sorellaerba replied to your post “seriously, tho. where does the Varric/Dagna ship come from? is it just...”
Hum don't know... according to wikipedia, Varric was born in 9:01 (so he's 40-41 in DAI) and Dagna in 9:11 (30 yro), the age difference is not that shocking. I think it's kinda weird but hey, who am I to judge what people like? But I'd very much like to know what in this (unusual) ship is racist or homophobic. In DAI you can see Dagna in a gay relationship, okay, but she could totally be bi or pan!
I admit I often have a lower bar than most when it comes to age gaps that start to make me uncomfortable. That’s a personal opinion thing
I read a fic about them as a pairing, to see if I understood where the author was coming from, and that’s not so much the thing I’m questioning, if that makes sense? It’s more the fics that sort of mash them together in a “pair the spares” background manner without much development or reasoning. From my perspective, it looks like "she was a girl dwarf, he was a boy dwarf, can I make it any more obvious?”
Personally, I feel like Bioware (and often fans) tend to assume that the dwarven characters are automatically unattractive to anyone except other dwarven characters? Aside from Alistair and a dwarven Warden, and Sera and Dagna, I can’t think of any canonical, end-game couples where only one partner was a dwarf. There’s a bias there, at the very least. (I call it fantasy racism, which I feel is less loaded than “racism” since it’s bias against a fictional group and not real people)
But I do feel like there’s something to be said about the act that Dagna’s only canonical romantic relationship is with a woman. She never discusses her sexuality with the Inquisitor, so yes she could be bi or pan. This circles back to the “pair the spares” thing for me. If the story is about her, and explores her as a bisexual or pansexual character, I’d be less peeved. But when she’s just casually mentioned as in a relationship with a guy, I have to wonder if the author has paid much attention to her character. And if they have, I (personally) feel like there should be a bit of focus/justification/narrative. There aren’t many lgbt+ characters in videogames. Bioware does a pretty alright job in terms of numbers, but I (as a femme person primarily interested in women) am very aware that there are very few lesbians in their stories, when compared to bisexual or pansexual characters. If the shipper’s headcanon is that she’s equally interested in men, I’m not inclined to argue, but if the justification is just representation, I’m not convinced.
idk, I didn’t mean for this to be an essay D: this is just my personal opinion on why I don’t ship it, and my justification of my initial surprise
