adventures in tamriel and thedas

:: brecilian forest - nature of the beast

Not including what has been done by fandom, because then I’d just have to list every single nonwhite character ever introduced. But I’m basically about to anyway.

Zevran Arainai–In DA:O he has the 2nd darkest skin tint available. He is from Antiva. His skin was lightened, albeit slightly with shitty lighting to give an extra boost, in DA:2. He was whitewashed to hell and back in HoDA (Heroes of Dragon Age.) And before they thankfully fixed it, Zevran’s DA Keep tile art was white as shit. 

Sten–Like Zevran, Sten’s DA Keep tile art originally showed him with much lighter skin.  (Thanks @grandenchanterfiona​ for pointing these out, I didn’t even know about them.)

Alistair Theirin–In DA:O Alistair has light brown skin. 004 out of 007 to be exact. I am 500% done with people’s “alternative facts” or whatever the fuck the racists are calling it these days, over this. BioWare has progressively lightened his skin through DA:2 to DA:I. Again, on a technical level evident in the game files. This is not just an opinion. He’s also been whitewashed in the comics, and in the DA Keep. Thankfully his WoTv2 art gives a sliver of hope.

Duncan–In DA:O Duncan has the same skin as Zevran. His parents are from Tevinter and Rivain. (According to WoTv2.) In The Calling he is described to have dark skin numerous times. But not so illustrated on the cover. His skin was lightened in HoDA, and some people have speculated that it’s Duncan who is on DA:I’s nightmare difficulty tarot card. If that is the case, then we can add that to this list as well.

Velanna–In DA:O Awakening, Velanna has light brown skin (004). HoDA, to no one’s surprise, forgot this I guess.

Isabela–Oh boys, where do I even begin with poor Isabela. In DA:O Isabela has the skin tint 005. In DA:2 she has #10 out of 12 human skin tints. But in the cinematic trailer and promo art, she is drastically paler. As she is on the in-game epilogue book page. As she is in the fresco art used in WoTv1. As she is on the tie-in comic cover. As she is in HoDA promo art. As she is in her DA:I tarot card. As she is in some of her DA Keep art. Basically BioWare can’t get enough of whitewashing the love of my Kirkwall life.

Merrill–In DA:O, Merrill has the skin tint 004. Merrill is also canonically from Nevarra. Much like Isabela, DA:O’s bad lighting greatly washes the colour from her skin, but you can see in the toolset otherwise, as can you see the difference when comparing. And in DA:2 Merrill appears white as a ghost, as does she in the DA Keep.

Fenris–In DA:2 Fenris has light brown skin; #6 out of 10 elf skin tints. He’s from Tevinter. Like Isabela, he also suffers on the in-game epilogue book page. And in HoDA’s promo art and in-game. Also, just because his sister has red hair does not make him white. Not only are biracial kids that look nothing alike a real life thing, but for some reason a lot of people are under the impression that red hair is reserved only for white people? Which? It? Isn’t?

Sebastian Vael–In DA:2 Sebastian has #8 out of 12 human skin tints. His family canonically has Antivan/Rivaini roots to some degree. But in HoDA he is pale as shit. His DA Keep tile is also pale in comparison to in-game. Now we can add the Knight Errant #5 cover to this as well. (Though at least he is very well drawn in the actual comic.)

Cassandra Pentaghast–Mike Laidlaw said Cassandra was intended to be a woc in the special features of her film, Dawn of the Seeker. She’s from Nevarra. In DA:2 she has #7 out of 12 human skin tints. And in DA:I her skin was lightened, and her facial features changed. Her DA Keep tile reflects this, too. Props to HoDA for not following suit in-game, but the same can’t be said for promo art. Also, Divine!Cassandra is apparently a vampire.

Jean-Marc Stroud–In DA:2 Stroud has #8 out of 12 human skin tints. In DA:I this was drastically lightened.

Briala–In the masked empire, Briala is described to have skin darker than Celene’s that is specifically said not to be a tan, dark brown curly hair, dark brown eyes, and freckles. So BioWare decided lulz nvm for DA:I. Something HoDA decided to continue with, as did her DA Keep tile.

Fiona–Fiona is Alistair’s mother, and as Maric was white, where Alistair inherited his skin from. Here is a thing about her apperance in The Calling. You should read this as well. But in DA:I she appears very pale. As she is in HoDA and the DA Keep.

Dorian Pavus–Dorian almost escaped this list, but then I remembered these trading cards, in which his skin is only very slightly darker than Cullen.

Vivienne–One of Vivienne’s tarot cards depicts her with skin noticeably lighter than in game.

Vaea–It’d be laughable if not painful that it took them 4 whole days to whitewash Vaea. On May 10th 2017 Knight Errant #1 was released, featuring my newest love, a very obviously brown elven thief. But I guess HoDA didn’t read the same comic I did, as May 14th they proudly share this. IDK who that is but it’s not Vaea.

The only nonwhite major characters that at this time I can’t recall any officials whitewashing, are Josephine and Krem. But it is entirely possible that I’m just forgetting/unaware of it.

Responses to common defences I expect:

In the least, in the very fucking least, if you have a burning desire to call Alistair white, please please please have the decency to just make your own goddamn post. I promise you, I double promise you, that whatever you have to say is nothing I haven’t heard before, and I don’t want to hear it again.

Isabela was not white in DA:O. Isabela was never white. This has been said many many many many times, not just by fans, but by her original writer, Sheryl Chee, and by David Gaider. (Ignore the use of the word “tan.”) Gaider also specifically said she was Black. It’s The Pearl’s terrible lighting, and she is placed directly underneath it. The Pearl’s lighting is so bad, arguably the worst in the game, that people mistook her for white, ignoring everything that points to her being a black woman on top of her skin colour. But if you pull her character model up in the toolset, you will see what that she indeed has always had dark skin.

HoDA is part of the Dragon Age franchise. And HoDA is a partnership between Capital Games and BioWare. As stated by this article, and by Mark Otero an EA manager in an interview here. They approve of all character art. (HoDA’s stance is, BTW, in support of whitewashing.) So yes, BioWare can get some blame. And no, it does not exist in a singular vacuum.

Someone told me people are actually still arguing about whether or not Merrill was whitewashed from DA:O to DA:2, so I removed all my mods and took some screencap comparisons of her with her vanilla skin (004) and the closet skin to the one she has in DA:2 (001). And what a surprise, no matter the lighting you can very clearly see a difference.

Dragon Age: Origins is a Dark Fantasy (specifically, Bioware described it originally as Dark Heroic Fantasy). It has its light-hearted moments, but almost every single main questline is steeped in horror, in injustice, in facing the fact that the world is cruel and full of oppression and injustices. There are glimmers of hope, and we are given the opportunity to right some of these wrongs, but the game is still - at the end of the day - interested in being a Dark Fantasy. This is why the world-building is the way that it is. Our elves aren't like other fantasy elves, they've lost their history and are oppressed by humans. Our mages aren't respected and revered like other fantasy magic users: they're discriminated against and put in glorified prisons. Our dwarves don't have a thriving society overflowing with wealth: they're dying out and are clinging to a caste system that leaves most of the population disenfranchised with no way out. The game does interesting things with all of these world-building points, but all of these choices are in service of the Dark Fantasy genre.

Dragon Age 2, for all its faults, continues this trend. Hawke's story is a tragedy. They lose potentially both their siblings and their mother, and they are ultimately helpless to save Kirkwall. They are surrounded by persecution and oppression that they are exempt from in Act 2 onward due to their privilege as a wealthy human, and there is nothing they can do to utilize that privilege to aid the people around them. The elves still suffer. The mages are tortured and oppressed. Dragon Age 2 very much still lives in Dark Fantasy.

And then Dragon Age: Inquisition rolled around, and it felt...different. Markedly different. Suddenly the game wasn't interested in being Dark Fantasy anymore: it's a power trip. You're the leader of a powerful, militant religious organization and you get to command armies and conquer lands in the name of the Inquisition. The oppression is still there, but the game is much less interested in examining it in a meaningful way. Whereas in Origins your background allowed you new perspectives to the world, Inquisition's various backgrounds changed little other than what people called you. Yes, the Inquisitor can be discriminated against at the Winter Palace and can experience micro-aggression from various NPCs, but that's...it. There's no hard look at the Alienages, no further examining of the caste system in Orzammar, and the mages's struggles are swept aside in favor of "both sides"ing the argument with the Templars. Because in this game, we are now the institutional corruption. But the game can't examine that, not really, because it is no longer interested in being Dark Fantasy. Inquisition is closer to High Fantasy: it's about building your army, about fighting cool dragons, about feeling powerful and heroic and fighting the Evil Wizard Magister. It's about courtly intrigue, about showing up and looking cool, about getting to mess in another country's politics with zero repercussions, because we're the Inquisition. Our villains are no longer pillars of corrupt institutions, but extremist outliers.

And then, ten years later, we get Veilguard, which is not interested in being Dark Fantasy at all. It's all about building your team, about being scrappy heroes against impossible odds (though at least this time we're not forced to be the figurehead of an imperialist religious organization). There are some moments of horror, but the overall tone of the game is not Dark Fantasy. Which is why there is no real engagement with Tevinter's institutional corruption, with its long-held practice of slavery. This is why the game rips the Antaam away from the Qun and pretends like they were the only problematic aspect of it. This is why there's no true examination of how elves are oppressed or of the caste system in Orzammar.

And here is where the issue lies, not just with Veilguard, but with the series as a whole. Because these institutional evils that Origins initially placed before us were never meant to be challenged, not really. The Warden can make things better for their community if they so choose, but the level of influence they can have over the institutions in play is very small. But that's fine, they had an Archdemon to kill. But as the games progress, as we start to move further and further away from the Dark Fantasy genre, we also start to move away from seriously examining the corrupt institutions at play.