Musings of a Wandering Stitcher

The Dragon Age franchise has a women-loving-women problem. That problem being, history of their depiction of sapphic relationships as toxic, abusive and deadly. And I wouldn’t have as much of an issue with it, if it was a once or twice kind of thing… but this is a pattern.

Branka and Hespith

In the Dragon Age: Origins quest “A Paragon of her Kind”, we meet Hespith, who shares that she and Branka were in a relationship. World of Thedas vol. 2 reveals that their affair began not long after Branka’s arranged marriage to Oghren, and probably played a role in her leaving him behind on her expedition to find the Anvil of the Void, while taking the rest of the House—including Hespith—with her. But by the time we meet Hespith in game, things have gone horribly wrong between her and Branka.

Branka became so obsessed with finding the Anvil of the Void, that she purposely let female members of their crew be captured by darkspawn to become broodmothers and breed more darkspawn, as fodder for the traps along the way to the Anvil of the Void. She even let Hespith herself become corrupted and start to turn, something that Hespith kills herself over before letting happen; this is inferred in game and confirmed in the game file notes.

Branka herself also is either killed by the player in an ensuing fight, or potentially commits suicide as well, unable to live with what she’s done if the player pressures her about it.

Marjolaine and Leliana

Also in Dragon Age: Origins, once you gain enough approval with her, Leliana speaks of her past as a Bard, including her teacher and lover, Marjolaine, and how Marjolaine ultimately betrayed her. The DLC Leliana’s Song goes into greater detail of Leliana’s past: Marjolaine tricked Leliana into thinking they would return stolen treasonous documents, but instead stabbed Leliana and left her at the mercy of the guards, pinning the whole thing on her. Leliana spent time imprisoned, where she was tortured and would have been killed, but saved by Mother Dorothea, (later known as Divine Justinia,) who helped her escape.

But even before this horrible betrayal, Leliana and Marjolaine’s relationship is depicted as toxic, by virtue of their power imbalance. Marjolaine calls Leliana “pretty thing”, orders her never to question anything, and treats her like she is an object. Marjolaine tells Leliana what to do and when to do it, and the very first time Leliana objects to this, Marjolaine betrays her.

Marjolaine is potentially killed by the player, if she is encountered.

Celene and Briala

Briala grew up serving as Celene’s personal handmaid since she was a young child. Briala’s mother instructed her to obey Celene in everything, even despite Celene saying things like comparing Briala’s dark brown curls to “horse-dung”. As such, their power imbalance runs very deep, to the point where at the beginning of the novel Dragon Age: The Masked Empire, Briala has very little self-worth, and thinks only of how she can be of use to Celene. And Celene hardly sees Briala any differently. For example, when she upsets Briala and Briala has the gall to walk away without pouring Celene tea, all Celene thinks about is how she’ll have to do it herself, without showing a care for insulting the person she supposedly loves.

When Briala begs Celene to let her quietly assassinate a human who is responsible for hanging cut-up pieces of a murdered elf in Halamshiral, to try and appease the elves who are rightly uprising against this horrible act, Celene initially agrees. But then she changes her mind, and arranges Briala to get caught and captured, while Celene herself travels there to oversee the burning down of Halamshiral’s elven quarter and massacre of “a few thousand elves”. This is horrible enough on its own, but then Celene goes on to make Briala feel like it was her fault for not being there to convince Celene not to do it!

Celene actually manages to get Briala back on her side over the course of the novel, convincing Briala that she will free the elves if they work together to get control of the eluvians. And Briala almost believes this, up until she pieces together the final nail in the coffin of their relationship: Celene arranged the murder of all her servants, including Briala’s parents. Why? So that there would be no potential witnesses left to speak of her arrangements in The Game to become Empress.

Briala realizes there is nothing more important to Celene than her public image and her power, so she takes the eluvians for herself, declaring she will use them to empower the elves of Orlais. But not before Celene tries to kill her, further proving Briala’s revelation.

In Dragon Age: Inquisition, Celene is potentially assassinated and Briala is potentially executed, depending on the player’s choices.

Ritts and Eldredda

In the Dragon Age: Inquisition quest “Strange Bedfellows”, the player is tasked with finding a missing scout named Ritts. When the player finds her, it’s discovered that Ritts was spending intimate time with another woman, an apostate named Eldredda. This discovery though, is posthumously, as the player finds them in the middle of a battle with Templars, after Eldredda has already been killed.

There is nothing here suggesting Ritts and Eldredda were toxic in any way, but I wanted to include them on this list because of another killing of a sapphic woman; something all too common in media.

Hira and Miriam

In the Netflix show Dragon Age: Absolution, Miriam is an escaped slave from Tevinter, and Hira is a runaway noble of the same nation. In the first episode, it is established that the two have a romantic history, but Hira left Miriam to join the Inquisition. She comes back to recruit Miriam on a job to steal a powerful Tevinter artifact. The last episode reveals that Hira’s actual plan was to sell Miriam back into slavery, in exchange for the artifact that she planned to give to the Crimson Knight, who she secretly works for. Hira chose to use Miriam like an object to barter with. Despite this, Miriam actually offers Hira one last chance to try and repair their relationship… and Hira refuses, stealing the artifact and fleeing.

It All Adds Up

One or two examples of this wouldn’t be much to talk about, because I am not claiming that WLW are above toxicity; unfortunately abusive relationships do not distinguish gender. What makes it worth talking about is how repetitive it is. The pattern actually outweighs the number of healthy and living sapphic relationships in the Dragon Age franchise, excluding those that are player-controlled. And that creates a negative message on what BioWare is presenting as a norm.

What we need are more examples of positive sapphic relationships. Tessa and Charter from the Dragon Age: Magekiller comics are a nice example, as are Vadis and Irian from the Dragon Age: Tevinter Nights story “Half Up Front”. I would love to read more stories with them, or more stories with other WLW in it. Thedas as a fictional world is an open space to explore fantasy sapphism in a variety of ways! I hope BioWare learns to take better advantage of that.

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When referring to sexual violence in the Circle, the first example that usually comes to mind is Ser Otto Alrik of the Gallows in Dragon Age II (DA2). Anders’s Act 2 companion quest, “Dissent”, is about Alrik’s “Tranquil Solution” to use the Rite of Tranquility on every mage in Kirkwall. In his letter to Divine Justinia, he proposes the following:

“The Tranquil Solution is our answer. All mages at the age of majority must be made Tranquil. They'll coexist peacefully, retain their usefulness—a perfect strategy! It's simply the best way to ensure mages obey the laws of men and Maker.”

Notice how Alrik puts an emphasis on “age of majority” and “retain their usefulness”? This would be sketchy on its own, but there is more evidence that Alrik is a rapist.

Confronting Alrik in “Dissent”, the player discovers him about to recapture a feeling young mage girl. She begs not to be made tranquil, saying she’ll do anything to avoid it. Alrik responds by saying “That's right. Once you're Tranquil, you'll do anything I ask.” The implication given his leer is that he is planning on raping her, something he already does to others. A Tranquil woman named Helena and her former lover, a mage named Jaken, have the following ambient dialogue in the Gallows:

Jaken: I've been searching for you everywhere. You weren't in your rooms, the libraries...

Helena: We have no scheduled appointments at this time, apprentice.

Jaken: No! Helena, it's me. Don't you remember me?

Helena: Of course. YOu are Apprentice Jaken. We were once involved in an illicit relationship.

Jaken: Illicit? I love you!

Helena: I am Ser Alrik's now. He is the only one who can command me.

The Tranquil are not always regarded as real people, even by their fellow mages. This is, of course, not true – just because they lack full mental capacity and are a vulnerable population does not make them less deserving of personhood. But the fact that they lack the capacity to properly consent is what so easily leads to them being abused as they are. If the Chantry actually cared about the wellbeing of the Tranquil, there would be proper protections for them put in place, to avoid people like Alrik getting away with his blatant crimes.

It is not just the Tranquil who suffer from sexual violence, though. Any mage is fair game for the templars. Alain, a mage first encountered in the DA2 quest “Act of Mercy”, can later be found in the Gallows. If Ser Karras survives the quest, Alain can be overheard saying, “Ser Karras said if I tell anyone he's been in my chambers, he'll make me Tranquil.” But even if Ser Karras does not survive, during the quest “Best Served Cold” when Alain is encountered again, he will uncomfortably say, “You don't know what it’s like. We're locked in our cells all day, no light, no air. The templars... ask things of us.” Alain is still being raped, just by someone else.

It is worth noting that Ser Alrik and Ser Karras are no random grunts, either. They are both Knight-Lieutenants, meaning the only two people of higher rank are Cullen and Meredith. They have been rewarded, granted even more control for their horrid actions. Other templars are supposed to obey them without question, or the Knight-Lieutenants have the power to strip them of their knighthood.

While the Gallows has the most examples, by virtue of being a central part of the plot in DA2, sexual violence is by no means exclusive to Kirkwall’s Circle.

In Dragon Age: Origins, during the mage origin, you can overhear an apprentice mage’s ambient dialogue: "Gerda told me the templars watch us while we bathe. I hope that's not true." And while voyeurism is certainly not as severe as rape, that is canonically confirmed by Anders to have happened in the Ferelden Circle as well, in a banter with Sebastian:

Sebastian: Did something happen to you in the Circle? I understand there were problems in Ferelden...

Anders: Are you saying a mage can only be unhappy in the Circle if demons were involved?

Anders: No, it's not about Uldred. It's not about being beaten or raped by a templar— that does happen, but I've been fortunate.

In the novel Dragon Age: Asunder, Cole watches two mages of the Val Royeaux Circle have a conversation about the infamous “ghost of the spire” (namely, himself). During this conversation, one mage suggests it may have been a templar the girl saw. Her response:

"You think I don't know every templar in the tower by now? Some of them far better than I'd like." She touched the bruise on her cheek, and the elven boy scowled but said nothing.

Saying that she knows templars “far better than she’d like” implies that she has had suffered from non-consensual intimacy – aggressively, given she was wounded.

The fantasy of a sexually available mage even bleeds out into the common person. In the DA2 quest “Repentance”, accompanying Sebastian to investigate the Harimann family involves witnessing Ruxton Harimann carrying out a sexual roleplay with an elven woman in which he says, “Now, you be the naughty apprentice, and I’ll be the templar torturer…” No shame on consensual roleplay, that’s not my point. My point is that this specific scenario did not come from nowhere; it is perpetuated by the Circle.

This is why I believe it is only fair to call the sexual violence mages suffer from to be a systemic issue, part of the entire structural Circle of Magi. These are not individual errors, but rather a built in part of how the Circles are set up. The Chantry giving the Templar Order complete control over the mages as they do easily creates an environment where abuse can flourish, including sexual violence. This cannot be fixed without changing the underlying system of the Circle itself.

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SOURCES:

Dragon Age: Asunder

Codex entry: Templar Letter (DA2)

Codex entry: Ser Alrik's Letter (DA2)

Dialogue: Ambient remark from apprentice mage (DAO)

Dialogue: Ambient remark from Alain (DA2)

Dialogue: Party banter between Anders and Sebastian (DA2)

Dialogue: Obtaining the quest “Dissent” from Anders (DA2)

Dialogue: Alain during the quest “Best Served Cold” (DA2)