Why is Jaal's romance so popular?1

You should go to the Liam thread

I think its mostly that hes the "new guy" for the game. Hes not a bad character by any means, if not exactly my fav. If we're talking Recently tho, ppl are just happy about the m/m option change, which is a first for mass effect in terms of an alien character. I was kinda miffed about him being m/f exclusive at launch, but I kind of got over him. I like Drack better.

If he's a turian, those are very endearing trait.

The thing is, I often compared him to SWTOR's Koth. The difference is, I actually like Koth more than Liam... Koth at least have some principle and inspire loyalty and actually make good jokes.... Liam is too much like Garrus and I hated being manipulated to fix someone's screw ups.  

Jaal is charming and innocent at the same time. There's compassion, and trust. He inspired friendship and quite thoughtful. He's just lovable in a good way. 

Damn I really really liked Garrus. I found his "calibrations" quite funny plus he appeared to me like a renegade cop trying to serve justice without red tape. Liam on the other hand was trying to force himself and the other around to feel good and be positive with the result of screwing up royally and annoy the heck out of me. I didn't perceive any closeness between him and Garrus but maybe I'm wrong. If that's what BW was aiming to then I think they missed it completely.

The thing is I never really see Garrus serving justice. He complained about rules and regulation but I'm surprised how he didn't seem to value law and order despite his talk about justice. He thinks he can do whatever he wants including brutality against his suspect, recklessness and murder and justified it so he could have the upper hand of being righteous. But he's endlessly charming, which made the very morally questionable things that he did seems somewhat harmless because he made it sounds so cool and amazing... (which is also a trait of narcissistic sociopath...)

Liam personality is similar to Koth; he's weirdly optimistic, supportive and when he believe in something larger that life, believe in serving others for the right cause and not just himself and he wouldn't mind voicing out his opinion. However, his charming personality, sexy accent, background and erratic behavior mirrored Garrus. From his old job, to his family, his relationship with his own team, his relationship to Tempest crew. Sometimes he think what he's doing things that he think its for the right reasons and it clouded his judgement and ended up with him justifying recklessness. But he don't degrade himself with casual murders just to look cool, he isn't a sociopath and never remotely too manipulative. The most he just come off as being jerkish. But when he made mistakes, he would apologize and try to understand the side of you. His romance also started of as awkward dorkiness but he's earnest about what he feels and there's a lot of depth and cute things even if lacking in actual sex scenes.

But in Andromeda, Jaal is a liason to the Angara and the main story is heavily about his people so the romance does add to the narrative of Milky Way species being able to find common ground with the natives (very Pocahontas-like). Some people like it, some people don't. I do find him fascinating but not enough to be interested in him romantically or sexually... but I do like Cathleen Rootsaert since she wrote ME3's Kaidan. Not many people give Kaidan a chance (especially after his cheating reaction) but thanks to her, he became the most developed romance in the trilogy. She like to write with a lot of depth and understanding of her characters and she can be very versatile with what was required (writing Jaal as a bisexual is nothing new) and she do like to write romance dialogues with a lot of subtexts. So I'm not surprised that Jaal is popular, she's a good romance writer who knows where to pull and to push and where to entice and when to be emotional. Jaal and his pretty big eye can be so enthralling.

Lmao.

Still hoping for DLC content that expands Gil more than, say, Reyes or especially Jaal (in this case).

I'm actually.. ok with Reyes amount of content. But more because I'd hope he's a bigger part of a next game no matter what, so this game's romance is but an optional backstory before the main event. Ha.

The only thing they did truly differently from 1998 was out of party romance arcs (SWTOR) that they have repeated with Reyes. I would not call going back to what we have seen in ME2, Origins and DA2 going backward. At this point there is just no way to do the whole vaunted 2/2/2 while preserving the plot-relevance. 2/2/2 - that's your entire companion cast, and all of them being tied to the main plot in a major way with and without romantic subplot?

In both the origins and DA2 two characters in each game were fairly strongly plot relevant & mostly in the ending of the game (and w/o a sequel to worry about due to "we'll change the protagonist next time structure).

And even with Reyes, the first thing people demand is "make him a companion!!!" and the moment he becomes a companion, not his own person who can pop in during any quest without having to be taken into the party, his content becomes marginalized and he becomes yet another has-been in the long chain of SWTOR-like has-beens underlings. Much like Andronikus Revel. 

I am uncertain of what's they are going to do now.

That what they did in SWTOR. Some planetary story offered out of party romantic arcs either as a part of the Faction Planetary Story Line or a Class Story Line. At least three of the Class Story Line LI (not companions) made second or third appearance during the story. 

I like Jaal's place in the game and how his romance is structured, just not the romance itself. But the more characters you try to build into the plot like this, the harder it becomes to thread the romance through the entire game. You might miss most of the romantic content if you do not have your LI with you. Out of party character is ideal in that respect because he or she can show up as s/he pleases without Player having to metagame. 

But if you start forcing the out of party character to show up too often, it can drive the player who is not madly in love with him/her to distraction. I am still dreaming of choking Morrigan with my bare hands while I am sure the entire manhood that played the game can't get enough.

Oi, I so prefer dancing and an imaginative kissing to sex scene, I can't even begin to... Seriously, in SWTOR, I still remember a Smuggler going on her tip-toes to gently kiss Corso Riggs and a scene where Ashara turns away in anger from the Inquisitor, and he walks over and hugs her from behind, I swear I'd trade every nekkid scene for that one. And, tbh, I need nothing at all but a dialogue that turns my heart inside out judging by my devotion to Bao Dur and his actions as well as "the longest you have looked at me" monologue in KOTOR2. Only DA2 managed to create a stronger impression of a male companion in love with the PC with Anders than Bao was with the Exile.

EDIT: And speaking of that other Inquisitor, a star-crossed love story like with Ashara, I know the males did not dig it, but I've just loved it. 

Arcann wasn't really obsessed with her, he was obsessed with killing her. Quite a difference imo.