Solas is not an idiot, he knows people are after him and people don't agree with him. But this particular bit is just mean. It feels like it's meant to read as an understanding nod towards the audience. Like a "Yeah we know you hate this guy, we do, too - everyone does."

Let's not talk about the fact that his plan was to actually stabilize the Veil by moving Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain to stronger prisons.

Let's not talk about the fact that Varric bulldozed his way into a magical ritual he didn't fucking understand to pretend he was saving the world (talk about a hero-complex) and distracting the person currently wielding the energy of 8-10 nuclear power plants.

Let's not talk about the fact that Rook and their reckless carelessness are the reason why the ritual failed and Solas threw himself (and the world!!) the only lifeline he could in that moment - a blood magic connection.

No. Let's instead be schoolyard-bully mean to a heavily traumatized man while refusing to hear anything he has to say.

Sure, Rook. You know better than the millennia-old, immortal being trying to sort out your mess.

I bet this line hurt Solas more than he admitted to even himself. Once again willfully misunderstood, misinterpreted, misconstrued, and bitterly reminded of a time when that was his life for centuries.

We continue with this:

Really? Really? Yeah he fucking burned the corrupted lab, Harding. There was and is no cure for the Blight. God-like powers or not ("Come on, be the god she needs." - wtf), he wasn't "too scared of the Blight to do anything" - there literally wasn't anything else he could have done.

This scene makes me so angry. I would pay good money to have access to information what the writers' room looked like on this.

But then again, the whole game is mostly just a complete character assassination of Solas in an effort to a) comfort one man's fragile ego (how ironic, the parallel with Elgar'nan), and b) make the story make sense somehow for people who disliked Solas in DAI.

Sure, let's call Solas a coward for not performing divine miracles on demand. Let's pretend it's willful cruelty or indifference and not a sheer and obvious lack of power.

How fucking cruel to accuse him like this, when this confrontation alone probably ripped his heart to shreds knowing he was responsible for all of it. But instead of empathetic understanding (Rook also caused a cataclysmic event without meaning to and is currently confronted with the consequences of their own actions!), all they do is sneer.

Once again, the game itself is only giving us half the story. On purpose. This "discussion" makes it seem like Solas only wanted to stop Elgar'nan (and only him) because he didn't want to see him in power.

But that's not it. Solas started rebelling and freeing slaves for ideological reasons, yes - but what really pushed him over the edge and towards the creation of the Veil was the Evanuris using the Blight. Something Solas knew would endanger every single living thing in entire world. Not a petty power squabble or a difference in politics - a necessity of raw survival.

The game tries to paint Solas and Elgar'nan as "two politicians", "just like Tevinter nobles", because recognizing that Solas did something necessary nobody else was able and/or willing to do, bloodying his hands and blackening his conscience, and losing his dearest friend and lover over it, would make him sympathetic.

And if there's one thing Solas isn't allowed to be in this game it's sympathetic. Because this is one man's quest for vengeance against a video game character that made him feel a negative emotion once.

(To be Fair And Balanced(tm), you can steer Rook in a sympathetic direction via dialogue - but the companions just always snap back into their default anti-Solas mindset.)

Oh fuck all the way off, Morrigan. Treacherous. Who conned the Warden/Alistair/Loghain into making an Old God Baby for your own ends? Who absconded without a word like a thief in the night, leaving the people you claimed were your only friends behind? Who snuck her way into the fucking Imperial Court of Orlais, only to weasel herself into the Inquisition in hopes of grabbing power and artifacts of a culture that isn't yours?

Oh, what's that? That was necessary? You were protecting yourself and your child?

Hmmmmmh!!!! It's almost as if sometimes, subterfuge is necessary!

I have nothing against Morrigan as a character. I love her. But the way she is wielded in Veilguard is terrible. She's just a vehicle through which the writers (we know who in particular) let the audience know that yes, everyone hates Solas, and the audience's hatred of him is Justified(tm).

Just like her snide little "Speaking from the heart, Inquisitor?" later at the final war council. God, I wanted to punch her. I bet a lot of people felt really vindicated by those lines and Morrigan's behavior, and I bet that was the plan.

(Sometimes I wonder how Trick really, in their heart of hearts, feels about all this. We'll never know, I don't feel I'm entitled to know, I would never ask - but I wonder.)

This whole scene is also terrible. Mostly because some people just don't have enough media literacy and sheer reading comprehension to understand that Solas is doing a bit here.

The game plays it off like he's "finally taking off the mask" - but that's not it. He's playing a character (look at those hands behind his back, he does that when he's insecure), he's performing the role of the villain that Rook needs to see to push them deeper into their own regret. They "lost to the villain and failed everyone". It doesn't work if Solas doesn't play the part. It doesn't work if it's a calm discussion.

Look at his fucking face:

That's not a sneering villain. That's sadness. That's pain. That's guilt. Funny how the character artists and mo-cap people knew exactly what they were doing, even as the narrative tries its damndest to work against them.

And the final nail in the coffin:

Yes, let's get this guy's former literal slave owner to talk him down. Let's act like even now, even millennia later, she is who gets to decide his fate.

Fucking look at this final, complete humiliation. In front of everyone - Rook, Morrigan, Lavellan/the Inquisitor, a bunch of other people - he is reliving all his trauma in real time and forced into submission. Because Mythal tells him to leave it.

As if to tell even an adoring Solavellan audience - who this ending was supposed to be for! - "Look how weak and pathetic your guy is, look how your love wasn't enough, watch us kick him in the ribs one last time!"

Don't get me wrong: I love the moments between Lavellan and Solas. I love his breathless little "Vhenan." I love their kiss. I love how she kneels down to him so their faces are level. I love that he's too afraid to take her hand as they walk through the rift. I love this ending.

I just hate that it all came with one last back-handed kick in the shin for Solas and for the Solavellan-minded player.

What will follow is of course only my opinion, and if you want to skip to a specific character their names are highlighted in red for convenience !

No matter what I will criticize about this game, and by god is there a lot to say, when I reached the final quest I was pretty sad because I didn’t want it to end. And that’s something I respect, no matter how bad some aspects are I had fun ! I enjoyed my time with it a lot ! It’s a pretty game, the combat is fun, your companions are charming, the areas varied and the ending was incredible !

You know, I came to this with the moderate expectations one has when a game has mixed reviews on steam. My guess as to why it received such harsh criticism before I tried it for myself was 1) that it was probably just ok, or even pretty good, but came a year *after* Baldur’s Gate 3, a masterpiece of a game that is unfortunately for Dragon age in the exact same niche- and 2) it probably got spam reviewed by "anti-woke" (read : fascists) dumbass mad a game has queers and people of colors in it... and these came out true. But what I did not expect, was the game being such a *direct* sequel as to open in such a fashion that is sure to confuse and alienate new players, but also the ones who *did* play the previous game(s) who came out 10 whole years before- the game was rigged from the start, bioware shot their own foot in the first 30 minutes, it’s tragic- but if your fans decide to stick around, what you want to do next is basically nuke your own lore ? You can keep the names, but everything is wrong or just weird but in a worse way :)) they'll love that-

But you know, in this economy (dragon age games), "pretty good" means it’s still better than half the other games in the franchise imo :)) congrats on second place Veilguard 🎉🎉🎉 (can’t wait to be cooked for this opinion-)

Before anything else, I need to rant about Varric- first of all, I'm really puzzled by his design. Why the beard ? And more importantly why isn’t he blond ??? Game are you telling me he was box bleaching his hair all this time ?? If that’s the case I'm mad he didn’t have roots in dai. But more seriously, when he is alive he feels like a parody of himself :( dropping "Biancas" in every sentence. Is it a front ? Is he trying to live up to his fame despite his age catching up to him ? Maybe but well, we don’t get to see more because after the first 30 minutes it’s Solas impersonating hours and he is. not good at playing Varric- I truly believe it would have been better to really kill him off 30 minutes in. Commit to this choice cowards, let us sit in his absence, let Rook be placed in a position they’re not prepared for let them fail let them fall to get back up again stronger. Them being the only one seeing Varric could have been interesting, but the game does *nothing* with it. It’s a cool creepy idea getting wasted because none of the people around Rook ever bring it up or allude to something being wrong, and worst of all "Varric" is never interesting. I never thought I'd see the day when I'm bored talking to *Varric* ! And the reveal isn’t even worth the secrecy because you see it coming so you don’t even really get the surprise effect- which even if I did wouldn’t erase all the insipid discussions you have with either a forced and empty father/mentor figure or a badly written established character depending on if veilguard is your first game of the series. The game is missing a whole first act with Varric alive to be able to pull the trick it tried...

Last nail in the coffin (haha) were the extradiegetic narrations... while having stunning visuals, they're dogshit and make no fucking sense narratively. Is it Varric talking ? Why ? did he write a book like in DA2 ? No he's dead. Is it Solas then ? Well if it is who is he talking to and can he stop backsitting me !! The narrator Varric framing in DA2 was really good because it recontextualized what you were watching as 1) being in the past and 2) unreliable because it’s told by Varric, who loves lying, to an unfriendly cop lady who's interrogating him and basic rule number one is to lie to cops ! The whole narrative framing helped better characterize Varric and that’s why it worked so well and made him the best little guy of the series (at least in da2- I'm not happy with what they did to him in dai). It also bothered to justify it’s existence ! Because I fail to see the point in Veilguard. Did we need to know the titans magic was definitely bad news the second it’s introduced ? Was it necessary to spoil the kidnapping of Taash’s mother ? Did I need to be recapped on what just happened minutes ago ? This, coupled with the quest markers placed every ten meters in what are essentially corridors I had to dig around the settings to disable, or the companions repeating infos again and again to make sure you remember it... game why are you treating me like I'm a fucking idiot. I am, don’t get me wrong, but I don’t like the assumption

Before getting to the characters, I will show some restrain for the only time in this rambling monstrosity and not talk about the story in excruciating details, what it does wrong (writing, coherence, being a sequel, lore...) what it does right (spectacle mainly) etcetc. But there is one aspect of it that I will quickly delve into :

You know how to write good villains ? Well you have to make them just so so so bad in every aspects, nothing to make you believe anyone would join or believe in their cause. Better yet if their cause is just "being evil", OR give them some sort of goo that is evil™️- like damn man the venatori can’t even drink good wine (in a quest Neve say they drink "piquette", which in french is a word that’s used for cheap disgusting wine) ! Give them *something* to make them a tiny bit interesting no ? Same for the Antaam.... or the elven gods.... or the darkspawns .... I miss the Arishok ;; even tho he dies inexplicably at the end of act 2 I feel like I didn’t savor enough the droplets of nuances he brought. I know both inquisition and veilguard tried to dim his light, but I remember the guy was basically in the right but put in an impossible situation by his superiors and after years and years of being stuck in a shithole among people that hate him and his peers, the assassination of one of his men by the local church just made him snap- and isn’t that crazy I can talk about DA2’s antagonist like a person with comprehensible motives you can empathize with ? You can even give him what he rightfully wants in the end and avoid to fight him (if Isabella didn’t run- and you're willing to betray her) ! He was far from perfect, especially with the whole qunari plot in this game having some very uncomfortable islamophobic vibes, but at least he was a character. Why the Elven gods want to destroy and blight the world ? Because they’re evil that’s why now shut up and listen to the sauceless architect explain that they want to blight the 20 remaining griffins because fuck you

The butcher was a bit better and the de facto best antagonist of the game. Too bad you have one (1) interesting but brief chat with him, then he ?? Kills himself ? To give place to the governor who could have been great but ends up cartoonishly evil like the rest...

But without further ado,

He's an angel with a shotgun

Shit I've wrote down about this man... I won’t attempt to make it a coherent thought so you just getting it raw :

oh he's emo and an insomniac, just like me 4 real 4 real

Lucanis really is : what if we gave Zevran Ander’s problems ?

he's the fourth one to get to the home base, there is plenty of rooms left, why did he choose to sleep in the closet behind the kitchen what is wrong with him

his first quest is to go grocery shopping with him because he wants to make friends with everyone by giving them gifts ;; I am experiencing cute aggression

The wet bisexual with huge brown eyes who is in denial about being an absolute mess....... I can feel him bewitching me

it’s embarrassing how much this character is like catnip to me

he looks so throwable. Glad the designers agreed and gave this 5 foot nothing guy emo wings

his haircut is fascinating. The fuck ass mullet.

he described how he got possessed by talking about how it’s like eating sus meat and getting a tape worm

the demon looks like him if he had the personality of a fucking goblin

"I'm very expensive" stooopppppp

He got that poorly socialized overstimulated wet little dog allure

I think the Italian manlet is in denial about having water damage in his home

his friendship with Bellara is so precious ?? They’re just yapping about food it’s very pleasant- same for Taash just some very cute banter

everytime I expect him to do the classic toxic male thing of "I won’t talk about my problems, I won’t ask others for help" (no shame I do the same) and he doesn’t I'm so thrown off- in a good way ! And I think it’s really interesting that he's more open to other companions then Rook, at least in the beginning, since you're kind of his boss

oh no the flirty dialogues- someone needs to call hr on my ass what is that

The little rivalry between him and Davrin is fucking pathetic. Come on boys you can be meaner than that I believe in you both ! and then you could make out sloppy style

I'm beginning to fear his tragic end might be a heart attack. My guy needs to drink liquids other than coffee and maybe sleep or he'll never see 40 but what do I know... at least he's eating well ?

his cousin betrayed him to bang an old woman (and peter cushing is there so I might betray his ass to bang an old man- who am I kidding)

bro tried to pull the move were you put your hand on the wall next to someone leaning against it... my guy is a Qunari almost as tall as Taash- Rook having to awkwardly bend his knees off screen to humor this man

am I going crazy, or does he have a little bit of a lisp ?

hello mullet boy it’s me the ps5 I am inside your brain

oh he is a funny drunk !!! Does this man have any faults ?? Apart from doing shots out of an espresso cup apparently

he has negative rizz this is perfect- I almost regret not being able to witness him trying to woo Neve

ok I knew he was bougie.... but a second villa ?? A private opera ???? Really made the right choice of romance here- and I am no longer feeling bad about looting his house

Entranced by the failed Viago seduction implications- did he just say "thanks" ? Did he take it as a threat ??

supernatural castiel intro scene ass visual for a casual chat

I'm beginning to suspect what I thought was a well paced slow burn romance... might just be a not a lot of content romance..... especially because I googled and learned that apparently you kiss peter cushing 12 times ???? You don’t even have 12 romance focused conversations with Lucanis ??

I take back everything I've said, the mid finally romance scene was worth it 👍

I am feeling very normal about the fact romancing him was a perfect echo of Ander’s quote "in 10 years, a 100 years, someone like me will love someone like you and there will be no templars to tear them apart", and that through *Ander’s* action ie starting the mage rebellion and forever changing the genre of this series toward more hopeful and high fantasy, a romance with a mage or an "abomination" is possible without violence- it’s such a perfect result for Anders ;; he might not still be around to witness it, my man had like 3 different things going on that assured him an early grave, but through organizing, through protest, through rebellion, he assured a kinder future for people like him and that’s such a beautiful thing- a better future is possible, but happiness is to be fought for.

Anyway in true dragon age fashion his quest ending was trash <3 infuriating even <3 forgiving Illario was terrible, him becoming first talon was undercooked (because I cannot believe for a second he'd be happy about it), not being given a chance to even propose the idea to kill Illario was terrible- it was very obvious they sanitized the crows a *lot*, they are barely recognizable since we last saw them with Zevran, but this is too far. Kill the traitor, then angst about family loss you are the emo assassins faction act like it my god you can’t even kill the ridiculously evil governor like come onnnnn why does everyone need to be so fucking nice-

Don’t get me wrong, I *loved* that Lucanis was a very sweet and nice assassin ! But for the contrast to work better and be interesting, well he needs to actually be an assassin ? Zevran was intriguing and compelling thanks to a similar contrast that worked *because* this character had opinions and believes alien to us who aren’t professional killers (at least I hope so-) ?? Or if you'll allow me a side step outside dragon age, the dark brotherhood in elder scrolls, especially oblivion, is a lovable rag tag group of weird outcasts that are very warm and welcoming to you and treat you like family, but they also joke about murdering kids and other atrocities because the unexpected contrast is what makes it fun ! To come back to veilguard, I *hated* the "I never killed an innocent man" line- if Lucanis had said it as a lie that would have been interesting, but I know the game meant it 100% straight and just no. Nous soufflames- why the insistence on sanding down the edges of the 'I kill people for money' job concept ?? That’s not going to make it noble in my eyes it’s just going to make it bland-

And I'm not talking about bringing the whole slave shit back, please no- but like the meanest guy there is your former boss/mentor that’ll gently sass you from time to time ? this is ridiculous. I loved Viago and Theia but come on. And it’s such a missed opportunity to, oh idk, give the player the chance to flavor their Rook ? Because the same shit goes for the Necromancers, they are so *so* nice like everyone else- why can’t you pick a more "evil" or at least unsettling background when you are cooking your Rook ? Well it’s very obvious this game had some major rewrites and production troubles- but in a beautiful world, if your Rooks a Shadow dragon or Veil jumper ? They get the nice guy background. Grey warden or lords of fortune ? More grey (haha) or selfish flavor. Crow or Mourn watch ? A more creepy Rook or on a steep redemption act. But well, that’s a lot of work and it’s obvious they had troubles- the sanitization on the other hand cannot be excused because it’s arduous labour...

But yes, the homogenization of your Rook makes your choice of faction kind of feel superficial- maybe it’s just the crows who got very little (although I highly doubt that), but it comes up so rarely... no one outside the crows is thrown off that you're an assassin, and you don’t get a lot of special dialogues. Like when you speak to Neve after the assault of Weisshaupt and didn’t save dock town, there really should be a crow option to say you selfishly saved your home (and I assume it’s the same with Lucanis if you chose the other option, but with shadow dragons)... same goes for your species like I think I got 3 or 4 qunari dialogue options (And it got pretty weird sometimes doing Taash’s quests or talking to them, because it felt like the game assumed I wasn’t playing one) ? Like it’s not a DA2 situation were you had less options for Hawke because he was a more fleshed out character, but it’s also not as good as Origins because Rook’s background or race doesn’t get as much impact... As us Orlesians say, your ass is left hanging between two chairs.

Bellara !!

She's a nerd she's a delight she's a pervert fujo she's an academic respected in her field she's annoying she doesn’t know it but she yearns for the Poirot tv show starring David Suchet she's so nice she rules, I love her.

Everytime I spoke of a sword and shield combo character that I did not expect to end up liking, but they slowly sneak up on me and at the end I look back and they're one of my favorites... well she neither has a sword nor a shield, but she did sneak up on me because at the start I felt very neutral about her- idk what changed for her to end up top 2. Was it the very detailed and endearing character acting everytime you talk to her ? Her friendship with the Italian manlet I did not expect ? Her academic enthusiasm ? Being an unexpected pervert ? I truly don’t know, but I love her now-

Her final choice tho- omfg her final choice- game wdym ???? Thought it would have something to do with oh idk her brother ?? But noooo, he conveniently dies. No no you, yes you, have to decide if you 1) want to keep the elven wikipedia even tho it contains dangerous knowledge like "yeah maybe our ancestors were terrible people" or 2) destroy Wikipedia. Like right now. Without asking anyone else. And this is bullshit- even when you choose the obvious one of keeping the archive, Rook’s answer is so shit ?? It’s not "who tf are we to decide that" or "learning from our history is what prevents us from repeating it", no it’s some bullshit like "it’s what your brother would have wanted"- because this game believes that inherently evil people do exist :)) and will take advantage of knowledge do to evil- I hate this. Especially seeing as she's an *historian* ? What kind of historian ask you if they should destroy the only source of reliable knowledge they have of a lost civilization, their own ancestors on top of that, because "learning could be dangerous imagine if people get bad ideas from it ?"- disgusting.

And I might not be an expert on the question, being a dumb european and all, but writing a game were your fantasy elves that were clearly mostly based on native americans (an already dubious choice here), end up worse villains than their christian coded colonizers and *were* the reason for all the world’s problems, especially a plague like apocalypse- on top of making it a possibility to get rid of said elve's history because it "could be dangerous" ??? Sure is a choice dragon age- it's also such a coincidence that all villains that are just evil and can’t be reasoned with, the elven gods the venatori and to an extent the antaam.... well let’s say there's a running theme of not being white, or based on colonial white cultures. These you can murder as mindless ennemies just like the darkspawns. But as soon as a villain is white (the mayor, the Treviso governor, the first warden, illario, Aelia...) then they are given respect. Then you can’t kill them no matter how evil, or it’s a "mercy kill" out of frame and everyone looks soso sad- a small mercy the anti woke crowd are so fucking dumb, otherwise they'd have found stuff they would have greatly enjoyed here.

She's the divorced detective she's the moment she's everything and she knows it !!!

Ok I need to get something out first and foremost then I can gush about how much I love her..... the only thing I knew about her before the game was that she was the "divorced detective" archetype... I *really* thought her story reveal would be that her and Aelia had a messy toxic lesbian divorce- so when that didn’t happen and Aelia was just another boring villain I was very let down ;;

Anyway, I love that Neve is not rich. She lives in a poor area, she stresses about having lost her apartment, her very stylish clothes were gifted to her, she cares so deeply and is very involved in her community... She truly has that leftist aura and the ambient pessimism you get after loosing every major elections even the ones you won (excuse my french)- Anders and her top 2 gauchiasse dragon age companions, I love them <3

And in my game she truly had a terrible time how fitting ! Lost everything and got blighted along with the shadow dragons- she didn’t die tho ! Small victories !

The choice of saving either Dock Town or Treviso was the best in this game because of how unexpected and hard it was to make. And you don’t really care about the cities, the real difficulty is choosing between the two best companions (along with the secondary faction characters who are also the strongest of the bunch), with lasting consequences to back it up it’s great well done game ! Wish there was more like it

And ngl I am pretty curious and intrigued by the Neve/Lucanis romance. I'm sure it’s not developed enough in game to make it compelling, but there is potential here ! No matter your choice one of them will angst, there can be resentment that the other convinced Rook to help save their city and that means tension drama n things to overcome and you could also go deeper into the whole "mage-killer" bit (something the game sure didn't-) ! The classic detective/assassin ship is always fun, even if said assassin isn’t the culprit it’s still a compelling dynamic to me- ok look the first thing that came to my mind when I learned about this ship was a murder party knife out type story (not an au) with Lucanis and Neve, where Lucanis *isn’t* the one who did the murder and together they search for the murderer (bonus point if Lucanis had a contract on the victim and is salty someone got to it before him). Also he gets pegged by a beautiful divorced woman ofc..... Too bad I'm bad at writing oh well fjkf

I also really liked her being visibly disabled in a very casual way : no one comments on it or question her own judgement of what she can physically do, her competence or autonomy is never being questioned, you have no scene where said disability is exploited as a weakness for example she never falls because of her prosthesis, or no bad guy ever exploit it resulting in someone else having to rescue her or some shit- well to me it felt refreshing and a good way, but I am no expert. Also I really liked hearing her distinctive footsteps behind me, I thought it was a nice detail !

I should be honest and say I don’t really remember her final choice- maybe something to do with trusting the guards or the Threads ? Who fucking cares fjkd bad choice sorry- I think because she was hardened so I didn’t get a choice ? Sure hope so...

Magical Peter Cushing

Charadesign wise, Emmrich is one if not the *prettiest* I've seen fjfkfk or at least it's ridiculously tailored to my tastes- he's very clearly based on Peter Cushing, my favorite actor, he is covered in jewelry, has the genderfuckery I love with mage designs, so much details n textures, his écorché inspired coat has *the* most beautiful draping in the back, it has a hint of weird sexy with the tramp stamp golden pelvis- no really it’s insane how good he looks !! (Yes I'm recycling that part sue me)

Although after reflection and much analyzing (staring at the pretty old man), my conclusion is that this is not any Peter Cushing, he looks like what Peter Cushing should have looked like at the end of Madhouse 1974 after fusing with Vincent Price in a very toxic homoerotic climax, but the 70s special effect team didn’t have the technology yet to put Emmrich on the big screen... you get me ? Asking you like anyone potentially reading this saw Madhouse-

But enough about the good Cush.

His quest ending choice was absolutely the best one (not a steep competition-) ! I chose to save Manfred, obviously I'm not a monster, and it was such a wholesome and good end for Emmrich’s character arc ! But if you choose the more angsty one, it completely changes his charadesign ?? And offers an alternative conclusion to his character arc that also feels fulfilling in a sad terrible way :)) That’s so cool !

And speaking of Manfred, what a delightfully cute character with a strong presence in Emmrich’s story, that doesn’t steal all his characterization but complements it so well :)) foreshadowing is a literary device

On the other hand his romance with Strife truly comes out of nowhere- always hype for old man yaoi, but he never talked about him before, you never (?) see them chat together- I'm all for him being a whore ofc, but a little set up would have been nice ? The timing in my game was very funny tho ! It happened the second Emmrich wasn’t Rook’s second love interest anymore jfkd I went into the discussion thinking it’ll be a little break up chat, but no papy can get dick faster then anyone and is asking me for date ideas

The fact he is this low, when I started playing these games because of his charadesign, isn’t by any faults of his own (although I expected him to be hmm a tiny bit more hammer frankenstein coded but let’s not circle back to the "everyone is too nice" complain-), but rather should put into perspective how much I enjoyed the three characters above him <3

Taash !

I'm very glad they decided to include a non binary companion ! Now, if they could have written them as something other than a tutorial for the straights, or avoid linking their gender identity to "choosing" between their two cultural heritage because seriously what the fuck was that-

But let’s not get ahead of ourselves, and start with the good ! Writing a very immature and moody character and still make them likable is a hard thing to pull off, and they truly succeeded with Taash imo ! Sure they are awkward and snappy, but they are also funny, a perfect jock/nerd blend, enthusiast about the crows in a very cute way, very intense about their interest (dragons), and a bit intimidating when they want to be ! Couple all of this with their dysfunctional parent/child relationship that while being far from perfectly written, is an improvement from the last time dragon age tried this type of story if only by the fact it’s not introduced in a scene were you trick/convince the child to hear out their parents apology (sorry Dorian nation, but that was terrible-)... well that’s a solid base for a character ! I am charmed, I am intrigued ! Their great charadesign is also a nice bonus

Unfortunately, Taash truly has the clunkiest writing out of the bunch- I will not comment on if Taash’s non binary characterization is well written or not, I'm cis so that’s not my place, and because if it helped people discover something about themselves then that’s invaluable. What I will say is that linking the questioning and discovery of their gender to their bi cultural heritage, on one hand the restrictive and backward qun and on the other the free and gay friendly rivain, and making the choice of one of said heritage the determinant of their transition ?? Oh that’s bad. That’s terrible- why would you do that-

Another, and last, clunker to add to the pile is of course : "Dragons have queens not kings !!!" Are we at a women’s march circa 2016 ? Am I marching with Katy Perry right now ? I don’t like calling things cringe, that’s such an uninteresting way to talk about things and is very overused... but I'm really at a loss for word to describe how these kinds of lines makes me feel outside of saying that it’s cringe. I'm sorry-

Harding !!

If only she had been more of a character in inquisition !! But well, it’s dai were talking about so of course she wasn’t.... she was the lady that would describe a new area to you like there would be something interesting there-

But here she's very charming ! Talking to her is always a delight, she has a very cute design, she has the single funniest banter in the game with Lucanis '6000 gold is pocket change to me' Dellamorte and the conversation you have with her about how she lived the events of inquisition was very great characterization ! Why did she have no personality ? She was very young, didn’t want to loose her job so she kept a lot to herself and said only what people wanted to ear from her. Who was she friends with ? The workers ! Or as a character I didn’t like would say, "the little people"-

And of course her relationship with Taash was very cute ! I loved that they come to you first so that as the player you get to think about what gift you would get Harding if you were to date her fjfkk of course went with cheese, because sometimes clichés are real and the other two options sucked for her- and I felt so proud of Taash for delivering beyond all expectations !!! A whole wheel of what looks like a tomme de montagne of some sort ??? The wedding is assured.

Her final choice was horrendous tho- very obvious, and the game trusts you so little that on top of telling you outright from the beginning the mysterious magic is bad, it even color codes the two answers as the bad red choice vs blue good choice. It’s like they think I'll drown in a puddle

The dwarven lore and story beats used to be one of my favorite thing out of these games. How in Origins it was a political intrigue plot in Orzammar one of the best cities in the franchise, that lead you to some great horror elements the deeper down you went with rocks giving way to flesh, hunger and cannibalism. In DA2 you have Varric, an outcast that thrives outside of his society’s expectations : be it in his relationship to his masculinity or how he chose to lead his life. Hell even in DAI you have the mysterious descent toward the unknown, deep dwarves with riffles, and a final place that felt magical in it’s impossibility.

In Veilguard what do we have ? Red vs blue. No ok that’s not true, but the plot with the secretive dwarven society decked out in disgusting armor with feet boots really did not interest me- it didn’t feel freaky enough (despite the feet), not to mention that if you played DAI's dlc the descent you already have a lot of the answers....

Davrin-

You know the cuckoo bird ? The one that lays one egg in another bird’s nest, then it’s baby becomes bigger and kills all the others ? The parasitic bird ? Assan is exactly that to me. But we'll circle back to the bird-

On paper, Davrin is a good character ! A dalish elf that chose to leave his community to join the grey wardens, the tragic soldier/artist flavoring, the whole monster hunter business that further shows us what wardens do outside of blights with him having a specific approach to it of wanting to create a kind of encyclopedia because he's a huge nerd that wants to "hmm actually ☝️🤓" as much people as possible, how he views himself as a disposable weapon- he also has a really good design ! Being a black elf for once, but also a very beefy one at that and for this one I'm glad they ditched the established lore ! Just for him :) he gets the exception of being taller and stronger so that he can look down on his human rival <3

His outfit is also really nice, I love the subtle asymmetry as well as the color palette being rather warm in creams and oranges with blue accents, little pieces of armor rather then a full plate, and of course everyday is tits out friday ! Unfortunately for him, as well as for Emmrich and Neve for that matter, that means every piece of armor you find will be uglier than the first one djdjk suffering from success etcetc

But let’s bring it back to the "seeing himself as a disposable weapon" bit because that !! Is a very compelling character trait right here ! But well... we all know he doesn’t get as much screen times as the others. They could have gone deeper on his relationship to his mortality, as well as his self scarifying tendencies- like after the first arch demon fell and he was surprised and not that thrilled to still be alive, I thought they’ll do more with that.... You get glimpses of an interesting character, then it’s back to insipid Assan shit.

The quest with Eldrin felt like such a breath of fresh air because finally ! We're learning something about Davrin and not just Assan, and it’s in a charming 'getting to embarrass him by talking to his mischievous uncle' scene ;w; when they give him some characterization he can be cool !! Too bad the game is focused on the marketable griffin, and giving Davrin such cop sounding dialogues when he talks to other companions- "seems like your brother fell in with the wrong crowd" is a line you ear in an 80s psa against smoking weed what is that. Why are you writing him like this-

His final choice isn’t even about him, because of course it isn’t why would it be, and I couldn’t care less. It’s the only one I chose by looking up which armor reward was the prettiest... this is such a shame. And speaking about shame, I couldn’t find the source so I'll take this with a grain of salt, but words on the street about a developer commenting that they killed off Assan with Davrin, because they thought people wouldn’t be sad if he died ? What do you even want me to add to this disgusting (if true) comment... I'm quite curious to see what the fandom did with this guy, can’t be worse than the game- I know it absolutely can be, but rn I'm choosing hope. I'm choosing optimism. (Adding this after the rest of the yapping and having seen a bit of the fandom : Davrin fans I love you <3)

You know the whole "I'm doing 7 this time to not leave just one out that would be too mean UwU" ? I lied. I have beef with Assan and it’s targeted

I'll not drag this out longer than it already is, but on top of being a charmless little leach, it pissed me off that he's a griffin- it was kind of a big deal that they were extinct !! Symbol of a once great order that’s dying out, and a literal example of one of the best Morrigan lines "if we don’t preserve the extraordinary and magical we have in the world, all that’ll be left is the mundane" (I'm paraphrasing- it’s what she says near the end of dai before going in the elven temple to find the well). And insult to injury, Dragon age already have a pretty recognizable magical creature that has been closely associated to grey wardens for the past 3 games : mabaris ! They even got a redesign in inquisition so they don’t look horrifying anymore- you can give Davrin a cute marketable mabaris ! Or if you want to go more in the monster hunter direction, and need a flying animal because every companion needs a ranged attack for some reason, a dragonling ! That way you also get to have a dragon in the main cast, dragon age. It wouldn’t solve the problem of Davrin’s story not being about him and getting very little outside of his fucking pet, but at least it wouldn’t also destroy the established lore and make the world of dragon age even more fantasy 101 than it already is. Also the dragonling could be easily tied to the (boring and mid) griffin plot very easily : the grey wardens started to domesticate them in the last 10 years. Why ? The first warden wants to make the faction appear grand and important after the end of the 5th blight and what better way than to once again get your soldiers to ride around on huge flying magical creatures like the wardens of old (make the grey wardens great again type beat-). Domesticating dragons is a very difficult and dangerous thing to do so they don’t have a lot of them and the ones they do have are precious, the sauceless architects steals them, Davrin is left with the last one but is no dragon expert so he has to learn to care for it making mistakes along the way but growing closer to his charge. You then learn that the grey wardens drove the griffins extinct during the 4th blight and did fucked up animal abuse shit to them that’s why the villain of the hour kidnapped the dragonlings to blight them (same as canon-), and at the end you're left with the "do we trust the grey wardens with another magical creature or are they going to eventually give these wild magical animals the same end as the last ones ? But is it safe to release them now that they were domesticated ?"

+

Spent like 2 hours in this game's great character creator and finally got to cook my dream mage qunari (tall for humans but short for a qunari, not visibly jacked with a healthy layer of fat, strong thighs huge ass anyway), so here's my crow Rook in a crunchy low resolution because I played on the steamdeck :))

My battle, my struggle, was finding solutions for him to not look too bald. I failed- I had to get used to the #hairloss look

Crucial detail tho... I was 70 hours into this game, level fucking 48, when I understood you could change your armor’s appearance ;; I am so dumb- this is the best feature- crying shitting throwing up why did I only understood that near the end of the game- I thought it was just to change your lighthouse fit- I just wore the crow trench coat the whole time waiting to get better armor ;; then I finished the crow’s quests and maxed out the shop and finished lucanis quests.... *then* I realized I might be missing something-

And finally ! Here's how the full companions tier list looks like !

Now if anyone asks me "hey do you like Fenris dragon age ?" for example, I can answer "moderately yes, you could even say he is my 21st favorite little guy" like a normal human being <3

And in for a penny and all that, here's my final thoughts on the 4 games after playing them all back to back for the first time in 2025/2026

PS : After being done with my deranged ramblings, while I was making the pixelart, I caved and checked ao3.... chocked at how little fics there is for Lucanis/Neve ? Lucanis/Viago I wasn’t surprised there wasn’t much, being just a vague throwaway line (although what was there was excellent, thank you fanfic writers <3)... but the Neve pairing really surprised me because it’s canon (depending on player choice yes, but she *is* in his head and you learn he finds her attractive) ? And ok maybe it’s a case of fandom hating women, but there isn’t that much more with Davrin ?? The obvious enemies to lovers one ? Overall I expected more fics pairing up the companions together canon or not ? Like I get it people want to ship their Rook with the companions, and I *do* enjoy a bit of harmless gambling so I'm absolutely not opposed, but I guess I'm just surprised- (and a bit disappointed ngl)