Since Veilguard was released, there is this genre of Dragon Age fans popping up who are explaining Dragon Age lore, who have been talking a lot about Qunari lore. Disappointingly, they've just been taking Bioware's qunari lore at face value for every single game, no matter how much the Qunari lore for each game retcons the lore from game before it.
And I feel like, it needs to be understood that, Qunari were designed to be "Militant Islamic Borg" -- the intent behind them is to be this oriental technologically advanced people who are violent and expansionist savages and made specifically to contrast the rest of Thedas, meant to be White and European. They are routinely called barbarians and savages, real world slurs used against people from the SWANA region, by characters the players are meant to see as sympathetic and intelligent, like Solas. The lore starts and ends with this. And even with Gaider not working on the game, each bit of new Qunari lore introduced is built on 2 things: Racism and Vibes.
Trying to explain Qunari lore without even examining the deeply racist framework within which Qunari lore exists is inadvertently reinforcing the racism and the orientalism and xenophobia in the writing. You cannot separate them.
I have been seeing people calling Qunari society "inherently violent" or "teaching violence" and that this is why they are written as having had the Antaam branch away and go to the South and join the ancient Gods. And No. That is not correct in any sense. But if you rewrite the lore of the Qunari in every single game, of course that would be your takeaway. The real reason they are written this way is so you can have a faceless orcish brute enemy archetype that you can kill in Dragon Age: The Veilguard without any guilt. It's literally not deeper than that.
Why is it that Bioware is so resistant to having us go to Seheron or go to Par Vollen and walk amongst Qunari society and view them in a context where they are just living their lives? Is it possibly because it will draw attention to how alien and inhuman they are intended to be? Is it so they are not humanized in a way that makes every previous inclusion of Qunari seem jarring and uncomfortable to see?
In Origins, we meet Sten, and though he exists to expound on this group of people who exist in Thedas, the Qunari, and introduce us to this bit of world building which isn't directly relevant to the main story, but fleshes out the world beyond Ferelden. The writing was still racist (after all "militant Islamic Borg" refers to their Origins iteration), but you got so little information that you could infer that there may be some nuance there, especially given the way Sten is written in a way that humanizes the Qunari. Later lore shows him as being someone who cares deeply about the world around him and, as Arishok, about diplomacy. And all this not conflicting with his belief in the tenets of the Qun.
And in Dragon Age 2, the game pivots into making them one of the major causes of conflict in the story. This is the first introduction of Qunari as faceless brute enemy archetypes which you can kill without guilt, without explanation of why you can kill them without guilt--at least not immediately. You do not walk into DA2 knowing who Tal-Vashoth are and why they are attacking you--only that they're violent and they yell things in a foreign language at you.
The Arishok in Dragon Age 2 is stubborn, dogmatic, and violent when opposed or crossed. He shows up, sets up a military compound, and stays there for years. Your only representation here is a military leader and his subordinates, contrasted with equally violent mercenaries who the game promises are of a completely different ideology. All shirtless muscular men, who speak in a growling menacing dialect.
Then Bioware turns around and goes. Just kidding! Those weren't the real Qunari; they're a violent offshoot! We promise they are nuanced, you just haven't met those ones yet. They give us Tallis in Mark of the Assassin, but she's an elf, and one who had to pick between slavery and the Qun, and picks the lesser of two evils. Sure, she's sympathetic, but you get the impression that Hawke feels betrayed to find out that she's Qunari, and interrogates her on this--which, is partly, I guess, you, the player, clicking the dialogue options to learn more, but Tallis is on the defensive, trying to convince you Qunari are people, just like you and me.
Inquisition introduces another Ben-Hassrath, like Tallis, in the Iron Bull. And on the surface, his inclusion is quite a lot like Sten in Origins. They both showed up because there was an unknown threat in the South that they were ordered to investigate. Unlike Sten, though, you are given the option to convert him away from the Qun. Not only that, but the game drills into you how there is no free will under the Qun. But then contradicts itself with Bull telling you that under the Qun you DO have the choice to change your role under the Qun and that there is even a word for it, Aqun Athlok, which means transgender, but, in a society where gender is directly related to the role you perform in society, that implies less rigidity and more open-mindedness than every other character wants you to believe.
However, beyond dialogue with Krem and the Iron Bull about gender (and later Taash in the Veilguard), Bioware is not interested in exploring the implications of the existence and acceptance of Aqun Athlok in Qunari culture.
And in the end, if Bull becomes Tal-Vashoth, that's framed as the outcome that is overall most positive--the outcome where he can keep his romantic relationships (whether that's with the Inquisitor or with Dorian), his friendships with the Inquisition and the Chargers, and his individuality. It's reinforced in banter with his companions and dialogue with the Inquisitor. And it all sounds a little too close to how white savior types talk about Muslims who leave SWANA and leave Islam to come to the more enlightened and liberating West.
By the Veilguard, the Qunari lore is already so wishy washy that sure I guess now we have to believe that the Antaam (literally just the Qunari military) broke away from the other Qunari because the other Qunari weren't expansionist and violent enough. I guess that's what we are going with. And that's the reason why, as a gameplay mechanic, we see the return of the Qunari as a faceless brute enemy archetype. And this time, instead of them clearly speaking in normal pitch but in a foreign language (like in DA2), they communicate in inhumanly deep, animal-like grunts and growls. Even when they're not being hostile to you, and you pass them by in Treviso just hanging out? They are still hollering and growling in monstrous deep voices, without a trace of a thought out and well-enunciated language. And how racist do you have to be for you to be more racist than the DA2 Qunari?
I don't even want to get into whatever scraps you get through Taash and their personal quest because it's so irrelevant and detached from everything it feels like putting a bandaid over a stab wound. Nevermind Taash introducing us to a brand new and innovative genre of Qunari who can sniff things out like hunting dogs. Thanks for that one Bioware -- "but nooooo, Nairuz, they're part dragon it makes sense in the lore" -- the ancient Elves can also turn into wolves and dragons and even monsters, but you don't see them growling and sniffing and prowling like animals.
All this to say. Stop trying to make sense of Qunari lore in a way that validates and justify the decisions Bioware made, when they made those decisions out of Islamophobia and racism and orientalism. I am tired of seeing this lore be uncritically parroted by Dragon Age lore accounts.
