#romance speculation

Okay so get this, what if the reasons for Solas being race gated to the F!elf aren't purely revolving personal preference (namely elf babies, traumatising experiences with human etc etc). Not saying they may not play a role but what big plot device has been set up as perhaps an "elves only" clubhouse?

The Eluvians.

Now we haven't seen how the Eluvian network would effect Qunari or dwarves, but I think we can assume it's similar to humans. These Arlathanian artifacts would surely be of interest to Professor Solas, who knows what mysteries lie in wait to be unravalled. But in order to study these artifacts, one would have to spend a lot of time within them, hence they're going to a place where other races can't follow. And given Solas has been perfectly content to spend his life in solitary until the Inquisition, he strikes me as the type of personal who would take the opportunity to explore the Eluvian's versus spending the rest of his life with the PC who he's only gotten to know recently. 

As far as sexuality goes (nothing stopping a Male Lavellan from following in toe) that's more personal preference I suppose. I dunno, I just don't buy into "the female is a potential baby factory" explanation. I don't think they'd be that callously sexist. Or maybe they're setting up another OGB gambit, who knows.

I'd love Varric because he's Varric, and in another way I don't want to romance him because he's Varric, and there's Bianca to consider. Andraste's flaming knickers, imagine if we got to meet Bianca, she'd look so wonderful in the Frostbite engine (i'd laugh my ass off if she was the 'flirt' option outside of the companions, could you imagine how that conversation go down?). And it's that one arc we're all very curious about, and with everything else going on for poor Varric, he deserves a little Bianca lovin'.

Solas I was a little unsure of the character design at first and didn't like the change from concept art, but he's grown on me a lot. After learning more about him, he reminds me bit of the quieter/bookish kinda mages like Sketch and Finn from the DLCs and I love those sorts of characters the most. Then they throw out his voice actor is Gareth David Llyod and... that's just unfair you know. So his prayer circle is on the top of my attendance list.

Then there's Blackwall, and by the Maker he's a beautiful specimen, And I entirely blame  Momochanners for all her ridiculously wonderful artwork (for pity's sake, if you haven't gone and seen her artwork and you want to ride the DA:I hype train, it's a necessary pre-requisite), His lovely character design and bits and pieces we've heard about him and wild imagining I have of what I think we'll potentially learn about him makes Blackwall an A+ character that i look forward to getting to know.

Since it is confirmed that characters will have set sexualities again:

For male romances:

Cullen (confirmed romance): straight

Solas: bi

Moustache dude that is probably named Dorian: Gay

Super bummed that even my speculations can't see Ser Bara as a romance when I try to look at this objectively, despite wanting to romance the taint out of him already and, agh, just look at that bearded hunk. So sad.

For female romances:

Cassandra (confirmed romance): straight

Sera: bi

Vivienne or Scribe girl (leaning towards scribe girl more): Gay. Now, I lean towards Scribe girl more because that would make one of the female romances to be NPCs rather than companions as well, making it more equal between the genders. Other than that it could be Vivienne for all we know.

That's my speculation while trying to be as logical as possible and without putting my preferences first. Pretty sure I heard somewhere that there would be 6 romances in total, but hey, if I'm wrong and we get more, then even better! With a game as big as DA:I, it wouldn't be that far fetched. Now...

Dream romances: Ser Bara. That's it. Yep. Been smitten since the first concept art of him, hahah. Okay, and I guess I'd like being able to romance Cullen with both genders, but I don't really see it happening?

Extra thoughts:

My dream is that some day Bioware will surprise us by making the manliest looking guy alive an exclusively gay romance, thus slapping a bunch of stereotypes right in their freaking face. I think about this a lot.That would be a great day.

Unfortunately, so far, despite the characters all being great and nothing sort of cool, they do fall into stereotype territory often. Like others have pointed out, the flirty rogues with shifty pasts tend to be bi, and the only reason this wasn't more apparent in DA2 was because of the characters being playersexual.