The Good, The Bad, (And The Ugly?) Of Dragon Age’s Queerness

By 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Stacey Henley

Published Jun 15, 2024

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168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dragon Age has always been queer, and anyone who says otherwise either hasn't been paying attention, is grifting, or both. But what's interesting is specifically how queer 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and the ways in which it shows this queerness, is. From the Rook to the cast to ♍the romances, q💦ueerness flows through everything Dragon Age: The Veilguard does. But is it all for the best? I'm not so sure.

It's at this point that I throw rotten tomatoes at those cheering in the audience. I still love that Dragon Age: The Veilguard is queer, and some of what I saw behind closed doors, as well as the way the devs spoke openly about the passion for diversity, gave me a lot of hope for this installment. I like that it's gay, and my reservations aren't that it's 'too gay'. But that's not to say I'm not not concerned.

A New Peak For Progressive Character Creators

Dragon Age The Veilguard screenshot of Rook speaking to Harding with Inquisitions dialogue wheel

My first thought as I watched the dev tak♎e us through Dragon Age: The Veilguard's character creator at 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Summer Game Fest was 'okay, everyone can shut up about 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Cyberpunk 2077 now'. I have long taken issue with Cyberpunk 2077's 'progressive' (read: fetishistic and narratively bankrupt) character creator, with its customisable trans penis that the game actively ignores during romance scenes and pronouns tied to voice. The simple truth underneath it all was that despite having some relatively groun🎃dbreaking aspects of 🍒its character creator, Cyberpunk 2077 did not seem to care about trans people all that much besides as a metaphor for commodification of the human body.

Dragon Age, as I've written about in more depth 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:in my full breakdown (of the character creator, not that time I laid on the floor and cried), cares. It takes elements of Cyberpunk 2077 and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Saints Row, plus its own creator from 2014's Inquisition which was then best-in-show and remains a contender even today. It acknowledges the trans experience in a multitude of ways, likely owing heavily to 1♑68澳﷽洲幸运5开奖网:game director Corinne Busche being a trans woman and therefore able to inject a personal perspective that most other🍌 games lack.

The dev also made a Black woman during our gameplay demo, and I can't remember a game ever showing off its character c🍃reator this way, or using so many people of colour in trailers as stand-ins for the custom character. The days of BroShep and FemShep are over.

Taash And The Need To Be Femme

Taash The Dragon Hunter character card in Dragon Age The Veilguard

As for the companions, it's not necessarily the game itself as it is the fan reaction. The reception to the wider cast seems to have swung around from being so woke that it circles back on itself and becomes not woke again. Some fans have decided Taash, the qunari, is a non-binary protagonist. But how progressive is that💃, ex𒅌actly?

If Tassh (or any of the main cast) are non-binary, then that's quite a step for representation. But the assumption that it's Tassh is fraught with the sort of well-meaning stereotyping the LGBT community should be far more wary of. There are seven companions, of which the community has decided there are three men, three wome🍒n, and one kinda manly woman and so they must be in-between ooh yessss slay monarch!

The same thing happened with Cassandra, when fans were mad she was straight because she had short hair. Why is Bellara or Davrin not the non-binary one? Why must it be the masc woman from a more animalistic and creaturfied race🔯? Tha🏅t the community has rushed to Taash shows an underlying bias that feminine women cannot be non-binary. It's the same sort of logic that sees Emma D'Arcy frequently misgendered in interviews and Demi Lovato to publicly retreat from using they/them while still preferring the pronoun in their private life.

The no🅺n-binary companion could be any of the other six aside from Har♑ding, or several, or none.

If Taash really is non-binary, then it will come down to the strength of their arc and how much they discuss (and there is such a thing as too much) their identity. I trust BioWare to get it right, and while I think opting for a qunari is the closest thing to an easy route - especially post-Krem - the fact that we have two elves of colour speaks to a broadeꦦr and more original, representative depiction of fantasy society as a whole, so BioWare has the benefit of the doubt.

Giving Tassh a more gender-neutral appearance and then making them non-binary is fine. Assuming that on looks alone though raises issues. It speaks to a fanbase so eager for progressiveness and fanart with flags that they don't stop to think about the impact of these ass𝓡umptions. If Tassh is non-binary, then it's bigger than an Etsy Pride sticker.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard Lets You Romance Who You Want

Dragon Age The Veilguard the party sitting around a round table

Then there are the romances. All seven companions are romanceable, a🐠nd I already have eyes for Harding, though my dance card is still open for others to win my hand. BioWa൲re claims all characters are "pansexual", but my problem with that is that pansexuality is a relatively rare orientation in the human experience. One or two? Sure. Three or four? Thedas is a land free of inhibitions! But all seven? It's playersexual, come on now.

Playersexual means the characters have no true preference and are just open to the whims of the player. The fact 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:companions will romance themselves offers a bit more grounding to the love stories in t🧸he game, but generally I prefer the agency that predetermined sexuality offers, as well as the range of narrative options afforded to characters that aren't romanceable.

Everyone being pansexual is also less progressive than it sounds. In 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Baldur's Gate 3, Astarion is a gay-coded man whose definitive romantic experiences prior to the game are with men. It could be argued that Astarion's gay experience has been erased for the benefit of straight women. I think the whole issue i🥀s a lot more complicated than that, but that's just one example of how 'everyone will sleep with you, hooray!' is not necessarily the only way to be progressive.

dragon age the veilguard a party facing off against a dragon

Simple logistics are in play as well. With only seven characters, Dragon Age's lowest ever number, playersexuality keeps your options open. But even with a more realistic spread of sexualities, getting up to four or five seems pretty easy. Two who can only be r🐷omanced if you play as a man, two who can only ✨be romanced if you play as a woman, three who can be romanced whatever you choose, and one who can only be romanced if you play as a non-binary character. Even just doing napkin maths on that had me checking my working, so I can see why 'anyone you like' was the call, but it's a call that has issues.

Likewise, writing characters who are specifically straight, gay, pan, bi have their issues, and making a character exclusive to NB Rooks puts you in dangerous territory. If the character is not NB, would they be labelled a chaser and how does BioWare justify this in-story rather than 'we needed a romance option for players who chose they/them'? And if said character is NB, is that not saying 'the made up genders stick together'? If you plant your flag on the hill of progressivenes✨s, everything you do is under a microscope. Maybe the free-for-all route is the easiest way to navigate that.

Dragon Age:ꦏ The Veilguard is set to be the most queer Dragon Age game yet, and there’s a net positive in that. But in walking down roads so few games have walked before, BioWare has♐ nothing to guide its way, and there may be some missteps along the path.