Thedasian Slavery and the Whitewashing of Ferelden
It does not escape my gaze the fact that the early Dragon Age developers, rather consciously or subconsciously, incidentally or purposefully, maintained the ridiculous presumption that slavery within northern and western Europe largely disappeared or ceased to exist across the broad period of what is termed the "Middle Ages", and that slavery was largely concentrated to its political heir (the Eastern Roman Empire/Byzantine Empire in which Tevinter draws inspiration from as the Thedasian Rome), and the Mediterranean realms, such as the mercantile Italian city-states, and the Iberian Peninsula - and yes, the Islamic world.
Yes - while it is true that slavery existed as a greater social institution in the Mediterranean, we do need to be careful in how BioWare conflated the development of racial slavery (pertaining primarily to elves) against the actual slavery practices of Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, which primarily existed on the basis of religion rather than race. The primary reasons why the slave trade of the Mediterranean persisted in comparison to northern Europe pertained to the fact that there were a larger pool of religious diversity, and such justification by political and religious authorities, to allow the abduction and enslavement of other faiths. Most westerners would often cite the Ottoman janissaries as an example of slavery within Europe, but Italian city-states such as Genoa were important centers of the slave trade, and Pope Nicholas V in his Dum Diversas granted the legal authority to Catholic monarchs to exert real enslavement against the "Saracens, pagans, and enemies of Christ wherever they may be found."
(This is not to mean that I am justifying Ottoman enslavement, but rather to give context that most Western understanding of slavery within Europe throughout Late Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the early modern period coincided with the Islamic powers of the Mediterranean and the belief that slavery was largely absent in Christian Europe, particularly in the west and north, and concretely displaced by other forms of servility).
So, BioWare was indeed correct in instituting that there existed slave markets in Dragon Age's inspired Italian City-States/Iberia (Antiva and Rivain). The probably then becomes that they, unintentionally or intentionally, instituted that both the de jure and de facto realities of their other European inspirations (the Holy Roman Empire/Neverra and the Free Marches; France/Orlais; the British Isles/Ferelden) indicated an abolitionist principle, clearly cited from Andraste's fervent anti-slavery position. This would not, inherently, be a problem, had BioWare not extended to Ferelden in specific the clause that there exists no feudal order or serfdom in Ferelden.
According to the Dragon Age Tabletop RPG Core Rulebook:
"The bulk of the population, however, is made up of freemen. As their name indicates, they are not slaves or serfs but free men and women. They are soldiers, shopkeepers, laborers, farmers, entertainers, hunters, and so on. The freemen are not rich but they are proud and pragmatic. In Ferelden a freeman with ambition and ability can climb the social ladder and many do just that."
As discussed in my blog in the past, BioWare had taken clear inspirations from real life history - from cultures, religious, philosophies, and ethnicities. They were not unique in that in principle - George R.R Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire established his own Westerosi/Essosi Christianity and Catholicism, the Faith of the Seven, as antithetical to slavery as an institution. Just like Martin's Faith, BioWare made the representatives of Christianity - the Orlesian Chantry - inert against slavery due its theological positions through Andraste. The problem I have is that, just like Martin, BioWare inadvertently reinforced the idea that the institution of serfdom (and its various myriad of legal forms) was in significant departure to that of the slavery practiced in the Mediterranean - in that the white Western Europeans were the earliest champions to dissolve slavery on matters concerning morality and legality, when often the de jure did not coincided with the de facto. As one reddit comment from the Askhistorian subreddit noted:
If I take a step back, exactly the period between 11th and 14th century is the most contentious about Continental slavery and continental pathways, e.g. McCormick studied till 900, attesting lively and active slave trade through the period up till then through various pathways, east-west being one of them. As for the situation past that, there are contentious, as plenty do argue for the decline of this slave-trade and some form of transition (or rather, a more robust continuation of the already extant process, e.g. Rio recently), but there really is not a good monography covering this outside Mediterranean milieu. Many local studies e.g. still do attest this, both in rural and urban milieu, which can frankly be characterized as slave-like situation, but statuses in this period are always problematic, e.g. where exactly is the line between slave-like and serf-like conditions, as any essentialist stipulation can be subject to contention, not to mention immense regional variations, and how far Mediterranean impact did reach (I am not familiar enough with the Baltic region) – Latin terminology does not really clarify anything on this, since it already took up different meanings. To show plastically, e.g. probably almost no English historian will say that there was slavery in 14th century England, but this has to be squared away with the blood villeinage, which was heritable and freely alienable, with accounts of arbitrary detention by the owning lordships (and would be even referenced as chattels). Obviously, they are not exactly comparable to some aspects we typically associate with this type of slavery, but again, drawing these lines can be problematic, not to mention serfdom is such a large umbrella-term that needs to be specified to county and manorial situations. And even though this status did decline by late Middle Ages, it did not go away until the second century of modern period, but by that time it was already notable different due to other changes.
The reason I talk about this is I did see one post on Tumblr that claimed about Dragon Age: the Veilguard:
Tumblr remembered your poor handling of fictional imperialism.
No hate to that blog poster, and I will not cite them because I'm not really talking distinctively about Veilguard here, but rather Dragon Age as a whole, and instead wanted to illustrate the frustrations about only citing Veilguard's attempt (poor or otherwise) in depicting imperialism and colonialism, against the time from Origins which had drawn its clear historical inspirations of the slavery of Rome, the Indigenous Americans and Aboriginals of Australia and New Zealand, but then whitewashed the actual histories of notably white western Europeans in the form of Ferelden, in specific. By actively indicating that there exists slavery in Antiva in the form of Zevran; that Tevinter still practiced slavery even after Andraste's Exalted March against them; while places such as the Free Marches, Orlais, and specifically Ferelden are distinctive of being official anti-slavery is historical revisionism and imposed a dangerous insinuation that slavery continued to only exist in Europe via conflict between the Islamic and Christian worlds of the Mediterranean. This ignores the actual realities of slavery in the period after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, where much of the so-called "Barbarian Kingdoms" maintained the legal framework of imperial Rome, and viewed themselves as clients and heirs to Rome's political authority, which included the institution of slavery; it ignores that the degree in which we can state that slavery ceased to be in places such as in England or France due to the development of the "free soil" principles ignored the other socio-economic systems that developed from, alongside, and beyond the institution of slavery as left by the Romans.
In that, by categorizing the main source of oppression as existing only in the lucid form of slavery ignores the other potential distinctions of socio-economic, legal, and political realities of other "unfreedom" that retained its presence in places such as the British Isles. By stating there exists neither serfs nor slaves in Ferelden plays an active role of uplifting the idea that Western European nations like the British Isles cleansed themselves of slavery within continental Europe against the backdrop of the Mediterranean world (particularly against Eastern Rome and the Islamic world).
The reason for this long-winded rant is my frustrations that somehow Veilguard had failed to handle its topic of "fantasy colonialism and imperialism" well, while ignoring the foundational issues in depicting the British Isles (Ferelden) as neither bound to the servile order or slavery; that Andraste fought chiefly against Tevinter because of slavery, alongside her holy revelations; that the Chantry maintained a clearly anti-slavery position (while granting a caveat about the Circle, which its own host of problems), but that these are no problems at all for the fandom...because Ferelden just doesn't have the canonical history slavery or serfdom, and only subtly engages with the slave trade.
Am I making sense?
I do believe people should rightfully critique Veilguard for their handling (poorly done or otherwise) of fantasy colonialism and imperialism, but I think this fandom, as a matter of principle, should go further: why is it that only the northern nations of Tevinter, Rivain, and Antiva are depicted as still maintaining the practice of slavery, especially as empires such as Tevinter are depicted more and more as people of color thanks to Fenris, Dorian, and Neve? Why are the other historical forms of unfreedom undiscussed or in need to be replaced in Ferelden, while the game happily goes at its way to discuss the injustice of the dwarven caste system? Why is it that Ferelden - clearly meant to be a stand in for the British Isles, but the Kingdom of England in specific, notable in that there exists no form of slavery or serfdom, despite them maintaining a clearly feudal order?
My theory lies in the fact that the idea of Medieval England has been heavily sanitized because of its inspiration as the default fantasy landscape. We are accustomed from stories such as Lord of the Rings, the Wheel of Time, a Song of Ice and Fire, and the influence of the white-dominated Dungeons and Dragons, to imagine a sort of rose-tinted imagination of England as notably lacking in slavery, but studded with large homesteads and noble estates. The questions regarding the actual unfair and horrific practices of that inspiration is absconded by the reality that the "legitimate" form of systematic oppression exists predominately in non-Western, non-Northern European world, in places such as the Italian city-states, and more importantly Eastern Rome, the Islamic World, and ancient Iran. Because these worlds can point to a legitimate and distinctive system that horrifies our modern sensibilities, it grants us a leeway to continue imagining Ferelden or Westeros as potentially terrible for a specific group of people, but not as a large mass in the form of extensive slavery like in Tevinter or ancient Valyria.
Such, it is easier for us to get angry about the lack of slaves in Minrathous or slave markets featuring Antivan Crows in Veilguard, because since Origins we are taught that those systems exist beyond our favorite nations, and only attack at us subtly in the form of secret slave raids and markets beneath the undercoat of the "free" south. It harder for us to stand on a moral high ground if Ferelden had actually not been a whitewashed caricature of the British Isles, and treated in a more favorable, worldbuilding-light compared to the northern kingdoms.
