apparently I have a friend who got into DA who is convinced anyone who remotely likes Anders is excusing or romanticizing mass murder, and he’s so upset he wants to bug Bioware devs on Twitter about it until they officially say the company does not condone genocide or terrorism. I’m utterly stunned
Oh wow, that’s a bit of an overreaction! Especially since Dragon Age is set in a middle ages-ish society where modern ideas of law are not directly applicable (otherwise we should start with arresting the player character from any of the games for killing a whole lot of people with or without provocation.) Also Anders’ story is not the only controversial one in the series, there is Isabela who is literally single-handedly responsible for the whole qunari problem in Kirkwall that I believe had caused more death than the chantry explosion. About genocide, we could talk about the whole chantry that declared an Exalted March on the Dales more or less because they were bothered that the elves had their own religion (and probably because Orlais wanted the lands.) And I didn’t even start on how they treat the mages just because they are what they are.
Personally I have thought a lot on why people treat Anders so differently from these other cases but I can only guess. One guess is that he is the only one whose actions are directly shown. Isabela confesses causing the qunari issue but she also comes back to help you fight it and you get to be the hero. The chantry is just doing what it has always done. But Anders? He even asks you to help but doesn’t tell you why (though I’ve found it quite obvious from the ingredients but maybe not everyone does) and while Isabela never meets the consequences of her actions (who would fault her? The poor late viscount surely won’t…) we get a direct show of everyone blaming Anders and you get to judge him. We don’t even get an option to agree with his goal, only to forgive or not forgive. Now I am not saying that blowing up a building with civilians in it is a good thing, because it is ultimately bad. I’m just saying that throughout history, such actions against institutions of political influence has been labeled either acts of terrorism or the acts of freedom fighters, with the only difference being is which side ended up judged to be right by history.
Another reason I think is that Anders is further portrayed as a bad guy by the dialogues in Inquisition - no other character is so ultimately framed by the developers. Sten who murdered an innocent family is forgiven. Empress Celene who had murdered a lot of elves, Briala’s family among them, and many other innocents out of manipulation, is forgiven (and most of her crimes are not even mentioned, only in her book The Masked Empire.) You are rewarded in the game if you forgive Blackwall who literally had children murdered and then lived in hiding to avoid responsibility for years (though it’s important to note that he regrets his actions, but that doesn’t mean they never happened.) Isabela (whom I absolutely love by the way, she’s just a great example) doesn’t need to be forgiven because she is never even really called out. Loghain, who betrays his country and causes the death of his king and half of their army, can be forgiven. You can even forgive Solas, who literally wants to destroy the world, not caring who gets hurt in the process. Seems to me this game is very much about forgiving bad actions, even regardless whether they were committed for a legitimate reason or not. Yet Anders, who we can all agree had his very good reasons, not hitting, but hitting back at the chantry after almost 10 years of trying to improve things peacefully, he is portrayed as someone who cannot be forgiven.
Finally, this is just something I personally think based on some discussions I had about the matter, is that I believe it also doesn’t help his reputation that his target was a religious institution. People seem to be very sensitive about this, somehow seeing the chantry as an ultimately good establishment that has its minor faults (like imprisoning innocents, legal slavery and magical lobotomy, you know, small stuff) and some bad apples (like Meredith &co., or Petrice, and many more, so just your usual stray lambs) instead of realizing that the whole institution seems to be based on bad ideas. Personally I think if Andraste was any sort of idealist, she would cry if she saw how the chantry is at the time of the games.
Uhh, this turned out to be very long and I am sorry for writing an essay on the topic. I will just forever be salty about the double standard how this game treats Anders and how a lot of people just fail to see that even if you disagree with his actions, he was in no way worse than many other characters who are shown and seen in a much better light. He was trying for 10 years with diplomacy while his people were tortured, maimed and murdered. Then he decided to hit back. And now he is supposed to be the horrible person for it. Yeah….
Anyway thanks for giving me a chance to write all this salt out, and maybe don’t ruin your friendship over this but I hope your friend will eventually realize the hypocrisy in their statement because Dragon Age is pretty much a game with _lots_ of cases of mass murder, sometimes the player character committing it (for example in DAO where you can choose to kill all the mages in Kinloch Hold, or all the Dalish elves.)
So yeah, thank you for your message and good luck with your friend (and also I don’t think Bioware will change their storytelling much because of this.)
