#and no

And ofc it got me to talking about how the first two Dragon Age games were deceptively good at that (when they were doing that.) Like, don't get me wrong, Origins had it's meta issues. But Origins, and to a lesser extent Dragon Age 2, depicted systemic injustice like it was just a piece of the setting. The story wasn't about systemic injustice the way it was in 2, but it was a part of how the characters interacted with the world and how the world interacted with them and the player character. It got heavy handed but it didn't feel like they were trying to make you have a specific opinion about it all until Inquisition.

But eventually Dragon Age was fucked over where the other title was not because the other title was written by a single, highly educated person while Dragon Age was spearheaded by David "prison labor isn't slavery" Gaider and a handful of Canadian neoliberals. It would be so good if it was good, but it never had a chance because the guy who decided he wanted to write about slavery didn't even know the difference between chattel slavery, state sanctioned indentured servitude and penal slavery (AKA prison labor and concentration camps) and what it means to have a slave economy. More importantly, Gaider clearly doesn't think that slavery in and of itself is violent. You can waffle all you want on it morally but he clearly has no concept of it even as a form of violence. No one on that team actually understood what slavery is so they were never going to be able to write anything poignant about it in any direction.

Same thing goes for the misogyny.

❝ Oh? And tell me, dear seedling, what is it you would have me do for the child? He is the responsibility of the bat, is he not? Though, I wouldn't exactly be surprised if the man who thinks dressing children up to be heroes and letting them fling themselves from rooftops turns out to be a ... questionable guardian. ❞

❝ Children, of course, are to be protected whenever and wherever possible -- I myself have cared for many, despite my typical disliking for human company. They are delicate little creatures, very impressionable too. ❞

❝ And so, if the child has need of my comfort, he may ask. But I will not step on any bat shaped toes, and nor will I be lured into some half baked trap purely because I have empathy for a child. ❞