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Aola Beck, my Twi’lek OC and Captain of The Dancing Lady and leader of my Charlie’s Angels of Star Wars. A beautiful commission done by @0alix0

#my star wars oc #star wars #star wars oc #aola beck #twi’lek smuggler #twi'lek oc #twi'lek smuggler #twi'lek female #twi’lek #the dancing lady #0a #0alix0

(1/2) I got such a big facepalm when Dorian appiered in tevinter nights and how writing deliberately mentioned that he have only the servants now. I just... Bioware really should stop pretending that Dorian didnt defent horrible things. If anyone of their scenarits gave at least half of theit shit, Dorian could have finally had a conflicked he (as a character) so despiratly needed in Inquisition.

(2/2) But it would probably make many players uncomfortable with their "Best Gay Friend" being not so perfect cinnamon roll UWU as they want, so Bioware just run from risk as fast as from a shitting elefant. Writers dont want Dorian to grow, just be a stereotipical LGBT-doll to bait the audience. The worst thing is - it actually worked... It sickens me. (sorry for my bad english btw)

I mean, I really would have been down for a “Dorian learns that slavery is bad” push through Inquisition - we have Krem, Bull’s trusted right hand among the Chargers, whose father sold himself into slavery because he couldn’t compete with the prices of slave labor, and yet there’s not even a passing encounter between them. We have Varric, who was friends with an escaped Tevinter slave, and yet Fenris isn’t even NAME-CHECKED, let alone discussed as an example of what is wrong in Tevinter. We have the encounter with Gatt, and, while I understand not making it a must-have encounter because of variation possibilities, Dorian just gets catty at him because he represents the Qunari, rather than having even a moment of recognition that this freed elven slave looked at staying in slavery and joining the Qun, and unreservedly joined the Qunari - kinda shoots holes in that whole “poverty is the same as slavery” thing when the Qun looks better to someone who has suffered under those systems.

But no. We have Dorian revealing that his father would have straightened him out if he’d gotten the chance (and getting the option to push Dorian to “forgive” him, which HELL. NO. and I resent the implication that it’s somehow “better” to do that). And we have Dorian getting harassed by Mother Giselle, framed in such a way that we can only disagree with her asking after the intentions of the Tevinter mage among the Inquisition - when a Tevinter cult centered around an ancient Tevinter magister is the actual enemy of the game. Her concerns are completely justifiable, but the game wants to set her up as a straw villain in opposition to Dorian, with no real room to accept her point of view. But DORIAN, no, he’s got to be in the right.

Like I’ve said before, Dorian just comes across as little more than a prop - there to drop the “homophobia is bad” anvil and then be the ego boost for the female Inquisitor with the “safe” flirting - flirting that leads to that conversation where the Inquisitor will accuse him of leading her on, he’ll offer that line of “in another life” that I despise, and then tell him to keep fluffing her ego. He’s there to be the bestie character, not a character in his own right.

I mean, note that when BioWare DID write a gay character who shut that “friendly flirting” down right off with Gil in Mass Effect Andromeda, Gil has been sidelined all over the fandom. And while part of that is certainly BioWare setting the scene with the combination of minimal focus on him and a homophobic storyline... When it’s compared to Dorian, it gets very, VERY concerning to me on the subject of representation.

Because, end of the day, BioWare is still a business, still trying to make money. And making money means focusing and continuing their successes, cutting their losses when things aren’t working out. So the business approach here says that Dorian is a success, so keep chasing a repeat. Meaning that there’s a not-unreasonable-expectation that whoever DA4′s gay option is, he’ll be a prop as well, yet another gay character suffering something exclusive to his experience as a gay man.

Worse, even, because if they don’t do something like this, when we’re heavily expected to be in TEVINTER and hobnobbing with the elite of that nation, then there are two options to BioWare - either they don’t comment on homophobia in Tevinter, gutting the emotional core of Dorian’s story outright by making it into “not that big a deal” in reality, or they try and argue that Dorian’s efforts at reform have already been turning the tide, which... No. That’s not how society works. If they were already near the point where Dorian’s (acknowledged to be!) long shot minority party has been able to impact society that much, then it was already nearing that change, and, look at that, the emotional core of Dorian’s story is gutted anyway, because now Halward was doing this at a point that it would have reflected poorly on him in society.

BioWare doesn’t THINK about how the things they include will impact the rest of the world. It’s all immediate gains at the expense of future world-building. I mean, hell, that much was obvious with all the snapback Trespasser put the Inquisitor’s choices through, making everything more or less the same.

But it hits with Dorian in a different way because the game wants us to see him as a “good” Tevinter, without ever asking the question of if there ever really can be a “good” Tevinter. And my answer is “not among the Magisterium.” The good Tevinters are ones like Krem, like Fenris, the people who’ve been beaten down by the systems of Tevinter and have no voice.

I stand by the idea that, if BioWare wants us to have some kind of conflict in DA4, some decision point, where Dorian’s life hangs in the balance and it defines who gets to “rule” Tevinter going forward... Honestly, I can very easily accept Dorian as a casualty. Of course, given how BioWare has gone out of their way to play him up as “the good Tevinter” in the last few years with their supplementary material (he’s been in like every comic story arc they’ve published over the last few years in some capacity, even just a one-issue cameo), I’m reluctant to believe they’d actually even go through with that - “oh, no one would sacrifice Dorian, so let’s not put that in, no one would choose [other option] over him.”

I get that, in a barren landscape, Dorian represents a very powerful SOMETHING to audiences. Hell, I even understand the people who are moved by his story, even if I’d deeply critical of it - just because I find it reduces him to a prop for the development of the straight man who would have done that to him, that doesn’t mean that other people can’t find meaning and can’t connect with Dorian himself. But it’s a very real counterpoint that, in a barren landscape, Dorian also by design fails to be what just as many people needed him to be as he provides. And, rather than listen to anyone who was left unsatisfied, the overwhelming attitude I’ve seen from both the fandom, in their treatment of anyone who DOES have criticisms towards him, and BioWare, in their portrayal through merch (having his hoodie modeled by and shaped for women’s bodies) and supplementary material (the comics, Tevinter Nights), don’t care to address, that they want to just sweep it under the rug and lavish praise on Dorian for being what he is in Inquisition.

And, again, all I see in Inquisition is a prop for gay pain causing straight people character growth and development. I’m not here for that.

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