Howe Tragic

Not me being a good pédale and making a rainbow without meaning to-

Anyway !

To preface this : these are my thoughts after finishing Dragon age Origins and Awakening, I know *NOTHING* about 2, inquisition and Veilguard (well I know you can romance Peter Cushing in this one so fun things to look forward to). So please, do not spoil me even tho I'm sure I'll say things that will probably be expended on or called back to in the other games :))

Anders (and Ser Pounce-a-lot ofc)

Anders my beloved, silly little mage of a man, you're one of the few characters in this game who's horny for women but don't give me the ick ! He is funny, he hates cops, he is femme, he is the bisexual extraordinaire !!! Sorry Oghren kept calling you a fag :(

Justice I absolutely *love* the concept

The pain of going from abstract ethereal concept to a decaying corpse of a man. Going from a simple world of evil demons and benevolent spirits, to the complexity of everyday life. Like I think if you gently put your hands on his shoulders and explained to him justice can be used to oppress, to hurt, can be manipulated, perverted into a machine of evil- leave me 5 minutes with him and he'll discover what an existential crisis is :) But well, for one it was a dlc so I knew it wouldn't get much time to be explored, and two it also would require subtlety and that's something the writers aren't familiar with-

But there's also the whole dilemma of the possessing a corpse bit ! Kristoff had a life, had friends and a spouse ! That's less interesting to me than the whole concept to man bit but there's still great potential here !! Like if Dragon age gave a shit about women it would have been such good drama !!

Alistair I was pleasantly surprised !

He's *not* the type of character I usually like, but he did grow on me fkfkkf I still think his design is very bland and boring, but he is such a dumb golden retriever of a man <3

Also the whole discussion you have with him about his inexperience and kind of disinterest in sex, where ofc you can role play as the worst human being to ever grace this earth, but if you're a good friend here the discussion basically boils down to "ok you do you man :) that doesn't change my opinion or how I see you" and I was really surprised in a good way (don't know how this discussion plays out if you romance him, or "harden" him or whatever and I don't want to know- let me have this nice thing fjfkkf)

And btw thank god once again I chose to play a guy in my playthrough- because forcing him to have sex with Morrigan at the end if you play a girl ??? Horrible- we could have had the magic strap evil babie but 2009 didn't have the technology yet...

Sigrun !!!!!!!!!!

Dramatic emo girl, love smelling wet dirt. She's so cute ;; and I really liked her ending- she wants to go back to the legion to kill herself, but your character keep making up excuses and very urgent™️ things to do to keep her with them ? Got me hard in the feels ;;

(Too bad my DAO romance creates a plot hole here- but that was still very sweet)

Zevran, I went full the Rasmus for the pixelart and I have no regrets :)

Ok so he *did* grow on me, mostly because I romanced him, but omfg the beginning was rough- like he makes a very compelling first impression, but then he just continuously cat calls any girl you have in your party ?? With the atrocious pick up lines you've heard a thousand times on the streets if you were socialized a woman and everything.... And like, his misogyny truly is inexplicable for someone who was exclusively raised by women, and not any women, prostitutes !! Like how do you end up the "you would be so much prettier if you smiled" guy, when raised by lots of women you probably saw get the same lame lines all day everyday and hate it ?? Oh but that's right ! 2009 video game writer sexism. And as I said, it got better when I started romancing him (even if the end of it bugged out for me, he never offered me the earring a second time-) like idk if the game just ran out of sexpestZevran.wavs or if he stops harassing women when fucking you, but that made him much easier to like 👍 also I love a cringe man with no rizz let's gooo

And I have to say, this screen made me very happy :') I didn't expect them to call back and further expand the romance from the main game ! What a nice touch to end my *check notes* 70+ hour playthrough oh god-

And finally Morrigan !

I really like how she talks ;w; it's so formal and silly ! Unfortunate charadesign tho..... But ! She is the bitchy bestie with whom I made the evil bébé. A baby was made en toute amitié <3

Really wish she'd talk about anything else other than her mother tho- all I'm asking is for a second topic to discuss here... Even in the banter between party members it's very often about her mother !! I know you had a fucked up sheltered relationship with a witch of legends- Girl please give me anything else I'm begging- I was very happy we killed flemeth :) it improved conversations a bit... All the mother talk went to past tense so that was new at least

And since I played 70 hours of this and I love to class things, here's my tier list of every other companions I had in my team (so no Loghain sorry Alistair killed his ass, no man who killed Duncan my beautiful wife in a flashback gets to live)

*"rompish" is a funny french slang word that means 'boring', because it's the sound you make when you snore

I think overall I preferred Awakening, even tho it was a sloppy bugged mess and kinda disappointing in therms of quests and payoff with a *terrible* villain, I certainly preferred my final team and the plot had me more intrigued... Origins had plot points I enjoyed, and I can't deny it at least has the advantage of getting better as it goes... Like BG3 is the type of game where act 1 is peak, act 2 is a bit less engaging but still an absolutely banger and act 3 is well messier- so even tho that's an *excellent* game, it's still a gradual downward slope. But on the contrary ! In the beginning of DAO the writing was so bad I wanted to beat up my balls, as us french say, and just stop playing altogether... Went to Orzammar last and that was were the game picked up a bit for me, still not so great writing but there were things here full of potential (if they were implemented better it could even have been great ! Looking at you making us select a politician to support before giving us *any* context or even their political views ??? But that's a cool plot point in concept !) and by the time of the landsmeet your companions have developed a second personality trait and the whole drama with Loghain was fun ! Had a mid ass time overall but at least the slope was steadily going up :)) still inexcusable misogyny tho... and fatphobia. That Awakening made so much worse funnily enough- like without Awakening, since I'm comparing it to BG3, I'd say Origin's "one fatphobic boss design present in every fantasy rpg where you play exclusively as thin women and ken dolls" was less egregious ! Low bar but good job fkdkdk but with the addition of 'the mother' ???? Get the fuck out that makes it actually so much worse-

Of course all this yapping is only my opinions, if Dragon Age 1 is your favorite video game good on you ! There's a lot of things to love here :)