it if someone wants to press her for the schematics.

There was a dwarf in the Legacy DLC in DA2 who built Bianca, whom Varric called Bianca's "papa" in a letter. Varric was pretty sad he had to put him down when he was blighted. It would have been so much more interesting if Varric had actually made up a completely irrelevant name for their "crossbow daughter" to properly hide who Bianca's maker was, and that could have been his lover if it was necessary one be involved at all (although it would have been another buried gay). Hell, him being interested in men may have actually been another underlying point of contention between Bartrand and him because Varric would not have been available to be married off into another dwarven family for profit. Standard drama, yes, but at least it would have been more interesting than the knock-off dwarven production of Romeo and Juliet we got.

However, I doubt it was ever considered at all what opportunities for storytelling he could have brought with him if he were gay. He has too big of a presence in the story (at least in DA2) and his sexuality would have had no "point" since he wasn't an LI, so like, if you met Bernard instead of Bianca in DA:I, then like, your potential best buddy in DA2 would have been gay? Like, bro, that's like, weird, bro. Even though he never shows a single bit of interest in Hawke or the Inquisitor, I feel like some people would have taken offence to that, and ME:A shows us Bioware is quite aware of the needs of these people.

MEA had woefully little acknowledgement of your romance status and it was VERY annoying, and sometimes jarring...like when you are DEAD/DYING and your LI is RIGHT THERE and barely has a comment about it, for example. For all of DA2's problems it got a lot of things right too (I noticed a lot of our "good examples" on this thread are from DA2) and there is a reason it's my favorite DA...

Yes, exactly! I forgot to mention it but yeah, MEA was especially weird about this, it felt like you weren't even romancing anyone unless you were actually in a romance cutscene with them. It's especially weird because for all the game's many many romance issues, I think several of the romances are pretty well done otherwise. Like, hey dude, I just died in front of you? Does this ring a bell? Bueller? 

DA2 is still my favorite of the DA series, too. What it got wrong has been beaten into the ground but like you said, it got a lot right, especially with the characters and romances. I wish Bioware hadn't tossed the proverbial baby out with the bathwater when it came time for DAI

clearly s case of overcompensating

he does. It's very vague but he had a strong emotional connection to him. Danse is a purely playersexual character though no confirmed romantic inclinations towards either gender apart from the player. I like to think he's 100% gay.

I don't know if Kaidan is the best example, because it seems like they were dragged into that kicking and screaming. When people are talking about all bi romances, they're mainly referring to DA2, where they were all the same content-wise regardless of gender, and designed that way from the beginning of development.

As far as I know, the Reyes romance plays out the same way for both, aside from some animation errors, but it's not like Sara gets more content. I can't speak to Vetra or Peebee's romances regarding content, and of course we all know about Sara's invisible strap-on and that stupidity.

Yup, the only way to tell really was talking to the LI (idk how it was for the others), in my case Jaal, and that he ends conversations with "Stay strong, darling one.", other than that you get nothing and if you don't want to repeat the same 5 dialogue options 100 times or just be like "hi. bye." you won't hear it that often. But still, yeah, at least seem extra upset when Ryder dies?? This isn't something that should have slipped their minds, and it's from a major story mission so it's not like it's something that everybody won't do like if it was in some side mission.... 

Yeah, I am mostly a character/story/romance person so the fact that DA2 was so heavy and good with that stuff minimized the bad stuff...not so much with DAI, although that was still better than MEA lol

'soon' usually means within 2 weeks.
If it was a week or less, they typically say 'very soon'...

For starters, but I think I have made it clear by now that I'm not super confident in Edmonton's capabilities either, lol.

I'm not sure what this is referring to. We had required followers in DAO. It was only two, but we still had them. If the discussion is about plot-relevant, or mandatory followers, and the fact that all of them have been straight (minus Anders), Alistair and Morrigan are part of the example.