#nopequisition

Well since everyone agrees on Tumblr being dead already i guess i’ll have to create some follow-up accounts in other socials.

So! For the very few of you that would like to follow me for... some reason, here’s Twitter and Instagram:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/nopequisition Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nopequisition/

Even people who hated DA2 loved Varric so I guess it was a no-brainer to bring him into the new game, but then he was just... there.

His role in the game is to banter with the other characters and bring Hawke into the game. But what do we learn about him? Now that he’s not the narrator of the game, do we see a different side of him? Is this where we find out character flaws he left out of the story he tells Cassandra? Do we get insight into his personality, his backstory? 

There are a couple little bits in the banter maybe - like he seems much angrier at Anders than he let on in DA2 - but because it isn’t really explored it comes off as more of an inconsistency in the character than actual development. Does he feel betrayed by Anders, someone he considered a friend, causing him to lose the only home he ever knew? How much blame does he put on Anders? Does he still consider him a friend? Does what happened affect his opinions of mages, his ability to trust people?   

They never REALLY dug into how heartbroken he was over the destruction of Kirkwall. He just mentions that Kirkwall’s a wreck in banter once or twice and sounds sad. But come on guys. Give me more. How does it feel for a surface dwarf, his parents exiled from their thaig, now twice-removed from his roots? How is it for him to live at Skyhold after having to flee Kirkwall? Does he want to go back someday? Or is Skyhold his home now? I really can’t tell!

Is he lonely? His friends of over a decade have scattered to the four winds and some of them he will probably never see again. He calls Hawke his best friend and he can only rarely see them, because they’re a fugitive. He apparently sees Bianca only rarely too. How does he feel about this? Is he fine with this arrangement? Does he resent it? Does he miss her terribly all the time? Or is he used to this now, her being a memory? Does he ever think about moving on? Or is that inconceivable?  Are the Inquisition companions his friends like the DA2 party were friends, or are they temporary business associates? How does he feel about Cassandra, who technically kidnapped and interrogated him? He can laugh and joke with her, but he’s Varric, he can do that with everyone. Is he still angry at her? Does he even like her? I don’t know these things! Why don’t I know these things?!

Oh yeah, of course they knew. Hell, they knew people assumed Leliana and Cassandra were a couple - remember when Gaider reblogged the fanart that someone had drawn, on someone else’s commission, of Cassandra/Leliana? And he said they were laughing about it in the office? What a dick move, man. And this is supposedly the LGBT-friendly company.

After the way she joins the Inquisition making it perfectly clear that she wants to improve her own position, it makes no sense that she is then content to sit around Skyhold with no involvement other than talking to you occassionally if you go over to her.

I mean, Vivienne is supposed to be a player. She is an expert in The Grand Game and she can pull everybody’s strings and make them dance, etc etc. But it’s all talk - you never get to see her do it.

The Orlesian Ball was disappointing on so many levels but this one most of all. I made a point of bringing her with me and then she just stands around like everyone else. WTF. I want her to be operating, come on. I should have come back into the ball covered in blood from fighting in the courtyard and have her scold me for making a mess and tell me she’s already settled who’s going to sit on the throne and also signed 3 peace treaties and arranged 2 political marriages while I was out galavanting around, now go get cleaned up to meet the Duchess of Bersailles, dear.

But they clearly have a pretty hazy idea of how exactly the Grand Game works in practice, so it’s no wonder they couldn’t think of anything for her to do. 

And yeah, they made a pretty half-hearted attempt to explain why Vivienne wasn’t a romance option, almost as if they know damn well there was no good reason for it. Just throw in a scene with her dying elderly patron, that’ll cover it. Even though the Inquisitor is apparently the most powerful person in the world by the end of the game and that flies right in the face of the whole “no benefit in such an arrangement” thing.

But one thing I wanted to mention is that when I asked him why I can’t romance Cassandra, after he kind of shifted uncomfortably and a couple other people chimed in about how this didn’t bother them at all, his answer to me was “Cassandra is straight” as though this was a hard truth that I need to accept.

And if I’d had my shit together sufficiently I would have called him on that. What I actually said was, “Okay, but with the way the love interests for female inquisitor are lying to her and betraying her and being really gross, it would have been really nice to have Cassandra as an option, since she’s pretty much perfect in every way.”

What I actually should have said was this:

Bullshit.

Bullshit Cassandra is straight. Cassandra is not a real person with a real sexual orientation you have to respect, Bioware invented Cassandra. This is a choice that you made. This is a video game. This is a video game you helped design that made a romance storyline for this character and then chose to close it off to female inquisitors. You should at least be able to justify that choice.

I’m not asking to romance Dorian as a female inquisitor - his storyline is all about his sexual identity and I don’t want to erase a gay male character. But there is nothing about Cassandra’s romance that demands only a male partner and I would really like to know why you chose to make her male-only anyway. Especially when basically all the other options for female inquisitor are garbage.