Dragon Age News Thread

Is this the first time the devs have actually stated that Cole is asexual?

Spirit Cole was/is asexual. Human Cole isn’t, though.

14:23.

Mike Laidlaw also seems to be under the impression that Ace people don't want romances, so that's  .

Yeah. At least some of the Bioware devs think differently though, for example Patrick Weekes on Twitter has talked about how they at least considered doing Ace and/or Demi romances, there just being conflicting opinions on what that kind of romance would look like. 

Nobody said anything about automatically "going with the views" of anything. It's about being willing to listen. People disliking Dorian or his story because it strikes a negative chord with them is fine and totally valid. Their experience as gay men is going to color their perception in a way that a straight man or a straight woman or a lesbian will never fully comprehend, not because they're not empathetic but because life lends itself to different perspectives. Their feedback is useful. So is the feedback of gay men who really like Dorian as a character and appreciate his arc.

David Gaider wrote an intensely personal story that meant a lot to him as a gay man and as a writer. He was his own sounding board in this case and that's mostly fine - he was the target audience, he was writing for that audience, he has his own life experiences to draw from.

It's about knowing where you're coming from and a willingness to listen, that's all.

Thanks. I can't understand that word before "ace," -- "who is super ___ and ace."

Hm... I dunno. It seems like he's forgotten about a big chunk of Cole's character development: taking the human path. Even leaving sex out of it, he does have clear romantic feelings for Maryden in Trespasser.

I'm pretty sure there is banter about sex with him (concerning Maryden) from some followers, but I don't know what his response is. Also, I likely wouldn't have heard it as my party combo doesn't really lend to that sort of teasing.

If you take the Cole spirit path, does that even count? He's not truly a person in that case, so can he have any sort of sexuality? I'm not going to say desire demons are pan, when the only reason they are is because they react to the person they're trying to influence (and feed off of).

At this point, I'm going to say that we've never had a true ace in Dragon age. By that I mean one that is clear about being that way, and not just something players can headcanon due to lack of other information.

Just to add to this I was reading When the Moon is Low (spoilers) recently and there's a character that had previously been established as loathsome, he steals or blackmails or something his fellow refugees and then tells them if they do anything against him he'll tell his Taliban contacts back in Afghanistan to kill their families. But one of the MCs (whose a fifteen/sixteen year old boy) needs an impetus to leave (although he already has one) and needs to undergo Dark and Foreboding Events so the guy pulls double duty as the Evil Gay Child Molester, MC winds up stabbing him and running away. It adds nothing to the story and the same series of events could have been handled without making the bad guy a gay child molester but apparently blackmailing your fellow refugees by threatening to out their families to the Taliban is apparently not a clear enough way to communicate that someone is scum. 

I was already kinda lukewarm on the book so that just really pissed in my coffee. 

My 'official' stance on sensitivity readers is: use them to look for places where you might be tone deaf (like you're trying to include a strong character that has a serious physical disability but you give them an ability that largely obviates the consequences of that disability like Daredevil or the psychic guy in a wheelchair, at this stage disability is just a cute little character hook) or where you might be showing unnecessary and maybe unintended biases. But don't let sensitivity readers, or concerns relating to sensitivity readers, set hard limits for what you deal with. The Land Fit for Heroes is dark fantasy (and I'm talking pitch fucking black at parts) the MC is an antihero and really not a very nice man and he's gay. I feel like it would have been a MUCH greater disservice to the idea of representation, of equaling the playing field wrt which roles can be inhabited by which kinds of people, to make him a straight man rather than a gay man who does terrible things but is ultimately a character with nuance in a role where gay men usually aren't. And I feel like there's a 50/50 chance a sensitivity reader would've taken a look at some of his actions and said "Nope, can't have a gay guy doing that it's bad for representation," which is awful to me. Though I should qualify this by saying I really don't know how sensitivity reading shakes out in the real world. 

When Weekes said they decided not to make Solas bi because they didn't want to make a 'depraved bisexual' that is EXACTLY what I do not want. It's like concerns with how to do representation appropriately has reached an inflection point where you wind up rebounding back into circumscribing which roles non-straight characters are 'supposed' to occupy. Solas is an excellent character, complex and compelling and making him bi would have detracted not a whit from that. 

anywhoo /rant

It depends on whether people like what you're saying

Highlander 3 was worth watching just for Loreena McKennit's "Bonny Portmore" song, btw.